Practices of Freedom: Decentred Governance, Conflict and Democratic Participation

The shift from government to governance has become a starting point for many studies of contemporary policy-making and democracy. Practices of Freedom takes a different approach, calling into question this dominant narrative and taking the variety, hybridity and dispersion of social and political practices as its focus of analysis. Bringing together leading scholars in democratic theory and critical policy studies, it draws upon new understandings of radical democracy, practice and interpretative analysis to emphasise the productive role of actors and political conflict in the formation and reproduction of contemporary forms of democratic governance. Integrating theoretical dialogues with detailed empirical studies, this book examines spaces for democratisation, institutional design, democratic criteria and learning, whilst mobilising the frameworks of agonistic and aversive democracy, informality and decentred legitimacy in cases from youth engagement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Steven Griggs is a Reader in Local Governance in the Department of Politics and Public Policy at De Montfort University. His work draws on political discourse theory, examining environmental policy, community participation and local governance. His publications include The Politics of Airport Expansion (with David Howarth, 2013), as well as articles in the British Journal of Politics and International Relations and the Journal of Political Ideologies. He is co-editor of Critical Policy Studies.

Aletta J. Norval is a Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Government at the University of Essex. A leading democratic theorist, she draws inspiration from the agonistic tradition, as well as from a wider range of theorists, to understand and analyse processes of the articulation of democratic demands, the formation of democratic subjectivities and the institutionalization of a democratic ethos. Her publications include Aversive Democracy (Cambridge, 2007) as well as articles in the American Political Science Review and Ethics and Global Politics. She is Consulting Editor of Political Theory.

Hendrik Wagenaar is a Professor of Town and Regional Planning in the Department of Town and Regional Planning at the University of Sheffield. He publishes in the areas of urban governance, citizen participation, prostitution policy, administrative practice, complexity theory and interpretive policy analysis. His publications include Deliberative Policy Analysis (with Maarten A. Hajer, Cambridge, 2003) and Meaning in Action (2011).