Public Administration and Democracy: The Virtue and Limit of Participatory Democracy as a Democratic Innovation

Abstract

The expansion of public bureaucracy has been one of the most significant developments that has marked societies, particularly Western liberal democratic societies. Growing political apathy, citizen disgruntlement and the ensuing decline in electoral participation reflects the political nature of governance failures. Public bureaucracy, which has historically been saddled with derogatory and pejorative connotations, has encountered fierce assaults from multiple fronts. Out of these sharp criticisms of public bureaucracy that have emanated from both sides of the ideological spectrum, attempts have been made to popularize and advance citizen participation in both policy formulation and policy implementation processes as innovations to democratize public administration. Despite their virtue, empowering connotations and spirit-uplifting messages to the public, these proposed practices of democratic innovations not only have their own shortcomings and are conducive to exacerbating the conditions that they are directed to ameliorate but they also have the potential to undermine the traditional administrative and political accountability mechanisms.

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“…A részvételi költségvetés (RK) a részvételi demokrácia (RD) fogalomkörébe ágyazódik (Pateman 2012), amely fogalom a definíciók sokaságával írható le. A fogalmat születésétől fogva végigkíséri egy szembehelyezkedés, így a legtöbb esetben a képviseleti demokráciával ellentétben fogalmazódik meg (Schlozman -Brady -Verba 2018), azaz azzal ellentétesen, hogy az emberek a hatalmat átruházzák egy olyan kormányzó hatóságra, amely az állami bürokráciára támaszkodik a társadalmi célok elérésének érdekében (Karimi 2021). A részvételi demokrácia ezzel szemben a népszuverenitás egy másik értelmezéséből indul ki, amelyben az önkorlátozott emberek közvetlen önuralma valósul meg (Gosztonyi 2021).…”

The Analyze of Nation Leader’s Decision-Making Based on Young Generation Perception

“…This study recommends that a stable government will increase GDP through the export of agricultural products [10]. The government's role in reducing social inequality is also important [11] [12]. However, in the Nigeria, the role of the leader in fiscal policy is more inclined towards a political and socio-cultural balance than a healthy economic balance [13].…”