Purpose

The story of Irish democracy may have been troubled but it has been successful. So far. The latest episode – the banking crisis with the consequent economic woes, social damage and loss of political sovereignty – challenges us to ask can the story proceed as before. Will the structures and routines that served us in the past continue to do so?

In this blog Frank Litton examines the policy-making capacities of Irish democracy.

The title is a ‘tip of the hat’ to Charles Lindblom’s classic articles on policy-making, ‘The Science of Muddling Through’ and ‘Still Muddling not Yet Through’. The first appeared in Public Administration Review, Vol. 19 Spring 1959 and the second in the same journal Vol. 39 November-December, 1979.