Beyond Instrumentalised Politics

Download or read book Beyond Instrumentalised Politics written by Scherto Gill and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2024-01-22 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Typically, attempts to transform public governance tend to focus on changes to the practices of existing institutions or on reforms to such institutions. In contrast, this book aims to articulate the underlying normative and evaluative design principles for rethinking systematically the kinds of process and institution that good governance would require, and why. It maintains that the claim that 'persons are non-instrumentally valuable' should form the basis of human equality. This sees the main aim of public governance to be the well-being of all persons consistent with our being part of the natural world. This argument contends that any political system seeking such an ethical aspiration must be a participatory deliberative democracy as opposed to representative democracy. The book investigates the consensus-building and decision-making processes necessary for a participatory deliberative democracy and how to transcend conflict and discord. It characterises the institutions that are required for public governance thus conceived, including the creation of various types of public spaces for open dialogue, listening and mutual inquiry intended to empower political actors' active engagement in democracy. It shows how the innovative vision for these institutions would effectively transform the conceptions of governance as normally understood in terms of governments, or national states.