Deliberation Behind Closed Doors

I have a prediction...in the next couple of years Deliberation Behind Closed Doors will rise fast in the Social Science Citation Index because no-one in the field working on publicity and deliberative democratic theory can ignore this work. -- Simone Chambers, University of Toronto This research has a striking and unusual challenge to current siren calls which see transparency in public policy making as an unqualified good, and could in time become a citation classic. -- Justin Greenwood, Robert Gordon University This book makes a refreshingly empirical contribution to discussions of the European Union and its democratic deficit, specifically on the possible role of increased transparency in alleviating the latter. Naurin rightly challenges us to think about transparency and its effects - to `take transparency seriously' rather than merely assume its panacea-like effects for European Union democracy and legitimacy. With this in mind, Naurin's work focuses on investigating what deliberative democracy theorists label the civilizing effect of publicity. * Social Movement Studies * [...] The book is an excellent read. It is not prohibitively expensive and would be useful to scholars dealing with the issues of transparency and interest groups. * Political Studies Review *

Richard Rose is Professor of Politics at the University of Strathclyde, and Visiting Professor at European University Institute, Florence. Neil Munro is Senior Fellow in the Centre for the Study of Public Policy at the University of Aberdeen.

Chapter one: Taking transparency seriously Chapter two: The theory of publicity's civilising effect Chapter three: Research design Chapter four: Dressed for politics Chapter five: Letters from backstage Chapter six: The fault of deliberative theorists which demonstrates their point Appendices A. Comparability of private letters and public documents B. Total sample of documents Bibliography Index