Evaluating the Quality and Legitimacy of Global Governance: A Theoretical and Analytical Approach

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Author(s)
Cadman, Timothy
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2012
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Global governance, central to international rule-making, is rapidly evolving; thus, there is a need for a way to evaluate whether institutions have the capacity to address the problems of the contemporary era. Current methods of evaluating the democratic quality of contemporary governance are closely linked to legitimacy, about which there are competing definitional theories. This article uses a theoretical approach based around "new" governance and the environmental policy arena to argue that contemporary governance is best understood as social-political interaction built on "participation as structure" and "deliberation ...
View more >Global governance, central to international rule-making, is rapidly evolving; thus, there is a need for a way to evaluate whether institutions have the capacity to address the problems of the contemporary era. Current methods of evaluating the democratic quality of contemporary governance are closely linked to legitimacy, about which there are competing definitional theories. This article uses a theoretical approach based around "new" governance and the environmental policy arena to argue that contemporary governance is best understood as social-political interaction built on "participation as structure" and "deliberation as process", with the level of interaction ultimately determining legitimacy. It presents a new arrangement of the accepted attributes of "good" governance using a set of principles, criteria and indicators, and relates these to the structures and processes of governance. The implications and application of the analytical framework are also discussed.
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View more >Global governance, central to international rule-making, is rapidly evolving; thus, there is a need for a way to evaluate whether institutions have the capacity to address the problems of the contemporary era. Current methods of evaluating the democratic quality of contemporary governance are closely linked to legitimacy, about which there are competing definitional theories. This article uses a theoretical approach based around "new" governance and the environmental policy arena to argue that contemporary governance is best understood as social-political interaction built on "participation as structure" and "deliberation as process", with the level of interaction ultimately determining legitimacy. It presents a new arrangement of the accepted attributes of "good" governance using a set of principles, criteria and indicators, and relates these to the structures and processes of governance. The implications and application of the analytical framework are also discussed.
View less >
Journal Title
International Journal of Social Quality
Volume
2
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© 2012 Berghahn Books. This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedited version of an article published in International Journal of Social Quality. The definitive publisher-authenticated version, Volume 2, Number 1, Summer 2012 , pp. 4-23(20) is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/IJSQ.2012.020102
Subject
Public Policy
Policy and Administration
Sociology
Law