Expertise and Public Participation in Government Policymaking: South Africa in Comparative Context

The fellowship at STIAS will build on my prior work on comparative administrative law dealing with public participation in policymaking. In the modern state, legislatures cannot possibly resolve all aspects of the large policy problems raised by the activist regulatory state. Over and above the statutory language, executive officials are constantly required to deal with critical issues in way that is both responsive to popular concerns and to the current state of expert knowledge. Past work on the US, Germany, Hungary, France, and the EU will be drawn upon to view alternative models of public participation through the lens of comparative public law. In particular, the differences between presidential systems and parliamentary systems, and between national-level policymaking and public involvement at the state and local level. Substantively, the primary focus has been on environmental law and renewable energy. At STIAS Rose-Ackerman will place South Africa’s effort to confront the tensions between technocracy and democracy in the comparative context developed in her past work.