Shifts in Governance
Problems of Legitimacy and Accountability
One of the most significant developments in modern societies in the past
decades has been the transformation of traditional state-based governing
mechanisms and the advancement of new arrangements of governance. This has
occurred in the private, the semi-private and the public sphere, and has
involved governmental and non-governmental actors and agencies at various
levels of organisation (local, regional, national, transnational and global). Typically, these new forms of governance rely less on the state as the
institutional form and hierarchical centre of society.
Governance
refers to the phenomenon that many public functions increasingly seem to
be assumed and carried out by actors other than the classical government
institutions of the nation-state (and its subdivisions). Public administration
is thus increasingly becoming ‘unbounded’, involving various public,
non-governmental and private actors in various ways in the process of decision
making over public goods.
Shifts in gov ernance can occur in two dimensions: vertically, across different levels
of local, national and transnational government, and horizontally, from public
to (semi-) private actors and agencies. ‘Governance beyond the state’ and
‘governance without government’ involve important questions concerning the
location of power, the sharing of responsibility, the legitimacy of decisions
and decision takers, and the accountability to citizens and organisations in
different national, subnational and international settings.
Such changes in
the forms, mechanisms, location and cultures of governance have generated new
and important research agendas for social scientists, concerned with
different societal sectors and activities: law, social sciences, and the
humanities. The increased interest in and use of the concept of governance has
developed simultaneously, but disconnectedly in neighbouring disciplines.
The Shifts in Governance research programme is meant to build
bridges across discip l ines and intra-disciplinary research agendas. It intends to stimulate fruitful
comparisons between rather different phenomena and to inspire conceptual and
empirical work through cross-fertilization and mutual learning in related
disciplines.
Research supported by the programme Shifts in Governance will focus on four sub-themes:
- multilevel governance;
- urban governance;
- cultures of governance;
- private and public responsibilities.
The brochure Shifts in Governance (revised edition 2004) offers more detailed information on these themes.