Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho

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