Summary literature Institutional Perspectives: Territorial
governance by State, Market and Civil Society (MAN-MPL-
022)
1. Rhodes (2012) Waves of Governance.................................................................................................2
2. Stoker (2019) Governance as theory: five propositions......................................................................5
3. Steurer (2013) Distangling governance: a synoptic view of regulation by government, business and
civil society.............................................................................................................................................8
4. Alexander (2002) The public interest in planning: from legitimation to substantive plan evaluation
..............................................................................................................................................................13
5. Beer, Bartley & Roberts (2012) NGOS: Between advocacy, service provision and regulation..........15
6. Middlemiss & Parrish (2010) Building capacity for low-carbon communities: the role of grassroots
initiatives..............................................................................................................................................19
7. Yandle (2003) The challenge of building successful stakeholder organizations: new Zealand’s
experience in developing a fisheries co-management regime.............................................................21
8. Richardson (2012) New governance or old governance? A policy style perspective........................23
9. Mintrom & Norman (2009) Policy entrepreneurship and policy change..........................................25
10. Fischer (2012) Participatory governance: From theory to practice................................................27
11. Emerson, Nabatchi & Balogh (2011): An integrated framework for collaborative governance......30
12. Wijaya, Glasbergen, Leroy & Darmastuti (2018) Governance challenges of cocoa partnerships
projects in Indonesia; seeking synergy in multi-stakeholder arrangements for sustainable agriculture
..............................................................................................................................................................32
13. Meadowcroft (2007) Who is in charge here? Governance for Sustainable Development in a
Complex World.....................................................................................................................................34
14. Geels & Schot (2007) Typology of sociotechnical transition pathways..........................................36
15. Mazzucato (2019) Governing missions in the European Union......................................................42
16. Needham Chapter 2........................................................................................................................50
17. Needham Chapter 4: The economic language: making good use of scarce resources...................52
1
, 1. Rhodes (2012) Waves of Governance
There has been a change in the pattern an exercise of state authority from government to
governance - from hierarchic or bureaucratic state to governance in and by networks. There are
three waves in the governance literature, including
- Network governance
- Meta-governance
- Interpretive governance
This research concludes that network governance and meta-governance face an intellectual crisis and
that there is a growing need for alternative ways of conceptualizing the institutions, actors, and
processes of change in government.
Governance signifies a change in the meaning of government, referring to new processes of
governing, or changed conditions of order rule or new methods by which society is governed.
Governance mean the changing boundaries between public, private and voluntary sectors and the
changing role of the state.
1. Network governance
Network governance evokes a world in which state power is dispersed among a vast array of spatially
and functionally distinct networks composed of all kinds of public, voluntary and private
organisations with which the centre now interacts.
Network governance has four phases
1. Provides a modernist-empiricist description of public sector change, with the increased
fragmentation of the 1980s and the search for better coordination of the 1990s
2. Offers an interpretation or explanation of government change. A shift from hierarchic
government to governance through networks as a consequence of modernization
3. Offers policy advice to public managers on how to best steer networks and work
collaboratively
4. Offers prescriptions on democratic governance, how networks and governance could
increase participation
Example of network governance: Anglo-governance school
Starts with policy networks and sets of organizations clustered around a major government function
or department. In many policy areas actors are interdependent and rules of the game must be
negotiated and agreed by the participants. Governance refers to governing with and through
networks. Characteristics of networks are interdependence and trust.
Fragmentation confounding centralizations and coordination as a segmented executive that seeks to
improve horizontal coordination among departments and agencies and vertical coordination between
departments and their networks of organizations.
2. Meta-governance
During network governance the state reasserted its capacity to govern by regulating the mix of
governing structures such as markets and networks and deploying indirect instruments of control.
2
,The wave of meta-governance refers to the role of the state in securing coordination in governance
and its use of negotiation, diplomacy and more informal modes of steering. It shares a concern with
the varied ways in which the state now steers organizations, government and networks rather dan
directly providing services through state bureaucracies.
These other organizations undertake much of the work of governing, for example they implement
policies, provide public services and even regulate themselves.
There are several ways in which the state can steer the other actors involved in governance.
1. The state can set the rules of the game for other actors
2. The state can steer other actors using storytelling such as organize dialogues, beliefs and
identities
3. The state can steer by distributing resources such as money and authority
Example of meta-governance
Agencies sought to increase their capacity for meta-governance through three things:
- Joined-up government
Sought policy instruments that both horizontally across central government departments and
vertically between central and local government and the voluntary sector.
- Financial levers of public service agreements to get power in departments
- Increasement of prime minister’s capacity to achieve effective meta-governance over the
rest of the government
The first two phases of governance share common features.
1.Proponents of meta-governance take for granted the characteristics of network governance put in
place (not only the state is sovereign authority but multiple actors) and meta-governance profits
from that
2.Analysis of meta-governance not only recognizes non-state actors by granting them power in the
sort of self-regulation, but also distinguishes them from the state which creates space for the state to
exert control over that self-regulation.
The state governs the other actors involved in their governance. Both provide advice on network
governance and assume that the role of the state is to manage, directly and indirectly, the networks
of service delivery.
3.Both narratives rely on a reified notion of structure. Both claim that the state is a material object, a
structure.
If the structure emerges from actions, so if all relevant people change their actions, they will stop
producing that structure, so change it. Emergent structures can be understood as practices, what a
bundle of people do and the unintended consequences of these actions.
1. The interpretive (changing) state
An interpretive account of governance represents a shift from institutions to meanings in actions.
Shifting patterns of governance by focusing on the actors’ own interpretations of their beliefs and
3
, practices. It explores the diverse ways in which situated agents are changing the boundaries of state
and civil society. The contingency and contestability of narratives. A diverse view of the state
authority and its exercise.
First wave focusses on issues such as the objective characteristics of policy networks, power-
dependence as the relationship between networks and policy outcomes.
Second wave focuses on the mix of governing structures such as markets and networks and various
instruments of control, such as changing the rules of the game, storytelling and changing the
distributions of resources.
Third wave (interpretive approach) focuses on the social construction of patterns of rule through the
ability of individuals to create meanings in action. It highlights the importance of beliefs, practices,
traditions and dilemmas for the changing state.
If a system fails, people will have different views about this fail. These perception of failing is
compared with their own beliefs and interpretations including traditions. This causes dilemmas (fail
vs traditional thoughts) which results in a political contest which results in a reform of governance.
There is always a complex and continuous process of interpretation, conflict and activity that
produces ever-changing patterns of rule, also for the government and its governance at the time.
The interpretive approach encourages to adopt narrative explanations and not only objective
descriptive of social processes. It all depends on the conditional connections between beliefs, desires
and actions.
An example of interpretive governance
The three R’s: Rule, Rationality and Resistance.
Interpretive theory suggests that under rule political scientists should ask what traditions to
construct their narratives about, their place within in and their interests and values. It draws
attention to the varied rationalities that inform policies across different policy arenas. Furthermore,
politics and policies do not arise only from strategies and interactors of elites. Other actors can resist,
transform the agendas of elites (for example street-level bureaucrats are important).
Conclusions
Network governance was the story of the changing state where the shift from hierarchy to markets
to networks has arisen. It reduces the diversity of governance to modernization, institutional norms
or a set of classifications across networks. Meta-governance reinvents the state’s capacity to control.
It argues for a top-down narrative of state regulation and control. But there is no logical or structural
process determining the form of network governance or the role of the ‘’central-state’’ in meta-
governance. The intrinsic rationality of markets, the path dependency of institutions and the state’s
toolkit for managing both governing structure and networks do not explain patterns of governance
and how they change. The interpretive approach is about the changing state that shows how
governance arises from the bottom up as conflicting beliefs, competing traditions and varied
dilemmas cause diverse practices. It replaces concepts such as state, institution, power and
governance with narratives that explain these concepts compared to the beliefs and practices of
individual actors. In short, an interpretive approach seeks to put the people back into governance.
4
governance by State, Market and Civil Society (MAN-MPL-
022)
1. Rhodes (2012) Waves of Governance.................................................................................................2
2. Stoker (2019) Governance as theory: five propositions......................................................................5
3. Steurer (2013) Distangling governance: a synoptic view of regulation by government, business and
civil society.............................................................................................................................................8
4. Alexander (2002) The public interest in planning: from legitimation to substantive plan evaluation
..............................................................................................................................................................13
5. Beer, Bartley & Roberts (2012) NGOS: Between advocacy, service provision and regulation..........15
6. Middlemiss & Parrish (2010) Building capacity for low-carbon communities: the role of grassroots
initiatives..............................................................................................................................................19
7. Yandle (2003) The challenge of building successful stakeholder organizations: new Zealand’s
experience in developing a fisheries co-management regime.............................................................21
8. Richardson (2012) New governance or old governance? A policy style perspective........................23
9. Mintrom & Norman (2009) Policy entrepreneurship and policy change..........................................25
10. Fischer (2012) Participatory governance: From theory to practice................................................27
11. Emerson, Nabatchi & Balogh (2011): An integrated framework for collaborative governance......30
12. Wijaya, Glasbergen, Leroy & Darmastuti (2018) Governance challenges of cocoa partnerships
projects in Indonesia; seeking synergy in multi-stakeholder arrangements for sustainable agriculture
..............................................................................................................................................................32
13. Meadowcroft (2007) Who is in charge here? Governance for Sustainable Development in a
Complex World.....................................................................................................................................34
14. Geels & Schot (2007) Typology of sociotechnical transition pathways..........................................36
15. Mazzucato (2019) Governing missions in the European Union......................................................42
16. Needham Chapter 2........................................................................................................................50
17. Needham Chapter 4: The economic language: making good use of scarce resources...................52
1
, 1. Rhodes (2012) Waves of Governance
There has been a change in the pattern an exercise of state authority from government to
governance - from hierarchic or bureaucratic state to governance in and by networks. There are
three waves in the governance literature, including
- Network governance
- Meta-governance
- Interpretive governance
This research concludes that network governance and meta-governance face an intellectual crisis and
that there is a growing need for alternative ways of conceptualizing the institutions, actors, and
processes of change in government.
Governance signifies a change in the meaning of government, referring to new processes of
governing, or changed conditions of order rule or new methods by which society is governed.
Governance mean the changing boundaries between public, private and voluntary sectors and the
changing role of the state.
1. Network governance
Network governance evokes a world in which state power is dispersed among a vast array of spatially
and functionally distinct networks composed of all kinds of public, voluntary and private
organisations with which the centre now interacts.
Network governance has four phases
1. Provides a modernist-empiricist description of public sector change, with the increased
fragmentation of the 1980s and the search for better coordination of the 1990s
2. Offers an interpretation or explanation of government change. A shift from hierarchic
government to governance through networks as a consequence of modernization
3. Offers policy advice to public managers on how to best steer networks and work
collaboratively
4. Offers prescriptions on democratic governance, how networks and governance could
increase participation
Example of network governance: Anglo-governance school
Starts with policy networks and sets of organizations clustered around a major government function
or department. In many policy areas actors are interdependent and rules of the game must be
negotiated and agreed by the participants. Governance refers to governing with and through
networks. Characteristics of networks are interdependence and trust.
Fragmentation confounding centralizations and coordination as a segmented executive that seeks to
improve horizontal coordination among departments and agencies and vertical coordination between
departments and their networks of organizations.
2. Meta-governance
During network governance the state reasserted its capacity to govern by regulating the mix of
governing structures such as markets and networks and deploying indirect instruments of control.
2
,The wave of meta-governance refers to the role of the state in securing coordination in governance
and its use of negotiation, diplomacy and more informal modes of steering. It shares a concern with
the varied ways in which the state now steers organizations, government and networks rather dan
directly providing services through state bureaucracies.
These other organizations undertake much of the work of governing, for example they implement
policies, provide public services and even regulate themselves.
There are several ways in which the state can steer the other actors involved in governance.
1. The state can set the rules of the game for other actors
2. The state can steer other actors using storytelling such as organize dialogues, beliefs and
identities
3. The state can steer by distributing resources such as money and authority
Example of meta-governance
Agencies sought to increase their capacity for meta-governance through three things:
- Joined-up government
Sought policy instruments that both horizontally across central government departments and
vertically between central and local government and the voluntary sector.
- Financial levers of public service agreements to get power in departments
- Increasement of prime minister’s capacity to achieve effective meta-governance over the
rest of the government
The first two phases of governance share common features.
1.Proponents of meta-governance take for granted the characteristics of network governance put in
place (not only the state is sovereign authority but multiple actors) and meta-governance profits
from that
2.Analysis of meta-governance not only recognizes non-state actors by granting them power in the
sort of self-regulation, but also distinguishes them from the state which creates space for the state to
exert control over that self-regulation.
The state governs the other actors involved in their governance. Both provide advice on network
governance and assume that the role of the state is to manage, directly and indirectly, the networks
of service delivery.
3.Both narratives rely on a reified notion of structure. Both claim that the state is a material object, a
structure.
If the structure emerges from actions, so if all relevant people change their actions, they will stop
producing that structure, so change it. Emergent structures can be understood as practices, what a
bundle of people do and the unintended consequences of these actions.
1. The interpretive (changing) state
An interpretive account of governance represents a shift from institutions to meanings in actions.
Shifting patterns of governance by focusing on the actors’ own interpretations of their beliefs and
3
, practices. It explores the diverse ways in which situated agents are changing the boundaries of state
and civil society. The contingency and contestability of narratives. A diverse view of the state
authority and its exercise.
First wave focusses on issues such as the objective characteristics of policy networks, power-
dependence as the relationship between networks and policy outcomes.
Second wave focuses on the mix of governing structures such as markets and networks and various
instruments of control, such as changing the rules of the game, storytelling and changing the
distributions of resources.
Third wave (interpretive approach) focuses on the social construction of patterns of rule through the
ability of individuals to create meanings in action. It highlights the importance of beliefs, practices,
traditions and dilemmas for the changing state.
If a system fails, people will have different views about this fail. These perception of failing is
compared with their own beliefs and interpretations including traditions. This causes dilemmas (fail
vs traditional thoughts) which results in a political contest which results in a reform of governance.
There is always a complex and continuous process of interpretation, conflict and activity that
produces ever-changing patterns of rule, also for the government and its governance at the time.
The interpretive approach encourages to adopt narrative explanations and not only objective
descriptive of social processes. It all depends on the conditional connections between beliefs, desires
and actions.
An example of interpretive governance
The three R’s: Rule, Rationality and Resistance.
Interpretive theory suggests that under rule political scientists should ask what traditions to
construct their narratives about, their place within in and their interests and values. It draws
attention to the varied rationalities that inform policies across different policy arenas. Furthermore,
politics and policies do not arise only from strategies and interactors of elites. Other actors can resist,
transform the agendas of elites (for example street-level bureaucrats are important).
Conclusions
Network governance was the story of the changing state where the shift from hierarchy to markets
to networks has arisen. It reduces the diversity of governance to modernization, institutional norms
or a set of classifications across networks. Meta-governance reinvents the state’s capacity to control.
It argues for a top-down narrative of state regulation and control. But there is no logical or structural
process determining the form of network governance or the role of the ‘’central-state’’ in meta-
governance. The intrinsic rationality of markets, the path dependency of institutions and the state’s
toolkit for managing both governing structure and networks do not explain patterns of governance
and how they change. The interpretive approach is about the changing state that shows how
governance arises from the bottom up as conflicting beliefs, competing traditions and varied
dilemmas cause diverse practices. It replaces concepts such as state, institution, power and
governance with narratives that explain these concepts compared to the beliefs and practices of
individual actors. In short, an interpretive approach seeks to put the people back into governance.
4
