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Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory Advance Access originally published online on April 26, 2006
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 2007 17(1):61-76; doi:10.1093/jopart/muj014
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

Does Democracy Matter? A Transatlantic Research Design on Democratic Performance and Special Purpose Governments

Chris Skelcher

University of Birmingham

Address correspondence to the author at c.k.skelcher{at}bham.ac.uk.

The next big step in public management research is to move beyond the question of whether management matters to answer the question: does democracy matter? The public management discipline has largely ignored the impact of democratic structure on performance, partly because of limited variation in the constitutional design of public service organizations. Recent growth in the number and types of special purpose governments offers an organizational population with a wider distribution on the democratic structure parameter. Conceptual and methodological advances in delimiting and measuring "democratic performance" as a function of formal structures and informal practices provide an intellectual infrastructure for scholars. Hypotheses are derived in which democratic performance is either a dependent or independent variable. Differences in contextual variables in the United Kingdom and the United States make transatlantic comparative research a worthwhile proposition. A research strategy for generating knowledge on "does democracy matter?" is set out.


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