The positioning of commissions in a knowledge democracy

To deal with a variety of difficult matters, Dutch politics, as well as politics in other countries, makes good use of a well-known and well-tried instrument that is simultaneously highly debated and controversial: the commission or committee. In a knowledge democracy, where the development of knowledge is democratised itself, in which new forms of deliberation and negotiation appear and in which the balance of power between groups is shifting, this classical arrangement of using commissions is given a new interpretation. In current practice we may witness new and innovative forms of commissions that are, by the way, mostly variations of well-known organisational forms, rather than a completely new phenomenon. Be it citizens' assemblies, hubs, or even cascade commissions, these are all new variations on classical commissions with distinctive and characteristic features. This contribution to the book on knowledge democracy discusses societal changes that can be seen in the practices of government, as well as the shift in the use of commissions that occurs as a result of those changes.

• View at Publisher
• View at Scopus