Democracy, Liberalism, and Discretion: The Political Puzzle of the Administrative State
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2020
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28760-3_2
Abstract
Conventional accounts of liberal democracy tend to obscure a basic fact: the phenomenon of administration. The American reception of the administrative state was self-consciously imitative of Continental models of state bureaucracy, as a remedy for the ills of democratic politics, but construed as a means of saving democracy from itself, and from lawyers and legalism, in the name of efficiency. The means was discretionary power, unaccountable to the courts and to voters. Reconciling this to democracy proved a challenge, and continues to be one.
Citation / Publisher Attribution
Democracy, Liberalism, and Discretion: The Political Puzzle of the Administrative State, in S. Turner (Ed.), Reclaiming Liberalism. Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism, Palgrave Macmillan, p. 41-62
Scholar Commons Citation
Turner, Stephen, "Democracy, Liberalism, and Discretion: The Political Puzzle of the Administrative State" (2020). Philosophy Faculty Publications. 344.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/phi_facpub/344
