The Role of Outside Experts in Local Government (original) (raw)
Related papers
Beyond Advising: The Representative Role of Advisory Councils (The Case of Polish Cities)
Polish Political Science Review
Advisory councils (ACs) are permanent opinion-giving bodies that are established by public authorities. Their members are recruited from among residents, local officials, and members of NGOs. The author argues that, apart from their opinion-giving function, ACs perform the role of citizen representatives. The research was based on the survey of AC members. Its results were analyzed by a theoretical framework informed by representation theory. It has been documented that the representation is significantly related to the AC type, and that the decisive factor of disparity between ACs is their mandatory vs. optional creation. The study also shows that there is strong relationship between the formal and substantial representation of AC members. However, mixed AC audience undermines traditional links of authorization and accountability, which calls for the reconsideration of the theoretical framework of studies on AC representation.
Impediments to public consultations in the Polish local self-government
Bratislava Law Review
The aim of this paper is a comparative analysis of legislative solutions and practical application of the public consultations in the Polish local government after 1989. The legal changes that occurred during this period have guaranteed Polish citizens the tool to direct exercising the political power. Unfortunately, the lack of legislative precision in the use of mechanisms of civic participation in Poland is characteristic of public consultation. Despite the fact that this solution has been used by public administration since the political-system transformation and the passing of the Act on Gmina Self-Government of 1990, and that in 1997 the consultations as a form of the exercise of power by the citizens were also established in the Constitution, for the first two decades there was a fairly great freedom of interpretation in holding them, which the local self-government authorities widely used. Positive changes in the practice of using the mechanisms of public consultation in Pol...
People's Participation in Local Decision-making in Poland: An Introduction
2021
This entry has been realised in the framework of the H2020-MSCA-RISE-2018 project "LoGov - Local Government and the Changing Urban-Rural Interplay". LoGov aims to provide solutions for local governments that address the fundamental challenges resulting from urbanisation. To address this complex issue, 18 partners from 17 countries and six continents share their expertise and knowledge in the realms of public law, political science, and public administration. LoGov identifies, evaluates, compares, and shares innovative practices that cope with the impact of changing urban-rural relations in five major local government areas: (1) local responsibilities and public services, (2) local financial arrangements, (3) structure of local government, (4) intergovernmental relations of local governments, and (5) people's participation in local decision-making. The present entry addresses people's participation in local decision-making in Poland. The entry forms part of the LoGo...
Expertise and the Process of Policy Making: The EU's New Model of Legitimacy
The puzzle of the political significance of expert knowledge has many dimensions, and in this chapter I plan to explore a simple Oakeshottian question in relation to it. To what extent. is the present role of expert knowledge similar to that envisioned by the "planners" of the 1940s who were the inspiration for Oakeshott's essay, "Rationalism in Politics" (194 7-48)? This role, as Oakeshott and many of its enthusiasts portrayed it, was to replace politics as hitherto practiced with something different. Rationalism thus depended on a theory of the "politics" it sought to supplant, though it rarely attempted to articulate this theory. In the context of the time, there was no need. In the 1930s, economic depression and the inability of party politicians in the British parliament to agree on measures to deal with the economic situation provided endless negative examples of"politics" standing in the way of action, and a sharp contrast with the state activism of Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin. In the postwar period, the planners had their chance, and the modem British welfare state was born. Much of what this state did applied ideas of Fabian Socialism, which had presented itself as objective, rational, and expert. But as an administrative fact, the welfare state had no need of the ideology of planning, and the discussion faded. The question I wish to address here is this: expertise forms a much larger part of governance than it did in the time of the "rationalism" of the planning movement; does this mean that rationalism has arrived by stealth, that is to say in practice, without appealing to the overt ideology ofrationalistic planning? This is a question of the place of expertise in our politics, and thus a political question.
Making Public Policy in EU Committees: the Role of Polish National Officials
2016
The goal of the article is to present a theoretical and practical evaluation of experience of apolitical civil servants working in committee-style preparatory bodies of the Council of the European Union and the European Commission. in the first part the hypotheses resulting from three theories of integration of different range (liberal intergovernmentalism, fusion theory, and deliberative supranationalism) are presented. The second part consists of the verification of those hypotheses, based on an empirical study conducted by the Author in 2013 in the period between January and June. The survey included Polish officials attending the meetings of committees and was followed by interviews. The thesis of the article is based on the assumption that the majority of decisions of the Council and the Commission are actually made in apolitical preparatory bodies. Both "bargaining" and "problem solving" attitudes, representing both political and apolitical models of EU decision making, are present at this level. Theoretically, the most appropriate attitude is the combination of the liberal intergovernmentalism, the fusion theory, and the deliberative supra-nationalism. Those approaches can serve as general theories of integration and can be used to explain other elements of EU functioning.
Expert advisory councils in the policy system
This chapter examines transformation, diffusion and variability issues in terms of expert advisory councils in advanced democracies over recent decades. A review of the international literature shows that, whilst there is still a role for traditional, independent, advisory councils within the government sector, expert advisory councils today are under great pressure to adapt to changing contexts and expectations. Most importantly, they are not only expected to provide the best available expert advice to government, but to do so in ways that engage with broader policy contexts and interrelated issue domains. There is growing evidence that some expert councils are taking on some of the features of 'boundary organisations', by engaging with a range of perspectives across broad policy domains, and by harnessing not only scientific knowledge but also lay knowledge and explicitly value-laden perspectives. Those expert advisory councils that engage with sectoral interests and value-based groups are, furthermore, likely to be better placed to leverage support and policy traction on difficult issues. However, the translation and diffusion of expert advice is always difficult and problematic whatever the socio-political context. In general, the transition from expert advice into evidence-informed policy action is enhanced when attention is paid to both design and engagement processes within specific institutional settings.
The Role of Experts in a Democratic Society
Democratic procedures are characterized by the equal status of all citizens participating in the decision-making process. This procedural fairness represents one of the central aspects of democracy's legitimacy-generating potential and should not be rejected or weakened. However, citizens specialize in different areas and inevitably some citizens become more competent (i.e. become experts) regarding some political issues. Democratic procedure would loose much of its appeal if it would be unable to take advantage of the experts' knowledge. In this paper I follow Kitcher and Christiano in embracing a form of division of epistemic (and political) labor - citizens and their political representatives should deliberate and set aims the political community is to pursue, while experts and policy-makers should devise means (laws, public policies and political decisions) needed to achieve the aims set by citizens. However, citizens should not blindly trust the experts - their epistemic authority is derivative and social and academic networks and structures should be employed in order to enable citizens to assess and evaluate experts' competence, but experts' impartiality regarding the issue at hand as well. Consequently, the process should not be unidirectional: experts should be able to help citizens select feasible and coherent aims, while citizens should be able to help experts in creating policies and decisions. Deliberative democracy is an appropriate political setting for this kind of bidirectional communication.
Passive Expert-Sourcing for Policy Making in the European Union
Springer eBooks, 2016
The public sector gradually starts exploiting the crowdsourcing ideas initially developed in the private sector. However, there is much less knowledge on efficient and effective methods and practices for public sector citizen-sourcing in comparison with private sector crowdsourcing, so extensive research is required in this area. This paper contributes to filling this research gap, by presenting an ICT-based method for 'passive expert-sourcing', with the latter term denoting the collection of policy relevant information, knowledge and ideas from experts, which aims at supporting policy making by the European Union (EU) by leveraging its large policy community. Its theoretical foundation is previous theoretical work on the relationships between democracy and technocracy, and also on policy networks. The main technological pillars of the proposed method are: EU policy experts' profiling and reputation management, relevant documents' opinion mining and relevance rating, and finally advanced visualized presentation of them. Finally, a first evaluation of the proposed method is presented, leading to encouraging results.
The role of experts in the reform process in Greece
West European Politics, 2005
This article explores the role of expertise in the reform process in Greece by utilising the advocacy coalition framework. Knowledge, power and policy reform are discussed by comparing three frameworks that place knowledge in the centre of the analysis: advocacy coalitions, epistemic communities and policy transfer networks. The theoretical claims made in this paper are illustrated through a discussion of the 2001 constitutional reform and in particular the reform of article 24 on the environment and article 102 on decentralisation of public administration and the strengthening of regional governance. It is argued that the advocacy coalition is a useful framework for studying the role of experts in policy reform, although the framework could be strengthened if more emphasis was placed on political, economic and social interests and the way they form belief systems. In particular, regarding Greece it is claimed that the role of experts in policy reform has increased as part of a general move towards the modernisation of public administration in Greece.
Journal of Deliberative Democracy (formerly Journal of Public Deliberation), 2021
The need for democratic control of the application of expert knowledge is a common refrain in debates on the democratization of policy making. However, there has been relatively little attention empirically to how expert knowledge is integrated into local participatory processes. This paper analyzes how the assessments of local officers and external consultants are incorporated in a diversity of local participatory processes in Spain between 2007 and 2011. Our interest is in whether expert assessments of the feasibility of participants' proposals takes place; and if so, whether there is transparent oversight of the application of these judgements. The paper combines qualitative and quantitative approaches to show the importance of institutional design when dealing with the timing, style and impact of expert knowledge in participatory processes.