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Civil Society and the Legitimacy of Executive Power
[journal article]
Abstract A liberal-democratic society (from a political theory perspective) is self-governing in the sense that people, through their directly elected representatives, exercise sovereignty and decision-making authority. Through this process, elected officials should have the power and the responsibility to d... view more
A liberal-democratic society (from a political theory perspective) is self-governing in the sense that people, through their directly elected representatives, exercise sovereignty and decision-making authority. Through this process, elected officials should have the power and the responsibility to decide all policy matters. In the real world, however, this is not so easy since public policy is made by bureaucrats and not by elected officials. With the birth of the Welfare State, in fact, the question of how much control representatives elected by citizens should exercise over the Public Administration (PA) has become a topic of relevance. The presence of permanent officials in relevant administrative roles corrects some of the major shortcomings of democratic governance and contributes significantly to the success and stability of liberal democratic States. It is therefore necessary to begin a reflection that can give relevance to the normative dimension of the executive power with a deontological analysis on the role of the civil servant/public official. This paper aims to underline the importance of PA in a liberal-democratic political system and explain which are the limits of democratic legitimacy for public officials fulfilling their functions. In addition to this, an alternative approach will be proposed. A vocational model of accountability based on the neutrality of the public function and on a set of liberal values (efficiency, liberty and equality) as a healthy corrective to populism and illiberal democracies and an alternative to the democratic legitimacy.... view less
Keywords
public administration; civil society; legitimacy; executive power; democracy
Classification
Administrative Science
Political System, Constitution, Government
Free Keywords
administrative discretion; liberal democracy
Document language
English
Publication Year
2024
Page/Pages
p. 151-161
Journal
Perspective Politice, 17 (2024)
DOI
https://doi.org/10.25019/perspol/24.17.0.15
ISSN
2065-8907
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed
Licence
Creative Commons - Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0