Politics and the Limits of a Science of Governance: Some Reflections on the Thought of Bernard Crick

This paper examines Bernard Crick’s ideas on the nature of politics and explores their implications for a scientific approach to governance like that advocated recently by public management writers. It is argued here that such an approach generally downplays the inherently political character of governance because it ignores the conflicts of values and the uncertainty that are an inherent part of the way in which we have come to govern ourselves.