John S.

Dryzek

Profile
Profile
 Centenary Professor
• Centre for
Deliberative
Democracy and
Global Governance
o University of
Canberra's Institute
for Governance and
Policy Analysis
 Critique: instrumental
rationality, democracy
theory
Profile
 Instrumental rationality
destroys the more
congenial,
spontaneous,
egalitarian, and
intrinsically meaningful
aspects of human
association
Profile
 Instrumental rationality
and the political
institutions in which it is
manifested—is
ineffective when
confronted with
complex social
problems
Profile
 Instrumental rationality
makes effective and
appropriate policy
analysis difficult
Profile
Expertise
 Political theory,
empirical social
science, Democratic
theory and practice,
environmental politics,
Deliberative turn in
democratic theory,
Green political
philosophy, Global
climate governance,
global justice, global
civil society,
Profile
 Comparative studies of
democratization, post-
positivist public policy
analysis,
 Early proponent of
global democracy
• Democratization of
international power
• Reflexivity and
democratization
Profile
• How highly complex
issue areas - notably
climate governance -
can be democratized
through deliberation
and public reason
 Criticism of the
dominance of
instrumental
rationality/objectivism
Profile
 Technocracies are
repressive, ill equipped
for dealing with
complex problems
 Draws on critical theory
 Advocates
communicatively
rational
democracy/discursive
democracy
 Active citizenship and
public discourse*
John S. Dryzek

Policy Sciences of
Tyranny
Policy Sciences of Tyranny
 Forty years after Harold
Lasswell
• “Most policy analysis
efforts to date are in
fact consistent with an
albeit subtle policy
sciences of tyranny”
o Why Lasswellian
dream failed in
America?
o How it could be
redeveloped?
Policy Sciences of Tyranny
• Most policy analysis
was undertaken by
technicians, systems
analysts and
operations researcher
• If science has to serve
democracy, the
decision making about
science should also be
democratic
Policy Sciences of Tyranny
• What research is
needed to be done?
o Ask this question to
the poor people in
Pakistan?
o Perhaps they will ask
science to help them
o Develop easy ways
to grow more food
o Save their children
from disease
Policy Sciences of Tyranny
• The methods of
science will also be
democratic
• Science for ordinary
people
• The conduct of
science can’t be left
to the ambitions of
scientists and
bureaucrats*
John S. Dryzek

Deliberative Policy
Analysis
Deliberative Policy Analysis
 Founding father of the
concept of deliberative
democracy
• Representation of
discourses as well as
persons or groups
 Deliberative turn in
democratic theory
• Democratic legitimacy
o Authentic
deliberations by the
affected
Deliberative Policy Analysis
 The deliberative turn
began as a challenge to
established institutions
and models of
democracy
 Defensible theory of
democracy should be
• Critical of established
power
• Pluralistic
Deliberative Policy Analysis
• Reflexive in its
questioning
orientation to
established traditions
• Transnational in its
capacity to extend
across state
boundaries
• Ecological
Deliberative Policy Analysis
• Dynamic in its
openness to ever-
changing constraints
upon and
opportunities for
democratization
Deliberative Policy Analysis
 Explains and advocates
• Discursive
representation
o Justifications,
advantages, and
problems
o How it can be
practiced*
John S. Dryzek

Critical Policy
Analysis
Critical Policy Analysis
 “No individuals may
possess authority on
the basis of anything
other than a good
argument”
 The purpose is to
enlighten affectees of
policy not the
elite/policymakers
 To empower them to
resist, transform
Critical Policy Analysis
 Tasks
Explication of
dominant meanings in
policy content and
process
Uncovering
suppressed and
marginalized
meanings
Identify agents of
impairment, that
suppress alternative
meanings
Critical Policy Analysis
 Tasks
Ideologies
Lack of education
Baffling rather than
enlightening processes
Critical Policy Analysis
 Tasks
o Identify ways to
equalize
communicative
capacities of policy
actors
o Criticism of
technocratic policy
analysis
Critical Policy Analysis
 Tasks
o Identify ways to
equalize
communicative
capacities of policy
actors
o Criticism of
technocratic policy
analysis
• Policy is only
experts’
undertaking
• It is disempowering
Critical Policy Analysis
 Interpretive, narrative,
discourse analysis
 Instead of logical
analysis
 Purpose is to empower
the disempoweered.*