The New Governance: Practices and Processes for Stakeholder and Citizen Participation in the Work of Government

TLDR

Leaders in public affairs identify tools and instruments for new governance through networks of public, private, and nonprofit organizations. The authors argue that new governance must involve people—both tool makers and users—and assess the legal infrastructure that authorizes public managers to employ quasi‑legislative and quasi‑judicial processes across international, federal, state, and local institutions. They evaluate the existing legal framework and discuss selected quasi‑legislative and quasi‑judicial governance processes used by public managers at various levels. Practitioners employ a range of quasi‑legislative and quasi‑judicial processes—such as deliberative democracy, e‑democracy, participatory budgeting, citizen juries, and alternative dispute resolution—to enable citizen participation, and the authors conclude that public administration must incorporate these processes into teaching and research to develop best practices.

Abstract

Leaders in public affairs identify tools and instruments for the new governance through networks of public, private, and nonprofit organizations. We argue the new governance also involves people—the tool makers and tool users—and the processes through which they participate in the work of government. Practitioners are using new quasi‐legislative and quasi‐judicial governance processes, including deliberative democracy, e‐democracy, public conversations, participatory budgeting, citizen juries, study circles, collaborative policy making, and alternative dispute resolution, to permit citizens and stakeholders to actively participate in the work of government. We assess the existing legal infrastructure authorizing public managers to use new governance processes and discuss a selection of quasi‐legislative and quasi‐judicial new governance processes in international, federal, state, and local public institutions. We conclude that public administration needs to address these processes in teaching and research to help the public sector develop and use informed best practices.