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Title
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Legislative evaluation as alternative democratic engagement
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Author
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Abstract
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| This article grapples with the role that legislative evaluation can fulfill as a tool to reinforce the democratic dimension of public decision-making in western liberal democracies. The investigation started from the observation that China’s National People’s Congress called for legislative evaluation as a tool to develop democracy. Evaluation was consequently described as “alternative” democratic engagement. The investigation then proceeds to answer the question whether there might be a role for alternative forms of democratic engagement in liberal democracies as well, given the fact that electoral and other accountability mechanisms have already been institutionalized. The answer is affirmative, because of the numerous challenges that contemporary democracies face in addition to a string of fundamental developments that are summarized as the shift from government to governance. Now assuming that there is a role for alternative democratic engagement, an ensuing question relates to the actual prevalence of the democratic functionality of legislative evaluation in liberal democracies. Since the institutional context affects these functionalities, the question is answered for the specific case of Belgium. The proclaimed functionalities of evaluation were operationalized into a set of positive and negative markers. These markers touch upon three dimensions: formal aspects of regulatory policy laid down in policy, laws or internal norms; proxies for the salience of democratic evaluation based on observation of strong political preference for other objectives such as audit or administrative burden reduction; and quantifiable quality aspects of evaluation derived from “best practices”. By means of illustration, these markers were then applied to the legislative and regulatory policies of Belgium. |
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Language
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English
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Source (journal)
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Diritto & Questioni Pubbliche: Rivista di Filosofia del Diritto e Cultura Giuridica
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Publication
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2018
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ISSN
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1825-0173
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Volume/pages
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18
:1
(2018)
, p. 271-289
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Full text (open access)
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