Beyond Representative Democracy: Toward More and Better Civic Engagement

• Author: Oriol Vidal‐Aparicio
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12692
• Published date: 01 January 2017
• Date: 01 January 2017

Book Reviews 141

Beyond Representative Democracy:

Toward More and Better Civic Engagement

Oriol Vidal-Aparicio is a doctoral

student in public administration and policy

and research associate at Arizona State

University ’ s School of Public Affairs. His

research revolves around civic engagement,

participatory and deliberative democracy,

and the legal aspects of democratic

reform. He is author of

500 Preguntas

al Nacionalismo Español

(2006), and

spokesperson for Constitucio.Cat, a

workgroup that drafted a constitution for

an independent Republic of Catalonia and

promotes citizen debate on government.

E-mail: vidal.oriol@gmail.com

P ublic Participation for 21st Century Democracy is

a well-organized and approachable introductory

book to public participation that should be

seriously considered by instructors, scholars, and

practitioners in the field. The book offers an overview

of the theory and practice of civic engagement in the

United States, as well as its history, current state, and

potential for the future.

The authors, Tina Nabatchi and Matt Leighninger,

are not newcomers to public participation. Nabatchi,

an associate professor of public administration

Danny L. Balfour and Stephanie P. Newbold , Editors

Oriol Vidal-Aparicio

Arizona State University

Tina Nabatchi and Matt Leighninger , Public

Participation for 21st Century Democracy

( Hoboken, NJ : Jossey-Bass , 2015 ) . 368 pp. $80.00

(hardcover), ISBN: 9781118688403.

and international affairs at Syracuse University,

has established herself as a leading scholar in

citizen participation and collaborative governance.

In 2015, she coauthored the book Collaborative

Governance Regimes with Kirk Emerson, and she

won the 2010 Best Article Award by The American

Review of Public Administration with “Addressing

the Citizenship and Democratic Deficits: Exploring

the Potential of Deliberative Democracy for Public

Administration.” Leighninger is vice president

of public engagement at Public Agenda and was

previously executive director of the Deliberative

Democracy Consortium. He is the author of The

Next Form of Democracy: How Expert Rule Is Giving

Way to Shared Governance… and Why Politics

Will Never Be the Same (2006) and has more than

20 years of experience working in public engagement

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 77, Iss. 1, pp. 141–143. © 2016 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12692.