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Reflexive democracy: creating actionable knowledge through regional development coalitions

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Abstract

This article seeks to develop a new theory of reflexive democracy, based on practical cases of action research in regional development, with particular reference to regional development coalitions. Reflexive democracy is located in the context of the debate on Scandinavian worklife, emphasising knowledge, dialogue, and legitimacy.

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Notes

  1. Nowotny et al. (2001) use the name Agora to portray an arena of reflexive Habermasian peaceful discourse between science and society

  2. For more background information see: Johnsen et al. (2005): “The Agder Story”. In: This Special Issue

  3. For more background information see: Fosse (2005): “The potential of dialogue in a municipal development project: Action research and planning practice”. In: This Special Issue

  4. VC2010 is a co-operation between the Norwegian Research Council (NFR), The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO), The Confederation of Norwegian Business and Industry (NHO) and The Norwegian Industrial and Regional Development Fund (SND/Innovasjon Norge). See also Gustavsen (2001)

  5. See Hofstede (1980), who argues that the corporative tradition is a special feature of Scandinavian work-life and Porter (1990), who argues that this represents a competitive advantage

  6. Reflexive democracy is different from the formal political process in society. Reflexive democracy is thereby supposed to avoid conflict with representative democracy. This is a discussion that we do not take in this paper

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Agder Research, Agder University College, 4604, Kristiansand, Norway

    Hans Chr Garmann Johnsen, Roger Normann & Jens Kristian Fosse

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  1. Hans Chr Garmann Johnsen
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  2. Roger Normann
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  3. Jens Kristian Fosse
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Correspondence to Hans Chr Garmann Johnsen.

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Johnsen, H.C.G., Normann, R. & Fosse, J.K. Reflexive democracy: creating actionable knowledge through regional development coalitions. AI & Soc 19, 442–463 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-005-0326-5

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