Hyper-active Governance How Governments Manage the Politics of Expertise Cambridge Studies in Comparative Public Policy Series

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.

Part I. Introducing Hyper-active Governance: 1. The 'cult of the expert'; 2. Managing the 'expert-politics nexus': a conceptual map; Part II. Hyper-active Governance in Practice: 3. Defence: health technology assessment; 4. Empowerment: emergency management and flooding governance; 5. Inclusion: water resource governance; 6. Defend, empower and include: hyper-active governance in monetary policy and electoral administration; Part III. Theorising Hyper-active Governance: 7. Frenetically standing still: hyper-active governance and social acceleration; 8. Experts, politics and co-production: the need to rethink political authority; Appendices; Endnotes; References; Index.

Matthew Wood is Lecturer in Politics and Deputy Director of the Crick Centre at the University of Sheffield. His work focuses on the authority and legitimacy of experts in the field of Governance and Public Policy, and he currently holds an ESRC Future Research Leaders Fellowship 2015–18. His doctoral dissertation (2014) received the Department of Politics' Andrew Gamble prize for best thesis, and his article 'Paradoxical Politics' has recently been awarded the Harrison Prize for best article in Political Studies (2016). He has held visiting fellowships at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, University of Mainz, University of Canberra and Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Mexico.