Practices of Freedom

Decentred Governance, Conflict and Democratic Participation

Steven Griggs, Aletta J. Norval, Hendrik Wagenaar

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781107056107
• eBook ISBN:
  9781139699440
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political History & Theory
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The shift from government to governance has become a starting point for many studies of contemporary policy-making and democracy. Practices of Freedom takes a different approach, calling into question this dominant narrative and taking the variety, hybridity and dispersion of social and political practices as its focus of analysis. Bringing together leading scholars in democratic theory and critical policy studies, it draws upon new understandings of radical democracy, practice and interpretative analysis to emphasise the productive role of actors and political conflict in the formation and reproduction of contemporary forms of democratic governance. Integrating theoretical dialogues with detailed empirical studies, this book examines spaces for democratisation, institutional design, democratic criteria and learning, whilst mobilising the frameworks of agonistic and aversive democracy, informality and decentred legitimacy in cases from youth engagement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title page
• Copyright information
• Table of contents
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: Democracy, Conflict and Participation in Decentred Governance
• 2 Governance-Driven Democratization
• 3 Deliberative, Agonistic and Aversive Grammars of Democracy: The Question of Criteria
• 4 Designing Democratic Institutions for Decentred Governance: The Council of Europe’s Acquis
• 5 Assessing the Democratic Anchorage of Governance Networks
• 6 Learning through Contested Governance: The Practice of Agonistic Intersubjectivity
• 7 Decentred Legitimacy in the New Community Governance
• 8 Designing ‘the Political’ in (and out of) Neighbourhood Governance
• 9 Participatory Governance in Practice
• 10 The Agonistic Experience: Informality, Hegemony and the Prospects for Democratic Governance
• 11 Insurgent Citizenship: Radicalism, Co-optation and Neighbourhood Geopolitics among the Palestinian Citizens of Haifa, Israel
• Bibliography
• Index