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Hyper-active governance is a new way of thinking about governing that puts debates over expertise at the heart. Contemporary governing requires delegation to experts, but also increases demands for political accountability. In this context, politicians and experts work together under political stress to adopt different governing relationships that appear more 'hands-off' or 'hands-on'. These approaches often serve to displace profound social and economic crises. Only a genuinely collaborative approach to governing, with an inclusive approach to expertise, can create democratically legitimate and effective governance in our accelerating world. Using detailed case studies and global datasets in various policy areas including medicines, flooding, water resources, central banking and electoral administration, the book develops a new typology of modes of governing. Drawing from innovative social theory, it breathes new life into debates about expert forms of governance and how to achieve real paradigm shifts in how we govern our increasingly hyper-active world.

AbstractWhat is the value of including vulnerable people in risk regulation decision-making in the European Union (EU)? This article examines a distinctive approach employed by the European Medicines Agency (EMA): public hearings integrated within safety reviews of medicinal products. The article presents findings from a case study of the EMA's public hearing on Quinolone antibiotics, which was included by the EMA as part of a review process that led to significant tightening of regulatory restrictions on the prescribing of this class of antibiotics. The article argues that the public hearing enabled a group of patients who had been victims of a debilitating toxicity syndrome associated with Quinolone antibiotics to criticise the existing scientific evidence base around the safety of Quinolone. Deploying the quantitative Discourse Quality Index and an interpretive analytical approach, the article shows how patients challenged the evidence base in a manner that was efficacious in advancing knowledge in this area of risk regulation. When physically staged alongside interventions by professional experts, the article argues that patients facilitated a process of "negotiation" of expertise, leading professional representatives to propose methods of coordination in order to integrate the patients' qualitative evidence of their suffering with the toxicity syndrome. Ultimately, this process led to the EMA proposing more stringent future guidelines for the prescription of Quinolone antibiotics in the EU.

In 2017, the European Medicines Agency staged the first effort at democratic innovation within transnational European Union institutions directly influencing the transnational regulation of medicines. Alongside its public consultation on epilepsy drug Valproate, European Medicines Agency included a public hearing involving representatives of patients and testimony from those directly affected by the medicines. Using this critical case study, the article argues from a deliberative democratic perspective that although the hearing in many ways exhibited the traditional shortcomings of elite-driven deliberation, it also demonstrated unexpected and surprising deliberative qualities. Based on new quantitative analysis of the hearing using the Discourse Quality Index, and qualitative observation of over 4 hours of footage, the article argues European Medicines Agency's hearing facilitated equitable access and influence of patients and members of the public who had previously been excluded from decision making on drug distribution. These findings provide important new evidence of the deliberative democratic value of public hearings.

Political scientists are wary of engaging with 'the public' on mainstream and social media because they fear those mediums fail to get across the deep and nuanced argument they develop in their own research. This article suggests a way of justifying public engagement that begins not with debates about the ethical and political concerns of doing this in practice (of which there are many), but how we as political scientists justify public media engagement to ourselves on the basis of the ethical and political process of 'doing' political science. As such, this article identifies the disciplinary basis upon which we may justify media-driven public engagement as an integral part of political science as an academic enterprise. Drawing on current epistemological debates in political science, the article characterises moments of political research as impressionistic exercises, which require public engagement. This means making the public aware of the deep and valuable insights of political science, in a way that sketches out how the discipline can shed light on important social and political phenomena, thereby informing our own scholarly thinking, and that of those we engage with.

AbstractThe European Union relies on decentralised agencies to implement important transnational regulations, such as certifying the safety of medicines. However, the authority of these agencies does not have 'hard' legal status and crucially depends on disseminating ideas and information effectively: what can be termed 'political entrepreneurship'. This article provides the first comprehensive analysis of the political entrepreneurship of EU agencies by constructing a conceptual typology of entrepreneurial strategies. Drawing conceptually on transnational public administration, a new database is constructed of the 'entrepreneurship' of 33 EU agencies in 2014 based on their media communication activities, face‐to‐face networking in workshops and collaborations, and knowledge dissemination and 'learning' exercises. This is mapped against the political salience of agencies in the European Parliament and media. The mapping exercise shows four types of entrepreneurial strategies covering the population of EU agencies: technical functional, insulating, network‐seeking and politicised. The typology is validated through semi‐structured interviews in 11 EU agencies, showing the core characteristics of each type of strategy. The article concludes by arguing that this typology provides an important addition to existing categories of EU agencies based on autonomy and accountability, and advocates a future research strategy examining the interaction between agencies' entrepreneurial strategies and the expectations and reactions of stakeholder audiences.

This article explores the role of social marketing in achieving health equality and social change in the context of obesity, one of the most serious global public health issues we face today. Social marketing has traditionally taken a downstream focus, targeting individuals to change their behavior. This article takes a critical perspective, supporting moves toward upstream social marketing and applying a socioecological model to social marketing theory. At the macrolevel, the marketing activities of some companies and social–economic environment mean it is difficult for some consumers to make healthy choices—for example, food and drink. At the microlevel, there is robust evidence parenting style and quality of preschool education during the critical early years' period of child development profoundly influences long-term health and life outcomes. Ecological models enable social marketers and policy makers to understand which interventions are likely to reduce inequality through sustainable, holistic positive behavior change compared with short-term, issue-based programs.

Studies of delegated agencies commonly emphasize the importance of accountability for these unelected bodies to secure authority to govern. This article argues that beyond formal accountability measures, developing legitimacy through interaction with external stakeholders is critical to agency authority. In doing so, the article makes a distinctive contribution by applying a new conceptual model based on organizational sociology and identifying multiple dimensions along which legitimacy is lost and won, and hence authority secured. The article presents original findings from a case study of how the Murray–Darling Basin Authority, an Australian water agency established in 2007, attempted to achieve 'political legitimacy'. Findings show that the Agency achieved legitimacy via appeals to common normative/ethical values and developing commonly used information and news outlets, despite facing opposition from stakeholders on the socioeconomic impact of its policies. The conclusion argues that the framework can usefully be applied to other agencies in 'wicked problem' policy areas.

The concepts of 'politicisation' and 'depoliticisation' have become increasingly used by political scientists over the last decade, in light of the presumed 'triumph' of neoliberal ideology in the 1990s, and its subsequent challenge ('re-politicisation') by the 2008 financial crisis. Debate has emerged in the literature, however, over what conceptual strategy is best for critically analysing depoliticisation – 'broad' or 'narrow'. This article argues for attempting to find common ground among 'competing' definitions, by viewing politicisation and depoliticisation as 'multilevel' concepts, with theoretical, analytical and empirical purchase. The uniting theme, it is argued, is a critical analysis of the dynamics of neoliberalism as a paradigm of political thought, and how that paradigm allegedly leads to the rise of 'anti-politics'. Thinking about (de)politicisation in this way helps avoid facile conceptual reinvention and stimulates a coherent yet pluralistic research agenda focused on translating insights and criticism across macro, meso and micro levels.

Existing research on depoliticisation emphasises how blame is shifted away from governments due to tactics employed by politicians. The argument of this article is that the analytical utility of this approach can be significantly enhanced by also examining the conduct of non-state actors, and broader contextual factors. Using a detailed case study of record flooding in the UK in 2007, the article shows how, despite significant failures in flood preparation, the agenda-setting and preference-shaping actions of politicians and the media, and the 'path-shaping' effects of a benign political context and volatile and unstable policy area, the government was largely absolved of blame in the eyes of the public. In particular, the article highlights a paradox of drivers that appear simultaneously politicising and depoliticising, but lead ultimately to depoliticisation. It is argued that these 'paradoxical' factors can be conceptualized usefully through a distinctive model of depoliticisation and securitisation.