It is widely acknowledged that we are witnessing a major transformation of public policy making, a transformation which has been labelled as a change from 'government' to 'governance'. Governance is used to describe policy making and implementation without a central authority in a non-hierarchical, network-like structure through negotiation and cooperation between public and private actors at one or across different political levels. This comprehensive volume combines empirical analysis and normative assessment of governance practices, providing a systematic approach based on a framework for assessing democratic legitimacy. It addresses different modes of governance at the local/regional, national, European and international levels. The volume assesses the alleged 'democratic deficit' of these new governance practices and as such is ideally suited to courses on public administration.

I: Theoretical Framework; 1: Governance and the Democratic Deficit; 2: The Governance Concept in Public Administration; 3: Legitimacy and Democracy; 4: The Idea of Democracy and the Eighteenth Century; II: Governance at a Distance and Market Governance; 5: Governance, Democracy and the European Modernization Agenda; 6: Police, Policing and Governance in The Netherlands and in the United Kingdom; 7: The Accountability of Professionals in Social Policy; III: Network Governance and Societal Self-Governance; 8: The Legitimacy of the Rotterdam Integrated Public Safety Program; 9: Embedding Deliberative Democracy; 10: The Limits of Donor-Induced Participation; IV: Multi-Level Governance; 11: Democratic Legitimacy of Inter-Municipal and Regional Governance; 12: Democratic Legitimacy of Economic Governance; 13: The OMC and the Quest for Democratic Legitimization; 14: Supranational Governance and the Challenge of Democracy; V: Conclusions; 15: Governance and the Democratic Deficit