Keynote Speaker

™

Professor Bruce Gilley

Position
Director of Ph.D. Program in Public Affairs and Policy and Master of Public Policy Program, Mark O. Hatfield School of Government, College of Urban and Public Affairs, Portland State University, USA

Education
- Princeton University, Doctorate of Philosophy in Politics, 2007
- University of Oxford, Master of Philosophy in Economics, 1991
- University of Toronto, Bachelor of Arts in Economics & International Relations, 1988

Areas of Public Service Expertise
(1) Aid and Public Sector Effectiveness
(2) Integrated Governance Reforms
(3) Public Policy Analysis
(4) Democracy Promotion and Assistance
(5) China Business, Economy, Foreign Relations, Environment, and Politics

Summary
Professor Bruce Gilley is Director of the Ph.D. Program in Public Affairs and Policy and Master of Public Policy Program in the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University. His research centers on comparative and international politics and public policy. His work covers issues as diverse as democracy, climate change, political legitimacy, and international conflict. He is a specialist on the politics of China and Asia. He is the author of four university-press books, including The Right to Rule: How States Win and Lose Legitimacy (2009) and China’s Democratic Future (2004) in addition to several co-edited volumes. His scholarly articles have appeared in journals including Comparative Political Studies and the European Journal of Political Research and his policy articles in journals including Foreign Affairs and the Washington Quarterly. A member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Democracy and the Journal of Contemporary China, Gilley has received grants from the Smith-Richardson Foundation and the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy. He was a Commonwealth Scholar at Oxford University from 1989 to 1991 and a Woodrow Wilson Scholar at Princeton University from 2004 to 2006.

Can Public Policy Fill the Democratic Deficit?
Abstract: This talk addresses the question of whether many social and economic problems in governance can be solved through effective public policy research and training rather than through democratic representation. In recent years, evidence-based policy-making and effective public policy leadership have been strongly advocated by many groups of both left and right. This “public policy turn” has affected governance in many settings, democratic and non-democratic alike. Like the “good governance” agenda of the 1990s and 2000s, it has been offered as a solution to democratic failure or democratic deficits. At the limits, it has been offered as an alternative to democracy itself. Yet public policy as a field operates from distinctive epistemological, normative, and institutional assumptions that often differ fundamentally from those of democracy. How can societies embrace public policy research and training without giving up their democratic aspirations?