Democratic Innovations Administered: The Organisational Embeddedness of Public Administrators’ Attitudes Towards Participatory Policy Making

Abstract

The prevailing discourse in Deliberative Democracy tends to overlook the pivotal role of public administration in shaping and executing democratic innovations. This article addresses this gap by conceptualising how organisational structures guide public administrators’ stances on participatory types of deliberative policy making. Drawing on organisational research, I argue that their attitudes are embedded within reflexive expectations framed by organisational structures. Encompassing programmes, communication channels, and personnel, these decision premises significantly shape the perspectives held by organisational members on democratic innovations. My theoretical argument is illustrated by how German diplomats understand novel participatory formats in national foreign and security policy given the organisational structures at the Auswärtiges Amt. Overall, this work encourages Deliberative Democracy on democratic innovations to engage more with organisational research – and vice versa.