Governing Through Institution Building

Johan P. Olsen has published the book "Governing Through Institution Building Institutional Theory and Recent European Experiments in Democratic Organization" with Oxford University Press.

From the publisher:

The book is a major theoretical contribution which is accessible to a diverse audience and provides major new dataset on constituency-level elections results.

Many reformers argue that the future of democracies depends on the quality of their political institutions. If so, it may be worthwhile examining the democratic-instrumental vision of citizens and their representatives -- which assumes that they can and should decide how they might be organized and governed -- and thereby develop a better theoretical understanding of the nature, architecture, dynamics of change, performance, and effects of institutions.

It may be useful to study the possibilities and limitations of governing through deliberately changing institutional arrangements and thereby achieving intended, anticipated and desired effects - including how institutions contribute to organized rule, orderly change, civilized co-existence, unity in diversity and the ability to accommodate and continuously balance rather than eliminate what John Stuart Mill called "standing antagonisms".

Find the book at the publisher here.

Published Oct. 5, 2010 11:32 AM - Last modified Jan. 26, 2022 1:10 PM