The SAGE Handbook of Governance 2011 PDF

‘While the verb “to govern” and the noun “government” are well established terms, “governance” is relatively new to social science vocabulary. What does “it” mean? Mark Bevir’s Handbook of Governance is a welcomed contribution to a clearer understanding of this emerging seminal concept. Drawing on s...

‘While the verb “to govern” and the noun “government” are well established terms, “governance” is relatively new to social science vocabulary. What does “it” mean? Mark Bevir’s Handbook of Governance is a welcomed contribution to a clearer understanding of this emerging seminal concept. Drawing on some of the best 21st century minds in this field, his Handbook is probative and exploratory, one that wrestles with the basic theory, modern practice, and central dilemmas of “governance”. Readers are thus treated to profound and urgently needed insights The SAGE Handbook of into its meaning and significance today.’ Governance Edited by Bevir Richard Stillman, University of Colorado, Denver The study of governance has risen to prominence as a way of describing and explaining changes in our world. The SAGE Handbook of Governance presents an authoritative and innovative overview of this fascinating field, with particular emphasis on the significant new and emerging theoretical issues and policy innovations. The Handbook is divided into three parts. Part One explores the major theories influencing current thinking and shaping future research in the field of governance. Part Two deals specifically with changing practices and policy innovations, including the changing role of the state, transnational and global governance, markets and networks, public management, and budgeting and finance. The SAGE Handbook of Part Three explores the dilemmas of managing governance, including attempts to rethink Governance democracy and citizenship as well as specific policy issues such as capacity building, regulation, and sustainable development. This volume is an excellent resource for advanced students and researchers in political science, economics, geography, sociology, and public administration. Edited by Mark Bevir is a Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Mark Bevir Cover image © iStock | Cover design by Wendy Scott  The SAGE Handbook of Governance Edited by Mark Bevir 5419-Bevir-FM..indd i 9/15/2010 5:37:11 PM  Introduction and editorial arrangement © Mark Bevir 2011 Chapters © contributors 2011 First published 2011 Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, this publication may be repro- duced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means, only with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers. SAGE Publications Ltd 1 Oliver’s Yard 55 City Road London EC1Y 1SP SAGE Publications Inc. 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California 91320 SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd B 1/I 1 Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area Mathura Road New Delhi 110 044 SAGE Publications Asia-Pacific Pvt Ltd 33 Pekin Street #02-01 Far East Square Singapore 048763 Library of Congress Control Number: 2010920019 British Library Cataloguing in Publication data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-84787-577-8 Typeset by Glyph International Ltd, Bangalore, India Printed in India at Replika Press Pvt Ltd Printed on paper from sustainable resources 5419-Bevir-FM..indd ii 9/15/2010 5:37:12 PM  Contents Preface and Acknowledgments vi List of Contributors vii 1 Governance as Theory, Practice, and Dilemma 1 Mark Bevir SECTION I THEORIES OF GOVERNANCE 17 2 Policy Network Theory 19 Henrik Enroth 3 Rational Choice Theory 36 Keith Dowding 4 Interpretive Theory 51 Mark Bevir 5 Organization Theory 65 Robert K. Christensen and Mary Tschirhart 6 Institutional Theory 78 B. Guy Peters 7 Systems Theory 91 Anders Esmark 8 Metagovernance 106 Bob Jessop 9 State–Society Relations 124 Jefferey M. Sellers 10 Policy Instruments and Governance 142 Patrick Le Galès 11 Development Theory 160 Phyllis R. Pomerantz 5419-Bevir-FM..indd iii 9/15/2010 5:37:13 PM  iv CONTENTS 12 Measuring Governance 179 Pippa Norris SECTION II PRACTICES OF GOVERNANCE 201 13 The Stateless State 203 Mark Bevir and R.A.W. Rhodes 14 The Persistence of Hierarchy 218 Laurence E. Lynn, Jr 15 Contracting Out 237 Steven Cohen and William Eimicke 16 Public Management 252 Carolyn J. Heinrich 17 Budgeting and Finance 270 Anthony B.L. Cheung 18 Partnerships 286 Gunnar Folke Schuppert 19 Multijurisdictional Regulation 300 Andy Smith 20 Local Governance 313 Bas Denters 21 Non-governmental Organizations 330 M. Shamsul Haque 22 Transgovernmental Networks 342 Anne-Marie Slaughter and Thomas N. Hale 23 Global Governance 352 Mark Bevir and Ian Hall SECTION III DILEMMAS OF GOVERNANCE 367 24 Legitimacy 369 Mark Considine and Kamran Ali Afzal 25 Collaborative Governance 386 Lisa Blomgren Bingham 26 Participation 402 Peter McLaverty 5419-Bevir-FM..indd iv 9/15/2010 5:37:13 PM  CONTENTS v 27 Leadership 419 Janet V. Denhardt and Robert B. Denhardt 28 Network Management 436 Michael McGuire 29 Social Inclusion 454 Petri Koikkalainen 30 Capacity Building 469 Hok Bun Ku and Angelina W.K. Yuen-Tsang 31 Decentralization 484 Fumihiko Saito 32 Governing the Commons 501 Wai Fung Lam 33 Regulation 518 Marian Döhler 34 Sustainable Development 535 James Meadowcroft Name Index 552 Subject Index 565 5419-Bevir-FM..indd v 9/15/2010 5:37:13 PM  Preface and Acknowledgments The SAGE Handbook of Governance completes what I think of as a set of texts prepared for SAGE in an attempt to illuminate the contours and shadows of the vast literature that has arisen recently and rapidly on governance. Key Concepts in Governance (2009) used an overview of the literature on governance as a setting for discussions of 50 concepts that are prominent in discussions of governance. It is a textbook companion for students at all levels. While Key Concepts may serve as a reference work, that role falls primarily to the more extensive Encyclopedia of Governance (2007). The Encyclopedia offered a one-stop point of reference for anyone interested in any aspect of governance, whether they are a student, a researcher, a practitioner, or an everyday citizen. Public Governance (2007) is a four-volume collection of leading scholarly articles on theories of governance, public sector reform, public policy, and democratic governance. It provides researchers and students with easy access to some of the most influential and discussed articles in the field. I might be tempted to call it a collection of classic articles were the literature on governance not so current. Finally, this Handbook of Governance brings together an international cast of specialists to offer an authoritative over- view of current scholarship. The Handbook provides a clear guide to advanced topics, cutting edge research, and future agendas. Each of these SAGE texts provides an overview of governance studies as a whole. Indeed, these texts are a conscious attempt to forward my particular view of governance studies. In all these texts, I suggest that ‘governance’ refers to new theories of social coordination and new worlds of collective action, and, more controversially, I suggest that the new worlds arose in part because people acted on formal and folk versions of the new theories. This latter sugges- tion reflects my commitment to interpretive theory. If we are fully to explain a form of govern- ance, we have to refer to the meanings and stories that are embodied in it; we have to interpret the beliefs and theories that have led people to act so as to create and maintain it. I hope that the Handbook will improve people’s understanding of the world in which we live, the ideas that have made that world, and alternative ideas by which we might remake the world. I would like to thank everyone at SAGE who has helped to produce the whole set of texts on governance. Lucy Robinson initially contacted me in 2004 to suggest that I edit an Encyclopedia of Governance for SAGE, and she later convinced me to do both the set on Public Governance and the Key Concepts book. David Mainwaring became the editor responsible for Public Governance and Key Concepts. He then raised the possibility of a Handbook and oversaw its creation. Throughout, Lucy and David were encouraging, responsive, and patient. I am most grateful. Mark Bevir 5419-Bevir-FM..indd vi 9/15/2010 5:37:13 PM  List of Contributors Kamran Ali Afzal is a career civil servant with the Government of Pakistan and has served in a range of administrative and policymaking positions over the past 16 years. His most recent assignment was with the finance department of the provincial government of the Punjab, where he was responsible for medium-term financial planning, drafting annual budgetary proposals, expenditure monitoring, and fiscal reforms. Currently a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne, he is studying the relationship between public sector accountability and resource allocation. His areas of interest include comparative public policy, governance, government accountability structures, public finance, and social development. Mark Bevir is a Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of The Logic of the History of Ideas (1999), New Labour: A Critique (2005), Key Concepts in Governance (2009), and Democratic Governance (2010), and the co- author, with R.A.W. Rhodes, of Interpreting British Governance (2003), Governance Stories (2006), and The State as Cultural Practice (2010). Lisa Blomgren Bingham is the Keller-Runden Professor of Public Service at Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Bloomington. Together with Rosemary O’Leary, she co-edited The Promise and Performance of Environmental Conflict Resolution (2003), Big Ideas in Collaborative Public Management (2008), and The Collaborative Public Manager (2009). She is an elected Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Her current research examines dispute systems design and the legal infrastructure for collaboration, dispute resolution, and public participation in governance. Hok Bun Ku is Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Social Sciences at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and program leader of MSW (China). He is Deputy Director of the China Research and Development Network and executive editor of China Journal of Social Work. He has been involved in China’s rural development for about 15 years and has written extensively on topics related to rural development, cultural politics, participatory design, social exclusion and marginality, and social work education. His most recent English-language book is Moral Politics in a South Chinese Village: Responsibility, Reciprocity and Resistance (2003). His Chinese-language books include Fe/male Voices: A Practice of Feminist Writing (2008), The Stories of Pingzhai Village: The Practice of Culture and Development (2007), Practice- Based Social Work Research in Local Chinese Context (2007), Rethinking and Recasting Citizenship: Social Exclusion and Marginality in Chinese Society (2005), Research, Practice and Reflection of Social Work in Indigenous Chinese Context (2004), and Social Exclusion and Marginality in Chinese Societies (2003). 5419-Bevir-FM..indd vii 9/15/2010 5:37:13 PM  viii LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Anthony B.L. Cheung is the President of The Hong Kong Institute of Education, Chair Professor of Public Administration and Director of the Centre for Governance and Citizenship. Professor Cheung has published extensively on privatization, civil service and public sector reforms, Asian administrative reforms, and government and politics in Hong Kong and China. His recent books are Governance for Harmony in Asia and Beyond (with Julia Tao et al., 2010), Governance and Public Sector Reform in Asia: Paradigm Shift or Business As Usual? (co- edited, 2003), and Public Service Reform in East Asia: Reform Issues and Challenges in Japan, Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong (2005). Professor Cheung serves as a Member of Hong Kong’s Executive Council and Chairman of the Consumer Council. He was the founder of the policy think-tank SynergyNet. Robert K. Christensen is Assistant Professor in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia. At the institutional level, he is interested in courts and their rela- tionship to public/nonprofit organization outcomes. At the behavioral level, he is interested in the impact of pro- and anti-social attitudes/actions on public and nonprofit work groups and organizations. His work appears in such journals as Administration & Society, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Nonprofit Management and Leadership, and Public Administration Review. Steven Cohen is the Executive Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and Founder, Professor, and Director of the Master of Public Administration in Environmental Science and Policy Program at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). He is also a consultant and former policy analyst for the US Environmental Protection Agency. He is the author of The Effective Public Manager (1988) and Understanding Environmental Policy (2006). He has co-authored several books, including Total Quality Management in Government (1993), Tools for Innovators: Creative Strategies for Managing Public Sector Organizations (1998), Strategic Planning in Environmental Regulation (2005), and The Responsible Contract Manager (2008). Dr Cohen is also a columnist for The Huffington Post and has written extensively on public management innovation, ethics, and environmental policy. Mark Considine is the Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne and former Director of the Centre for Public Policy. He is a past winner of the American Educational Research Association’s Outstanding Publication Award and in 2000 received the Marshall E. Dimmock Award for the best lead article in Public Administration Review (with co-author Jenny M. Lewis). His latest book (with Jenny M. Lewis and Damon Alexander) is Networks, Innovation and Public Policy: Politicians, Bureaucrats and the Pathways to Change inside Government (2009). His research areas include governance studies, comparative social policy, employment services, public sector reform, local development, and organizational sociology. Janet V. Denhardt is a Professor and Doctoral Program Director in the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on leadership, civic engagement, and governance. She has authored 10 books, including: The New Public Service (2007), The Dance of Leadership (2006), Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations (2009), Public Administration: An Action Orientation (2009), and Street-Level Leadership (1998). Her work has also appeared in Public Administration Review, Administration & Society, American Review of Public Administration, and Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. 5419-Bevir-FM..indd viii 9/15/2010 5:37:13 PM  LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS ix Robert B. Denhardt is a Regents Professor, the Coor Presidential Chair, and Director of the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University. He is a Past President of the American Society for Public Administration and a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. He has published 21 books, including The Dance of Leadership (2006), The New Public Service (2007), Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations (2009), Public Administration: An Action Orientation (2009), and Theories of Public Organization (2009). Bas Denters is Professor of Public Governance at the Institute for Innovation and Governance Studies (IGS) of the University of Twente. His main research areas are local and regional gov- ernance, and issues of participation and representation in urban democracy. He is Overseas Editor of Local Government Studies, Convenor of the Standing Group on Local Government and Politics of the European Consortium for Political Research and Member of the Board of the European Urban Research Association. He has published in Acta Politica, Environment & Planning, European Journal of Political Research, Local Government Studies, Public Administration, and Urban Affairs Review. Relevant book publications include The Rise of Interactive Governance and Quasi-Markets: A Comparison of the Dutch Experience with the Developments in Four Western Countries (co-edited with O. van Heffen, J. Huisman and P.J. Klok, 2003), and Comparing Local Governance: Trends and Developments (co-edited with L.E. Rose, 2005). Marian Döhler is Professor of Public Policy and Administration at Leibniz University, Hannover, and currently serves as Director of the Institute of Political Science. He has pub- lished four monographs on health policymaking and public administration. His articles have appeared in journals such as Politische Vierteljahresschrift, Governance, and West European Politics. He is co-editor of the peer-reviewed journal der moderne staat for which he is editing a special issue on regulation. His current research is about regulatory agencies, science and politics, managing public sector organizations, and the lawmaking process. Keith Dowding is the Director of Research, College of Arts and Social Sciences, and Research Professor in the School of Politics and International Relations, Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University in Canberra. He has published widely on topics as diverse as public administration and public policy, urban politics, comparative politics, British politics, social and rational choice theory, and political philosophy. He recently edited (with Ken Shepsle and Torun Dewan) the four-volume Rational Choice Politics (2009). He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, Australia and has been co-editor of the Journal of Theoretical Politics since 1996. William B. Eimicke is the Executive Director of the Picker Center for Executive Education in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He recently returned to Columbia University after serving three years as Deputy Fire Commissioner of New York City. Eimicke first started working with the New York City Fire Department in 2002 when he served as Faculty Director of the Fire Officers Management Institute (FOMI), a custom-designed leadership and management training program for fire and EMS personnel supported by Columbia. Previously, he served as the Director of Fiscal Studies for the New York State Senate, Assistant Budget Director for the City of New York, and Deputy Commissioner of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development. He also served as New York Governor Mario Cuomo’s Deputy Secretary for Policy and Programs as well as the 5419-Bevir-FM..indd ix 9/15/2010 5:37:13 PM  x LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Housing Czar for New York State. Eimicke also served on Vice President Gore’s Reinventing Government team. Henrik Enroth is Assistant Professor at Linnaeus University, Sweden. He earned his PhD at Stockholm University and has been a Visiting Scholar at the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests include the conceptual and theo- retical development of the social sciences, and the history of political ideas. Specifically, he has devoted his research to twentieth-century conceptions of politics and political inquiry, and he is currently working on a book on the conceptual challenges facing a global political science, tentatively titled A New Framework for Political Analysis. Recent publications include a critical analysis of the pluralist legacy in modern political discourse, forthcoming in Contemporary Political Theory, and a contribution to The SAGE Encyclopedia of Political Theory (2010). Anders Esmark is Associate Professor in the Department of Society and Globalisation, Roskilde University. His research interests include public administration, democratic theory, and the interplay between politics and media. Recent writings on governance include ‘The Functional Differentiation of Governance: Public Governance beyond Hierarchy, Market and Networks’ (Public Administration, 2009), ‘Good Governance in Network Society: Reconfiguring the Political from Politics to Policy’ (with Henrik Bang, Administrative Theory & Praxis, 2009),’ and contributions to Theories of Democratic Network Governance (edited by Eva Sørensen and Jacob Torfing, 2007) and Democratic Network Governance in Europe (edited by Martin Marcussen and Jacob Torfing, 2007). Thomas Hale is a PhD candidate in the Department of Politics at Princeton University. His research focuses on global problems and the institutions to govern them, particularly efforts to solve transnational dilemmas democratically. He is the co-editor of the forthcoming Handbook of Innovation in Transnational Governance. Ian Hall is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Griffith University, Brisbane. He is the author of The International Thought of Martin Wight (2006) and the editor (with Lisa Hill) of British International Thinkers from Hobbes to Namier (2009). He has published a number of articles on the history of international thought, international relations theory, diplomacy, and international security in – amongst others – British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Government and Opposition, International Affairs, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, and Review of International Studies. He has just completed a new book called The Dilemmas of Decline: British Intellectuals and World Politics and is currently working on projects on global governance, public diplomacy, and the rise of India. M. Shamsul Haque is Professor in the Department of Political Science at the National University of Singapore. His current research interests include contemporary issues and prob- lems related to public administration, the state and governance, development theory and policy, and the environment and sustainability. He has authored and edited several books. His articles on these issues have appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as Public Administration Review, Administration & Society, Governance, International Political Science Review, International Journal of Public Administration, and International Review of Administrative Sciences. He is the editor of the Asian Journal of Political Science. Carolyn J. Heinrich is the Director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs, Professor of Public Affairs, Affiliated Professor of Economics, and a Regina Loughlin Scholar at the 5419-Bevir-FM..indd x 9/15/2010 5:37:13 PM  LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS xi University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focuses on education and human capital devel- opment, social welfare policy, public management, and econometric methods for program evaluation. She works directly with governments at all levels and internationally in her research. She is the author of more than 50 peer-reviewed publications to date, including four co-authored/ edited books. In 2004, she received the David N. Kershaw Award for distinguished contributions to the field of public policy analysis and management by a person under the age of 40. Bob Jessop is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the Cultural Political Research Centre at Lancaster University. He is best known for his contributions to state theory, critical political economy, welfare state restructuring, and theories of governance failure and metagovernance. He has published 17 books, 26 edited volumes, and over 300 journal articles and book chapters. His books include The Capitalist State (1982), Nicos Poulantzas (1985), Thatcherism: A Tale of Two Nations (1988), State Theory (1990), The Future of the Capitalist State (2002), Beyond the Regulation Approach (2006, co-authored with Ngai-Ling Sum), and State Power: A Strategic-Relational Approach (2007). He is currently working on the crisis of crisis-management in relation to the global financial and economic crisis with a three-year ESRC Professorial Fellowship (2010–13). Petri Koikkalainen is University Lecturer of Political Science at the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi. His research interests include political theory and the history of political thought. Recently, he has studied the development of modernist social sciences after World War II with their implications on public policy and governance. He has published on topics that range from the Anglo-American debate about the ‘end of ideology’ during the 1950s (in, for example, History of Political Thought, 2009) to the modernization of the Finnish North (for example, ‘Narratives of Progress in the Politics of Urho Kekkonen and the Agrarian League’, in Linjakumpu and Wallenius (eds.), Progress or Perish, forthcoming). During 2009–10 he is the editor of Politiikka, the quarterly journal of the Finnish Political Science Association. Wai Fung Lam is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong. His research has evolved around institutional analysis, common-pool resource management, irrigation management in Asia, public govern- ance, and policy process and dynamics. He is the author of Governing Irrigation Systems in Nepal: Institutions, Infrastructure, and Collective Action (1998), and a co-editor of Asian Irrigation Systems in Transition: Responding to the Challenges Ahead (2005). He has published in major international journals, including Governance, International Review of Administrative Sciences, Journal of Institutional Economics, Policy Sciences, Voluntas, and World Development. Patrick Le Galès is CNRS Research Professor in Politics and Sociology at Sciences Po in Paris and part-time Professor of European Politics at King’s College, London. He works on urban governance, comparative public policy, the restructuring of the state, and local and regional economic development. He won the UNESCO/ESRC Stein Rokkan prize for com- parative research in 2002 and the French Political Science/Mattei Dogan prize for excellence in research in 2007. Among his publications in English are Regions in Europe the Paradox of Power (1998), Local Industrial Systems in Europe, Rise or Demise? (1999), European Cities, Social Conflicts and Governance (2002), and The Changing Governance of Local Economies in Europe (2003). He was an editor of the Palgrave series Developments in French Politics, Vols. 3 and 4. He edited a special issue of Governance entitled ‘Policy Instruments and Policy 5419-Bevir-FM..indd xi 9/15/2010 5:37:13 PM  xii LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Changes’, 2007 (with P. Lascoumes). His forthcoming book (with F. Faucher King) is The New Labour Experiment (2010). Laurence E. Lynn, Jr is Sid Richardson Research Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas, Professor of Public Management at the Manchester Business School, and the Sydney Stein Jr Professor of Public Management Emeritus at the University of Chicago. His research is concerned with public management theory and research methods. His most recent books are Public Management: Old and New (2006), Madison’s Managers: Public Administration and the Constitution (with Anthony M. Bertelli, 2006), and a textbook, Public Management: A Three Dimensional Approach (with Carolyn J. Hill, 2008). For lifetime contri- butions to public administration research and practice, he has received the John Gaus, Dwight Waldo, Paul Van Riper, and H. George Frederickson Awards. Michael McGuire is Professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University–Bloomington. He is the co-author (with Robert Agranoff) of Collaborative Public Management: New Strategies for Local Governments (2003), which received the 2003 Louis Brownlow Best Book Award from the National Academy of Public Administration. His work on public management networks, collaboration, leadership, and intergovernmental relations in the policy areas of economic development, emergency management, and rural development has been published in numerous journals, including Public Administration Review, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, The Leadership Quarterly, Public Performance and Management Review, Disasters, and others. Peter McLaverty is a Reader in Public Policy at the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland, and a former head of the Department of Public Policy. Dr McLaverty has published widely in academic journals such as Journal of Political Ideologies, Democratization, International Political Science Review, Urban Studies, and Government and Policy. He is the editor of Political Participation and Innovations in Community Governance (2002) and his main research interests are the theory and practice of democracy and public participation. For a number of years, he was convenor of the UK Political Studies Association Participatory and Deliberative Democracy Specialist Group. James Meadowcroft is a Professor in the School of Public Policy and Administration and in the Department of Political Science, at Carleton University in Ottawa. He holds a Canada Research Chair in Governance for Sustainable Development. His research focuses on reforms to structures and processes of governance as political systems manage environmental issues. He has published a number of articles and books dealing with the politics of the environment and sustainable development, including Implementing Sustainable Development (co-edited with William Lafferty, 2000), the first full-length international study of how governments in industrialized countries responded to the sustainable development agenda. Recent contribu- tions include work on public participation, sustainable development partnerships, planning for sustainability, national sustainable development strategies, environmental governance, socio- technical transitions, and sustainable energy policy. His volume Caching the Carbon: The Politics and Policy of Carbon Capture and Storage (co-edited with Oluf Langhelle) was pub- lished by Edward Elgar in 2009. He has also served as co-editor of International Political Science Review and as associate editor of the Journal of Political Ideologies. Pippa Norris is the McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, where she has taught since 1992. She also served recently 5419-Bevir-FM..indd xii 9/15/2010 5:37:13 PM  LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS xiii on leave from Harvard as the Director of the Democratic Governance Group at the United Nations Development Program in New York. Her research compares public opinion and elec- tions, democratic institutions and cultures, gender politics, and political communications in many countries worldwide. She has published almost 40 books, including most recently Driving Democracy: Do Power-Sharing Institutions Work? (2008), Cosmopolitan Communications: Cultural Diversity in a Globalizing World (2009, with Ronald Inglehart), and Public Sentinel: News Media and the Governance Agenda (edited, 2010). She has also served as an expert consultant for many international bodies, including the UN, UNESCO, NDI, the Council of Europe, International IDEA, the World Bank, the National Endowment for Democracy, the Afghanistan Reconstruction Project, and the UK Electoral Commission. Her work has been published in more than a dozen languages. B. Guy Peters is Maurice Falk Professor of American Government at the University of Pittsburgh and Distinguished Professor of Comparative Governance at the Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen. His work is primarily in governance, institutional theory, and comparative public policy and administration. He is currently co-editor of the European Political Science Review. His recent publications include Policy Coordination in Seven Industrial Democracies (with Geert Bouckaert and Koen Verhoest) and Debating Institutionalism (with Jon Pierre and Gerry Stoker, 2008). Phyllis R. Pomerantz is Visiting Professor of the Practice of Public Policy at the Duke Center for International Development, Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University. She has also held a series of senior appointments at the World Bank, including Country Director for Mozambique and Zambia, and Chief Learning Officer. Her research and teaching center on international aid effectiveness and poverty reduction. She is the author of various articles and reports. Recent works include Aid Effectiveness in Africa (Lexington Books, 2004), ‘A Little Luck and a Lot of Trust: Aid Relationships and Reform in Southern Africa’ in I. Gill and T. Pugatch (eds), At the Frontlines of Development (World Bank, 2005), and ‘International Relations and Global Studies: The Past of the Future?’, Global-e (August 2008). Rod Rhodes holds a joint appointment as Professor of Government in the School of Government at the University of Tasmania and Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the Australian National University. He is also Professor Emeritus, University of Newcastle (UK). He is the former Director of the UK Economic and Social Research Council’s ‘Whitehall Programme’ (1994–9), and of the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University (2007–8). He is the author or editor of some 30 books, includ- ing. The State as Cultural Practice (co-author, 2010), Comparing Westminster (co-author, 2009), Observing Government Elites (co-editor, 2007), The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions (co-editor, 2006, paperback 2008), and Governance Stories (co-author, 2006, paperback 2007). He is Treasurer of the Australasian Political Studies Association, life Vice- President of the Political Studies Association of the United Kingdom, and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in both Australia and Britain. He is editor of Public Administration, 1986–2011. Fumihiko Saito is a Professor in the Faculty of Intercultural Communication, Ryukoku University, Japan. Dr Saito published Decentralization and Development Partnerships: Lessons from Uganda (2003) and edited Foundations for Local Governance: Decentralization in Comparative Perspective (2008). He has also published books in Japanese covering international development studies and participatory development. In recent years, he has been 5419-Bevir-FM..indd xiii 9/15/2010 5:37:13 PM  xiv LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS co-leading a comparative research project examining the complex interfaces between local governance reforms and sustainable development in selected countries in both developed and developing worlds. Gunnar Folke Schuppert holds a Research Professorship on ‘New Modes of Governance’ at the Social Science Research Center, Berlin (WZB) and is Director of the WZB-Rule of Law Center. His main publications are Verwaltungswissenschaft (2000), Staatswissenschaft (2003), and Politische Kultur (2008) as well as The Europeanisation of Governance (2006) and Global Governance and the Role of Non State Actors (2006) as editor. Jefferey M. Sellers is Associate Professor of Political Science, Geography and Public Policy at the University of Southern California. He is author of Governing from Below: Urban Regions and the Global Economy (2002) and co-editor of Metropolitanization and Political Change (2005) and The Political Ecology of the Metropolis (forthcoming). He has also authored or co-authored dozens of articles, book chapters, and papers on comparative urban politics, decentralization, law and society, urban geography, territorial identity, legal studies, and public policy. Anne-Marie Slaughter is the Bert G. Kerstetter ‘66 University Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. She is presently on leave, serving as Director of Policy Planning for the United States Department of State. She was Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, 2002–9. She came to the Wilson School from Harvard Law School where she was the J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign, and Comparative Law, and Director of the International Legal Studies Program. She is also the former President of the American Society of International Law, is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has served on the board of the Council on Foreign Relations. Drawing from this rich interdisciplinary expertise, she has written and taught broadly on global governance, international criminal law, and American foreign policy. Her most recent book is The Idea That Is America: Keeping Faith with Our Values in a Dangerous World (2007). She is also the author of A New World Order (2004), in which she identified transnational networks of government officials as an increasingly impor- tant component of global governance. She has been a frequent commentator on foreign affairs in newspapers, radio, and television. She was also the convener and academic co-chair of the Princeton Project on National Security, a multi-year research project aimed at developing a new, bipartisan national security strategy for the United States, and was a member of the National War Powers Commission. Andy Smith is Research Professor at the SPIRIT Research Centre in Bordeaux. He is a spe- cialist in public policy analysis and political economy, with a particular interest in European integration. His recent publications have been focused upon what he calls ‘the Politics of Industry’, both in general (Industries and Globalization, 2008, co-edited with Bernard Jullien) and particularly in the case of wine (Vin et Politique, 2007, co-written with Jacques de Maillard and Olivier Costa). His current research is centred upon the extent to which industries in Europe are governed either at the scale of the European Union, or at that of the WTO (‘How Does the WTO Matter to Industry?’, International Political Sociology, June 2009). Mary Tschirhart is Professor of Public Administration at North Carolina State University. Professor Tschirhart writes about management and leadership of public and non-profit organizations. Her most recent research examines collaborative systems and cross-sector 5419-Bevir-FM..indd xiv 9/15/2010 5:37:13 PM  LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS xv dynamics, resulting in publications on self-regulatory programs, workforce inclusion, and resource-sharing dynamics in networks. She is Director of the Institute for Nonprofit Research, Education, and Engagement at North Carolina State and formerly served as Director of the Alan K. Campbell Public Affairs Institute at Syracuse University. She is on the board of the International Research Society for Public Management, and formerly served on the board of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action and as the Division Chair for the Public and Nonprofit Division of the Academy of Management. Angelina W.K. Yuen-Tsang is Head of the Department of Applied Social Sciences and Associate Vice-President of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University where she has served since 1986. Her research interests and areas of specialism are mainly on social support networks and community care, social work education, social work practice in China, corporate social respon- sibility, and occupational social work. In recent years, her research focus has been on the indigenization of social work education and practice in the Chinese Mainland. She is a key player in social work education in the international arena. She has been President of the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW) since July 2008. 5419-Bevir-FM..indd xv 9/15/2010 5:37:13 PM 5419-Bevir-FM..indd xvi 9/15/2010 5:37:13 PM  1 Governance as Theory, Practice, and Dilemma Mark Bevir The word ‘governance’ is ubiquitous. The on markets and networks. The new theories, World Bank and the International Monetary practices, and dilemmas of governance are Fund make loans conditional on ‘good combined in concrete activity. The theories governance’. Climate change and avian flu inspire people to act in ways that help give appear as issues of ‘global governance’. The rise to new practices and dilemmas. The European Union issues a White Paper on practices create dilemmas and encourage ‘Governance’. The US Forest Service calls attempts to comprehend them in theoretical for ‘collaborative governance’. What accounts terms. The dilemmas require new theoretical for the pervasive use of the term ‘governance’ reflection and practical activity if they are to and to what does it refer? Current scholarship be adequately addressed. offers a bewildering set of answers. The word ‘governance’ appears in diverse academic disciplines including development studies, economics, geography, international relations, SCOPE AND ORGANIZATION planning, political science, public administra- tion, and sociology. Each discipline some- The Handbook of Governance reflects the times acts as if it owns the word and has no breadth of a concept of governance as all of need to engage with the others. Too little theory, practice, and dilemma. Governance in attention is given to ways of making sense of all these different guises stands in contrast to the whole literature on governance. elder concepts of the state as monolithic and At the most general level, governance formal. For a start, theories of governance refers to theories and issues of social coordi- typically open up the black box of the state. nation and the nature of all patterns of rule. Policy network theory, rational choice theory, More specifically, governance refers to vari- and interpretive theory undermine reified ous new theories and practices of governing concepts of the state as a monolithic entity, and the dilemmas to which they give rise. interest, or actor. These theories draw atten- These new theories, practices, and dilemmas tion to the processes and interactions through place less emphasis than did their predeces- which all kinds of social interests and actors sors on hierarchy and the state, and more combine to produce the policies, practices, 5419-Bevir-Chap-01.indd 1 7/17/2010 2:10:12 PM  2 THEORIES OF GOVERNANCE and effects that define current patterns of give parents greater choice (charter schools, governing. In addition, the relationship of voucher systems). state and society changed significantly in Another distinctive feature of governance the late twentieth century. New practices of is that it is multijurisdictional and often tran- governance find political actors increasingly snational. Current patterns of governance constrained by mobilized and organized combine people and institutions across dif- elements in society. States and international ferent policy sectors and different levels organizations increasingly share the activity of government (local, regional, national, and of governing with societal actors, including international). Examples include varied private firms, non-governmental organiza- efforts to regulate food standards and safety. tions, and non-profit service providers. The International food safety standards are set in new relationship between state and society Rome by Codex Alimentarius – a joint body admits of considerable variation, but it is an of the World Health Organization and the international phenomenon. New practices of United Nation’s Food and Agriculture governance extend across the developed and Organization; however, if the USA imports developing world, and they are prominent fish from China, the presumption is that among strategies to regulate transnational Chinese officials at the national and local flows and govern the global commons. level enforce these standards. The practice of Finally, current public problems rarely fall regulating food safety operates simultane- neatly in the jurisdictions of specific agen- ously at international, national, and local cies or even states. Governance thus poses levels. dilemmas that require new governing strate- A third distinctive feature of governance gies to span jurisdictions, link people across is the increasing range and plurality of levels of government, and mobilize a variety stakeholders. Interest groups of various sorts of stakeholders. have long been present in the policymaking Governance draws attention to the com- process. Nonetheless, a wider variety of non- plex processes and interactions that consti- governmental organizations are becoming tute patterns of rule. It replaces a focus on the active participants in governing. One reason formal institutions of states and governments for the pluralization of stakeholders is an with recognition of the diverse activities that explosion of advocacy groups during the last often blur the boundary of state and society. third of the twentieth century. Another reason Governance as theory, practice, and dilemma is the increasing use of third-party organiza- highlights phenomena that are hybrid and tions to deliver state services. Arguably, yet multijurisdictional with plural stakeholders another reason is the expansion of philan- who come together in networks. thropists and philanthropic organizations, Many of the ideas, activities, and designs both of which are becoming as prominent of governance appear unconventional. A dis- as they were in the nineteenth century. For tinctive feature of the new governance is that it example, the Gates Foundation has both combines established administrative arrange- mounted a multicity effort to reform urban ments with features of the market. Governance school districts and embarked on a massive arrangements are often hybrid practices, com- public health campaign in developing coun- bining administrative systems with market tries. The increasing range and variety of mechanisms and non-profit organizations. stakeholders has led to the emergence and Novel forms of mixed public–private or active promotion of new practices and insti- entirely private forms of regulation are devel- tutional designs, including public–private oping. For example, school reform often now partnerships and collaborative governance. combines elder administrative arrangements Yet another distinguishing feature of (school districts, ministries of education) governance reflects and responds to the fact with quasi-market strategies that are meant to that governing is an increasingly hybrid, 5419-Bevir-Chap-01.indd 2 7/17/2010 2:10:12 PM  GOVERNANCE AS THEORY, PRACTICE, AND DILEMMA 3 multijurisdictional, and plural phenomenon. of that topic to the theories, practices, and Scholars have called attention to the way that dilemmas of governance. For example, the governing arrangements, different levels of chapters in the first section on theories of governance, and multiple stakeholders are governance concentrate on how these theo- linked together in networks. Environmental ries illuminate new practices of governance scientists have shown how natural areas like and/or how they have been modified in watersheds or estuaries are often governed response to the dilemmas posed by the new by networks of stakeholders and government governance. agencies. Scholars of urban politics have The very organization of the Handbook of called attention to the way urban, suburban, Governance reflects an emphasis on the con- and exurban areas get organized in broader nections between governance as theory, prac- regional networks. International relations tice, and dilemma. Few scholars sufficiently scholars have noted the increasing promi- recognize the extent to which the new gov- nence of inter-ministerial networks as ways ernance is a product of new formal and folk of governing the global commons. More theories that led people to see and act differ- recently, policymakers, often influenced by ently. The first section of the Handbook theories from the social sciences, have begun focuses on those theories in the social sci- actively to foster networks in the belief that ences that arose and prospered in the twenti- they provide a uniquely appropriate institu- eth century, transforming our understanding tional design with which to grapple with of society and politics. Many of these theo- the new governance. Joined-up governance ries challenged the older idea of the state as a and whole-of-government approaches are natural and unified expression of a nation widespread in states such as Australia and based on common ethnic, cultural, and lin- Britain, in policy sectors such as Homeland guistic ties and possessing a common good. Security, and in transnational and interna- Many of them made people more aware of tional efforts to address problems such as the role of pressure groups, self-interest, and failed states. social networks in the policy process. Later, So, the Handbook of Governance concen- toward the end of the twentieth century, some trates on the theories, practices, and dilem- of these theories then inspired attempts to mas associated with recognition of the extent reform the public sector and develop new to which governing processes are hybrid and policy instruments. Certainly, the new public multijurisdictional, linking plural stakehold- management owed a debt to rational choice ers in complex networks. A concern with the and especially principal–agent theory, while new theories, practices, and dilemmas of joined-up governance drew on developments governance informs the main themes that in organizational and institutional theory. recur throughout the individual chapters. The The second section of the Handbook exam- contributors generally focus on: ines the changing practices of governance. Public sector reforms have transformed prac- The new theories of coordination that have drawn tices of governance across diverse levels and attention to the presence or possibility of markets in diverse territories. The reforms have given and networks as means of coordination. rise to complex new practices that rarely cor- The new practices of rule that have risen since respond to the intentions of the reformers. the 1970s, especially the apparent growth of markets and networks. What does the state now look like? What role The dilemmas of managing and reforming hybrid do non-governmental organizations play in patterns of rule that combine aspects of market, the formation and implementation of policies network, and hierarchy. and the delivery of services? The final sec- tion of the Handbook explores some of the Even when a chapter title refers to a broader dilemmas that this new governance poses for topic, the essay itself focuses on the relation practitioners. 5419-Bevir-Chap-01.indd 3 7/17/2010 2:10:13 PM  4 THEORIES OF GOVERNANCE GOVERNANCE AS THEORY impacts governance. Policy network theory rose out of an earlier pluralism, with its The twentieth century witnessed the rise of attempts to disaggregate the state and focus all kinds of new, and often formal, approaches on groups. Some policy network theorists to social science. These theories led people to have recently adopted anti-foundational, see the world differently and then to remake nominalist perspectives that have led them the world. No doubt few people bother to to pay more attention to meanings and to think about social life in terms of the formal decenter even the concept of a group. models of rational choice. But a folk recogni- Networks appear as undifferentiated parts of tion of the largely self-interested nature of a social life characterized by contests of action, even the action of public officials, belief as they inform diverse actions. Enroth spread far more widely. Moreover, as it presses forward with this nominalist perspec- spread, so political actors increasingly tried tive, asking how it modifies our grasp of to introduce reforms to deal with self-interest interdependence, coordination, and pluralism. – to mitigate its adverse consequences, to The dramatic rise of rational choice theory regulate it and keep it within limits, or to har- provided another powerful challenge to elder, ness it to improve efficiency. In this way, new reified concepts of the state. In Chapter 3, theories inspired both the recognition and the Keith Dowding discusses the ways rational active formation of apparently new features choice influenced both the understanding of governance. Equally, of course, social sci- and practice of governance. Rational choice ence theories have often struggled to catch theory is an organizing perspective or meth- up with some of the apparently improvised odology that builds models of how people changes in governance. The reader might would act if they did so in accord with prefer- even want mentally to rearrange the Handbook ences having a certain formal structure. This to trace a progression not from theoretical perspective gave rise to theories about the innovations to the practices these theories non-predictability of politics, the problems inspired, but from the rise of the new govern- of commitment, the hazards of principal– ance to attempts to comprehend it in theo- agent relations, and conflicts in democracies. retical terms; that is from Sections III and II Dowding shows how these rational choice to I, rather than from I to II and III. theories inspired worries about the welfare So, the chapters in Section I on theories of state. Public choice in particular then inspired governance play a dual role: on the one hand, some of the managerial reforms associated they introduce the reader to some of the gen- with the new governance. Interestingly, eral ways of thinking that have helped to Dowding also suggests that rational choice inspire the recognition and formation of the provides a critical perspective on just those new governance; on the other, they show how reforms. Contemporary practices of govern- theories that may have been designed for ance rely too greatly on the superficial other uses have since been modified to support public choice theory gave to choice accommodate the new governance. and markets. Policy actors should pay more Pluralists have long challenged reified attention to rational choice analyses of the concepts of the state. Empirically they point chaos and instability associated with weak to the complex interactions, processes, and institutions. networks that contribute to governing. In Chapter 4 looks at interpretive theories of addition, more radical and normative plural- governance. Interpretive theories reject the ists challenge mainstream concepts of sover- lingering positivism of most other approaches eignty and argue for a greater dispersal of to governance. Social life is inherently mean- authority to diverse social organizations. ingful. People are intentional agents capable In Chapter 2, Henrik Enroth discusses the of acting for reasons. Indeed, social scientists pluralism of policy network theory as it cannot properly grasp or explain actions 5419-Bevir-Chap-01.indd 4 7/17/2010 2:10:13 PM  GOVERNANCE AS THEORY, PRACTICE, AND DILEMMA 5 apart from in relation to the beliefs of the Voluntaristic macro-level theories focus on actors. Many interpretive theorists conclude collective action. that social explanations necessarily involve In Chapter 6, Guy Peters discusses three recovering beliefs and locating them in the institutionalist theories of governance. context of the wider webs of meaning of Normative institutionalism focuses on the which they are a part. Governmentality, post- role of values, symbols, and myths in defin- Marxism, and social humanism all share a ing appropriate actions for individuals and concern with meanings and their contexts. thereby shaping institutions. Rational choice Typically, these interpretive theories lead to institutionalism uses the assumptions of a more decentered view of governance. rational choice theory to understand institu- Governance consists of contingent practices tions and to design better ones. Historical that emerge from the competing actions and institutionalism stresses the persistence of beliefs of different people responding to path-dependent rules and modes of behavior. various dilemmas against the background of Institutionalists have pondered the dilemmas conflicting traditions. Similarly, interpretive of entrenching the new governance that theory often challenges the idea of a set of increasingly relies on networks to link public tools for managing governance. Interpretive sector and other actors. They have drawn theorists are more likely to appeal to story- attention to the importance of institutional- telling. Practitioners orientate themselves to izing a new network by developing its culture the world by discussing illustrative cases and and inner functioning. And they have high- past experiences. They use stories to explore lighted the need for a new network to develop various possible actions and how they might effective relationships with its political envi- lead the future to unfold. ronment. Institutionalists have also tried Robert Christensen and Mary Tschirhart to explain the rise of the new governance. look, in Chapter 5, at organization theory. Institutions can be treated here as dependent They distinguish four broad categories of or independent variables. Typically, as depend- organizational theories, depending on whether ent variables, institutions appear as, for exam- they concern the micro or macro level and ple, responses to dilemmas and challenges whether they are deterministic or volunt- in a changing environment. As independent aristic. Micro-level theories concentrate on variables, different institutions might help individual organizations. Voluntaristic micro- explain, for example, varied patterns of gov- level theories focus on strategic choices. They ernance, decision-making, and even good treat action as constructed, autonomous, and decisions. Yet Peters argues that a fuller enacted. They generally explain the behavior account of how institutions explain aspects of an organization in terms that echo the of governance must evoke a micro theory micro-level views of rational choice and such as that associated with either rational interpretive theory as examined in the previ- choice or interpretive theory. ous two chapters. In contrast, other forms Anders Esmark uses Chapter 7 to discuss of organizational theory either avoid clear systems theory. Systems theorists conceive micro-level assumptions or take a much of coordination as a property of systems. more deterministic view of behavior. These General systems theory explores the abstract forms of organizational theory overlap with principles of organized complexity, asking the institutional and systems theories consid- how systems produce or exhibit order and ered in the next two chapters. Deterministic coordination at the level of the whole. Social micro-level theories inspire system-structural systems theory uses the language and ideas views. Macro-level approaches concentrate of general systems theory to study interac- on populations or communities of organiza- tions, organizations, and societies. Typically, tions. The more deterministic macro-level systems theorists locate the rise of the new theories take a natural selection view. governance within a more general narrative 5419-Bevir-Chap-01.indd 5 7/17/2010 2:10:13 PM  6 THEORIES OF GOVERNANCE about modernity. Modernity consists of Work on governance often shows how the increased functional differentiation: over state now rules with and through social time, society increasingly develops discrete actors. Sometimes it also presents a disag- organizations to fulfill ever more specialized gregated image of the state as composed of functions. The new governance of markets diverse actors, meanings, and practices across and networks consists of ever increasingly various spatial and functional domains. specialized and differentiated organizations Sellers then draws attention to some new performing discrete tasks. These specialized analyses of state–society relations associated organizations are often autopoietic or self- with the study of governance. Analyses of the governing. Systems theory characteristically state often highlight local, multilevel, and explores issues of metagovernance, such as if transnational practices. Analyses of society it is possible to govern these self-governing often rely on a bottom-up perspective that organizations, how states try to do so, and highlights the agency of social groups in how we might do so. community initiatives and the way firms and In Chapter 8, Bob Jessop argues that the other groups treat the state as a resource. So, theory and practice of metagovernance the interactions between state and society are emerged as a response to governance failure. increasingly complex and diverse. Instead The failings of hierarchy led to public sector of the older dichotomy between state and reforms intended to advance marketization. society, studies of the new governance high- The failings of these reforms then led to an light issues such as subnational and sectoral expansion of networks. But networks too variation, multilevel and transnational con- fail, especially if communication among figurations, the impact of specific institutions the relevant actors is distorted. So, on one and policy instruments, and the feedback level, metagovernance consists of appropri- effects of policy outcomes. ate responses to the characteristic failings of In Chapter 10, Patrick Le Galès explores the different modes of governance. It responds policy instruments. Policy instruments are to bureaucratic failure with meta-control the techniques or mechanisms by which and meta-coordination, to market failure actors seek to rule. The new governance con- with meta-exchange, and to network failure sists of a shift in policy instruments away with meta-heterarchy. On another level, how- from planning and command and control ever, metagovernance involves rearticulating towards contractual relations, standards, per- the nature and balance of different modes of formance indicators, and regulation. Work on governance. It relies on institutional design governance often traces this shift in policy and the governmentality of subjectivities to instruments, or advocates specific policy create and sustain particular modes of gov- instruments as solutions to current dilemmas. ernance. Jessop concludes by suggesting that Much of it treats policy instruments as natu- metagovernance itself is necessarily incom- ral, debating their relative effectiveness under plete and subject to failure. Policy actors varied circumstances. In contrast, Le Galès should adopt a satisfying approach, deliber- highlights a broader sociological approach to ately cultivating a flexible set of responses, a policy instruments. Max Weber, Michel critical self-reflexive awareness of their goals Foucault, and other social theorists have long and projects, and a willingness to aim at suc- interested themselves in the nature, causes, cess while knowing failure is more likely. and effects of rationalities and technologies Jeff Sellers looks at governance in the con- of governing. Policy instruments are techni- text of state–society relations in Chapter 9. cal means of organizing social relations by The new governance poses dilemmas for entrenching meanings, beliefs, and knowl- older approaches that treat state and society edge. For example, legislative and regulatory as mutually exclusive categories and the state instruments generally promote the relations in particular as monolithic and integrated. associated with a guardian state, economic 5419-Bevir-Chap-01.indd 6 7/17/2010 2:10:13 PM  GOVERNANCE AS THEORY, PRACTICE, AND DILEMMA 7 and fiscal instruments entrench a redistribu- Freedom House’s Gastil index, Polity Project’s tive state, and incentive-based instruments approach to constitutional democracy, and promote a mobilizing state. New rationalities the World Bank’s own governance indicators. and technologies inform new practices of One way to assess these elite measurements governance. is to compare them with independently-gen- Phyllis Pomerantz devotes Chapter 11 to erated measurements including mass public debates on governance in development opinion polls. Norris herself compares them theory. Governance often refers to the rise of with citizen’s opinions as revealed by the markets and networks in the public sector. World Values Survey 2005–7. She concludes The contrast is between bureaucratic or hier- by advocating a pluralist recognition that archic institutions and governance conceived different measurements may be suited to as markets and networks. Development theo- different purposes. rists use governance somewhat differently to discuss the importance of political institu- tions for economic growth, where these political institutions include older forms of GOVERNANCE AS PRACTICE the state as well as networks. Their contrast is between the market and governance con- Theories have little meaning apart from prac- ceived as political institutions. As Pomerantz tices. Typically, theories are attempts to make shows, discussions of governance reflect sense of practices, and guides to the actions a consensus that development depends on by which we forge practices. Section II state and market, not just market. The key explores governance as practice. New public theoretical innovation here was the new sector reforms and patterns of rule have been institutional economics. Neoliberalism, the the main topics of discussion in works on Washington Consensus, and structural adjust- governance. They have inspired the shifts in ment created new practices, but these prac- theorizing explored in Section I. Equally, tices failed to deliver the intended prosperity. however, the reforms and resulting patterns The new institutional economics helped of rule emerged in part precisely because explain this failure by highlighting the impor- people acted on beliefs such as those associ- tance of political institutions to growth ated with rational choice theory. Scholars and even the proper operation of markets. have noted the role of neoclassical econom- Governance thus emerged as a development ics in inspiring the greater reliance on market agenda based on promoting things such as structures, and the role of principal–agent the rule of law, government capacity, decen- theory in inspiring aspects of the new public tralization, accountability, and democracy. management. Yet many of the beliefs and Increasingly public sector reforms are traditions embedded in the reforms are less responsive to governance indicators. Pippa formal and less tied to grand theories or Norris discusses the theory and practice of schemes. Folk versions of the new theories measuring democratic governance in Chapter appeared in business and other areas of soci- 12. Governance indicators should be valid, ety, inspiring new practices and ad hoc reliable, and legitimate. Validity depends on responses to all kinds of issues, and public their accurately reflecting the concepts to sector reform often then borrowed piecemeal which they relate. Reliability requires that from these other areas of society. Reformers they are consistent and that they use replica- appeared to be (and perhaps felt themselves ble data sources. Legitimacy depends on to be) less driven by a clear set of theoretical their construction being transparent and done commitments than groping for plausible with the involvement of relevant stakehold- responses to apparently new constraints and ers. Norris then looks at the leading measure- dilemmas. Nonetheless, of course, their con- ments of democratic governance, including ception of the constraints and dilemmas, 5419-Bevir-Chap-01.indd 7 7/17/2010 2:10:13 PM  8 THEORIES OF GOVERNANCE their instincts as to what did and did not same old ends. The state concentrates now on constitute an appropriate response, and the metagovernance – an umbrella concept that examples found in other areas of society all describes the characteristic role and policy reflected their prior theories. instruments of the state in contemporary Much of the current interest in the idea of governance. Rhodes and I then go on to a new governance stems from the impact challenge these first two waves of govern- of public sector reforms since the 1980s. ance by appealing to a third wave, based on Neoliberal reforms spread markets and new interpretive theory. We argue governance is managerial practices, fragmenting service constructed differently by many actors delivery, and creating quasi-markets and working against the background of diverse hybrid organizations. Later reforms have traditions. We challenge the state as a often been attempts to address the dilemmas bewitching reification that simplifies and thrown up by marketization and managerial- obscures the diversity and contingency of ism without returning to an elder hierarchic concrete political activity. bureaucracy. The chapters in Section II typi- In Chapter 14, Laurence Lynn discusses cally explore the nature, extent, diversity, and the persistence of hierarchy. Whereas there consequences of these varied public sector have been changes in the state, we should be reforms. cautious of overstating the extent to which Public sector reforms have given rise to a new practices of governance have spread or host of new designs and practices – from even the extent to which when they spread privatization through public–private partner- they displace older hierarchic structures. As ships to global public policy networks. The Lynn shows, discussions of new practices spread of these practices inspires questions often draw heavily on the spread of new about the relationship between state and soci- theories about markets, networks, delibera- ety. Some scholars see new governance as a tive democracy, and e-governance. These result or a cause of the decline of the state. theories generally combine conceptual, Others see it as an adaptation of the state to empirical, and normative elements. Empirical increasing societal complexity. What is the claims about changes need to be distin- scope and limits of the state’s authority? guished from conceptual arguments about What role does the voluntary sector play? the nature of governance. The empirical evi- How does governance occur in areas where dence offers a kaleidoscopic picture of the state lacks effective control or where diverse practices changing in complex and there is no state? contested ways. It offers little support to Together with Rod Rhodes, I review the grand claims about a social logic driving changing state in Chapter 13. We trace three a more or less uniform transformation in waves of governance and the oscillating for- governance. Hierarchy remains pervasive, tunes of the state therein. The first wave of not only in bureaucratic institutions but also governance evoked a world in which state within newer institutional forms. Hierarchy power is dispersed among a vast array of persists in part because of its importance for spatially and functionally distinct networks accountability and so liberal representative composed of all kinds of public, voluntary, democracy. and private organizations with which the Steven Cohen and William Eimicke dis- center interacts. The state appeared to be cuss contracting out in Chapter 15. There is being hollowed out. The second wave of gov- nothing intrinsically new about public sector ernance accepted the shift from bureaucracy organizations entering contracts with non- to markets and networks but disputed it led to governmental actors. However, the dramatic any significant dispersal of state authority. spread of contracting out is one of the most The state has simply changed the way it exer- noticed features of the new governance. The cises its authority, adopting new tools for the new governance has seen contracting out 5419-Bevir-Chap-01.indd 8 7/17/2010 2:10:13 PM  GOVERNANCE AS THEORY, PRACTICE, AND DILEMMA 9 arise not only as a means of delivering serv- Anthony Cheung looks specifically at ices but also as a means of building complex budgeting and finance in Chapter 17. Cheung networks of actors. Contracting out can traces the rise of new practices, from the enable public sector organizations to get program planning budgeting system favored goods, services, and expertise that their in- by many Keynesian welfare states in the house staff cannot provide. However, as 1960s and 1970s to cutback management in Cohen and Eimicke argue, the spread of con- the 1980s and budgeting for results since tracting out reflected the rise of ideologies and the 1990s. The new practices were responses theories that were overtly anti-government to a range of dilemmas that preoccupied and pro-market. Contracting out is also a policy actors in the 1970s: dilemmas such response to dilemmas associated with infor- as fiscal stress, declining production, and mation technology, flexible production, and government overload. The main features of globalization. The spread of contracting now, the reforms included devolution of authority, in turn, poses dilemmas for the theory and on-line budgets, freedom to manage, central practice of governance. Here Cohen and targets, multi-year budgeting, public service Eimicke consider the dilemmas of eliciting agreements, and, of course, various forms of bids, framing contracts in suitable language, commercialization such as contracting out monitoring and managing performance, and and user charging. Cheung traces the pattern maintaining ethical standards and clear lines of reform across OECD and Asian states. The of accountability. reforms were bold, but implementing them Chapter 16 turns to public management. proved difficult. In practice, budgetary deci- Carolyn Heinrich begins by discussing the sions are often divorced from performance gradual and confused emergence of a distinc- evaluation and so dominated by political bar- tion between public administration and public gaining, central budgeting agencies have management. Public management reflects often tried to retain control thereby thwarting the impact of new theories highlighting the devolution, and legislative scrutiny remains informal processes and activities in organiza- focused on inputs. Hybrid budgeting regimes tions. Public management is the process of now cloak older forms of central control, allocating and using public resources. The concerns with distributional effects, and study of public management recognizes the fiscal stability in managerialist garb. enduring importance of laws and structures, Like contracting out, public–private part- but it also examines informal cultures and nerships transform the interplay between the craft or skilled practice by which cul- the state, business, and civil society. In tures, processes, and structures are steered. Chapter 18, Gunnar Schuppert explains that In many ways, governance draws on this shift these partnerships rely on horizontal modes toward public management. In particular, the of cooperation for the collaborative provision new public management (NPM) encouraged on public services. Typically, partnerships new practices of governance. NPM tried to differ from contracting out in that they make the culture of the public sector more embody joint decision-making and produc- like that of private companies by changing tion, not