Anthony M. Bertelli (Bocconi University – DONDENA Centre for Research on Social Dynamics; Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals) has posted Authorized Partnerships: Lay Participation and the Defense of Democratic Public Administration on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
This paper argues that carefully designed lay participation in administrative processes can reinforce democratic resilience by linking law, mass beliefs, and institutional design. I advance four claims. First, European hard and soft law establishes a practicable framework of authorized discretion that ties bureaucratic decision-making to democratically sanctioned principles. Second, these principles occupy a coherent and resilient position within mass political belief systems. Third, authorized discretion provides a publicly intelligible standard of administrative responsibility, and concrete encounters sharpen citizens’ reasoning about it. Fourth, the structural integrity principle embedded in authorized discretion protects democratic governance against destabilizing challenges, such as populist politics. Together, these claims support a normative and practical case for institutional designs that empower citizens to help defend democratic governance against partisan capture.
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