Good City-Regional Governance

Transcription

1 DEMOS Center for Better Governance and Citizenship Tilburg University & Institute of Housing and Urban Development Studies Erasmus University Rotterdam Good City-Regional Governance Paper to be presented at the City Futures Conference Paris, June 18 th 20 th, 2014 May 2014 dr Linze Schaap dr Leon van de Dool prof. Dr Frank Hendriks dr Alberto Gianoli Page 1 of 21

2 1. INTRODUCTION 1 Searching for good urban governance is not a recent trend or phenomenon. In ancient Greece, Aristotle already discussed the way a regime, which we would now call urban, could best serve the happiness of all its members and distinguish between good and bad rule (Thatcher 1900). And in the writings of Cicero ([44 AD], 1828, 2000) about republican Rome we see attention being paid to multi-actor arrangements and countervailing forces. A further illustration is the town hall of Siena, Italy, where the world-famous frescoes by Ambrogio Lorenzetti contrast good and bad governance in the city. In recent decades, international organizations such the United Nations, the World Bank, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development have all proposed norms or desired standards of practice of urban governance. By way of illustration, in 1999 UN-Habitat launched the Global Campaign on Urban Governance to achieve the objective of sustainable human settlements development in an urbanizing world. According to the UN-Habitat Global Campaign, good urban governance is characterized by the interdependent and mutually reinforcing principles of sustainability, subsidiarity, equity, efficiency, transparency, accountability, civic engagement, citizenship, and security (UN-Habitat 2002). In this paper we explore approaches to and definitions of good urban (or city-regional) governance. The theoretical and empirical insights we derived from an international comparative research project on good urban governance (Van den Dool, Hendriks, Schaap & Gianoli, 2014). The next section contains a discussion of governance and urban governance, and the question whether urban governance differs from city regional governance ; we argue that it does not. In section 3 we will discuss normative ideas about good governance. Section four contains an exploration of tensions and challenges in good urban governance. In section 5 we develop core values of good urban governance. 2. DEFINING (URBAN) GOVERNANCE The notion of governance Broadly speaking, governance describes new forms of collective decision-making which cut across different spheres (i.e., the state, the market, and civil society) and which are based on complex networks of interdependent actors belonging to the public, quasi-public, private, voluntary, and community sectors. This leads to a reconfiguration of the interactions between the state and civil society and to the blurring of the boundaries between and within the public and private realms (Bovaird 2005). A new and differentiated set of relationships develops in which the nature of exchange is characterized more by coordination and negotiation rather than by command and control or competition and contracts. The focus tends to be on networks instead of on hierarchies and markets. The overall complexity of a Comment [LS1]: We could do without this section on governance. 1 Parts of this paper will be published in: Dool, L. van den, Hendriks, F., Schaap, l. & Gianoli, A. (eds.) (2014). The Quest for Good Urban Governance. Theoretical Reflections and International Practices, Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Page 2 of 21

3 governance system is enhanced by the dispersion of knowledge and resources, by the multiplicity of actors, and by the various ways in which these interact. Two points should be emphasized. First, the idea of a shift from government to governance presents an oversimplified picture as networks, markets, and hierarchies are likely to co-exist in different institutional combinations. Second, governance can be considered as a descriptive as well as a normative concept as it refers to the way in which organizations and institutions are (or should be) governed (Newman 2001: 16). This differentiation is directly related to the distinction between descriptive approaches focusing on governance and normative ones focusing on good governance (Hendriks 2013). In what follows, both descriptive and normative approaches will be reviewed in some detail. The concept of governance, which has a plurality of (contending) meanings (Rhodes 1996; 1997b; Pierre 2000), can be defined as a new form of governing constituted by patterns emerging from the interaction of networks of autonomous and differentiated, although mutually dependent, governmental and societal actors (Kooiman 1993; Rhodes 1997a). The emphasis of this definition is on the interdependency and complementarity of public, private, and voluntary actors, as opposed to the practice of governing that is essentially centered on a single actor (i.e., government). In a governance system, government is no longer seen as occupying a superior position to other parties, but as being on equal footing with them (Kickert et al. 1997a: 9). This is due to the fact that, as Kooiman (1993: 4) put it, [n]o single actor, public or private, has all knowledge and information required to solve complex, dynamic and diversified problems; no actor has sufficient overview to make the application of needed instruments effective; no single actor has sufficient action potential to dominate unilaterally in a particular governing model. Rhodes (1997a: 53) argues that governance can be referred to selforganising, interorganisational networks with the following key characteristics: interdependence between organizations in the context of opaque boundaries between the public, private, and voluntary sectors; continuing interactions for exchanging resources and negotiating shared purposes; game-like interactions rooted in trust and regulated by rules negotiated and agreed by participants; self-organization and autonomy from the state which has limited steering capacities. The notion of governance addresses the issue of how the growing diversity (of the actors), dynamics (of the tensions characterizing the interactions), and complexity (of the interrelations characterizing the interactions) that pertain to chaotic and uncertain socio-political (sub)systems challenge traditional forms of governing (Kooiman 1993; 2000). The increasing number of actors, their differentiation, and the multiple ways in which these actors interact with each other is combined with a widespread awareness that responses to wicked problems require broader approaches and instruments. Indeed, the issues at the core of the public agenda are increasingly cross-cutting, structured around problems and groups of people (Peters 1998b). If socio-political (sub)systems are interrelated and uncertain, the solution to the problems they generate can only be reached through a flexible approach using a variety of instruments. The notion of governance is underpinned by a marked institutional fragmentation, and by an increasing organizational fluidity where the relationships between and within governmental and nongovernmental organizations are continuously being redefined. Governance is a relational concept that Page 3 of 21

4 emphasizes the nature and the effects of the interactions between governmental and social actors, and among social actors themselves. It is possible to argue, therefore, that it challenges the distinction between state and society as it conceives of the boundaries between them as increasingly blurred and permeable. Similarly, the borderline between the public and private spheres becomes opaque. To associate the emergence of governance with an increasingly differentiated and fragmented polity and with a blurred distinction between the state and civil society, does not imply the death of government (Stoker 2011). What should be abandoned is the notion that government steers in a mono-centric and mono-rational way with a single clear objective from an isolated position above society (Kickert 1997: 737). However, if, on the one hand, the polycentric character of socio-political (sub)systems does create the opportunities for interaction and the development of flexible and diversified networks, then, on the other, it becomes crucial to establish connections within and across networks so that disorder may lead to a new form of order. Urban governance At the urban level, the notion of urban governance implies a more complex and fragmented sociopolitical environment and a more open and flexible pattern of decision-making than traditional urban government (Stoker 2000). Multiple relationships across the public, quasi-public, private, voluntary, and community sectors may exist when there is the need to share resources, where there are functional interdependencies, or if there is a mutual interest in a determined course of action (Prior 1996). Traditional forms of urban government are ill- equipped to address cross-cutting, multi-faceted issues such as economic and sustainable development. These cannot be resolved on a functional basis and require different bodies, organizations, and institutions to work together in a cooperative way. The extensive institutional fragmentation is exemplified by the range of urban actors that are part of the system, their powers, responsibilities, and resources, their internal structures and processes, and their relationships with each other. Following Pierre (1999), urban governance can be described and understood as a process directed at blending and coordinating public and private interests within a context characterized by different institutional models based on different systems of values, norms, beliefs, and practices. Furthermore, in order to analyze urban governance, it is essential to focus on the capacities of the range of stakeholders involved within an urban governance system. The growing importance of networks as vehicles through which collective aims can be achieved points to innovative models of decision-making at the urban level. These rely on more indirect ways of achieving desired outcomes, on dialogue and negotiation with other actors as well as on strong strategic direction and leadership capable of achieving integration. Networks embody a shift from a view of decision-making exclusively based on formal authority to one which also relies on steering, bargaining, and influencing. In other words, the fragmentation of urban governance systems creates the need for new arrangements to overcome a chaotic organizational landscape and nurture integration, coordination, and strategic direction. In practical terms and at the urban level, this means (a) identifying the plurality of urban stakeholders and assessing their willingness and capacity to jointly handle and solve urban problems; (b) mobilizing governmental and non-governmental resources in order to accomplish specific tasks; (c) establishing a framework for collective action; and (d) facilitating, Page 4 of 21

5 orchestrating, and coordinating public inputs and mediating between different interests. These various courses of action could be accomplished through a range of modes of intervention, including influence, coordination, facilitation, negotiation, and advocacy. Against this backdrop, the concept of urban governance is defined in this paper as the more or less institutionalized working arrangements that shape organizing capacities and countervailing powers in polycentric urban settings defined by interconnected governmental and societal actors (Hendriks and Drosterij 2011: 18). Urban governance arrangements aiming to manage a group of people or a process in a particular way for a limited amount of time does not yet amount to urban governance. This would require some regularity, a certain level of institutionalization. The working arrangements of urban governance can be understood as institutions in the sense of rules in use (Ostrom 2005). Furthermore, it should be emphasized that both organizing capacities, namely the requirements on the input side and the output side to do the right things and to do them rightly, and countervailing powers, that is, the positions and offices needed to install proper checks and balances in the system of relations, are key elements of a governance system. Urban governance relates to the ensemble of productive and corrective capacities, where the former can be defined as the mobilization of organizing and delivering abilities ( the way in which things are accomplished ) and the latter as the mobilization of controlling, reviewing, and counterbalancing abilities ( the way in which checks and balances work ). Urban, or city-regional governance? Question then is, whether urban governance differs from governance in city-regions. If we conceptualize urban governance as we just did, then we can hardly see any differences between the two concepts. City-regions are typically politically fragmented (Lidström and Schaap, 2014) as they often contain a large number of municipalities (Heinelt and Kübler 2005; Sellers and Hoffmann-Martinot 2008). In some cases attempts have been made to establish directly elected governments for the city-regions as a whole, but those have not been very successful (Sancton 2008, Lefèvre 2010, Kantor and Savitch 2010; see Wollmann, 2010, for a different opinion). And if such a city-region government has been created, as in some German cities (Berlin, Hamburg, and Bremen) and in London, smaller territorial units within the borders of the city-region exist as well (for example the London boroughs). And no less important in autonomous, fully-fledged city-regional governments the directly elected politicians are no longer the sole decision-makers, since decisions are being made in negotiations and networks. In such a context it is almost impossible to assign clear responsibilities and to hold actors to account (Haus and Heinelt, 2005; Aarsaether et al 2009, Pierre 2009, Andersen and Pierre, 2010). In the alternative option to address city-regional challenges - units of inter-municipal cooperation (Heinelt and Kübler 2005, Otgaar et al 2008, Tomàs 2009) the same holds. All-in-all, city-regional governance and urban governance ar quite similar. One-sided attention to production Contemporary literature on urban governance tends to focus on productive capacity (Pierre 2011). A good example is the urban regime approach by Stone (1989). With his study of Atlanta, United States, Stone cut right across the community power debate between elitists and pluralists. In Stone s view, both these parties were too obsessed with power over (who was having power over whom), rather than Page 5 of 21

6 with power to (how are things actually accomplished?). Flyvbjerg (1998), in his detailed study of Aalborg, Denmark, indeed observed that it was not about the rather obsolete question Who governs? but about the more important question How is the governing being done? and how power is being exercised. It is remarkable that, in the contemporary debate on urban governance, the framing of checks and balances is given less consideration than in current discourse on corporate governance, in which the constitutional relations between CEOs, boards of directors, supervisory boards, shareholders, and other stakeholders have been hotly debated (Pietrancosta 2009). In urban governance, there are other protagonists: local councils, neighborhood councils, mayor and aldermen, urban district coordinators, higher-level co-governments, civil service departments, ombudspersons, audit committees, housing corporations, welfare organizations, community work agencies, municipal advisory councils, chambers of commerce, residents organizations, neighborhood management companies, individual citizens, and so on and so forth. Their added value should be assessed not only in terms of productive capacity but also in terms of corrective ability (Ostrom 1982). 3. NORMATIVE APPROACHES TO URBAN GOVERNANCE In a very simplistic sense, good governance is governance that is qualified as good, or at least good enough, for some reason. The term good is sometimes used as best government, suggesting that a clear ranking is possible. Grindle (2007) introduces the notion of good enough government. Good enough governance, as a concept, suggests that not all governance deficits need (or can) be tackled at once. Good enough governance directs attention to considerations of the minimal conditions of governance necessary to allow political and economic development to occur. The United Nations has used the concept of governance in advocating a normative view of it and calling it good governance. In its Development Programme of the late seventies, it already wrote that good governance is, among other things, participatory, transparent and accountable. It is also effective and equitable. And it promotes the rule of law (1977: 3). As mentioned above, norms that characterize good urban governance identified by the UN-HABITAT-led Global Campaign on Urban Governance are sustainability, subsidiarity, equity, efficiency, transparency and accountability, civic engagement and citizenship, and security (United Nations 1996). There are a number of attributes of the decisionmaking and implementation process that determine whether the process is classified as good or bad governance. These attributes include: participation, rule of law, transparency, responsiveness, consensus orientation, equity, inclusiveness, effectiveness, efficiency, and accountability. Similarly, the World Bank introduced the concept of good governance in the 1990s by including the rule of law, an independent judiciary, protection of property rights, civil participation, bureaucratic transparency, voice and accountability by all groups, effectiveness and efficiency by public management, freedom of expression, and other values (World Bank 1991; see also Van den Dool 2005). A critique on this way of defining good governance is that the list of criteria for good can be made endlessly long, reducing both its practical as well as its theoretical usefulness. The elaboration of Page 6 of 21

7 codes of good governance does not seem to be able to overcome this limitation. This has been the approach followed, for example, by the Council of Europe (2008), in defining Twelve Principles of Good Democratic Practice at Local Level, comprising in fact seventeen principles: fair conduct of elections, representation and participation; responsiveness; efficiency and effectiveness; openness and transparency; rule of law; ethical conduct; competence and capacity; innovation and openness to change; sustainability and long-term orientation; sound financial management; human rights; cultural diversity and social cohesion; accountability. 2 A further example is the Good Governance Code drafted by Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (2009) defining seven core qualities, comprising, all in all, eleven standards: openness and integrity; good service provision; participation; goal-orientedness and efficiency; legitimacy and justice; self-correction and learning capacity; and accountability. Even though the literature on good governance assumes the existence of standards, it rarely addresses the issue of the relations between them. Another normative approach, which could be defined as democratic governance, focusing on how the structures and processes of democracy are affected by a governance system, and on the role of the rule of law, allows us to shed some light on some of these relations. The relationship between governance and democracy is open to different interpretations that derive from the co-existence of forces pulling in diverse directions (e.g., Franzke et al. (eds.) 2007). On the one hand, traditional institutions have difficulties in coming to terms with the complexity of public issues, the multiform interdependencies of stakeholders, the fragmentation of society, and the need to resolve divergent interests. This calls for new ways of developing democratic discourse and of fostering public involvement. On the other hand, the higher level of diversity and complexity brought about by a governance system may undermine the existing principles of democratic decision-making without offering viable alternatives. What is evident is that governance redefines the constraints on the exercise of democracy, and the opportunities and challenges it brings about must be regarded as the two sides of a coin. What is clear is that the normative approaches to good governance, including good governance at the urban level, bring to the fore crucial tensions and challenges in at least four domains that are of fundamental importance in urban governance systems: [1] responsibility and accountability; [2] representation and representativeness; [3] access and power; and [4] legitimacy and effectiveness. These will be reviewed in the next section. The notion of good governance; debating Fukuyama Whatever their stand on the role of government in governance arrangements, governance scholars dared to become normative and discuss good governance. One may wonder, however, whether this is changing. Fukuyama (2013) raised the provocative and even fundamental question what is governance? and thus triggered an interesting debate. He intended to delimit good governance to actions of the state or, in his conceptualization, the functioning of executive branches and their bureaucracies (hence no politics, no content, no goal setting). His basic definition of governance is 2 Before that, the Council of Europe formulated a European Charter of Local Self-Government which entered into force in Page 7 of 21

8 government s ability to make and enforce rules, and to deliver services, regardless of whether that government is democratic or not. Good quality governance, according to Fukuyama, is the interaction of capacity (resources and level of professionalization) and autonomy of the bureaucrats. He argued that criteria such as the rule of law and output are too multi-interpretable and/or too normative to serve as measures of good governance. He further proposed to disaggregate states into their components, such as cities, since huge differences may and do exist within one country. Many scholars have responded to Fukuyama s provocation. This is not the place to summarize all criticism and suggestions. 3 Some parts of the debate, however, are relevant to our search for good urban governance. First of all, we cannot but support the suggestion to assess good governance at a disaggregate level, at the level it concerns. This is basically what we have done in the present volume, as well as in the research project that originally gave rise to it. When Dutch case studies were compared (Hendriks and Drosterij (eds.) 2012), it was obvious that the governance quality of various cities differed quite seriously, and this variation made it impossible to generalize the findings to an aggregate level, for instance, the quality of good governance in Dutch cities. Second, we strongly doubt whether Fukuyama s choice to delimit governance to state activities and, in essence, to state executive activities, is a useful one. There is nothing wrong with measuring the interaction between bureaucratic capacity and autonomy, of course, but is this the essence of governance? One might define it that way, but how then do we assess the quality of the government system, of the political system, of the way decisions and policies are being made, and of the relations between governmental and non-governmental actors? In our opinion, we had better include these in the governance concept. As Fukuyama rightly observes, outputs are not the results of government actions only. Governments need to cooperate with other organizations in society. The capacity to do so (communicative, interactive, bonding quality, and the like) is a necessity for good governance, but it is not part of Fukuyama s criteria. Autonomous bureaucracies with high capacity do not automatically reach out to society. A third remark concerns the issue whether democracy criteria should be included in assessments of good governance. It all seems to boil down to the definition of governance as such. When we start off with Fukuyama s definition, there is little need to apply normative democratic values, which could be done in a kind of additional assessment, an assessment of democratic governance. Our conceptualization of good governance, however, is far less limited than Fukuyama s, and we need to assess its quality, for which purpose democracy criteria are well suited. Finally, Fukuyama proposes to limit good governance in order to be able to measure the concept more easily. We agree that good governance is difficult to measure. To overcome this drawback, the components of good governance first need to be clarified, which is why we have undertaken to describe and identify those components in this paper. A second step would then be to measure them. This is not an easy task, but certainly not impossible considering early works of Beetham and Hyden (Beetham 1991; Hyden 2004) and the efforts discussed in the empirical Chapters in this volume. 3 The full string of responses on Fukuyama s commentary in Governance can be found on the Governance Blog Page 8 of 21

9 For these reasons, we find Fukuyama s position troublesome and confusing, starting with semantics: why talk about good governance (as Fukuyama does) if one does not want to be normative? And do we want to run the risk of paving the way for a-political politics (Mouffe 2005:8)? Our position in the debate on good governance is not on one of its extremes in terms of being normative. On the one hand, we do not see how we can assess and value governance as good without using normative criteria. On the other hand, the basket of good should not be too full (as Fukuyama rightly fears, as do many others, see e.g., Björkman 2000) and should leave room for analyzing the relation between (the shape of) democracy and good governance, and for adapting criteria to local, historical situations. We have not chosen one best way. In our conceptualization of good urban governance, therefore, we have not included a normative stand on what the needs of the inhabitants or the desired outcomes are. Nor have we defined what exactly a system with checks and balances is. In this respect, we differ from the good governance criteria of the UN and the World Bank, and, to some extent, from the way the Council of Europe formulated its Principles (see Chapter 1). We have left room for local adaptation, according to national traditions, local cultures, political preferences, and the like. At the same time, this does not mean that anything goes. Whatever the national or local context, needs of inhabitants will have to be searched for, public goods will have to be produced in an efficient way and will have to meet people s wishes, and all this needs to be governed in a system of checks and balances. Nor does it mean that every project, every program, or every action that is labeled good or better governance or aims to improve governance, is genuinely what it says it is (as Pianzola and Ladner illustrate in their analysis when they say these procedures can be seen as attempts at better governance (..) the subsequent realization may not ). The question, then, is what constitutes good urban governance. As we discussed in the first Chapter of this volume, both the United Nations and the World Bank defined standards for good governance, while other organizations formulated codes for good governance. The main critique one might have here, is that, while acknowledging the relevance of norms and principles, the organizations that set them hardly address the relation between those norms and principles. Therefore, we prefer to take another normative approach, focusing on how the structures and performance of democracy are affected by a governance system, which thus enables us to shed some light on some of these relations. The relation between governance and democracy is not without tensions and challenges (Franzke et al. 2007; Sørensen and Torfing 2007). Governance redefines the constraints on the exercise of democracy, and it may result in weakening traditional democratic institutions and decision-making. It may also provide opportunities for improving democracy - traditional democracy or, more likely, innovative kinds of democracy. In the first Chapter of this volume, we discussed four kinds of tensions between governance and democracy in the urban area: between responsibility and accountability, between representation and representativeness, between access and power, and between legitimacy and effectiveness. Considering these four challenges to urban governance, we then attempted to identify a number of fundamental performance and system values that integrate the notion of democracy as based on responsiveness and effectiveness with the idea of rule of law. In such an approach, urban governance is good if it responds to the needs of the inhabitants, produces efficiently, and brings about the desired outcomes Page 9 of 21

10 (performance values), and if the governance system is governed by institutionalized rules that have been formulated through a system with checks and balances (system values). 4. TENSIONS AND CHALLENGES IN GOOD URBAN GOVERNANCE Responsibility and accountability Complexity obscures relationships and lines of responsibility and accountability. Within a polity in which the public and private spheres are increasingly intertwined, a range of agencies and organizations enjoying decision-making powers and financial resources operate independently of formal urban government bodies to which members are elected and held responsible and accountable by voters (Franzke et al. 2007). Because of the diffused nature of many decisions, the responsibilities exercised by elected councils are inevitably narrowed, and decision-making may be beyond the reach of genuine democratic processes. To stress how networks undermine simple lines of accountability, Rhodes (1997a: 58) points out that [t]here is an obvious conflict between the tenets of accountability in a representative democracy and participation in networks which can be open without being formally accountable. There is a risk that private government is substituted for public responsibility and accountability. As Lowndes and Skelcher (1998) put it, governance may reflect a broader democratic deficit in which non-elected bodies and self-selected representatives gain power at the expense of elected politicians (p. 316). The ability to draw clear lines and outline underlying principles of responsibility and accountability becomes increasingly arduous. By way of illustration, partnership structures, where responsibility and accountability are shared between the partners and the outcomes are negotiated, exemplify the difficulty of defining where the ultimate responsibility and accountability rest (Burns 1997). The implication is that, as formal hierarchical responsibility and accountability are inadequate in a complex context, it is necessary to reconsider and reformulate the nature and the meanings attached to them. The fact that private actors are an integral part of urban governance systems and that elections allow the public only partially to influence the multiplicity of players that take part in decision-making is not reason enough to argue that the ballot box is of limited importance and that representative democracy should not be pursued. The democratic legitimacy of urban governments, which derives from their being the only elected bodies, is undeniable (although it could be questioned on the grounds of very low turnouts). The challenge is to recognize the subtle complexity of responsibility and accountability and ensure that each mechanism has a balanced democratic input. Representation and representativeness In a system of urban governance characterized by a plurality of players that interact in multiple decisionmaking arenas, the nature of the problem of interest representation is transformed. Old criteria are ill suited for defining who or what should be represented and whether representation is adequate. The idea of stakeholding and the concept of legitimacy are lenses through which it is possible to focus on this issue and on the challenges it implies. Stakeholding means that every individual having a stake (in a locality, in a polity, in a decision, etc.) should have the opportunity to influence the process through Page 10 of 21

11 which her/his interests are affected. In other words, stakeholding recognizes that a variety of interests should be taken into account and that stakeholders have judgments or concerns that demand representation in decision-making processes. This is, however, fraught with difficulties. There are key questions to be answered about who the stakeholders are. As argued by Rustin (1997), the idea leaves open the fundamental issue of who is entitled to what stake and on what grounds. The number of individuals, groups, and communities that could be identified as stakeholders is potentially unlimited (Kelly et al. 1997). All actors may be regarded as having an interest in almost every issue or decision. Moreover, stakeholding requires that the different stakes and their intensities be specified: each person or group should have an opportunity for influencing decisions of any matter in direct proportion to their legitimate material interest in the outcome (Burnheim 1985: 5). Even though we could differentiate between primary stakeholders (those having a real or direct interest) and secondary stakeholders (those having a more remote or indirect interest), the assessment of the degree of intensity is difficult to realize in practice. It is also worth stressing that the notion of stakeholding does not indicate how conflicting interests are to be balanced (Kelly et al. 1997) and what procedure can ensure equal representation of all stakeholders. A further aspect should also be emphasized. In an urban governance system without the sources of legitimacy that are appealed to for traditional democratic representative institutions, there is the issue of who can be considered a legitimate representative. If the legitimacy of the actors involved derives from different sources (e.g., local elections, professional knowledge, common experience, or appointment) a further dimension of uncertainty is added as the various mandates are not mutually recognized and there is a lack of clarity about their relative value (Lowndes and Skelcher quoted in Stoker, 2000, p. 100). The existence of multiple and competing dimensions of representation within an urban governance system is in line with Pitkin s (1967) seminal work on the concept of political representation which recognizes the plurality of meanings of the idea of representation (i.e. formalistic, symbolic, descriptive, and substantive). Access and power Urban governance has the potential to foster a cooperative and consensual style of policymaking, but this does not necessarily imply that urban negotiation systems are open to democratic influence. The process of governance may be biased in favor of organized interests that have the capacity to take part; only selected interests may be represented; or certain forms of involvement may be hindered by cogovernment. Partnership and network arrangements often involve the collaboration of actors characterized by different resources, areas of expertise, cultures, and interests. Some of them may experience greater difficulty in finding their way in an increasingly complicated landscape of urban politics. As Denters et al. (1999: 842) contend, [n]ot every potential societal interest community is equally capable of getting itself organized in such a way as to be able to participate in policy networks on an equal footing with established interest groups and professional organizations. The openness, or closedness, of networks and partnerships is a crucial issue. Various forms (e.g., social and cognitive) and causes (e.g., veto power of actors, frames of reference, culture of a network) of closedness can be delineated (Schaap and van Twist 1997; Schaap 2007). Complex decision-making Page 11 of 21

12 processes can be simultaneously open and closed in relation to different aspects of the interaction. In addition, there may be incentives to restrict access to decision-making, both from the perspective of the capacity to take decisions and of organizational self-interest, since the greater the homogeneity of interests represented, the lower the decision-making costs (Denters et al. 1999). According to Dryzek (1987), more attention should be paid to reaching an agreement between well-organized special interest groups rather than to serving the interests of the wider public. Differences in the centrality of actors positions in the urban governance system also reflect the different weights of various interests in determining the final outcome of decisions. Resource-rich players (e.g., ability to organize, organizational cohesion, strategic location) are likely to have easier access and stronger influence (Maloney et al. 1994). The problem is that existing inequalities in access and influence may be reproduced, if not reinforced. Due to complex interdependencies, the development of strategy may become divorced from democratic processes, resulting in a two-level democratic system characterized by a decision-making core and a periphery. This means that the extent to which the wider public is allowed to take part and to have a real say in the inter-organizational networks that constitute the foundation of urban governance systems cannot be taken for granted. In other words, the potential benefits that urban governance may entail in relation to democracy have to be critically assessed. Without appropriate incentives or obligations to increase the actual level of involvement and to ensure access to the relatively powerless, the wider public may perceive urban governance processes as impenetrable and unintelligible. A more elaborated definition of governance should take into account the distribution of power and influence between governmental and non-governmental players. According to Stoker (1998a), governance calls for a reformulation of the notion of power. Stone (1993) argues in favor of a facilitative concept of power: the idea of power over (i.e. control and domination of a predominant actor over a subordinate actor) should be replaced by the notion of power to (i.e. capacity to act). Instead of being conceived of as a zero-sum game (an adversarial vision of power), power relations should be understood as a positive-sum game (with win-win solutions). As Stoker (1998a: 47) puts it, in a governance context the crucial act of power is the capacity to provide leadership and a mode of operation that enables significant tasks to be done. Considering that (a) in a complex environment, it is not possible to exercise comprehensive control and that (b) a multiplicity of actors hold essential resources to achieve specific objectives, authority relies more on inducing actions within a cooperative context than on issuing commands. In other words, decision-making processes are less concerned with the direct application of power and more with dialogue and negotiation. Legitimacy and effectiveness Legitimacy and effectiveness are two key normative standards for good urban governance. As noted by Dahl (1994: 24), the dilemma between these dimensions has existed ever since the idea and practice of democracy evolved in ancient Greece 2,500 years ago. Legitimacy is based, among other things, on the acceptance of decisions even if outcomes do not correspond to actors self-interest, the (perceived) fairness and suitability of decisions, equal access to and influence on decision-making, system stability, and compliance with norms and rules. Effectiveness, by contrast, depends on the production of public Page 12 of 21

13 goods and services that satisfy the demands of citizens, governmental problem-solving capacity and ability to prioritize and attain goals, and courses of action that are able to realize optimal outcomes. According to Scharpf (1999), democratic legitimacy is a two-dimensional concept, 4 which refers to both the inputs and the outputs of a political system. On the input side, democratic legitimacy requires mechanisms or procedures to link political decisions with citizens preferences. In modern democracies, these mechanisms are reflected in representative institutions in which political decisionmakers can be held accountable by means of elections. At the same time, Scharpf argues that democracy would be an empty ritual if the democratic procedure was not able to produce effective outcomes, that is, to achieve the goals that are important to citizens. Easton (1975) originally coined a dual conceptualization of political support which could account both for evaluations of the authorities' performance (specific support) and for more basic and fundamental aspects of the political system (diffuse support). Diffuse support is described as a deepseated set of attitudes towards politics and the operation of a political system that is relatively impervious to change. It is this type of support that is often used for measuring the legitimacy of political institutions. Specific support is related to the performance of the government and may function as an indication for output-oriented legitimacy. To sum up, an institution is perceived as legitimate if approval for that institution is general among those people subject to its authority. A common source of legitimacy is the perception that a government is operating under democratic principles. In other words, legitimacy on the input side depends on mechanisms that translate the will of the people into political decisions. If those mechanisms are judged by the people as democratic, then there is input legitimacy. Effectiveness depends on the capacity to create optimal outcomes, to prioritize between alternative options within a context of limited resources, and to maximize problem-solving capacity; all this should obviously be closely related to citizens preferences, which need to be tracked down and translated into political decisions. What should be stressed here is that, in a system of good urban governance, it is essential to create the conditions for legitimacy and effectiveness to be mutually reinforcing and not to be characterized by an inverse relationship. 5. CORE VALUES IN GOOD URBAN GOVERNANCE Building on the tensions and challenges that characterize urban systems, we can identify a number of fundamental governance values which integrate the notion of democracy as the rule of, by, and for the people with the equally central notion of the rule of law. Performance values center on the production of results by and for the people. In this approach, urban governance may be qualified as good if it responds to the inhabitants needs, is produced effectively, and is processed properly. System values concern the overarching, constitutional rules of the governance system; they pertain to structural qualities of the system as such, independently of what goes in, comes out, or proceeds through. Urban governance systems in this approach can be qualified as good if they are governed by institutionalized rules that have been formulated through a system with checks and balances. 4 Other authors add a third dimension, throughput legitimacy, which we refrain from discussing. Page 13 of 21

14 In Table 1, system values are positioned in the right hand column, distinguishing between values inspired by democratic theory (resilient rule of the people) and theories of the rule of law (structural counterbalance). Performance values can partly be reduced to responsiveness on the input side, and effectiveness on the output side of democratic governance. However, rule of law theories remind us of important values that pertain to due process (reliability) in the whole chain that connects inputs to outputs. Table 1: Good Governance Values Inspiration Input values Output values System values Democracy as rule by the people as rule for the people as rule of the people Core value: responsiveness Related input values: representation, rapport, participation, access, openness Core value: effectiveness Related output values: productiveness, efficiency, added value, problem-solving Core value: resilience Related system values: dynamic stability, selfregulation, sustainability, adaptability, cohesion in diversity Rule of law as rule by the law, as rule for the law as checks and balances Core value: reliability Related process values: (*) Due process, lawfulness, correctness, predictability; integrity and civility; transparency and accountability; proportionality and fair play; impartiality and equality of rights Core value: counterbalance Related system values: Countervailing powers and responsibilities, checks and balances, oversight and surveillance, supervision and control (*) These are called process values because due process, lawfulness, correctness and the like pertain to the entire process that in systems theory connects inputs to outputs. The overarching value of reliability is also in essence a process value, not confined to either the input side or the output side of governance. Responsiveness and effectiveness Democracy theory often refers to Lincoln (1863), who declared that democracy, as rule of the people (both literally and figuratively a contraction of demos and kratos), ought to be rule by the people and also rule for the people (Hendriks 2010; Hendriks & Drosterij 2011). According to Putnam (1993: 63), good democratic government not only considers the demands of its citizenry (that is, is responsive), but Page 14 of 21

15 also acts efficaciously upon these demands (that is, is effective). Dahl (1994) refers to participation versus effectiveness, and Lijphart (1999) to representation versus performance, but to all intents and purposes these are all about the same thing: input legitimacy versus output legitimacy, or, in terms of their more generic synonyms, responsiveness and effectiveness (cf. Hoggart & Clark 2000). A model of government may be considered responsive to the degree and way in which it has organized representation, participation, accessibility, and openness. A model of government may be considered effective to the degree and way in which it shows an ability to take action, solve problems, and act effectively and efficiently. Reliable governance As argued above, Scharpf (1997: 19ff) observed that democratic governance, whether of a direct or indirect kind, must be prompted by the people so as to acquire input legitimacy and must produce added value for the people so as to acquire output legitimacy. However, good governance amounts to more than gratifying the citizenry of today, let alone a momentary majority within the demos. This is expressed in the idea of the rule of law, which complements the idea of democracy. Forcing the issue, one could also distinguish input values ( rule by the law, or governance that abides by, follows, respects, and internalizes the law) and output values ( rule for the law, or governance that expresses, operationalizes, administers, and enforces the law), but the essentials of reliable governance actually relate to the entire process connecting inputs and outputs. Therefore, the input/output distinction is not highlighted in Table 1 when it comes to process values. The central term here is reliability, bringing together more legal (lawfulness, accountability, equal rights) and more interactionist (correctness, integrity, civility) types of values. Rothstein and Teorell (2008) consider just one element out of this set, impartiality, as the essence of good governance. Especially where the formal rule of law and deep-seated social expectations converge as in principles such as equality, proportionality, and fair play sensitivity to this dimension of good governance is well developed. Reliability is no less a core value in good governance in the urban domain than responsiveness or effectiveness. Those involved in urban governance have rights and they are fully entitled to demand respect for these rights, even if urban governance is said to be working by and for the demos at large. Resilience and counterbalance Process values are an important complement to the dominant discourse of input and output values, but there is still more to good governance than that. Good governance implies taking good care not only of what goes into, comes out of, or proceeds through a system, but also to the constitution of the system as such. We refer to the structural way in which voice and counter voice, powers and countervailing powers have been organized; to the governance system as a constitutional whole of offices, powers, positions, and relations (cf. Ostrom 1982; Toonen 2010). Some parts of democratic theory greatly value the resilience, the self-regulating ability, and the dynamic stability of the democratic system, or, in short, its ability to remain standing when pressurized and to remain united when divided ( E Pluribus Unum ). In the constitutional ideas of Montesquieu, Page 15 of 21

16 Madison, and others, institutionalized counter-power is a paramount value: countervailing powers, checks and balances, bodies keeping each other in check, the distribution of power, and the balance of power (Rosanvallon, 2008). As observed before, the seeds of these ideas had been sown in republican Rome many centuries before. 5 Constitutional principles such as resilience and counter-balance are often associated with the state, but they can also be associated, of course, with urban arenas. System values should be at the core of any reflection on good urban governance systems. There is every reason to do so, not only in the Netherlands (Duyvendak, Hendriks & Van Niekerk 2009), but also in other places where divisions and tensions between different groups of people characterize the urban landscape (Putnam 2007). The urban world is full of planning disasters and policy fiascos, demonstrating how the existence of proper checks and balances is disputed to say the least. The constitutional development of supervisory arrangements such as urban audit offices, ombudsmen, and other forms of supervision and control has not reached maturity by a long shot. Debates on supervision and control, therefore, are certainly no less important for urban governance than they are for corporate governance, where such debates are the order of the day. Bringing the constitution back in conceptual discourse on good democratic governance, and also in practical attempts to get closer to it in the urban realm seems to be a challenge for years to come. 5. DISCUSSION OF THE PRACTICAL USE OF CORE VALUES When applying the core values catalogue (see Van den Dool, Schaap, et al, 2014), we gained some additional insights in the relation between and usage of the values. In this final Section, we discuss those insights. Good urban governance as a balancing act The primary concern with respect to good urban governance in the USA and Europe seems to relate to legitimacy. How can we involve people in the complex governance of a city, while many are not particularly keen to get involved too much? Some cities try to seduce people, but do they do so wholeheartedly? Once people do get involved, power issues arise (Musso, 2014; Franzke & Roeder, 2014; Pianzola & Ladner, 2014). Pierre (2014) and Stone (2014) tells us that good governance is not a matter of obeying a set of criteria but is actually a balancing act. Good governance does not mean more market mechanism or more public domain, but it means balancing between public and private involvement, focusing not on the opposition between democratic procedure and economic development, but rather on the balance between the two. In essence, this boils down to the ancient Greek proverb: nothing too much, do not exaggerate. Both Stone and Pierre are highly critical regarding the call for market mechanisms and private business insights and habits into public governance. Pierre suggests reconsidering the benefits of traditional democratic government, without forgetting its 5 See our previous reference to Cicero ([44 AD], 1828, 2000), but an author such as Aristotle ([approx. 330 BC], 1984) already underlined the importance of balance in government as an essential aspect of politics. Page 16 of 21