Governance is among the most used of new ideas in the social sciences, most notably in the fields of political science, public administration, sociology, social and political theory. As ever, debates within disciplines rarely transcend disciplinary boundaries. This volume, available in paperback for the first time, brings together authors from these fields to elaborate on the development of governance analysis in new conceptions of political and democratic communication. It not only seeks to identify, describe and evaluate the contribution of each discipline to a theory of communicative governance, but also lays the foundation of a multidisciplinary framework for studying the mediation in communicative governance of societal concerns for effectiveness, order and participation. The book is theoretical and comparative, drawing on authors and research in Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the US. It adopts an anti-foundational approach to deconstruct the essentialist discourses endemic in each discipline and the disciplinary traditions of each country. Notions such as steering and control in public administration, identities and domination in sociology, and the community and self in social and political theory are analysed in depth. The book will demonstrate clearly how the distinctive traditions of each discipline lead them to construct overlapping, loosely coupled, and sometimes incommensurable ideas about the institutions, politics and policies of governance.

The public sphere is normally considered to be a forum for democratic deliberation. It can serve many other uses, however, such as an arena for strategic communication, a space for identity formation or a 'showcase' for celebrities. By bringing together researchers from political science, public administration, sociology and media studies, New Publics with/out Democracy presents a comprehensive perspective on the transformation of the public sphere in the emerging network society. The book presents a series of theoretical and empirical contributions concerning current changes in political communication, participation, identity and the role of the media and journalists.Within a common framework of analysis, the individual chapters in the book cover a wide range of issues concerning the way political institutions, citizens, NGOs, firms and not least the media and journalists engage the public sphere, such as post-ideological politics, governance by performance and evaluation, transnationalisation, branding, Internet use and journalistic praxis. Although the book clearly suggests that the public sphere is an increasingly important medium of politically active and informed agents, it also insists that it proceeds far beyond the democratic publics of parliament and citizens in civil society.