Democracy and accountability in public bodies: New agendas in British governance

The establishment of various commissions concerned with local governance as well as the Nolan Committee's examination of standards in public life all point to growing public: concern with the effectiveness of traditional mechanisms for holding politicians and policy makers to account. This article introduces the special issue on the democratisation of public bodies in the UK through three strands, First, it discusses theoretical conceptions of democracy and the related processes of democratisation. Second, it considers a number of recent political initiatives concerned with strengthening democratic decision making, especially at the local level. Finally, it offers a critical review of the subsequent articles in the special issue.