An efficient and effective democracy at the local level: new alternatives to policy networks

The tension between ideological fundaments of democracy and its effectiveness as political regime is an old dilemma dating back to the emergence of the concept itself and reiterating through the history. Today, the tension between democracy, legitimacy, and efficiency is back on the forefront as most western democracies are mired in manifold crisis resulting in an eroded support for the concept at home and abroad. Both the effectiveness of interest representation and democratic government effectiveness as public administration are questioned. Among the many attempts to resolve this tension, policy networks are believed by many scholars to be one of the most suitable solutions to revitalize democracy, especially at the local/municipal levels. Though, while almost everyone agrees on their relative efficiency in dealing with the challenges of the new century, a considerable number of scholars warn against their lack of democratic legitimacy, of civil control and of accountability. In this paper, we do not only share this position, but also question the networks’ commonly believed efficiency focusing on the micro/local level. In the first part of the article we give a clear definition of democratic effectiveness and efficiency and explain their interdependence. The analysis of local democracy effectiveness is based on the “input - output” model, which partially refers to Andersson’s (Andersson, J.) and Sharpf s (Sharpf, F.) theories. Based on this model the second part of the paper considers several recent case studies of local infrastructure projects, involving networks of some sorts, in several European countries. This empirical study tends to support our view that networks are far from enhancing efficiency and can also undermine the legitimacy of the local decision making process. In recent years, public administration on the local level mostly intend to satisfy the network needs instead of satisfying those of the civil population majority. In other words, by violating a normal interest representation scheme, policy networks bring considerable negative impact on both democratic effectiveness and efficiency. In our article, we pay attention to the problem of the fundamental legitimacy of policy networks’ participation in political process. The absence of any legal base for their activity brings the question of networks’ legitimacy even when their interests formally coincide with those of the majority. As an alternative, we explore new ways how to involve citizens in the decision-making process restoring their faith in local institutions while in fine increasing the overall efficiency of the local politics. Among them, municipal councils, opinion polls, civil initiatives referendums, electronic democracy. Their general aim is to bring back the civil faith in local institutions and improve their effectiveness in resolving vital challenges of the population. New sophisticated forms of direct democracy, drawing inspiration from game theory and behavioral economy and enabling the citizens to simply rank and express preferences seem the most promising.

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