Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho
Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho
Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho
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42<br />
Apart from output and the possibility of participation (input) one also<br />
needs a way to organize control over the different modes of governance. It<br />
is the question for an alternative answer to what we know as the classical<br />
checks and balances between the different state powers (Van Kersbergen<br />
& Van Waarden 2004, 161). For example public-private cooperations are<br />
controlled by the judiciary. In this way informal relations are increasingly<br />
formalized, and mutual expectations and agreements over reciprocal<br />
rights and duties are fixed in more or less official ‘contracts’ (Ibid., 153).<br />
Another example are “[independent] ‘sectoral’ and ‘sectoral-unspecific’<br />
regulators who have to protect a minimum level of economic competition<br />
and set the rules of the game in the competition between large players”.<br />
(Ibid., 161) No less important are the ways in which knowledge-based<br />
policy-making is managed by measures such as benchmarking, costbenefit<br />
analysis, policy evaluation, etc. These are “parameters against<br />
which (self-)assessment can take place and which require the conduct<br />
of a particular set of performances” (Swynge<strong>do</strong>uw 2005, 1998).<br />
DEMOCRACY TODAY<br />
Representation<br />
Scrutinizing how input is organized and judging the output is a way<br />
of looking at the legitimacy of a system. This perspective on legitimacy<br />
presupposes that there exists a representational relationship between<br />
individuals, societal groups, etc., on the one hand, and an authoritybearing<br />
body, on the other hand. In other words, the representational<br />
relationship seems an important presupposition of different forms of<br />
decision-making, ranging from government tot governance decisionmaking.<br />
Whether it are citizens, clients, stakeholders or shareholders,<br />
they are the ones delegating power to an authority that represents their<br />
interests. Representation thus crucially consists in the delegation of<br />
power of one pole to the other and checking whether this power is<br />
adequately used. Focusing first on the representational relationship<br />
enables a more qualified way of looking at the legitimacy-issue [4] . There<br />
4<br />
It should be noted however that representation and legitimacy can not be clearly separated.<br />
Representation seems to appeal by definition (delegating power and controlling<br />
the use of power) to some form of legitimacy.