Recursive Governance: Contemporary Political Communication and Public Policy

This article investigates aspects of the new relationships that are emerging between contemporary trends in political communication and public policy. In particular, it identifies and analyzes how these relationships are extending beyond the traditional domain of political communication as information and persuasion. This is traced through a consideration of the notion of political communication as “recursive governance”—a form of governance that operates according to a generative informational logic. The article explores the impact of recursive processes on policy formation and on democratic practice more generally. It argues that the dramatic increase in the use of communications expertise and public relations by government (as well as business and the third sector) is part of what appears to be a far more fundamental systems shift in the very nature of governance in Western democracies.