Governance Theory and Practice

Governance Theory and Practice

Also by Gerry Stoker THE NEW POLITICS OF BRITISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT (editor) MODELS OF LOCAL GOVERNANCE; Public Opinion and Political Theory (with W. Miller and M. Dickson) HOLISTIC GOVERNANCE (with Perri 6, D. Leat and K. Setzler) THEORIES AND METHODS IN POLITICAL SCIENCE Second Edition (co-edited with D. Marsh) TRANSFORMING LOCAL GOVERNANCE BRITISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT INTO THE 21 st CENTURY (co-edited with D. Wilson) WHY POLITICS MATTERS; Making Democracy Work RE-ENERGIZING CITIZENSHIP; Strategies for Civil Renewal (with T. Brannan and P. John)

Governance Theory and Practice A Cross-Disciplinary Approach Vasudha Chhotray Lecturer in Development Studies University of East Anglia, UK and Gerry Stoker Professor of Governance and Politics University of Southampton, UK

Vasudha Chhotray and Gerry Stoker 2009 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2009 978-0-230-54676-9 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-36117-5 ISBN 978-0-230-58334-4 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780230583344 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Chhotray, Vasudha, 1975 Governance theory and practice : a cross-disciplinary approach / Vasudha Chhotray and Gerry Stoker. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. 1. Group decision making. 2. Political science. 3. Economic policy. 4 Management. 5. Social policy. I. Stoker, Gerry. II. Title. HM746.C48 2008 306.201 dc22 2008024574 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09

Contents List of Tables Acknowledgements viii ix 1 Introduction: Exploring Governance 1 Defining the scope of governance theory 3 Explaining the rise of governance theory 7 A cross-disciplinary tour of governance 10 2 Governance in Public Administration and Political 16 Science Challenge to the discipline of politics and public 18 administration Making governance work: five theoretical threads 26 Network management theory 27 Theories of delegation 32 Social interpretive theories 36 The bounded rationality school 37 Cultural institutional theory 41 Governance debates in political science and public 46 administration Governance without government? 46 The nature of governance failure 48 The challenge of democracy and accountability 49 Concluding comment 51 3 Governance and the New Institutional Economics 53 The challenge of new institutional economics 54 Intellectual domain of the NIE and the study of 57 governance Williamson and transaction cost economics: 58 firm-level governance Principal-agent theory 60 A rules-based conception of governance: North 63 Ostrom: common-pool resources 67 The limits to NIE s understanding of governance 69 Conclusions 72 v

vi Contents 4 Governance and International Relations 76 A governance turn? 77 The institutions and structures of global governance 82 Understanding of power relationships 86 State power through global governance 86 Fairness of the global architecture of governance 90 The hegemony of neoliberalism 92 Main themes for debate: global democracy or anarchy? 93 Conceptual debates unresolved 93 Normative debates: world order and democracy 94 5 Governance in Development Studies 97 Context and meaning 98 Major epistemological developments 98 Good governance 102 Consensus or not? Major tensions within good governance 108 Governance and aid 109 Governance and democratisation 111 Governance and the state 115 Governance and power 117 6 Governance in Socio-Legal Studies 120 Intellectual domain of socio-legal inquiry 122 What is the law? 122 Where is the law? 126 Is there any chronology to the emergence of the law? 129 The socio-legal response to good governance 131 Law and power 134 Foucault s key propositions on governance, power 135 and the law The individual as subject: strategies of self-regulation 137 Analytical tools for governance 141 7 Corporate Governance (with Damian Tobin) 144 Economistic theories of corporate governance 145 Agency theory 147 Transaction costs theories 149 Recommendations for corporate governance: clear 149 principles, unclear results Resource-based explanation of corporate governance 153 Comparative governance systems 156 The legal explanation 158 The political explanation 159

Contents vii A historical perspective 160 Convergence? 162 Conclusions 163 8 Participatory Governance 165 The meaning of participatory governance: diversity in 167 theory and practice State or civil society: where does participatory 173 governance begin? Citizenship versus community engagement 177 Janus-faced power: the normative and the empirical in 179 participatory governance Participatory governance and effectiveness 184 9 Environmental Governance 191 Shifts in values and epistemological developments 192 The environmental governance discourse: 195 multi-disciplinary influences Global environment, global politics: global 195 environmental governance Institutional responses to the environment as a 200 collective action problem A tense environment: whose governance is it? 206 Power and environmental governance 208 The effectiveness of environmental governance 211 10 Governance: From Theory to Practice 214 Advances stemming from a multi-disciplinary approach 216 Searching for a governance solution: some design principles 226 Governance solutions may be clumsy 226 The limits to mainstream approaches to governance 227 audit The prospects for institutional design 229 Cognitive, social and motivational filters: towards a 231 heuristic Combining realism and normative principles in 237 approaching governance Governance and politics 237 Normative principles, democracy and governance 241 References 248 Index 270

List of Tables 2.1 A typology of delegation 33 2.2 Four commonly occurring cultures in institutions 44 2.3 Governance responses: insights from cultural 45 institutional theory 2.4 Hierarchical governance responses: a classification 45 2.5 A simple typology of government and governance 47 10.1 Governance problems and solutions: insights from 224 different disciplines 10.2 Four rationalities-perspectives on environmental matters 234 10.3 New forms of citizen engagement 246 viii

Acknowledgements We are very grateful to Damian Tobin for his co-authorship of Chapter 7. We thank our family and colleagues for their support. Thanks should particularly go to Andy Hindmoor and Tony Payne for their comments on earlier drafts of parts of the book. The financial support of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) provided us both with the time and resources to write this book. It came in the form of professorial fellowship from January 2004 (ref no: RES-051-27-0067) provided to Gerry Stoker. We thank the ESRC for their support and the time and opportunity it has provided. ix