Jörgen Westerståhl Lecture 2025
Welcome to the Jörgen Westerståhl Lecture with Professor David E. Lewis, Vanderbilt University. The lecture is entitled: How to Deconstruct the Modern Administrative State.
Abstract
This lecture focuses on modern efforts to deconstruct the administrative state in developed democracies. It explains what is at stake in such efforts. It uses recent actions by the Trump Administration in the United States to illustrate general problems that can make modern governments susceptible to deconstruction. It highlights the strategies political actors employ to target the agencies, people and processes that make and implement the policies voters themselves have chosen. It concludes with a discussion of the consequences of administrative breakdown for democracy and governance.