Public Management, Private Controls

• Date: 01 March 2012
• Published date: 01 March 2012
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2011.02527.x

Book Reviews 305

Sonia M. Ospina and Rogan Kersh, Editors

Catherine M. Horiuchi

University of San Francisco

Mark Bevir, Democratic Governance (Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press, 2010). 320 pp. $67.50

(cloth), ISBN: 9780691145389; $30.95 (paper),

ISBN: 9780691145396.

A

focus on governance as a perspective distinct

from government has developed prominently

over the last 20 years, in concert with the

dif‌f usion of New Public Management (Hood 1991).

Governance has been a recurring topic in Public

Administration Review (Feldman and Khademian

2002; Howell-Moroney 2008; John et al. 1994) and

elsewhere in the public and nonprof‌i t management

literatures (Hall and Kennedy 2008; Kettl 2002;

Peters and Pierre 1998). Governance models now are

of‌f ered for a wide range of complex networks cross-

ing institutional and sector boundaries, not merely

public management (e.g., Barling 2007). Now comes

a political theory text that explores the “genealogy”

of governance, laying out an argument that modern-

ist social science has foreclosed public participation.

Illustrative cases feature British government opera-

tions and reform during the New Labour era.

Public administration is by its nature interdiscipli-

nary; to do well requires an analyst conversant with

knowledge from related f‌i elds. A practitioner may be a

trained scientist or a civil engineer; another might be

an expert in the construction and sale of government

bonds or a city manager. In any of these roles, we act

based on our understanding of information related to

a question of public importance, teasing out meaning

and signif‌i cance using the range of generally accepted

techniques for our f‌i eld, making sense of f‌i ndings

based on our theoretical frame of reference and

personal experience. We may consider events from a

critical rather than a positivist perspective, or we may

be more interpretive or normative in our outlook.

Habitually, we do not examine our personal frame

of reference or the assumptions that underlie our

commitment to a course of action. By failing to recog-

Public Management, Private Controls

nize that thinking and actions inherently are located

in our specif‌i c historical context, we risk incorrectly

assigning contingency and the contestable nature of

our claims of meaning.

Mark Bevir’s thorough, grounded critique of govern-

ance theory and practice expertly awakens readers to

a more ref‌l ective practice of public administration. It

provides, as a prelude to his argument, an extensive

discussion of the development of theories of govern-

ment and of governance. Following this genealogical

overview, the book’s argument is oriented around the

following claims:

• Rational choice theory and institutional theory

have supplanted earlier notions, resulting in a crisis of

faith in the state.

•  e shift from government to governance equates

with a shift from a focused institutional structure to

pluralistic processes and interactions.

• An emphasis on policy formulation and implemen-

tation processes increases the inf‌l uence of expertise

and reduces democratic participation.

• An emphasis on networks transfers decision mak-

ing on matters of public importance to unelected and

unaccountable actors.

For Bevir, the concept of governance serves as a tool

of experts and policy makers, frequently to the exclu-

sion of the preferences and direction of the populace.

Instead, he argues, the people are subject to governing

under the primary values of ef‌f‌i ciency and expertise.

Bevir’s writing is self-ref‌l ective in an interpretivist

frame of reference, inviting readers from the f‌i rst

chapter to follow his thinking or to skip to the main

argument if they prefer. A reader who is interested in,

for example, the distinction between antirealism and

antiessentialism is advised to keep reading the section

“Is Governance Real?” (a question that Bevir does not

answer directly).

Catherine M. Horiuchi is associate

professor and associate dean of the School

of Management at the University of San

Francisco. Her research focuses on energy

policy implementation, specif‌i cally the

network of stakeholders inf‌l uencing govern-

ment interventions on the choice of fuels

or forces that are harnessed to produce

electricity. Derivative of this work, she

has investigated the consequences of our

societal dependence on complex systems

and mediating technologies.

E-mail: cmhoriuchi@usfca.edu

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 72, Iss. 2, pp. 305–306. © 2012 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.111/j.1540-6210.2011.02527.x.