Consolidating Liberal Democracy From Within A Theory of Public Institutional Leadership

• 成果类型: Article; Early Access
• 署名作者: Groeneveld, Sandra; Salomonsen, Heidi Houlberg
• 署名单位: Leiden University; Leiden University - Excl LUMC; Aarhus University
• 刊物名称: PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-3352; 1540-6210
• DOI: 10.1111/puar.70177
• 发表日期: 2026-07-31
• 关键词: democratic backsliding; liberal democratic values; public institutional leadership; propositions; questions; character; FUTURE; VALUES

摘要

Recent developments in also established democracies have made clear that public administration and management research alike have neglected giving scholarly attention to public organizations as institutions. Drawing upon research on leadership of institutions and leadership in public organizations we suggest a theory of public institutional leadership. Public institutional leadership reconnects public management with democracy by suggesting three central dimensions of leadership behaviors that instill and sustain liberal democratic values in public organizations. These behaviors include articulating and reaffirming democratic values through top-down vision-setting; building character bottom-up through role modeling and fostering psychological safety to enable dialogue and deliberation around these values as well as demonstrating constrained responsiveness to political principals relative to those values enabled by the cultivation of bureaucratic autonomy. Although the necessity of such behaviors is made salient by rising populism and democratic backsliding, their relevance extends to public management situated in liberal democracies in general.