10

Governance: From Theory to

Practice

Governance is concerned with the practice of making collective

decisions. Governance theory, as such, has both an explanatory dimen-
sion and an advisory character. This twin theory-practice focus justifies
the core intellectual pursuit of the book, which is to delineate not only
the development but also the application of governance theory. The
book explores governance theory from a cross-disciplinary perspective
and offers those interested in governance access to some of the valu-
able analytical tools that each discipline has to offer in its distinctive
treatment of the idea of governance.
In the first part of the book we identified five key disciplines to focus
our investigation: politics and public administration, economics (par-
ticularly economic institutionalism), international relations, develop-
ment studies and socio-legal studies. The second half of the book
looked at governance theories that have developed in application in
complex settings. It examined the three critical areas of corporate, par-
ticipatory and environmental governance and investigated whether
these practical areas of governance have been enriched by theoretical
developments from a range of disciplines. We found that environmen-
tal governance is an area that is shaped by ideas and debates on gover-
nance originating with international relations, development studies,
economic institutionalism, politics as well as socio-legal studies. Parti-
cipatory governance has attracted valuable insights from political science
and development studies. Corporate governance practice, in contrast,
displayed a tendency to draw from particular branches of economic
institutionalism and much less from other disciplines, although it
might have benefited from doing so.
Our general position is, therefore, that governance practice is best
understood when viewed through a multi-disciplinary lens. We argue

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V. Chhotray et al., Governance Theory and Practice

© Vasudha Chhotray and Gerry Stoker 2009
 Governance: From Theory to Practice 215

that a cross-disciplinary focus delivers a more subtle and complex

understanding of the challenges involved in designing governance
solutions than those that are derived from a single discipline base.
Understanding the multi-disciplinary basis of governance is necessary
if we are to equip ourselves to better analyse and appreciate the prac-
tice of governance. Knowledge of the wider intellectual resources that
have been applied to governance, drawn from a range of disciplines,
allows those interested in reforming governance to move beyond a
narrow vision and to counter their disciplinary biases. It also enables a
more realistic appraisal of the sorts of problems ‘governance solutions’
can actually solve and what those solutions might be. In this conclud-
ing chapter we ask what has our cross-disciplinary tour delivered in
terms of enhanced understanding; and what in the way of advice for
designers of governance systems does our book provide?
In addition to a commitment to cross-disciplinarity our approach
argues that governance challenges can usefully be met through an inves-
tigative approach rather than by way of a check list of normative prin-
ciples against which any system is checked. The normative approach can
establish some valuable guidelines for governance systems and therefore
offers a valuable starting point but if you want to understand what might
work in a particular setting it is necessary to develop an approach driven
by empirical as much as normative theory and one that recognises the
subtlety of some of the normative challenges involved in governance and
does not simply call for more transparency or more accountability. In
short to change the world for the better you need to understand it in a
superior way and apply normative principles with care and in balance
with one another.
The first section of the chapter focuses attention on the core dis-
ciplines that we have examined to bring out diverse ways in which the
nature of governance problems have been perceived and the solutions
that are on offer from each of the disciplinary bases. But knowing that
a range of mechanisms are available to you does not mean that it is
obvious which one or which mix to choose. The second section of the
chapter explores this issue and begins by arguing that the search for
governance solutions involves practical judgement rather than the
application of simple formulas of best practice drawn out from indica-
tor-driven audits. Moreover we argue that most governance solutions
are likely to be untidy rather than neat formulations and need to be
designed in context rather than simply derived from abstract prin-
ciples. A complex appreciation of the prospects for institutional change
lies at the heart of the governance search for solutions and the chapter