New public management and substantive democracy

The authors are concerned that a remaining refuge of substantive democracy in America, the public sector, is in danger of abandoning it in favor of th e market model of management. They argue that contemporary American democra cy is confined to a shrunken procedural remnant of its earlier substantive form. The classical republican model of citizen involvement faded with the rise of liberal capitalist society in the late nineteenth and early twentie th centuries. Capitalism and democracy coexist in a society emphasizing pro cedural protection of individual liberties rather than substantive question s of individual development. Today's market model of government in the form of New Public Management goes beyond earlier "reforms," threatening to eli minate democracy as a guiding principle in public-sector management. The au thors discuss the usefulness of a collaborative model of administrative pra ctice in preserving the value of democracy in public administration.