Is network governance democratic? The issue of network emergence and delegation of authority

Some see governance by networks as a step towards more horizontal and interactive policy-making, while others see it as a threat to democratic participation and accountability. The problem is that it is not always clear what... [ view full abstract ]

Some see governance by networks as a step towards more horizontal and interactive policy-making, while others see it as a threat to democratic participation and accountability. The problem is that it is not always clear what network governance means. Scholars reconstruct networks with the help of methodological tools, but the focus of this paper is rather on networks that have a “materiality”: those that are socially visible and translate into an organizational embodiment (e.g., working groups, committees, roundtables, partnerships…). There are many studies focusing on the democratic credentials of such bodies. These studies usually focus on the inclusiveness of networks, their procedural fairness, and their accountability, and they are often guided by participatory and deliberative models of democracy. The proposed paper has a different starting point: it proposes a reappraisal of the liberal model of representative democracy in light of network governance and assumes that for networks to wield legitimate power, authority must be delegated to them. In other words, networks must be authorized to act as ruling bodies: they should possess an admittedly more or less diffuse mandate, and a more or less formal “license to govern” (Rosanvallon). For such delegated authority to be legitimate, delegation must be top-down (from the official decision-making institutions) or bottom-up (from society or stakeholders). Hence, in order to assess the democratic credentials of network governance, it is necessary to scrutinize the conditions of network emergence (including “self-organization”). How are networks designed, and how can we establish that their creation is legitimate from a democratic point of view? As there are numerous cases of governance by networks, the paper will concentrate on a meta-analysis of the (mostly qualitative) studies that are directly concerned with the democratic quality of network governance in various states and policy sectors.