Politics and power


The term governance can be used specifically to describe changes in the nature and role of the state following the public-sector reforms of the 1980s and ’90s. Typically, these reforms are said to have led to a shift from a hierarchic bureaucracy toward a greater use of markets, quasi-markets, and networks, especially in the delivery of public services. The effects of the reforms were intensified by global changes, including an increase in transnational economic activity and the rise of regional institutions such as the European Union (EU). So understood, governance expresses a widespread belief that the state increasingly depends on other organizations to secure its intentions, deliver its policies, and establish a pattern of rule.

By analogy, governance also can be used to describe any pattern of rule that arises either when the state is dependent upon others or when the state plays little or no role. For example, the term international governance often refers to the pattern of rule found at the global level where the United Nations (UN) is too weak to resemble the kind of state that can impose its will on its territory. Likewise, the term corporate governance refers to patterns of rule within businesses—that is, to the systems, institutions, and norms by which corporations are directed and controlled. So understood, governance expresses a growing awareness of the ways in which diffuse forms of power and authority can secure order even in the absence of state activity.

More generally still, governance can be used to refer to all patterns of rule, including the kind of hierarchic state that is often thought to have existed before the public-sector reforms of the 1980s and ’90s. This general use of governance enables theorists to explore abstract analyses of the construction of social orders, social coordination, or social practices irrespective of their specific content. They can divorce such abstract analyses from specific questions about, say, the state, the international system, or the corporation. However, this general usage creates the need for a more specific term, such as new governance, to refer to the changes in the state since the 1980s.

Whether one focuses on the new governance, weak states, or patterns of rule in general, the concept of governance raises issues about public policy and democracy. The increased role of non-state actors in the delivery of public services has led to a concern to improve the ability of the state to oversee these other actors. The state has become more interested in various strategies for creating and managing networks and partnerships. It has set up all kinds of arrangements for auditing and regulating other organizations. In the eyes of many observers, there has been an audit explosion. In addition, the increased role of nonelected actors in policy making suggests a need to think about the extent of their democratic accountability and about the mechanisms by which it is enforced. Similarly, accounts of growing transnational and international constraints on states suggest that a need to rethink the nature of social inclusion and social justice. Political institutions from the World Bank to the EU now use terms such as good governance to convey their aspirations for a better world.

A conceptual history of governance

A general concept of governance as a pattern of rule or as the activity of ruling has a long lineage in the English language. Nonetheless, much of the current interest in governance derives from its specific use in relation to changes in the state since the late 20th century. These changes date from neoliberal reforms of the public sector in the 1980s.


Those who advocate neoliberalism argue that the state is inherently inefficient when compared with markets. Often, neoliberals also suggest that the postwar Keynesian welfare state is in crisis: it has become too large to be manageable, it is collapsing under the burden of excessive taxation, and it is generating ever-higher rates of cyclical inflation. Neoliberals believe that the postwar state cannot be sustained any longer, especially in a world that is now characterized by highly mobile capital and by vigorous economic competition between states. Hence, they attempt to roll back the state. They often suggest, in particular, that the state should concentrate on making policy decisions rather than on delivering services. They want the state to withdraw from direct delivery of services. They want to replace state provision of public services with an entrepreneurial system based on competition and markets. Some experts distinguish between the activity of making policy decisions, which they describe as “steering,” and that of delivering public services, which they describe as “rowing.” They argue that bureaucracy is bankrupt as a tool for rowing. And they propose replacing bureaucracy with an “entrepreneurial government,” based on competition, markets, customers, and measurement of outcomes.

Because neoliberals deride government, many of them look for another term to describe the kind of entrepreneurial pattern of rule they favour. Governance offers them such a concept. It enables them to distinguish between “bad” government (or rowing) and necessary governance (or steering). The early association of governance with a minimal state and the spread of markets thus arose from neoliberal politicians and the policy wonks, journalists, economists, and management gurus who advised them.

Those advocating neoliberal policies often draw on rational choice theory. Rational choice theory extends a type of social explanation found in microeconomics. Typically, rational choice theorists attempt to explain social outcomes by reference to micro-level analyses of individual behaviour, and they model individual behaviour on the assumption that people choose the course of action that is most in accord with their preferences. Rational choice theorists influence neoliberal attitudes to governance in large part by way of a critique of the concept of public interest. Their insistence that individuals, including politicians and civil servants, act in their own interest undermines the idea that policy makers act benevolently to promote a public interest. Indeed, their reduction of social facts to the actions of individuals casts doubt on the idea of a public interest beyond the aggregate interests of individuals. More specifically, rational choice theorists provide neoliberals with a critique of bureaucratic government. Often they combine the claim that individuals act according to their preferences with an assumption that these preferences are typically to maximize one’s wealth or power. Hence, they argue that bureaucrats act to optimize their power and career prospects by increasing the size of their fiefdoms even when doing so is unnecessary. This argument implies that bureaucracies have an inbuilt tendency to grow even when there is no good reason for them so to do.

Because rational choice theory privileges micro-level analyses, it might appear to have peculiar difficulties explaining the rise of institutions and perhaps their persistent stability. Microeconomic analysis has long faced this issue in the guise of the existence of firms. Once rational choice theorists extend such microanalysis to government and social life generally, they face the same issue with respect to all kinds of institutions, including political parties, voting coalitions, and the market economy itself. The question is, If individuals act in accord with their preferences, why don’t they break agreements when these agreements no longer suit them? The obvious answer is that some authority would punish them if they broke the agreement, and they prefer not being punished. But this answer assumes the presence of a higher authority that can enforce the agreement. Some rational choice theorists thus began to explore how they might explain the rise and stability of norms, agreements, or institutions in the absence of any higher authority. They adopted the concept of governance to refer to norms and patterns of rule that arise and persist even in the absence of an enforcing agent.

Social science

The neoliberal concept of governance as a minimal state conveys a preference for less government. Arguably, it often does little else, being an example of empty political rhetoric. Indeed, when social scientists study neoliberal reforms of the public sector, they often conclude that these reforms have scarcely rolled back the state at all. They draw attention instead to the unintended consequences of the reforms. According to many social scientists, the neoliberal reforms fragmented service delivery and weakened central control without establishing proper markets. In their view, the reforms led to a proliferation of policy networks in both the formulation of public policy and the delivery of public services.

The 1990s saw a massive outpouring of work that conceived of governance as a proliferation of networks. Much of this literature explores the ways in which neoliberal reforms created new patterns of service delivery based on complex sets of organizations drawn from all of the public, private, and voluntary sectors. It suggests that a range of processes—including the functional differentiation of the state, the rise of regional blocs, globalization, and the neoliberal reforms themselves—left the state increasingly dependent on other organizations for the delivery and success of its policies. Although social scientists adopt various theories of policy networks, and so different analyses of the new pattern of rule, they generally agree that the state can no longer command others. In their view, the new governance is characterized by networks in which the state and other organizations depend on each other. Even when the state remains the dominant organization, it and the other members of the network are interdependent in that they have to exchange resources if they are to achieve their goals. Many social scientists argue that this interdependence means that the state has to steer other organizations instead of issuing commands to them. They also imply that steering involves a much greater use by the state of diplomacy and related techniques of management. Some social scientists also suggest that the proliferating networks often have a considerable degree of autonomy from the state. In this view, the key problem posed by the new governance is that it reduces the ability of the state not only to command but even to steer effectively.

Social scientists have developed a concept of governance as a complex and fragmented pattern of rule composed of multiplying networks. They have done so partly because of studies of the impact of neoliberal reforms on the public sector. But two other strands of social science also gave rise to this concept of governance. First, a concept of governance as networks arose among social scientists searching for a way to think about the role of transnational linkages within the EU. Second, a concept of governance as networks appeals to some social scientists interested in general issues about social coordination and interorganizational links. These latter social scientists argue that networks are a distinct governing structure through which to coordinate activities and allocate resources. They develop typologies of such governing structures—most commonly bureaucracies, markets, and networks—and they identify the characteristics associated with each structure. Their typologies often imply that networks are preferable, at least in some circumstances, to the bureaucratic structures of the post-World War II state and to the markets favoured by neoliberals. This positive valuation of networks sometimes led to what might be called a second wave of public-sector reform.

Resistance and civil society

Radicals, socialists, and anarchists have long advocated patterns of rule that do not require the capitalist state. Many of them look toward civil society as a site of free and spontaneous associations of citizens. Civil society offers them a non-statist site at which to reconcile the demands of community and individual freedom—a site they hope might be free of force and compulsion. The spread of the new governance has prompted them to distance their visions from that of the neoliberal rolling back of the state. Hence, the word governance is used by radicals to denote two distinct phenomena. They use it to describe new systems of force and compulsion associated with neoliberalism. And they use it to refer to alternative conceptions of a non-statist democratic order.

There is disagreement among radicals about whether the new governance has led to a decline in the power of the state. Some argue that the state has just altered the way in which it rules its citizens; it makes more use of bribes and incentives, threats to withdraw benefits, and moral exhortation. Others believe that the state has indeed lost power. Either way, radicals distinguish the new governance sharply from their visions of an expansion of democracy. In their view, if the power of the state has declined, the beneficiaries have been corporations; they associate the hollowing out of the state with the growing power of financial and industrial capital. Radical analyses of the new governance explore how globalization—or perhaps the myth of globalization—finds states and international organizations acting to promote the interests of capital.

Radicals typically associate their alternative visions of democratic governance with civil society, social movements, and active citizenship. Those who relate the new governance to globalization and a decline in state power often appeal to parallel shifts within civil society. They appeal to global civil society as a site of popular, democratic resistance to capital. Global civil society typically refers to nongovernmental groups such as Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and the International Labour Organization as well as less formal networks of activists and citizens. Questions can arise, of course, as to whether these groups adequately represent their members, let alone a broader community. However, radicals often respond by emphasizing the democratic potential of civil society and the public sphere. They argue that public debate constitutes one of the main avenues by which citizens can participate in collective decision making. At times, they also place great importance on the potential of public deliberation to generate a rational consensus. No matter what doubts radicals have about contemporary civil society, their visions of democracy emphasize the desirability of transferring power from the state to citizens who would not just elect a government and then act as passive spectators but rather participate continuously in the processes of governance. The association of democratic governance with participatory and deliberative processes in civil society thus arises from radicals seeking to resist state and corporate power.

These radical ideas are not just responses to the new governance; they also help to construct aspects of it. They inspire new organizations and new activities by existing social movements. At times, they influence political agreements—perhaps most notably the international regimes and norms covering human rights and the environment. Hence, social scientists interested in social movements sometimes relate them to new national and transnational forms of resistance to state and corporate power. To some extent, these social scientists again emphasize the rise of networks. However, when social scientists study the impact of neoliberal reforms on the public sector, they focus on the cooperative relations between the state and other institutionalized organizations involved in policy making and the delivery of public services. In contrast, when social scientists study social movements, they focus on the informal links between activists concerned to contest the policies and actions of corporations, states, and international organizations.

The new governance

The interest in governance derives in large part from reforms of the public sector that began in the 1980s, and new governance refers to the apparent spread of markets and networks following upon these reforms. It points to the varied ways in which the informal authority of markets and networks constituted, supplemented, and supplanted the formal authority of governments. Many people adopted a more diverse view of state authority and its relationship to civil society.

Public-sector reform occurred in two principal waves. The first wave consisted of the new public management (NPM), as advocated by neoliberals; these reforms were attempts to increase the role of markets and of corporate management techniques in the public sector. The second wave of reforms consisted of attempts to develop and manage a joined-up series of networks informed by a revived public-sector ethos. They were in part responses to the perceived consequences of the earlier reforms.

Some advocates of NPM implied that it is the single best way for all states at all times. The same can be said of some advocates of partnerships and networks. Studies of both waves of reform can imply, moreover, that change was ubiquitous. It is thus worth emphasizing at the outset both the variety and the limits of public-sector reform. Reforms varied from state to state. NPM is associated primarily with the United Kingdom and the United States as well as a few other states, notably Australia and New Zealand. Although many other developed states introduced similar reforms, they did so only selectively, and, when they did so, they often altered the content and the implementation of the reforms in accord with their institutions and traditions. Typically, developing and transitional states adopted similar reforms only under more or less overt pressure from corporations, other states, and international organizations. Public-sector reform also varied across policy sectors within any given state. For example, even in the United Kingdom and the United States, there were perilously few attempts to introduce performance-related pay or outsourcing into the higher levels of the public service, which are responsible for providing policy advice. While there have been extensive and significant reforms, bureaucratic hierarchies still perform most government functions in most states.

The new public management

The first wave of public-sector reform was the new public management (NPM). It was inspired by ideas associated with neoliberalism and public choice theory. At first, NPM spread in developed, Anglo-Saxon states. Later it spread through much of Europe—though France, Germany, and Spain are often seen as remaining largely untouched by it—and to developing and transitional states. In developed countries the impetus for NPM came from fiscal crises. Talk of the overloaded state grew as oil crises cut state revenues and the expansion of welfare services saw state expenditure increase as a proportion of gross national product. The result was a quest to cut costs. NPM was one proposed solution. In developing and transitional states, the impetus for NPM lay more in external pressures, notably those associated with structural-adjustment programs.

NPM has two main strands: marketization and corporate management. The most extreme form of marketization is privatization. Privatization is the transfer of assets from the state to the private sector. Some states sold various nationalized industries by floating them on the stock exchange. Other state-owned enterprises were sold to their employees through, say, management buyouts. Yet others were sold to individual companies or consortiums. Industries subject to dramatic privatizations included telecommunications, railways, electricity, water, and waste services. Smaller privatizations involved hotels, parking facilities, and convention centres, all of which were as likely to have been sold by local governments as by central states.

Other forms of marketization remain far more common than privatization. These other measures typically introduce incentive structures into public-service provision by means of contracting out, quasi-markets, and consumer choice. Marketization aims to make public services not only more efficient but also more accountable to consumers, who are given greater choice of service provider. Prominent examples of marketization include contracting out, internal markets, management contracts, and market testing. Contracting out (also known as outsourcing) involves the state’s contracting with a private organization, on a competitive basis, to provide a service. The private organization can be for-profit or nonprofit; sometimes it is a company hastily formed by those who previously provided the service as public-sector employees. Internal markets arise when departments are able to purchase support services from several in-house providers or outside suppliers that in turn operate as independent business units in competition with one another. Management contracts involve handing over the operation of a facility—such as an airport or a convention centre— to a private company in accord with specific contractual arrangements. Market testing (also known as managed competition) occurs when the arrangements governing the provision of a service are decided by means of bidding in comparison with private-sector competitors.

Typically, marketization transfers the delivery of services to autonomous or semiautonomous agencies. Proponents of NPM offer various arguments in favour of such agencies. They argue that service providers are then able to concentrate on the efficient delivery of quality services without having to evaluate alternative policies. They argue that policy makers can be more focused and adventurous if they do not have to worry about the existing service providers. And they argue that when the state has a hands-off relationship with a service provider, it has more opportunities to introduce performance incentives.

Corporate management reform involves introducing just such performance incentives. In general, it means applying to the public sector ideas and techniques from private-sector management. The main ideas and techniques involved are management by results, performance measures, value for money, and closeness to the customer—all of which are tied to various budgetary reforms. Although these ideas and techniques are all attempts to promote effective management in the public sector, there is no real agreement on what constitutes effective management. To the contrary, the innocent observer discovers a bewildering number of concepts, each with its own acronym. For example, management by objectives (MBO) emphasizes clearly defined objectives for individual managers, whereas management by results (MBR) emphasizes the use of past results as indicators of future ones, and total quality management (TQM) emphasizes awareness of quality in all organizational processes. Performance measures are concrete attempts to assure effective management by auditing inputs and outputs and relating them to financial budgets. Such measures vary widely because there is disagreement about the goals of performance as well as how to measure results properly. Nonetheless, value for money is promoted mainly through performance measures to influence budgetary decisions.

The success of NPM has been unclear and remains a source of considerable debate. Few people believe that it proved to be the panacea it was supposed to be. Studies suggest that it generated at best about a 3 percent annual saving on running costs, which is modest, especially considering that running costs are typically a relatively small component of total program costs. Even neoliberals often acknowledge that most savings came from privatization, not reforms in public-sector organizations. The success of NPM appears to vary considerably with contextual factors. For example, the reforms were often counterproductive in developing and transitional states because these states lacked the stable framework associated with elder public disciplines such as credible policy, predictable resources, and a public-service ethic. It is interesting that, in this respect, NPM appears to require the existence of aspects of just that kind of public-service bureaucracy that it was meant to supplant.

Networks, partnerships, and inclusion

Although discussions of the new governance often highlight NPM, public-sector reform is a continuous process. Typically, managerial reforms gave way to a second wave of reform focusing on institutional arrangements (networks and partnerships) and administrative values (public service and social inclusion). The second wave of reforms included a number of overlapping trends, which are often brought together under labels such as “joined-up governance,” “one-stop government,” “service integration,” “whole-of-government,” or “aktivierender Staat” (German: “activating state”). Some commentators even describe this second wave as a “governance approach” or “new governance” defined in contrast to NPM.

Several connected reasons can be given for the altered nature of public-sector reform. One is the shifting tide of intellectual and political fortunes. To an extent, the fortunes of public choice theory and neoliberalism ebbed while those of reformist social democrats and network theorists rose. The rise of New Labour (see Labour Party) within the United Kingdom is perhaps the most obvious example of this tide. A second reason is a growing sensitivity to a new set of external problems, including terrorism, the environment, asylum seekers, aging populations, and the digital divide. Many of these problems led people to turn to the state rather than markets and to do so with concerns about equity rather than efficiency. Yet another reason for the changing content of public-sector reform resides in the unintended consequences of the earlier managerial reforms. Observers emphasize that NPM led to a fragmentation of the public sector; because public services are delivered by networks composed of a number of different organizations, there is a need to coordinate and manage networks. Observers also emphasize that NPM raised dilemmas of accountability; even if the autonomous and semiautonomous organizations involved in delivering services are more efficient, they are not always easy to hold accountable on matters of equity. These worries about accountability were exacerbated by exposures of corruption in the private sector and by studies emphasizing the public’s lack of trust in government.

The main thrust of the second wave of reforms was to improve coordination across agencies. This ambition to join up networks reflected concerns that the earlier reforms led to the fragmentation of public-service delivery. Joined-up governance promotes horizontal and vertical coordination between the organizations involved in an aspect of public policy. Although the boundary between policy making and policy implementation is blurred, joined-up approaches look rather different in each case. Joined-up policy making brings together all the agencies involved in dealing with intractable problems such as juvenile crime or rural poverty. Joined-up policy implementation coordinates the actions of agencies involved in delivering services so as to simplify them for citizens. An example is one-stop shops at which the unemployed can access benefits, training, and job information.

Joined-up governance often draws on the idea that networks can coordinate the actions of a range of actors and organizations. Indeed, its proponents often suggest that, in many circumstances, networks offer a mode of coordination superior to that of both hierarchies and markets. For example, networks tie an enabling or facilitative leadership within a network to greater flexibility, creativity, inclusiveness, and commitment. Hence, joined-up governance is as much about fostering networks as it is about managing them. Indeed, the second wave of reforms characteristically attempted to promote networks or partnerships rather than markets. Such partnerships were created between public, private, and voluntary bodies as well as between different levels of government or different state agencies. In many countries the emphasis shifted from competitive tendering to the public sector’s building long-term relationships based on trust with suppliers, users, and other stakeholders. Public-private partnerships are said to have a number of advantages based on their ability to combine the strengths of each sector. For example, they can ease the burden of capital investment on the public sector while reducing risks of development for the private sector.

Partnerships and joined-up governance are often advocated as ways of promoting social inclusion as well as increasing efficiency. Ideally, they increase citizen involvement in the policy process. Citizen groups participate as partners in aspects of policy making and policy implementation. The second wave of public-sector reforms sought to activate civil society. Partnerships and joined-up governance were supposed to provide settings in which public-sector bodies could engage stakeholders—citizens, voluntary organizations, and private companies—thereby involving them in democratic processes. It was also hoped that involving stakeholders in the policy process would build public trust in government.

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