What I Know:

Chapter 6: Governance

Meaning of governance: the most basic theory of governance is by Williamson – it is about

setting up rules, applying them and enforcing them. Governance is about setting up
structures and institutions to deliver some level of accountability. There is no concrete
definition of governance, and it is considered t be a controversial topic in both public
administration and public management.
It is not only about the government, but rather about setting mechanisms for guiding any
sort of organization. Therefore, Keohen and Nye expanded the definition into governance
being process and institutions, formal or informal, meant to guide and restrict collective
activities of a group.
There is a sub-category called socio-political governance in which both public and private
participants are acting with goal of solving a societal issue, or creating a societal
opportunity, attending to the institution that carries out the governance activities.
Additionally, we have Kooiman who said that governance is the overall effort of a system to
govern itself, while governability is its output.

Government vs governance: these two terms are officially considered different, where the
government implies set of activities backed up by the formal authority, while governance
implies set of activities backed up by shares goals that may or may not stem from legally and
formally prescribed responsibilities. Government has the ability to use force and require
compliance, but it is still losing power. This is due to the phenomenon of globalization which
brought a wide diffusion of government power, where the government’s monopoly in its
issues is replaced by many different actors.
We have Fukuyama who claims that governance is the ability of the government to impose
rules, whether the government is democratic or not.

Definitions of governance: Bevir and Rhodes have defined governance with 7 definitions,
however only the first three add some concrete sort of novelty to the basic meaning of
governance: 1. Governance as corporate governance; 2. Governance as NPM; 3. Governance
as self-organizing networks; 4. Governance as good governance – international institutions
sell NPM embraided with liberal democracy to developing nations; 5. Governance as socio-
cybernetic governance – sovereign’s power weakening and lines between the public,
private, and voluntary sector are blurring; 6. Governance as political economics – re-
examining government economy and the boundaries of civil society, state, and market
economy as they blur; 7. Governance of international interdependency – weakening nation-
state’s position, but this has no meaning nor definition.

Corporate governance: it is about issues such as responsibility of directors, ensuring the

management furthers the interests of shareholders, creating ways of increasing
accountability. There may be government involvement as the key consideration for the
corporation is its political environment, but this is not the case because its key concern is
actually increasing and strengthening corporate performance and accountability. However,
there is no point is separating it as a specific form of governance. It is rather just a type of
the regular term of governance.
CHAPTER 6: GOVERNANCE

The meaning of Governance: the most basic definition of governance is by Williamson, who
states it is about creating rules, applying them, and enforcing them. Governance is about
setting up structures and institutions to provide some level of accountability. Governance is
not only about government, but a set of mechanisms to guide any form of organization.
Therefore, Keohane and Nye have defined governance as a process and institutions set up
to guide and restrict collective activities of a group. Moreover, there is a sub-category called
socio-political governance which is about interactive arrangements between both public and
private actors to resolve societal issues, or provide societal opportunities, which is attended
to the institutions which carry out these activities. Kooiman also adds that governance is the
effort of a system to govern itself, while governability is the output of that system.

Government and governance: these two terms are separated, where government implies a
set of activities backed up by the legal authority, while governance is a set of activities
backed up by shares goals, which may or may not come from formal and legally prescribed
responsibilities. Government can use force and require compliance. However, it has been
losing power, due to the phenomenon of globalization which led to a wide diffusion of its
powers, where now the government does not have a monopoly on its issues, but there are
rather multiple actors involved. Moreover, governance has had a growing interest in for the
recent years, and its scope is wider than that of the government. Here we have Fukuyama
who claimed that governance is the ability of the government to enforce laws, not giving
regards to whether the government is democratic or not.

Definitions of governance: Bevir and Rhodes have defined governance through 7 definitions,
however only the first three have some novelty to the standard formulation of governance,
the rest is considered obsolete:
1) governance as corporate governance: it is concerned with issues such as directors’
responsibilities, extent to which the management is furthering interests of the
shareholders, delivery oof accountability. There might be a form of government
intervention, if we consider the political environment of the corporation as its main
concern, but its main concern is in reality the ability to grow corporation
performance and accountability. Overall, there is no reason to think of the corporate
governance any differently than the standard definition of governance, just in a
specific category; it can be considered as a type of governance.
2) Governance as NPM: NPM is so much about governance that it required a definition
of its own. This would be justified only if governance as a term was used so unusually
in NPM. Truly, NPM is about a form of governance, but as a whole, NPM is not
precise enough for it to be a definition. There was an attempt to separate two
mechanisms of governance: steering and rowing. However, these could not be
privatized because then there would be no mechanisms to set up collective decision,
apply rules and enforce them. An interesting term would be digital era governance,
as it showcases a shift from the traditional model. However, it is more about using
technology for enhancing the performance of the government, and not about
governance in its wide range. The argument is by using large-scale computer systems
we can centralize the government and re-establish benefits of bureaucracy. The
issue is that it is almost certain that technology will evolve from these systems into
 distributed expert systems, available for free on the internet. This would help
managerial frameworks, but not bureaucracy.
3) Governance as self-organizing networks: according to Rhodes, governance refers to
self-organizing inter-organizational networks. the highlight is on networks and them
being a new form of organization, besides markets and bureaucracy. Networks are
the ones creating public policy (Torfing, Klijn), and the governmental responsibility is
to showcase and use the results of the actions being performed within these
networks as their output. On the contrary, it must be noted that there are only 2
forms of social mechanisms backed up by the sanctions of the state: contracts and
bureaucracy. Therefore, we can argue that networks cannot be another form of
organization since they are not backed up by the government. However, the
definition of governance has utility because it talks about political plans, involvement
of interest groups, and individual interactions from which there come edits
(bureaucratic) and contracts (legal market instruments). Government actions depend
on nongovernmental partners, which does not mean the government has lost its
power, but rather the traditional approach has changed. It is said that governments
function best with an outside involvement. In the end, to say that the interactions
between governments and networks is enough for this to be a separate definition is
not enough.
4) Governance as good governance: international organization selling NPM with liberal
democratic ideas to developing countries
5) Governance as socio-cybernetic governance: weakening of the sovereign and blurred
lines between the public, private, and voluntary sector
6) Governance as international interdependence: weakening of the nation-state’s
power, but this is not a meaning nor a definition
7) Governance as political economy: redefining government economic and boundaries
between the state, the civil society, and the market economy, which are blurring.