Session 1 Slides for the Subject: Public, Policies and Public Services in Melb Uni

1. Melbourne University
March 2012

2.  Concept of the State
 Theories of democracy
 What is the „public‟?

3.  Absolutist or pluralist
 a)Absolutist- single ruler whose authority is
law and power is undivided -hereditary
monarchy or totalitarian state.
 b) Pluralist –power and authority is shared-
constitutional monarchy, oligarchy, democracy

4.  People saw the world as both a natural and
human creation.
 People governing themselves.
 Democracy about limiting the power of the
rulers.

5. PAPPPPAPARTICIPATOR
DEMOCRACY
(participation)
REPRESENTATIVE DIRECT

6.  Direct democracies are ones in which all
citizens have the right and responsibility to
directly participate in political offices of the
State.
 Origins in the Middle East and moved both
West and East.
 Generally associated with small political
entities; village, tribe, city state.

7.  Representative democracies are ones where
citizens elect people to represent them
through specific purpose assemblies-
Parliaments, Congress.
 Origins.
 Scale
 Representation and democracy.

8.  “Monitory democracy is a Post- Westminster form
of democracy in which power-monitoring ad
power-sharing devices have begun to extend side-
ways and downwards through the whole political
order.. A brand new historical form” ( Keane p706)
 With the advent of monitory democracy.. “the
architecture of democracy has begun
fundamentally to change” ( Keane p706)

9. Democracy
Representative Direct
Monitory

10. Consultation mechanisms and Scrutinisingmehanisms and
activities activities
Citizens juries and assemblies Anti-corruption bodies
Community consultation Human rights organisations
Participatory budgeting Conflict of interest boards
Focus groups Consumer protection organisations
Advisory boards On-line petitions and blogs
Open houses Multinational watchdog bodies
Public consultations Traditional and social media

11.  A new form or a hybrid?
 Who monitors the „monitors‟
 The role of social media; a new form of mass
„hysteria?
 Political timidity and populism?

12.  The public realm-classical
 The public realm- modern democratic State
 Public or publics?

13. Public realm Private realm
agora-realm of political activity oikos- realm of
the family and the
economy

14. Private Public State

15.  Concepts of the State, democracy
, citizenship and „the public‟ change over
time.
 Meaning of monitory democracy.
 Modern democracies comprise private and
State realms with public sphere mediating
between the two.
 Public realm is a regulatory realm in which
opinions are formed

16.  Public realm comprises many „publics.
 The nature of the relationship between
public, private and State and whether one
accepts that the public sphere is really a
sphere of many publics is what underpins the
changing views of public administration and
how it should be conducted.