New spaces of governance: Governance networks and their democratic anchorage

1. New spaces of governance:Governance networks and their democratic anchorage Jacob Torfing, May 5, 2006 University of Vienna

2. Everybody talks aboutgovernance • Governance is a highly fashionable umbrella concept encompassing a wide range of phenomena and references: • Good governance • Global governance • Economic governance • Corporate governance • New Public Managements • Public-private partnerships • Self-regulating networks

3. But was does it mean? • Governance is a notoriously slippery term that is sometimes defined in terms of: 1. An interaction process that translates diverging preferences into effective policy choices (politics) 2. A system of rules that shape the interactions of social actors (polity) 3. A mode of political steering defining how a particular goal should be reached (policy) • Sometimes all these aspects are put together: Totality of interactions in which public and private actor aim to solve public problems or create opportunities while attending to a set of institutional rules and establishing a normative foundation for joint action (Kooiman, 2003: 4)

4. Governance beyond the state • Today, it is increasingly clear that public governance is not congruent with the formal institutions of government • The many reports on government failure gave way to an increasing marketization of public governance • The failure of the market to provide proactive governance based on joint objectives and mutual trust has stimulated the surge of more interactive forms of network governance • Governance networks refer to a particular type of network and a particular type of governance

5. Defining governance networks • Drawing on the burgeoning literature we can define governance networks as: • A relatively stable horizontal articulation of interdependent, but operationally autonomous actors • Who interact through negotiations that might involve either bargaining or deliberation • Which take place within a relatively institutionalized framework of rules, norms, common knowledge and social imaginaries • Facilitate self-regulated policy making in the shadow of hierarchy (‘bounded autonomy’) • And contributes to the production of public value in terms of visions, ideas, plans and concrete decisions

6. A plurality of governance networks • Governance networks take different forms in different countries, at different levels of governance and within different policy sectors • Governance networks are also labeled in different ways • Finally, there might be different rationales behind the formation of governance networks: 1. Overcome fragmentation within the public sector (France) 2. Facilitate coordination between quasi-autonomous public agencies and private contractors (England) 3. Enhance input legitimacy (participation) and output legitimacy (effectiveness) (Denmark) • The spread of governance networks and their forms, labels and rationales depend on different political institutions, cultures and discourses

7. The surge of network governance • Governance networks proliferate to an astonishing extent within different countries, policy areas and levels of governance • Network governance is by no means new, but is to an increasing extent seen as an effective and legitimate way of governing society • Network governance is promoted by the World Bank, the European Union, semi-public think tanks, national governments and local municipalities • The appropriation of network governance by the political establishment does not eliminate their critical and democratic potential

8. Explaining the surge of network governance • Governability theory: network governance is a functional response to the need for coordination in our increasingly complex, differentiated and dynamic societies • Interdependency theory: network governance is a strategic response of policy actors to the need for the exchange of material and immaterial resources • Alternatively: network governance is part of a new governmentality that aims to mobilize the resources and energies of responsible and self-regulating actors (‘subjectivation’) within a framework ensuring conformity with the overall goals (‘subjection’)

9. Three crucial caveats • To avoid misunderstandings it should be stressed that: 1. Governance networks do not lead to a ‘hollowing out of the state’ since many of its old capacities are still in place and new capacities have been developed 2. Governance networks are no panacea, but have their strength in attempts to solve ’wicked problems’ 3. While governance networks clearly provide an alternative to hierarchy and market, they also provide an important supplement to both: - help to provide input to the formulation of goals - help to build trust among competitors

10. New spaces of governance • Governance networks deserve scholarly attention because they create new spaces of governance by breaking down old dichotomies between: • state and society • public and private • governors and governed • local and global • This is confirmed by our pilot study of how active employment policy in Europe is formulated and implemented at the local, national and transnational level • Policy outputs defined as EGLs, NAPs and local plans • Backward mapping of relevant and affected actors • Identification of formal and informal governance networks • Analysis through the deployment of multiple methods

11. The first generation ofgovernance network research • The first generation of governance network research has successfully demonstrated: 1. The widespread use of governance networks in public policy making 2. Their distinctive features vis-á-vis hierarchy and market 3. Their qualities as mechanisms of public governance

12. Towards a second generation • The emerging second generation must raise and answer a new set of pressing questions about: 1. The sources of governance network failure 2. How to metagovern self-regulating governance networks 3. The democratic problems and potentials of network governance

13. Democratic anchorage • In order to assess the democratic performance of governance networks we need to measure their democratic anchorage • Governance networks are democratically anchored if they: • Are controlled by elected politicians • Represent the membership basis of the participating groups and organizations • Are accountable to the territorially defined citizenry • Follow the democratic rules specified by a particular grammar of conduct

14. 1. Elected politicians and public administrators 4. Governance network regulated by democratic rules and norms 2. The membership basis of participating groups and organizations 3. Territorially defined citizenry

15. Anchorage in elected politicians • The very idea of control is flawed since governance networks are defined by their capacity for self-regulation • Hence, political controlled should be redefined as metagovernance defined as the regulation of self-regulation • Metagovernance involves network design, network framing, process management and network participation

16. Anchorage in the membership basis • The classical idea of representation is problematic as it wrongly assumes that a pre-established interest is reproduced in an undistorted way • Hence, political representation should be redefined in terms of the identification of those who the representatives claim to represent with the performative act of representation • Identification hinges on the ability of the membership basis to select and instruct their representatives and critically assess their performance

17. Anchorage in aterritorially defined citizenry • The classical notion of accountability is problematic since the identification of the responsible decision makers and a negative sanctioning of these is virtually impossible in governance networks • Hence, accountability should be redefined in terms of the possibility for public contestation of narrative accounts produced by governance networks • Public contestation requires the availability of comprehensive and accessible accounts, channels for public engagement and dialogue, and responsiveness towards critical voices (agonistic respect)

18. Anchorage in democraticrules and norms • The very idea of democratic rule following is flawed since rules are contingent and inherently undecidable • Hence, rule following should be redefined in terms of a pragmatic and contextual re-enactment of a contingent grammar of democratic conduct • The democratic grammar of conduct is likely to comprise norms about inclusion of relevant and affected actors, equality in deliberation and decision and commitment to a democratic improvement of societal governance

19. Assessing and improving democratic anchorage • Measuring the democratic anchorage of actual governance networks requires a further operationalization of the four dimensions • Concrete assessments will be a matter of degrees and will often lead to a mixed judgement • While a mixed judgement makes it difficult to compare governance networks, a mixed judgement might still help us to improve their democratic functioning • The elected politicians have a crucial role in this respect: their metagovernance of governance network must include deliberate attempts to improve their democratic performance

20. Where next? • The future study of governance networks will benefit from a more careful analysis of: 1. The discursive structures that help unifying different and conflicting actors around common objectives and joint policy making 2. The structures of interaction (SNA) that reveal clusters and cliques and assign and distribute different roles and functions to the network actors 3. The power structures that define the political conflicts and cleavages between the network actors and takes us beyond the post-political vision that denies the antagonistic character of politics to the detriment of democracy