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Deliberative Democratic Governance

Simon Calmar Andersen & Jørn Loftager

To cite this article: Simon Calmar Andersen & Jørn Loftager (2014) Deliberative Democratic
Governance, Administrative Theory & Praxis, 36:4, 510-529, DOI: 10.2753/ATP1084-1806360404

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 Deliberative Democratic Governance
Simon Calmar Andersen
Jørn Loftager
Aarhus University

Abstract

Recent interest in governance networks comprising actors outside

traditional governmental hierarchies has reinforced the issue of
efficiency vs. democracy. Are the efficiency gains of this mode of
governing won at the expense of democracy? This essay shows
a way out of the alleged trade-off by combining two theoretical
perspectives: a deliberative theory of democracy and a systems
theory account of modern society. It argues that the benefits of the
social division of labor, and in particular of governance networks,
need not be undemocratic per se—as they would be according to
aggregative and participatory ideals of democracy—but can be
democratically legitimate to the extent that they lend themselves
to effective public scrutiny. This mode of deliberative democracy
may even increase the efficiency of governance networks.

How can modern society be governed in a way that meets the standards of
both efficiency and democracy? This fundamental question for public ad-
ministration and political science has gained new relevance in the wake of
the development of governance networks. Such networks are a promising,
though not infallible, alternative to state and market failures. By establishing
coordination between actors from different parts of society—and also from
outside the political system—self-organizing networks have the potential to
manage problems in public administration that cannot be handled by formally
elected politico-administrative bodies or by market mechanisms (Jessop,
2003; Peters, 2000; Peters & Pierre, 1998; Rhodes, 1996; Stoker, 1998; War-
ren, 2009). At the same time, serious concerns have been raised about the
democratic implications of this mode of governing. Allowing self-organizing,
nonelected bodies to make decisions that have important consequences for
other citizens is detrimental to common ideas about the democratic role and
influence of voters as envisioned by aggregative, Schumpeterian notions
of democracy (Benz & Papadopoulos, 2006; Bevir, 2006; Mayntz, 2003;
Papadopoulos, 2012; Pierre, 2000; Scharpf, 1999; Sørensen, 2002; Wälti,

Administrative Theory & Praxis / December 2014, Vol. 36, No. 4, pp. 510–529.
© 2014 Public Administration Theory Network. All rights reserved. Permissions: www.copyright.com
ISSN 1084–1806 (print)/1949–0461 (online)
510 DOI: 10.2753/ATP1084-1806360404
Andersen & Loftager 511

Kübler, & Papadopoulos, 2004). This raises a dilemma between efficiency

and democracy (e.g., Bryer, 2011; Palumbo, 2010; Sørensen & Torfing,
2005a). But as argued by Palumbo (2010), post-Schumpeterian approaches
to democracy have not found a satisfactory solution to this dilemma. Some
emphasize efficient but technocratic solutions, while others emphasize par-
ticipatory solutions at the cost of efficiency (see also Bryer, 2011).
This article focuses on the dilemma between efficiency and democracy. It
applies a novel combination of systems theory and a specific understanding
of deliberative democratic theory to analyze the dilemma via Luhmann’s
coherent theory of modern society. Moreover, it shows how a certain no-
tion of deliberative democracy (esp. Warren, 1996) is congruent with the
systems theory analysis of the dilemma, and—in contrast to the dominant
aggregative notion of democracy—able to differentiate between more or
less democratic forms of network governance without either declaring them
undemocratic per se or subjecting them to the ineffective realm of political
decision-making.
According to Luhmann’s systems theory (esp. 1984, 1997, 2000), the out-
lined dilemma is an integrated characteristic of the very structure of modern
society. The basic point is that modern society is “functionally differentiated,”
which means that it is subdivided into autonomous systems such as the eco-
nomic, political, legal, scientific, educational, and media systems.
As a result of this differentiation, this social division of labor, society’s
problem-solving capacity has increased tremendously, but at the expense of
the decision-making power of citizens and their elected representatives, in the
sense that the efficiency gain is dependent on the absence of (direct) politi-
cal interference and steering. Even if decisions made in the economic, the
scientific, or the educational system may have vital social consequences and
thus political relevance, it is beyond the reach of political decision-making
to produce economic goods, scientific truths, or learning. If citizens or their
representatives had to decide the content of economic investment decisions,
what scientists should study, or which pedagogical methods should be applied
in schools, few would believe that more economic prosperity, better research,
or better learning would be the outcome.
In light of Luhmann’s theoretical perspective on modern society, basic
structural conditions challenge an ideal of democracy that presupposes equal
representation or participation by citizens in decision-making processes (e.g.,
Dahl, 1971, p. 1). Indeed, most decisions can be subject to political power,
and many decisions are and will be made by the political system in a way that
allows for some kind of aggregative democracy. The discussion in this article
concentrates on economic, scientific, or other nonpolitical decisions that can-
not be subjected to political power without bringing the effective operation
of these systems to a halt. A trade-off between efficient problem-solving and
traditional notions of democracy seems in this case inevitable (Schumpeter,

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1943/1976), and governance networks will be considered undemocratic ex

definitione.
However, although such an aggregative ideal of democracy may be pre-
dominant, it is obviously not the only one. The strong consensus after 1989
on the institutional content of democracy—the basic institutions and rights
of liberal democracy—has not been followed by a similar agreement about
the deeper meaning of democracy. On the contrary, the “end of history” (Fu-
kuyama, 1992) has given rise to widespread discussions on its “regulative
ideal” (Miller, 1993), and the idea of deliberative democracy, especially, has
attracted so much attention that the notion of a “deliberative turn” or “turns”
has generally been accepted (Dryzek, 2000, 2010). Likewise, the literature on
public administration in general, and of networked governance in particular,
has given greater attention to democracy as deliberative democracy (Nabatchi,
2010; for an overview, see Dryzek, 2010).
While most if not all deliberative theories of democracy focus on public
reasoning and debate as the cornerstone of democracy, the deliberative idea
is represented by several different positions (Dryzek, 2010; Elster, 1998).
Some of these have been criticized as ultrademocratic because they put so
much emphasis on participation that they become inefficient (Palumbo, 2010);
others have been charged with elitist or technocratic biases (Shapiro, 2003;
Young, 2001). We will outline a version of deliberative democracy that is
congruent with the systems theory depiction of modern society and opens
up the possibility that some modes of political decision-making can be both
democratic and efficient. Our trick for cutting the Gordian knot is to shift
the theoretical orientation from individuals to communication. The common
denominator of the preceding examples of the seemingly chronic trade-off
between effectiveness and democracy is that they presuppose a democracy
of individuals, in which the preferences of many individuals are aggregated
into common decisions either by representation or by participation. What
we propose is a theory of democracy as deliberative democracy in which
arguments, not individuals, are the basic units. At the same time, we stress
that this theoretical grip does not represent a move toward technocracy but,
rather, strengthens the importance of the de facto possibility and capability
of participation by citizens in decision-making processes.
In the next section, we explain how the shift from individuals to com-
munication is made in Luhmann’s systems theory. We show how a notion
of deliberative democracy that is consistent with this systems theory and
in contrast to aggregative democratic ideals is able to analytically differ-
entiate between more or less democratic networks and thereby is also able
to provide guidelines on which political institutions may enhance both
efficiency and democracy (see Dryzek & Niemeyer, 2010; Hunold, 2001,
p. 152). We conclude by outlining perspectives for further theoretical and
empirical research.

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Andersen & Loftager 513

From Individuals to Communication

The work of the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann has received increas-
ing attention in the English-language literature (e.g., Andersen, 2005; Brans
& Rossbach, 1997; Dunsire, 1996; Jessop, 2002; King & Thornhill, 2004).1
According to Luhmann, the differentiation of society used to be stratification,
which means that it was divided into different hierarchical strata. In stratified
societies, the boundaries between systems ran along the boundaries between
persons. If you were in the top layer of society, you were typically among the
richest in economic terms, you had special legal rights, religious privileges,
and so on. If you were at the bottom of society, the opposite was true.
Modern societies also offer examples of stratification, but now the pri-
mary and dynamic-giving form of differentiation is functional. Functional
differentiation means that a person at a given point in time can take the role
of teacher in the educational system, mother in a family system, voter in the
political system, consumer in the economic system, and so on. But no role
comprises the whole human being. First, because any one role does not have
a direct impact on any other: A teacher does not have more votes than a pupil
of voting age, a mother usually pays the same price as other consumers in
the supermarket, money cannot buy special legal rights or a well-functioning
family—even if it may have an indirect impact.
Second, because the psychological side of human beings is external to all
these roles. While I am playing the role of teacher, mother, or voter, other
people cannot hear my thoughts but can only observe and respond to what I
communicate. Hence, in society, humans are necessarily observed as persons
playing different roles, and their true or inner preferences cannot be observed
by others—only their communicated preferences. In this way, communication
constitutes the building blocks when role expectations and social systems
more generally are configured.2
Modern society has developed a number of major social-function systems,
including politics, economy, law, education, love, art, science, media, and re-
ligion. In each of these systems, different roles are relevant: politicians/voters,
producers/consumers, prosecutors/defendants, teachers/pupils, parents/children,
and so on. As each system gives primacy to its own function, there can be no
hierarchical ordering. The political system can make collectively binding deci-
sions, but it cannot, for instance, ensure future supplies under a condition of
scarcity. That is the function of the economic system. And, importantly, there
is no privileged position from which the different functions can be evaluated.
From the perspective of the political system, it seems obvious that a proposal
is worthless if it cannot find majority support and ultimately be backed up by
force. But from the perspective of the scientific system, no force in the world can
make false premises of a proposition come true. Or, in an economic perspective,
if something cannot be financed, it will not be feasible.

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This specialization, this division of labor, increases the complexity that can
be handled altogether and thus constitutes the basic source of the efficiency
of modern society. The scientific system can handle more issues much faster
if it is expected only to evaluate whether they are true or false, and not their
religious, political, or educational aspects. Thus, the functional differentia-
tion of modern society facilitates the production of goods and resolution of
problems that would not otherwise have been produced or solved—and ex-
plains, from a systems theory perspective, why this efficiency enhancement
has evolved (see Andersen, 2005).
At the same time, functional differentiation increases the dependencies
between systems. While “function” describes a system’s relation to society as
such, “contribution” (Leistung) describes the relationship between systems.
Function systems are dependent on the reciprocal contributions of other sys-
tems. For example, the economic system needs the enforcement of contracts
by the legal and political systems. This contribution cannot be produced by
economic means. More generally, to the extent that functional differentia-
tion is realized, one function system cannot fulfill the function or deliver the
contribution of another system (Luhmann, 1997, pp. 743–748).
Communication in function systems is based on specific media and codes.
Politics is based on media power, the economy on money, and science on
truth. Along with the media go specific binary codes that have positive and
negative values. Examples are: superior/inferior power in the case of politics,
having/not having property in the case of economy, true/false in the case of
science, legal/illegal in the case of law. Codifying communication in this way
means that all issues are seen in the perspective of this code. The scientific
system, for instance, is made up of communications concerning what is true
or false. What counts as true cannot be determined politically or by economic
exchange. Large research grants may increase the chances of attaining the
required results, but the amount of the grant does not constitute an argument
for truth in the scientific system.
Organizations also exist as another kind of system besides function systems.
The elementary operations in organizations are decisions, and they can be
made in the media of several function systems. Actually, most organizations
make economic and political decisions even if they are anchored primarily
in one system, as, for instance, courts are in the legal system, universities in
the scientific system, firms and banks in the economic system, states in the
political system, schools in the educational system, and so on.
This description of modern society gives rise to three kinds of obstacles to
aggregative democracy and its idea of “sovereign preferences.” First, politi-
cal decisions condition the environment in which other systems operate. The
economic or scientific system must observe political decisions, for example,
about taxation or how to share finances between different disciplines. In this
way, the political system can influence other systems indirectly. But political

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decisions based on democratic voting cannot control other systems, and if

they attempt to intervene in other systems directly, the outcome can only be
destructive. Of course, political decisions could intervene directly in the sci-
entific system by claiming that certain statements should in all circumstances
be regarded as true—and something like Orwell’s Ministry of Truth has, in
fact, been operating in totalitarian regimes (Walker, 2002). But that would
only stop further operations in the scientific system—it would not make the
statement true in the perspective of science. Equivalently, it can be decided
politically to expropriate private possessions without economic compensation.
That would be a direct intervention in the economic code, but it would stop
rather than contribute to the operations of the economic system.
When the basic binary codes are mixed up in this way (superior power/true,
superior power/payment), destruction takes place at the cost of the advantages
of functional differentiation. In general, this is where morality sets in. Morals
cannot be connected to one of the values of the basic codes of the function
systems. The political or the scientific system could not function if it was
immoral to participate in government (as opposed to being in opposition), or
if it was morally inferior to pose a theory that turns out to be false. But it is
regarded as immoral if elected officials sell their decision-making power for
money, if convictions are decided politically rather than legally, if marriage
is ruled by religious criteria, if the Bible dictates the truth or political deci-
sions, and so on. If these examples were the rule rather than the exception,
the theory of modern society as primarily functionally differentiated would
be false. As exceptions they pose the first problem for political steering: How
to prevent destructions?
Second, the operation of one system may have negative external conse-
quences for other systems. If profit-seeking firms move jobs from one country
to another, this may imply great legal and political challenges that are out of
sight from an economic point of view. Equivalently, the scientific discovery
of new medicines may pose great financial problems that have nothing to
do with whether the discovery is true or false, and consequently cannot be
a primary concern to the scientific evaluation (though they can be a concern
for a scientist who observes the issue from another perspective). For the
political system, this raises the issue of how to co ordinate the co-evolution
of function systems.
Third, a special case occurs when the contributions of one system do not
match the requirements of others, in which case the problems will often be
raised in the political system. Pupils are educated in the educational system, but
their competencies do not always match the demand in the economic system,
or their intellectual performance does not match the needs of the scientific
system. Since systems cannot intervene directly in one another (except by
destruction), it is practically impossible to predict how potential changes in
one system will affect the second-, third-, or fourth-order repercussions in

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other systems, which explains why simplifications are often used. The politi-
cal system, most especially, often demands that decisions be made that will
change the contributions of other systems. Likewise, communication resorts
to the economic system in the hope that money can buy what is wanted (see
Luhmann, 1997, p. 763).
In sum, when different systems fulfill different functions in society, the
amount of complexity that can be handled increases dramatically. Stating this
in less abstract terms, functional division of labor facilitates the production of
goods that would not otherwise have been possible and so can be said to en-
hance society’s problem-solving capacity. However, this comes at the expense
of central control of society. There is no longer any hierarchical principle to
which all systems conform. Indeed, many decisions are still made within the
political system and can be subject to representative, democratic processes.
What we are concerned about here is the types of decisions that are made
outside the political system but have heavy societal implications. If democ-
racy and democratic legitimacy demand politicization of such decisions, the
problem of destruction arises and the trade-off dilemma seems inescapable.
Therefore, we have to ask if there are notions of democracy that enable us to
differentiate between more and less democratic decision-making procedures
in situations of this type. That is the question in the next section.

Aggregative and Deliberative Democracy

Several scholars have noted that the “regulative ideal” (Miller, 1993) of aggre-
gative, Schumpeterian democracy is incommensurable with a modern society
where central political control is not feasible or, at least, highly inefficient
(Benz & Papadopoulos, 2006; Bevir, 2006; Bryer, 2011; Mayntz, 2003; Pa-
padopoulos, 2012; Pierre, 2000; Scharpf, 1999; Sørensen, 2002; Sørensen &
Torfing, 2005a; Wälti et al., 2004). We define the regulative ideal of aggregative
democracy as the notion that political decisions draw their legitimacy from
the extent to which they express the aggregate of all citizens’ preferences by
giving equal weight to the interests of each and every citizen (Downs, 1957;
Schumpeter, 1943/1976). From the social choice literature, we know that this
promise is rather difficult if not impossible to realize (Riker, 1982). Neverthe-
less, in our context the most important thing to note is that this very approach
presupposes a political authority that has the power to decide and determine
the specific distribution of values.
The idea of aggregation of preferences in “economic” theories of democ-
racy corresponds to a picture of politics as primarily a game of distribution
and redistribution, as in the definition of politics as “Who gets what, when,
how?” (Lasswell, 1936) or “The authoritative allocation of values for a society”
(Easton, 1965, p. 50). The regulative ideal of democratic institutions accord-
ing to this conception is that they should give equal weight to the interests

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or preferences of each and every citizen. In Dahl’s phrase, democracy points

to “the continuing responsiveness of the government to the preferences of its
citizens considered as political equals” (1971, p. 1).
We by no means intend to say that politics is no longer about power,
including the power of allocating values. It certainly is—even in a systems
theory definition of politics. Hence, democratic institutions like constitutions,
fair and free elections, and division of powers are still highly relevant for the
democratic legitimacy of decisions made in the political system. Our concern
in this article is the plethora of decisions that are made outside the political
system, where efficiency depends on the degree to which they are not based
on political considerations. When highly consequential decisions cannot be
decided politically (without destroying the benefits of the division of labor),
aggregative democracy deems all such decisions undemocratic by definition,
without being able to differentiate between more and less democratic deci-
sions of this kind.
Sørensen and Torfing (2005a, 2005b) identify the very same problem of
efficiency and democracy, but suggest a solution that is quite different from
the one we present below. They argue that the democratic legitimacy of a
governance network should be measured by its “democratic anchorage,” which
is a function of the degree to which it is “controlled by democratically elected
politicians; represents the membership basis of the participating groups and
organizations; is accountable to the territorially defined citizenry; and follows
the democratic rules specified by a particular grammar of conduct” (Sørensen
& Torfing, 2005b, p. 201). However, this ideal of democracy does not solve the
problem as defined by systems theory analysis. In this analysis, the problem
is exactly that democratically elected politicians cannot control the operation
of governance networks or, more specifically, of other function systems. To
the extent that these networks are not just some sort of political agency, but an
assemblage of actors who operate in the codes of other function systems, such
as the economy or science, they are accountable, not to a territorially defined
citizenry, but to their economic stakeholders or their scientific peers. Even if
the practical consequences may be different, the regulative ideal in Sørensen
and Torfing’s democracy solution seem to resemble that of a representative,
aggregative democracy (see Behagel & Arts, 2014, p. 293).
An alternative to aggregative democracy is deliberative democracy. Whereas
the linking of deliberation and democracy, and the very notion of deliberative
democracy, is of later date, the awareness of public deliberation in politics
precedes the era of modern democracy. This is evident from Habermas’s classic
analysis in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962/1989),
which also demonstrates how thinkers as different as Kant, Marx, Burke, and
Mill agreed on the existence of critical contradictions between deliberative
politics and a democratic polity with equal political rights.
More recently, notions of deliberative democracy have become so

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prominent that the notion of a “deliberative turn” or “turns” has generally

been accepted (Dryzek, 2000, 2010). The basic proposition is that political
decisions gain their democratic legitimacy from the extent to which they are
based on public deliberation. To be effective, such deliberation must include
all relevant arguments and therefore be open to every citizen. However, this
is not tantamount to an ideal of maximum participation or participation for
its own sake. If it is required that citizens participate in decisions that are
made in other function systems, such as the economy or science, bottom-up,
the efficiency of these processes would be gone. Indeed, the basic idea of
governance networks as self-regulating, interdependent, but operationally
autonomous actors (Sørensen & Torfing, 2005b) is incompatible with the
notion of general public participation (Palumbo, 2010).
Instead, we suggest Warren’s (1996) theory of deliberative democracy,
which sees a separate political task in facilitating the production of goods (in
a broad sense), the solution of problems, and consequently takes as a pre-
condition that in modern society the number of decisions, and the technical
expertise required for them to be made efficiently, makes “authority” and trust
in authorities a functional necessity. Participation in or voting on all decisions
is neither feasible nor desirable.
In contrast to aggregative democracy, the ideal and yardstick of this ver-
sion of deliberative democracy is not the equal representation and influence
of every citizen, but that decisions are based on the provisionally best argu-
ment.3 In other words, if decisions are based on sound reasoning and take
all relevant arguments into account, then there is no democratic problem. To
ensure this, power-based political intervention is a necessary means, but not
an end in itself.
This starting point seems to be congruent with the systems theory de-
scription of modern society. The challenge is that society’s problem-solving
capacity is greatly increased when certain types of decisions are not made
in the political system. In this way, communication rather than individuals
becomes the cornerstone of sociological analysis of the problem as well as the
theoretical solution to it. It is neither the representation nor the participation
of individuals that is crucial to the democratic legitimacy of these decisions,
but the conditions for communication—the degree to which decisions in
governance networks are open to public deliberation—as well as the threat
of political intervention.
Indeed, the idea of all relevant arguments is a fiction, an ideal. Further in-
formation and more perspectives may always and indefinitely lead to a better
underpinning of any policy decision. In practice, the limited time available
before a decision has to be made will always restrict how much argumentation
is possible. Nevertheless, it can function as an ideal in the Kantian sense of
a regulative yardstick that may yield other evaluations of political decisions,
as compared to an aggregative ideal of democracy (see Miller, 1993). In

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addition, Warren’s point is that it is not essential that all decisions be made
by deliberation and voting. Trustworthy political authorities can advan-
tageously make many decisions without involving active or participating
citizens (Mackenzie & Warren, 2012). What is essential is that all decisions
could be made by deliberation and voting if the trust in the decision-making
authorities is questioned.
While we may not wish to participate most of the time, we want pro-
cedures that allow us to do so when authority becomes questionable,
and this occurs when authorities make decisions no longer functionally
specific to the goods they serve. (Warren, 1996, p. 49)
In the final part of this statement, Warren seems to refer to what we have
described in systems-theory terms as destruction: “When questions of profit-
ability compromise the safety of food or airline travel, when priests use their
powers over salvation to gain sexual access to bodies” (1996, p. 49)—that
is when the basic code of one system is mixed up with the code of another
system.
Deliberative resources are notoriously scarce, but as Warren points out,
we do not always need to deliberate and vote on every issue. The mere pos-
sibility that we can do so in the future has a positive effect on both citizens
and authorities. Citizens’ trust in authorities increases if they know that the
authorities are open to effective public scrutiny by attentive interest groups or
other experts, because that will make the authorities responsive and account-
able to the public. Authority that can be withdrawn whenever it is questioned
is more trustworthy than authority that cannot be withdrawn.
More specifically, we argue that deliberative democracy can cope with
two basic challenges inherent in modern societies. First, public scrutiny in
general, and the demands of reason-giving backed up by political power in
particular, can compel organizations to stick to their main business and so
avoid possible destructions in the shape of colonization by other system
codes. Similarly, if they make decisions no longer functionally specific to
the goods they serve. The possibility of being subjected to public scrutiny
is no guarantee that authorities will never misuse the public trust in them.
But the mere risk of withdrawal of any decision-making power is probably
sufficient in most cases.
Second, when decisions made in the code of one function system are
challenged by multiple public spheres—when they are observed from the
perspective of other function systems—the public spheres function as a mirror,
or, more precisely, they allow for a second-order observation of the system
itself: The system can observe how other systems observe it (Baecker, 1996;
Luhmann, 2000, pp. 284–287). Again this is no panacea, because it does not
imply that one system takes over the perspective or codification of another
system. But it will most likely increase the chances for the system in question

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to reflect on itself as one system in a world of function systems and “face

up to the consequences” (Teubner, 1993, p. 68, see also p. 97, and Teubner
& Willke, 1984, p. 6).4 So the best (or only?) way for politics to facilitate a
positive co-evolution of the function systems is to demand publicity in all
spheres of society.
In sum, our argument is not that deliberative democracy is infallible, but
that, as a regulative ideal, it provides a yardstick for evaluating decision-
making processes of the kind we discuss here: (1) They should be open to
public scrutiny, and (2) in cases where the public raises criticism, the political
system should be able to withdraw any authority or, more specifically, bring
the decision-making process to a halt. If the latter takes place, the result
will be some type of efficiency loss. So the dilemma between efficiency and
democracy will only be solved insofar as the threat of using political power
is enough.
We should emphasize that this solution does not lessen the political
system’s need for democratic legitimacy. First, if the public is to effectively
fulfill the role of watchdog, power differentials must be minimized. The risk
that existing constellations of socioeconomic power can encapsulate and
even take advantage of unlimited publicity cannot be ignored (Dean, 2003).
In order to make and advance arguments, a minimum of equality of citizen-
ship is still a precondition for democratic deliberation, as it was when the
idea of a (bourgeois) public sphere originated back in the eighteenth century
(Habermas, 1962/1989). The predominance of functional differentiation in
modern, contemporary society does not nullify the challenges of capitalism
to democracy, and how these challenges can be met is an ongoing concern
(Loftager, 2005). This applies especially to deliberative democracy, because
public participation is more demanding than voting by ballot.
Second, the question of when criticism is strong enough to require the use
of political power to intervene in decisions outside the political system can
only be answered democratically in the political system. Therefore, democratic
institutions like free and fair elections, including freedom of speech, are equally
important in a deliberative and aggregative regulative ideal of democracy.
Third, it is important to stress that securing effective democratic access
to the public sphere is not an obstacle, but an advantage to the quality of
the “deliberative system”—as this notion has been forcefully presented by
Mansbridge and Parkinson (2012). First of all, although experts and their
above-average influence on specific policy processes are both necessary and
desirable, systems of communication are not equal to expert systems, and
laypeople may always have a say that might influence the content and direc-
tion of communication. This also applies to governance networks, especially
if they are dominated by a single uncontested discourse. In that case, civic
engagement and contestation will represent democratic as well as deliberative
advantages (Dryzek & Niemeyer, 2010). The risk of technocracy in the sense of

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unchecked rule by experts (Papadopoulos, 2012) is problematic not only from

a democratic point of view but also from a deliberative and epistemic one.
Nevertheless, Luhmann’s notion of politics as merely a game of power
for its own sake may seem cynical and incompatible with the usual vision of
democracy from below, which sees politics as constituting the basic medium
for social-learning processes (Habermas, 1962/1989) and citizens as occupy-
ing the driver’s seat (Christiano, 2012). Certainly, it is not difficult to observe
how politics is at present characterized by spin tactics, technocratic decision-
making, and citizens’ disengagement and distrust far away from any ideal of
the prevalence of the better argument. However, such conditions and deficits
are not a necessary outcome of the operation of the code of power.
To demonstrate the empirical relevance of this democratic ideal, the next
section will argue that governance networks can be a practical way of meeting
the challenges of modern society.

Governance Networks

The term “governance” is used in different fields and for a variety of purposes
(for an introduction, see Kjær, 2004). Rhodes (1996) identifies at least six
different uses of the term. What we discuss here is governance relevant to
public administration in nation-states (or federations of nation-states such as
the European Union), because the argument is based on the possibility that
political authority can be withdrawn.
Within this strand of the governance literature, there seems to be a con-
sensus that networks are fundamental to governance. Other often-mentioned
characteristics include a blurring of the boundaries between the public and
private sectors as a result of the drawing together of actors from different
parts of society—and also from outside the political system. The actors
are interdependent, and networks are used to blend the different types of
resources from different actors. Governance networks are therefore seen as
a new instrument with other capabilities beyond hierarchical command and
market exchange (Jessop, 2003; Peters, 2000; Peters & Pierre, 1998; Rhodes,
1996; Stoker, 1998).
According to systems theory, networks can be read as meta-organizations—
organizations of organizations. They typically blend organizations whose
primary anchorings are in different function systems. In such cases, they
“condense and make happen or enact [aktualisieren] the reciprocal irritations
and thus allow faster and better-harmonized information acquisitions in the
systems concerned” (Luhmann, 1997, p. 788; translation by authors). Con-
sequently, the second problem related to political steering in modern society,
the uneven co-evolution of different function systems, can be countered by
networks in ways beyond the ability of single organizations, because networks
can intensify function systems’ mutual observations of one other. This does not

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mean that meta-organizations make function systems communicate with one

other, which they cannot, according to systems theory, but that they facilitate
communication within each function system (economy, science, etc.), enabling
systems to observe how other systems observe them and react to this second-
order observation (Baecker, 1996; Luhmann, 2000, pp. 284–287).
However, whereas the individual organizations in networks take the place
of different function systems, they do not supersede them. So if communica-
tion within these networks is to have an impact on the function systems as a
whole, the systems must be open to the public (see Hunold, 2001; King, 2003).
In other words, it seems plausible that networks, in general, can contribute to
effective decision-making in modern society—especially if they are subjected
to public scrutiny. The question is, however, whether this effectiveness can
be achieved in a democratic manner.
The governance literature is ambiguous on the role of government (i.e.,
elected legislators) in governance. Some authors emphasize the autonomy
of networks and their capacity to resist government steering, that is to say,
“governance without government” (Kooiman, 1993; see Peters & Pierre,
1998, pp. 223, 225; Rhodes, 1996, p. 659). Others emphasize the importance
of government in the governance of governance (meta-governance), that is,
organizing the conditions in which networks operate (Jessop, 2002, pp. 202,
240–243; 2003; see also Peters & Pierre, 1998, p. 226). According to the
deliberative democratic ideal developed above, the democratic legitimacy of
these networks does not depend on the degree to which governments ensure
that citizens’ preferences are mirrored in network decisions—a degree that
in the nature of things will always be relatively low. Rather, it depends on
the degree to which the governance networks are open to public scrutiny.
Decisions made in the media and codes of other function systems need not
be a democratic problem as long as they are open to public scrutiny and can
ultimately be turned into political deliberation and voting.
In other words, our point is that in the few situations when decision-making
capacity is withdrawn from governance networks, the quality of the decisions
will not necessarily be high. But the mere possibility that this situation could
occur is likely to improve the quality of the vast majority of network decisions
made without recourse to formally elected political bodies.
As an example, consider a governance network between a pharmaceutical
company (primarily communicating in the codes of the economic system) and
a university department (primarily communicating in the codes of the research
system). This network may be working to test the effect of a new medicine
and commercialize the findings. Decisions made in this network may have
important consequences for many citizens. But if the decisions are governed
by a political process determined by the interests of political parties, it is
unlikely that the endeavor will be very effective in terms of discovering and
commercializing an effective medicine. From an aggregative-democracy point

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of view, such a network would by definition be undemocratic. But from the

kind of deliberative democratic ideal presented here, the democratic legitimacy
of this network could be higher or lower depending on the degree to which the
public has a chance to review and criticize the product before it is approved
by a political agency like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In other
words, such a political agency can threaten to bring the decision-process in
the company-university network to a halt if it does not open its product to
public scrutiny. This threat, we argue, is likely to make the network anticipate
the criticism that may arise if it does not take into account the reactions of the
political system and other function systems.
Again, there is no guarantee that this is always the case. Some governance
networks might gamble on not being caught. And not all attentive publics will
succeed in placing a problematic issue on the political agenda—or attentive
publics might raise unproblematic issues and thereby occupy scarce delib-
erative resources. But instead of ending up in an insoluble dilemma between
effective and democratic decision-making, as aggregative democracy does,
deliberative democracy could serve as a viable yardstick for both the effective-
ness and the democratic dimension of a governance network.

The Interplay Between Democratic

and Sociological Theory

Despite their prevalence, different versions of aggregative democracy seem

to be incongruent with the way modern society operates according to modern
systems theory—a problem accentuated by the use of governance networks.
As already suggested, another ideal of democracy, the deliberative ideal, has
always coexisted with the aggregative versions. We have demonstrated that
this ideal is more compatible with the functional differentiation of society, and
in particular, that it facilitates a distinction between more or less deliberative
democratic governance networks.
It should be stressed that deliberative democracy is not in contrast to the
basic institutions and rights of liberal democracy; they still apply to the political
system. The question is not how to define democracy institutionally, but how
to specify its regulative ideal (Miller, 1993). And when it comes to decisions
that cannot be controlled by political power, we have tried to demonstrate
that the deliberative democratic ideal is more relevant for evaluating specific
institutional settings and decision-making processes.
More generally, we hope to have shown the relevance of relating democratic
issues to sociological descriptions of society. This is a relatively new aspect,
not only of the governance debate, but also of the literature on deliberative
democracy. A case in point is the project of developing a systemic approach
to deliberative democracy (Mansbridge & Parkinson, 2012). For all its merits,
we find that it could take advantage of some explicit sociological reflections

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on the societal conditions that deliberative democratic aspirations currently

face. More empirical and theoretical research is needed. For instance, it
would be relevant to study how different versions of deliberative democracy
match different sociological accounts of contemporary society. We find that
Luhmann’s systems theory is one of the most comprehensive and consistent
descriptions of modern society, but also that Bourdieu’s theory of modern
society as differentiated into different fields would be highly relevant to the
question of democracy and efficiency.
In terms of deliberative democratic theory, much work has been done.
Recent years have seen a growing amount of theoretical as well as empirical
research on institutional ways of enhancing participatory forms of delibera-
tion (Parkinson, 2006). Of particular interest from a systems theory point
of view are experiments with citizen assemblies or mini-publics (Warren &
Pearse, 2008). As stressed above, the merits of networks and other types of
collaborative governance are often highly dependent on effective publics,
and here the potential of such new deliberative forums deserves serious
attention. They seem like promising devices for meeting the obvious chal-
lenge of technocracy to both equality of citizenship and policy rationality.
Likewise, we have made clear that the predominance of functional differen-
tiation does not rule out long-established issues of power and democracy. In
that respect, a major task is to study, both empirically and theoretically, the
linkages between functional differentiation and the issues on (in)equality
and conflicts of power and class that still confront us in the era of regulatory
capitalism (Braithwaite, 2008) and “winner-takes-all-politics” (Hacker &
Pierson, 2010). We may find inspiration in Durkheim’s classic analysis of
the social division of labor, and especially his idea that to fulfill its prom-
ise to produce organic solidarity, the division of labor must be unforced
or spontaneous, which in turn presupposes basic equality among citizens
(Durkheim, 1893/1997).
Empirically, we have seen the first studies of the democratic criticisms
of governance (Benz & Papadopoulos, 2006; Dryzek, 2010; Papadopoulos,
2012; Wälti et al., 2004). Many of the theoretical arguments presented in this
article could be evaluated empirically, especially how openness and publicity
affect the democratic legitimacy and quality of the decisions of governance
networks. This kind of work would not just be of academic interest, but also
very important for the future development of democratic societies.

Notes
1. The brief remarks here cannot do justice to the whole theory, which is
developed in a number of monographs (see especially Luhmann, 1984, 1997,
2000). In this presentation, we refer especially to Luhmann (1997). For English
introductions, see Brans & Rossbach (1997) and King & Thornhill (2004).
2. Technically, communication is defined by Luhmann as the combination

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Andersen & Loftager 525

of the selection of information, message, and understanding. A communication

process is when communication is followed by a responding communication in an
autopoietic (self-reproductive) process. Communication is the ultimate element,
the basic process, in Luhmann’s definition of a social system. The important
thing here is that communication is not the transmission of information from one
psychological consciousness to another, but utterances and responses between an
alter and an ego (Luhmann, 1984).
3. See also Habermas’s apposite formulation: “The democratic procedure no
longer draws its legitimizing force, indeed not even predominantly, from only po-
litical participation and the expression of political will, but rather from the general
accessibility of a deliberative process whose structure grounds an expectation of
rationally acceptable results” (Habermas, 2001, p. 110).
4. Kreische (2003, pp. 111–113) argues that Habermas, but not Luhmann,
finds that publicity will create rationality. However, as Kreische himself notes,
publicity in the Luhmannian sense makes the political system observe how it is
observed in its environment. If the system acts on this observation (i.e., gives it
“operative significance”), it is operating rationally according to Luhmann’s own
definition of system specific rationality (Luhmann, 1984, pp. 640–641; p. 474 in
English translation).

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Simon Calmar Andersen (sca@ps.au.dk) is professor in the Department

of Political Science at Aarhus University, Denmark. His research examines
aspects of political institutions and management strategies and their impact
on organizational performance, especially in education. He has published
articles in Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Journal of
Policy Analysis and Management, Public Administration Review, and Public
Administration.

Jørn Loftager (loftager@ps.au.dk) is associate professor of political sci-

ence and former director of studies in the Department of Political Science,
Aarhus University, Denmark. His publications include The Rationality of the
Welfare State (co-ed., 1996), The Political Public Sphere and Democracy in
Denmark (2004), Modern and Classical Political Theory (co-ed., 2009), and
Marx (2011).

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