TY - JOUR
T1 - Governance, complexity, and democratic participation
T2 - how citizens and public officials harness the complexities of neighborhood decline
AU - Wagenaar, Hendrik
PY - 2007/3
Y1 - 2007/3
N2 - This article applies complexity theory to urban governance. It is argued that expert-based, hierarchical-instrumental policy making encounters insurmountable obstacles in modern liberal democracies. One of the root causes of this erosion of output legitimacy is the complexity of social systems. Complexity is defined as the density and dynamism of the interactions between the elements of a system. Complexity makes system outcomes unpredictable and hard to control and, for this reason, defies such well-known policy strategies as coordination from the center, model building, and reduction of the problem to a limited number of controllable variables. It is argued that participatory and deliberative models of governance are more effective in harnessing complexity because they increase interaction within systems and thereby system diversity and creativity. Using empirical data from research on citizen participation in disadvantaged neighborhoods in the Netherlands, the author shows (a) that neighborhoods can fruitfully be seen as complex social systems and (b) the different ways in which citizen participation is effective in harnessing this complexity.
AB - This article applies complexity theory to urban governance. It is argued that expert-based, hierarchical-instrumental policy making encounters insurmountable obstacles in modern liberal democracies. One of the root causes of this erosion of output legitimacy is the complexity of social systems. Complexity is defined as the density and dynamism of the interactions between the elements of a system. Complexity makes system outcomes unpredictable and hard to control and, for this reason, defies such well-known policy strategies as coordination from the center, model building, and reduction of the problem to a limited number of controllable variables. It is argued that participatory and deliberative models of governance are more effective in harnessing complexity because they increase interaction within systems and thereby system diversity and creativity. Using empirical data from research on citizen participation in disadvantaged neighborhoods in the Netherlands, the author shows (a) that neighborhoods can fruitfully be seen as complex social systems and (b) the different ways in which citizen participation is effective in harnessing this complexity.
KW - Complexity theory
KW - Participatory democracy
KW - Policy theory
KW - Urban governance
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=33846693080&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0275074006296208
DO - 10.1177/0275074006296208
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:33846693080
SN - 0275-0740
VL - 37
SP - 17
EP - 50
JO - American Review of Public Administration
JF - American Review of Public Administration
IS - 1
ER -