Deliberative Administration

• In Event: Constitutions and Administration in Democratic Theory

Abstract

Most existing accounts of democratic deliberation neglect that the site in democratic systems where deliberation plays the most important and salutary role is the bureaucracy. This article theorizes the important function that deliberation serves for constraining and legitimizing public bureaucracies. Indeed, deliberation is central to the accountability structure of public administration. Legislative accountability can function well without procedures promoting deliberation, and seeking to institutionalize deliberation in the legislative process tends to give rise to logrolling and rent-seeking rather than reasoned consensus. Deliberation is more importantly institutionalized in the administrative process, without the countermajoritarian instruments sometimes mistakenly thought to foster deliberation in the legislative process. Administrative deliberation is not, however, a freestanding source of democratic legitimacy. It is rather a distinctive accountability mechanism that helps to ensure administrative fidelity to the statutory scheme being administered while enhancing its efficacy and coherence. Deliberative procedure affords administrators the discretion required to develop a statutory scheme in response to facts on the ground while also constraining their discretion in accordance with statutory terms and reason-giving obligations. Better understanding the institutionalization of deliberation yields new insights for deliberative democratic theory. Deliberation generally serves an instrumental role for the quality of democracy rather than constituting the essence of democratic legitimacy.

Author

• David Froomkin, Yale University