Sonia M.

Ospina and Rogan Kersh, Editors

Catherine M. Horiuchi
University of San Francisco

Public Management, Private Controls

Mark Bevir, Democratic Governance (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2010). 320 pp. $67.50
(cloth), ISBN: 9780691145389; $30.95 (paper),
ISBN: 9780691145396.
nize that thinking and actions inherently are located
in our specific historical context, we risk incorrectly
assigning contingency and the contestable nature of
our claims of meaning.
Catherine M. Horiuchi is associate
professor and associate dean of the School
of Management at the University of San
Francisco. Her research focuses on energy
policy implementation, specifically the
network of stakeholders influencing govern-
ment interventions on the choice of fuels

A
focus on governance as a perspective distinct
from government has developed prominently
over the last 20 years, in concert with the
diffusion of New Public Management (Hood 1991).
Governance has been a recurring topic in Public
Mark Bevir’s thorough, grounded critique of govern-
ance theory and practice expertly awakens readers to
a more reflective practice of public administration. It
provides, as a prelude to his argument, an extensive
discussion of the development of theories of govern-
or forces that are harnessed to produce
electricity. Derivative of this work, she
has investigated the consequences of our
societal dependence on complex systems
and mediating technologies.
E-mail: cmhoriuchi@usfca.edu

Administration Review (Feldman and Khademian
2002; Howell-Moroney 2008; John et al. 1994) and
elsewhere in the public and nonprofit management
literatures (Hall and Kennedy 2008; Kettl 2002;
Peters and Pierre 1998). Governance models now are
offered for a wide range of complex networks cross-
ing institutional and sector boundaries, not merely
public management (e.g., Barling 2007). Now comes
a political theory text that explores the “genealogy”
of governance, laying out an argument that modern-
ist social science has foreclosed public participation.
Illustrative cases feature British government opera-
tions and reform during the New Labour era.
Public administration is by its nature interdiscipli-
nary; to do well requires an analyst conversant with
knowledge from related fields. A practitioner may be a
trained scientist or a civil engineer; another might be
an expert in the construction and sale of government
bonds or a city manager. In any of these roles, we act
based on our understanding of information related to
a question of public importance, teasing out meaning
and significance using the range of generally accepted
techniques for our field, making sense of findings
based on our theoretical frame of reference and
personal experience. We may consider events from a
critical rather than a positivist perspective, or we may
be more interpretive or normative in our outlook.
Habitually, we do not examine our personal frame
of reference or the assumptions that underlie our
commitment to a course of action. By failing to recog-
ment and of governance. Following this genealogical
overview, the book’s argument is oriented around the
following claims:
• Rational choice theory and institutional theory
have supplanted earlier notions, resulting in a crisis of
faith in the state.
• The shift from government to governance equates
with a shift from a focused institutional structure to
pluralistic processes and interactions.
• An emphasis on policy formulation and implemen-
tation processes increases the influence of expertise
and reduces democratic participation.
• An emphasis on networks transfers decision mak-
ing on matters of public importance to unelected and
unaccountable actors.
For Bevir, the concept of governance serves as a tool
of experts and policy makers, frequently to the exclu-
sion of the preferences and direction of the populace.
Instead, he argues, the people are subject to governing
under the primary values of efficiency and expertise.
Bevir’s writing is self-reflective in an interpretivist
frame of reference, inviting readers from the first
chapter to follow his thinking or to skip to the main
argument if they prefer. A reader who is interested in,
for example, the distinction between antirealism and
antiessentialism is advised to keep reading the section Public Administration Review,
Vol. 72, Iss. 2, pp. 305–306. © 2012 by
“Is Governance Real?” (a question that Bevir does not
The American Society for Public Administration.
answer directly). DOI: 10.111/j.1540-6210.2011.02527.x.

Book Reviews 305

 Bevir provides clear explanations of relevant theo-
retical frameworks in the process of laying out his
argument against rationalist orientation and in favor
of interpretive research. But he sometimes fails to
state where his points originate. For instance, he says,
“Critics sometimes confuse interpretive theorists’
antiessentialism with antirealism” (61). It would have
been helpful to know who these critics are and how
Bevir determined their state of confusion. By contrast,
in the footnotes offered on page 58, one reference
points readers to recent literature on decentered the-
ory, while a second reference underscores philosophic
challenges to positivism dating back to the 1960s.
The book’s chapters discuss concepts from their historical
origins to current use and then illustrate their significance.
Some terms from political theory may be unfamiliar to
public administration scholars: historicist or radical histori-
cist, modernist social science, and genealogy, for example.
Bevir defines or contextualizes them at first use. Early chap-
ters (part 1) describe the evolution of what he calls “New
Governance: Modern State, New Theories, New Worlds.”
In parts 2 and 3, Bevir chronicles the rise of expert-
based governance through case studies that illus-
trate a changing understanding of the British state:
away from the Westminster model of representative
democracy, characterized by a strong cabinet, insti-
tutionalized opposition, and a unitary state based on
constitutional conventions (124). In its place came
characterizations of British governance as policy net-
works, burdened by bureaucratic overload, stagnation,
adversarial politics and the erosion of parliamentary
controls (125). Cases involve New Labour’s consti-
tutional reform, its judicial reform, “joined-up” or
network governance, and police reform. No prior
knowledge of British politics and government is as-
sumed, and the cases are interesting and relevant by
extension to local dilemmas faced by administrators
306 Public Administration Review • March | April 2012
in other countries. In his concluding chapter, Bevir
suggests that good governance requires more atten-
tion to democratic principles rather than expertise;
he recommends interpretive social science as the most
suitable way to chronicle governance activities and
create opportunities for democratic participation.
Bevir’s book is an antidote to ahistorical analysis. His
analytics illustrate the value of a more extensive and
thoughtful examination of current events. Much more
than mere “lessons learned,” a careful reader will be
rewarded with nuanced perspective and a theoretical
blueprint of sorts for better local operations.
References
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Health Externalities: Upstream Policy Interventions and the
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Hall, Leda M., and Sheila S. Kennedy. 2008. Public and Nonprofit
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Hood, Christopher. 1991. A Public Management for All Seasons?
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Howell-Moroney, Michael. 2008. The Tiebout Hypothesis 50 Years
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ernment? Rethinking Public Administration. Journal of Public
Administration Research and Theory 8(2): 223–43.
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