ABSTRACT
What is the relationship between government officials and broader publics when it comes to public engagement? What does it look like for public administrators to not only share important public information with citizens, but also to engage them through decision-making processes through democratic processes? What, fundamentally, is the role of government if we take seriously the idea of relations as a central tenet of governance? This chapter focuses on government agencies that are increasingly using more participatory and collaborative public engagement approaches and strategies, helping to create conditions for greater transparency and accountability and meaningful engagement. It explores the idea of public administration through the concept of “democratic professionals” and the idea of what David Mathews of the Kettering Foundation calls democratic strategy of governance with citizens. However, not all attempts to democratize decision-making through collaborative and participatory process have embodied the ideas set forth by many champions of collaborative governance. For this reason, there needs to be considerable intentionality about how public administrators create processes and engage citizens to ensure public engagement is more than a popular phrase attached to experiences that do little to engage people around common problems. A challenge is that many in public administration have not been trained in robust public engagement models that move beyond technocratic approaches to complex problems.
