This document consists of a summary of 'The Authority Problem of Governance' by Hajer. This article is mandatory reading for the course 'Public Policy and Governance'.
Hajer (2009) - The Authority
Problem of Governance
The making of an ‘authoritative claim’
Traditional way of thinking about authority: An individual can be put ‘in authority’
through a proper and generally accepted procedure, after which people will defer
to him or her because they subscribe to these procedures.
But: understanding authority always demands analysis of the relations between
the maker of the claim and its public. → relational
Authority (Michels): ‘it is achieved through communication; it is about the
development of a way of seeing things that can be, and indeed is, taken up by
others and which results in the acceptance of a particular line of thinking and
acting. Finally, finding a way to speak in meaningful terms is here taken to mean
speaking in different languages to different
publics (science, politics).’
The authority of classical-modernist government
Seven principles of classical-modernist governance (help to explain the authority
of classical-modernist governments in the late twentieth century
1. Democratic institutions are based on territorial order (say the classic-
modernists)
2. Democratic institutions are nested
3. Political leadership gets its mandate through elections and universal suffrage
4. There exists a sharp, Weberian, distinction between politics and
bureaucracy
5. The positivist model of ‘science-for-policy’
6. Public participation
7. Media fulfils the messenger function of reporting to the public what happens
in the political domain.
Also, classical-modernist politics shaped politics in a historically unique situation
which we can call ‘territorial synchrony’ → allowed for many different interests
Hajer (2009) - The Authority Problem of Governance 1
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