Governing modern societies: towards participatory governance

Governing Modern Societies

Is the ‘golden age’ of democracy really over due to the pressures of globalisation and the erosion of the nation state? Within this book, Heinelt seeks to address the democratic deficit in political systems linked to limited Citizen Participation reflecting on the notion of democracy and participatory governance and how they relate to each other. Exploring democracy beyond the governmental structures and focusing on participatory governance in particular, this book demonstrates that common notions of democracy have to be re-­conceptualised without neglecting key ideas. By arguing that it is a political task to turn the inevitability of governance into a participatory form, Heinelt develops a model of different ‘worlds of democratic actions’ which shows that democratic political systems have to be considered as a complex and broad web of various forms of interest articulation and intermediation as well as decision-­making. Making an important contribution to the ‘third transformation of democracy’, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of governance, democracy, policy-­making and European studies. Hubert Heinelt is Professor of Public Administration, Public Policy and Urban Research at the Institute for Political Science, Darmstadt University of Technology.

Routledge studies in governance and public policy

  1 Public Sector Ethics Finding and implementing values Edited by Charles Sampford and Noel Preston with Carol-­Anne Bois   2 Ethics and Political Practice Perspectives on legislative ethics Edited by Noel Preston and Charles Sampford with Carol-­Anne Bois   3 Why Does Policy Change? Lessons from British transport policy 1945–99 Jeremy Richardson and Geoffrey Dudley   4 Social Relations and Social Exclusion Rethinking political economy Peter Somerville   5 Local Partnerships and Social Exclusion in the European Union New forms of local social governance? Edited by Mike Geddes and John Benington   6 Local Governance in England and France Alistair Cole and Peter John   7 Politicization of the Civil Service in Comparative Perspective The quest for control Edited by B. Guy Peters and Jon Pierre   8 Urban Governance and Democracy Leadership and community involvement Edited by Michael Haus, Hubert Heinelt and Murray Stewart

  9 Legitimacy and Urban Governance A cross-­national comparative study Edited by Hubert Heinelt, David Sweeting and Panagiotis Getimis 10 The Idea of Public Service Reflections on the higher civil service in Britain Barry O’Toole 11 Changing Images of Civil Society From protest to government Edited by Bruno Jobert and Beate Kohler-­Koch 12 Reasserting the Public in Public Services New public management reforms Edited by M. Ramesh, Eduardo Araral and Wu Xun 13 Governing Modern Societies Towards participatory governance Hubert Heinelt

Governing Modern Societies Towards participatory governance

Hubert Heinelt

First published 2010 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2010 Hubert Heinelt All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-85668-6 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 10: 0-415-49655-1 (hbk) ISBN 10: 0-203-85668-6 (ebk) ISBN 13: 978-0-415-49655-1 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-203-85668-0 (ebk)

For Silvia, Marie-­Sophie, Sebastian and Alexander

Contents



List of figures

xi

1

Introduction

1

2

Starting points and key conceptual issues

6

2.1 The democratic challenges of governing a ‘politicized society’  6 2.2 The advantages of participatory governance  8 2.3 How to define the performance of governance arrangements?  12 2.4 Governance and different governance modes  15 2.5 Different dimensions of governance – and the ‘three worlds of democratic action’  22 2.6 What are the conditions for participatory governance?  28 2.7 Governance and knowledge  40 3

Different sectors of interest intermediation and their ‘composition’ in political systems

49

3.1 The need to reconceptualize citizen participation  49 3.2 The regime composition of political systems and the sector of civil society related interest intermediation  51 3.3 The general structure of the regime composition of the EU and the role of civil society within it  56 4

Key features of the reforms of governance arrangements and of the perspectives on reform held by particular ‘discourse communities’ 4.1 Effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy as standards of ‘good governance’  65

65

x   Contents 4.2 On reforms at the local level and related debates  67 4.3 Possible developments for the political order of the EU  74 5

Achieving governability: the case of the EU structural funds and EU environment policy

82

5.1 What does governability mean?  82 5.2 Characteristics of the EU structural funds and the EU environment policy  84 5.3 Achieving governability by loose coupling  89 6

Multi-­level systems and flexible power geometry

95

6.1 Size and democracy  97 6.2 Metropolitan governance: an example taken from the search for a flexible political geometry  100 6.3 Density of interaction as well as cohesion and unity in heterogeneity – and their relevance for political orders  107 6.4 Statehood beyond the territorial or nation state  112 7

Perspectives

123

7.1 The ‘three worlds of democratic action’ and perspectives of participatory governance  123 7.2 The ‘regime composition’ of political systems and the perspective of complementarities between different sectors of interest intermediation  128 7.3 Linkages between debates about reforms and their possible complementarities  129 7.4 The contours of a flexible political geometry  130 7.5 Loose coupling and the perspective of diversity  132

Notes References Index

135 144 165

Figures

2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 3.1 4.1 4.2 4.3 6.1 6.2 6.3

The three worlds of democratic action The action arena Ladder of citizen participation Individual and organizational learning Knowledge and the action arena Sectors of interest intermediation with the political system Different forms of democratic legitimation Overview of recent reforms and perspectives on reform at the local level Overview of reform perspectives of the EU The cube of democratic metropolitan governance Linkages between territorial and functional statehood in the EU Different types of EU multi-­level systems

25 33 37 42 47 52 67 68 74 105 115 122

1 Introduction

Many studies point to a democratic deficit not only in the EU but in political systems in general. This is linked to limitations in citizen participation as a core element of democracy (Dahl 1994). In addition, the current constellation of political systems in the ‘Western World’ has been shown to be a ‘post-­democracy’ emerging from the complexity of modern society (Zolo 1992) and has been characterized as a ‘crisis of egalitarian politics and the trivialization of democracy’ (Crouch 2004: 6). But is the ‘golden age’ of democracy really over due to the pressures of globalization and the erosion of the nation state? In this book it will be argued that the way we have learnt to think about democracy has to be changed and the notion of democracy has to be re-­conceptualized. The aim of the book is to make a contribution to what has been called by Dahl (1994) a ‘third transformation of democracy’. According to Dahl a ‘first transformation of democracy’ took place in the first half of the fifth century bc in Greece [in the] transformation of nondemocratic city-­states – typically aristocracies, oligarchies, monarchies, or mixtures of all three – into democracies. For the next two thousand years, the idea and practice of democracy were associated almost exclusively with small city-­states. [. . .] In the small compass of the city-­states, the central institution was the assembly in which all citizens were entitled to participate. [In] a second democratic transformation the idea of democracy was transferred from the city-­state to the much larger scale of the national state. [. . .] What made the second transformation possible was an idea and a set of practice we now tend to regard as essential to democracy – representation. [. . .] As a consequence of that transformation in scale and form, a set of political institutions and practices, which taken as a whole were unknown to the theory and practice of democracy up to that time, came into existence. (Dahl 1994: 25)1 A ‘third transformation of democracy’ could lead to a model of a post-­ parliamentary democracy but we should not end up with a feeling of having lost something which we never really had – a vibrant democracy with citizens engaged not only in periodic elections but also in public reasoning about and

2   Introduction having concern for the res publica, plus accountable political representatives and parties responsive to the demands and concerns of their members and supporters as well as to the citizenry in general. This book concentrates on democracy beyond the governmental structures in the sense of participatory governance. It starts from a summary of issues and commentaries (in Section 2.1) which emphasizes that governing modern soci­ eties inevitably implies governance beyond governmental structures. Against this background it is argued that it is a political task to turn the inevitability of governance into a participatory form. This requires some reflection about the notion of democracy and participatory governance and how they relate to each other. Furthermore, there is the issue of how governability can be linked to participatory forms of policy-­making (in Section 2.2). This is followed by some commentaries on additional key concepts used in later chapters of the book. These address the questions of how the performance of governance arrangements should be defined (Section 2.3) and how to clarify the notion of governance and of different governance modes (Section 2.4). In a further step (in Section 2.5), different governing orders and associated governance modes are outlined, which represent specific layers of policy-­making. Each of these governing orders offers particular forms of participation which relate to certain models of democracy. This leads to a model of different ‘worlds of democratic actions’. This model shows that democratic political systems have to be considered as a complex and broad web of various forms of interest articulation and intermediation as well as decision-­making. Within such a web the concept of citizenship needs to be re-­conceptualized. A particular kind of understanding with respect to the actors involved needs to be developed (see Section 2.6). It is argued that the incremental and reflexive processes of identifying and recognizing the actors are crucial who should be participating. It is argued that the way actors acquire an opportunity – and under certain conditions a right – to participate relies on particular ‘rules in use’ in specific action arenas. At the same time such ‘rules in use’ also structure the governance modes. Finally (in Section 2.7), consideration is given to how concepts of learning and the formation of policy-­ relevant knowledge, linked to the ‘new’ horizontally structured governance modes based on communication (i.e. ‘arguing’ and ‘bargaining’), offer new perspectives on intentionally and deliberately co-­ordinated actions within a complex and interdependent society. Subsequent chapters reflect in more detail on the above arguments with reference to empirical and practical matters. In Chapter 3 different forms of interest intermediation are considered with reference to different governance modes, and it is argued that they form specific sectors, of interest intermediation which make up a particular profile in every political system. It is shown that this profile of a political system by particular sectors based on a particular ‘composition’ of different sectors of interest intermediation implies a model of horizontal relations not only between these sectors, but also between related governance modes. The sectors of interest intermediation complement each other in certain ways and offer in particular constellations

Introduction   3 opportunities to overcome deficiencies of one or more of these sectors by the others. This is demonstrated through the case of the EU and its widely discussed democratic deficit. After showing how far the EU can be conceptualized as a particular composition of different sectors of interest intermediation, the question is posed how the political system of the EU could be democratized by a strengthening of civil society related interest intermediation. A second theme (addressed in Chapter 4) concerns the question if and how debates – like those about the reform of local policy-­making and the EU – demonstrate that differing ideas about reforms and related ‘discourse communities’ promoting these ideas are – intentionally or not – working together (i) to cope with fundamental challenges to the political order, namely the achievement of effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy at the same time, and (ii) to bring individual people into the sphere of governance through different roles. In Chapter 5 the theme is how governability can be achieved within a multi-­ level and fragmented political system like that of the EU. This is addressed by referring to the EU’s structural funds and to its environment policy. Finally (in Chapter 6), the ‘shift from government to governance’ is considered with respect to the spatial dimension of governing. The multi-­level governance approach of the EU is considered as being still entangled in a traditional ‘territorial trap’, i.e. focused on different territorially defined levels of governance. Referring to the early work of Dahl (1971; first published in 1967) and Dahl and Tufte (1973) on the relation between ‘size and democracy’ (see also Dahl 1998: 100ff.) the relevance of functional relations is emphasized, although they are spatially embedded in one or at different territorial levels. Based on work done in the main by geographers, it is argued that a theoretical reassessment of space is needed because the shift to governance implies a move away from territorially bounded ‘action units’ towards ‘action spaces’ which are characterized by functionally determined ‘spatialities’. These reflections on ‘scalar logics of governance’ (Gualini 2006) are applied to research on metropolitan governance which provides a means of identifying functionally determined ‘action spaces’ and addresses the question of how democratic legitimacy and accountability can be achieved beyond existing territorial jurisdictions. In this context the individual governing orders (see Section 2.5) and their particular functions at various levels of what can be imagined in total as a ‘political unit’ are considered as well as the possible formation of the different sectors of interest intermediation in such a ‘unit’. The model of such a ‘flexible political geometry’ can be related to new considerations on statehood detached from territoriality (see Nullmeier 2007) by which ‘functional statehood’ can be both distinguished from and linked to ‘territorial statehood’. In the concluding chapter (Chapter 7) the arguments presented before are summarized by pointing to five perspectives. First, the perspective of participatory governance in the context of a model of different ‘worlds of democratic actions’ is highlighted in which not only is a mix of governance modes brought together but so also are different notions of democracy. Second, the perspective of complementarities between different sectors of interest intermediation is

4   Introduction emphasized which can lead to the mobilization of different forms of legitimation inherent to these sectors. Third, with respect to political changes as well as in debates about reforms at the local and EU level, it is emphasized that they are neither at the conceptual level nor in political practice as conflictual as one might assume. Furthermore, these political changes and debates about reforms can be interpreted as a search taking place in political practice to address the fundamental tensions between effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy and to solve problems of responsiveness of decisions and of accountability. It is argued that one should not highlight difference between approaches behind these political changes and debates. Instead, one should try to make use of complementarities of reforms undertaken in parallel. Fourth, the reflections on complementarities between different forms of interest intermediation are linked to the model of a flexible political geometry. According to this model, vertically layered territorial units in which territorial as well as administrative interest intermediation take place are flanked by the sectors of functional and civil interest intermediation. This structure offers not only different opportunities for effective problem solving but also a wide range of participation at different territorial levels and in a variety of functional political units. Fifth, the perspective of diversity captured by loose coupling (in Section 5.3) is underlined and the desirability of political standardization and uniformity is questioned because the goals of political interventions desired and perceived as achievable by those taking, as well as by those affected by, decisions differ over time and space depending on a particular historical and spatial context. However, to reach and secure the political unit of a political community characterized by diversity requires the acceptance of basic rules and norms. This book is based on results of a number of research projects in which the author of this book has been involved. They include the Govern participatory,2 the PLUS3 and the G-­FORS projects4 funded by the EU 5th and 6th Framework Programmes of Research and Development. The results of a research project on the EU structural funds funded by the special research programme of the German Research Council (DFG) on ‘Governance in the EU’ – also supported financially by the Hans-­Böckler-Foundation – have also been of relevance.5 In addition, a project on ‘Bargaining and Arguing instead of Ordering and Controlling’ funded by the Volkswagen Foundation6 and another on the role of civil society organizations in EU policies on environment and consumer protection carried out within CONNEX (a ‘network of excellence’ funded by the 6th Framework Programme)7 have also been important. Finally, an ongoing project on ‘Changes in metropolitan governance in Israel and Germany – impact on urban policies and local democracy’, funded by the German-­Israeli Foundation (GIF), has also be drawn on.8 The empirical findings and theoretical insights gained from these research projects emerged from fruitful discussion and collegial co-­operation with a number of project participants (see notes 2–8). I wish to make particular mention of those project participants with whom I have closely collaborated in my research unit at Darmstadt University of Technology – namely (in alphabetical

Introduction   5 order) Björn Egner, Michael Haus, Tanja Kopp-­Malek, Nicole Krüger, Marta Lachowska, Achim Lang, Sonja Löber, Britta Meinke-­Brandmeier, Georgios Terizakis, Annette E. Töller and Karsten Zimmermann. I owe them special thanks. Furthermore, I would like to thank Max Krapp and Anna Fleischer for their invaluable support in the literature search and technical revision of texts. I am also grateful to Dietmar Braun, Michèle Knodt, Peter Niesen, Frank Nullmeier, Thomas Saretzki, Rainer Schmalz-­Bruns and Klaus Dieter Wolf who supported me with numerous helpful comments and advice on an earlier version of this book published in German (Heinelt 2008a). Finally, I am particularly thankful to Randall Smith who helped me to bring my German English into proper English. Obviously, it remains my responsibility whether this has been achieved. Because this book summarizes results of research projects carried out by the author over the past ten years it is not surprising that parts of it are based on the modification of previous publications.9 Due to the collaborative style of carrying out research projects like the ones mentioned above, some parts of the book are based on the modification of publications co-­authored with others. This applies to sections 2.3,10 2.4.111 and 4.112 which stem from parts of articles written with Michael Haus, and to Section 2.7 in which some paragraphs from an article written together with Tanja Malek, Nicola Staeck and Annette E. Töller13 and from an unpublished conceptual framework paper for the aforementioned research project on ‘Governance for Sustainable Development’/GFORS are used.14 Furthermore, some parts of Chapter 5 derive from a publication written together with Tanja Kopp-­Malek, Jochen Lang and Bernd Reissert.15 Finally, it has to be emphasized that the insights presented in this book are derived from empirical research, although the empirical findings of this research are not always presented. Instead, references are provided to the publications in which the empirical results of this research can be found.

2 Starting points and key conceptual issues

2.1  The democratic challenges of governing a ‘politicized society’ A basic issue in the ongoing debate on governance is that in modern societies the sphere of governance extends far beyond a state or government centred vision of policy-­making. Only from an abstract point of view can one assume that • •

the legitimation of a shift of competences and power to particular governance arrangements to make and to enforce societal binding decisions and answers to the questions about who should participate in them and how

emerge from society endogenously, i.e. without a political design by governmental institutions and particular forms of territorial interest mediation. In other words, the allocation or redistribution of power in particular governance arrangements is a political decision (or non-­decision) by governmental organizations and forms of territorial interest intermediation. The same applies to the way participation is secured (or not) and decision rules are defined within governance arrangements. This is a crucial point because how governmental organizations and forms of territorial interest intermediation function depends on how the sphere of governance opened to society is structured and connected with governmental organizations. This is crucially important for the democratic legitimacy of governmental organizations. Definitions of governance are addressed later in this chapter (see Section 2.4). At this point we note some of the main results of the recent debate (for an overview see Pierre 2000; Pierre and Peters 2000). Governance is seen as a ‘fact’, based on observations that the sphere of policy-­making includes societal interactions not covered by the state or the government centred institutional structure of the political system. In this sense policy-­making is extended to society at large. This observation questions the traditional distinction (in political theory) between state and society. Additionally, participation in governing activities can no longer be perceived only as a matter of being indirectly involved in governmental affairs by voting and through representation but can be seen also through extended engagement in different forms of policy-­making. The creation of governance or new forms of governance beyond the governing activities of the state is considered to be closely related to actual transforma-

Starting points and key conceptual issues   7 tions of the economic, social, cultural and physical ways in which various aspects of collective life can be organized. This diagnosis is mainly based on two observations. On the one hand, it is argued that ‘system effectiveness’ (Dahl 1994) can only be achieved through bargaining systems. This refers to global issues as well as to domestic ones. This questions not only the sovereignty of the state – or the states – but also traditional forms of democratic citizen participation, meaning the image of self-­governing through equal voting rights and accountable representation. On the other hand, it is argued that societal interactions have become politicized in the sense that nearly everything impacts on one’s life and has the potential of turning into a societally binding decision. Regarding technological change this is highlighted by Philip Frankenfeld’s dictum: ‘To innovate is to legislate’ (Frankenfeld 1992: 460). What he highlights for technology also applies to other aspects of societal interactions and social change: Technology increases impacts of humans upon their world and upon other humans. [. . .] It creates power. It creates political communities or realms of common impact, often ex nihilo. Technology thus compels us to increase the reach and binding power of the politics and ethics through which we order human independence. (Frankenfeld 1992: 460–1) It is important to realize that this is not a development of the last decade, meaning the time in which the governance approach has become dominant in the scholarly and political debate. On the contrary, it is a development of the twentieth century – or even longer ago. In this respect Michael Greven’s (1999) diagnosis is right that we are living in a ‘politische Gesellschaft’: a ‘politicized society’.1 What are the implications of such a diagnosis where (i) the sovereignty of the state and the abilities of people to influence their lives democratically through societally binding decisions of representative bodies are limited and (ii) at the same time societal interactions are subordinated to the realms of binding decisions taken in unknown arenas? To perceive these realms where societally binding decisions are taken to co-­ordinate interactions as spheres of governance is important because this means politicizing them. This means that societally binding decisions are seen as a political issue. However, from a democratic point of view, this is only a first step. The next step should be to transform governance into participatory governance by enhancing the realm of democracy, that is by ‘bringing citizens back in’. Using Michael Greven’s thinking as a point of reference, a fundamental politicization of society as such – or the ubiquity of governance – means nothing at all. The crucial point is that the ‘politicized society’ can end up in a totalitarian or a post-­democratic form, as well as in a democratic participatory form. The last form is characterized by a multitude of opportunity to participate at various

8   Starting points and key conceptual issues levels and – most importantly – with real influence on decision-­making. A totalitarian or a post-­democratic form of a ‘politicized society’ – far beyond the historical versions of totalitarianism – is characterized by manipulated forms of participation (see Greven 1999: 140, on ‘modern’ forms of totalitarianism). This implies – as Greven argues (1999: 141–2) – that one should not concentrate on mass mobilization for and acceptance of a political system or on the dominance of majoritarian decisions. They (especially the ‘tyranny of the majority’) can also be characteristics of ‘modern’ totalitarianism. The difference is made by legally secured individual liberties and rights to participate in a broadened ‘political sphere’ (politischen Raum). Or to put it precisely: the ‘politicized society’ is the basis for a democratic society (Greven 1999: 232), but it is a political task to turn the inevitability of governance into a dominant participatory form.

2.2  The advantages of participatory governance Participation is traditionally seen as a means to legitimize decision-­making. In addition, according to some traditions in democratic theory it is assumed that participation produces ‘better results’ (for an overview, see Schmalz-­Bruns 2002; Jessop 2002). This is argued on several grounds. First, one basic normative assumption of democratic theory, starting from the idea of the natural rights of man, is that those who are affected by a decision also have to be given a right to participate in the decision. Thus, even if the final decision is not based on their ideas, they have had a say and a chance to make their argument heard. Second, participation by a broad range of interests, if undertaken in an open and free way, makes everybody give good reasons for their position. This can help to eliminate both egoistic and logically wrong positions. Third, Charles Lindblom (1965) developed an argument called the ‘intelligence of democracy’: those who are given the right to participate might have the relevant knowledge necessary to produce better results or to achieve the politically defined objectives at all (see also Cohen and Sabel 1997: 320). In referring to the second and third grounds (which can be classified as functional) one can summarize that participatory governance arrangements would contribute in three distinctive ways to improving the quality of decision-­making: (1) they enhance the opportunities for mutual accommodation through exchanges of reasoned arguments; (2) they serve to generate higher levels of trust among those who participate and this, in turn, (3) allows them to introduce a longer time-­horizon into their calculations since sacrifices and losses in the present can be more reliably recuperated in future decisions. (Gbikpi and Grote 2002: 21, referring to Schmitter 2002: 53–4) Furthermore, it can be argued that against the background of societal complexity which makes ‘every practice [. . .] prone to failure, [. . .] governance [is] also likely to fail’ (Jessop 2002: 49). In the face of market, state and governance

Starting points and key conceptual issues   9 failure – and referring to Muecke (1970) and Rorty (1989) – Jessop advises us to take the perspective of ‘romantic ironists’ and to perceive participatory governance as a means of coping with the omnipresence of governing failures: [. . .] in contrast to cynics, ironists act in ‘good faith’ and seek to involve others in the process of policy-­making, not for manipulative purposes but in order to bring about conditions for negotiated consent and self-­reflexive learning. [. . .] place self-­organization at the heart of governance in preference to the anarchy of the market or the top-­down command of more or less unaccountable rulers. In this sense self-­reflexive and participatory forms of governance are performative – [. . .] they [. . .] become a self-­reflexive means of coping with the failures, contradictions, dilemmas, and paradoxes that are an inevitable feature of life. In this sense participatory governance is a crucial means of defining the objectives as well as objects of governance as well as of facilitating the co-­realization of these objectives by reinforcing motivation and mobilizing capacities for self-­reflection, self-­regulation, and self-­correction. (Jessop 2002: 55) 2.2.1  The democratic quality of participatory governance As the arguments about participatory governance aim to transform governance arrangements by enhancing the realm of democracy, the democratic quality of participatory governance has to be reflected. To do so, the democratic quality of governance arrangements are considered in this book – as suggested by Papadopoulos and Warin (2007) – according to: • • • •

their openness and accessibility the quality of deliberation taking place within them their effectiveness their links to the public sphere.

More specifically, the quality of deliberation should be linked to ‘reasoning together among equals’ (Cohen 2007: 220) where ‘the reasoning must in some recognizable way be the reasoning of the equal persons who are subject to the decisions’ (ibid.),2 and effectiveness should be considered in relation to the ability to achieve the objectives determined by collective decisions, that is, effective collective self-­determination.3 Additionally (and going beyond the views of Papadopoulos and Warin 2007), those who are potentially affected by policy outputs flowing from governance arrangements should directly or indirectly (through representative bodies) participate in the making and enforcement of rules for these governance arrangements.4 The last point emphasizes not only the links to and coupling with forms of direct  and representative democracy based on voting, and in this respect with opportunities of citizens to influence forms of participatory governance. It also

10   Starting points and key conceptual issues highlights that especially the openness and accessibility of (participatory) governance arrangements, as well as their links to the public sphere, should be regulated in a binding form through forms of direct and representative democracy. This implies that such governance arrangements have to be established in a reliable form and for a certain period of time. In such arrangements foreseeable interactions can occur, which is especially important against the background of possible conflicts. Furthermore, both the reliability and a certain durability of governance arrangements are crucial insofar as it cannot always be expected that governance arrangements develop in reliable and durable forms endogenously from societal interactions.5 This is even more important for the ‘political design’ of governance arrangements including directly or indirectly all those who are potentially affected by policy outputs emerging from these arrangements. These criteria have an advantage in comparison to ‘traditional’ attempts to define democracy as they are neither explicitly nor implicitly oriented at the model of representative or ‘liberal’ democracy.6 At the same time basic characteristics of democracy are captured – namely that: • •

• •

equal chances for all citizens to be involved in decision-­making are addressed by the openness and accessibility of governance arrangements; the recognition that all those being affected should be treated as equal and have the right of involvement in decision-­making is emphasized by the point that all those potentially affected should have the option of sanctioning governing activities through voting; the actual realization of self-­determination is measured by the effectiveness of governance arrangements; the deliberative character of taking and implementing decisions is emphasized by linking political interventions (acts of self-­determination) to the public sphere and – as a result of this linking – to public reason giving (public justification) as well as to transparency and accountability.

These criteria are broad enough to capture ‘a degree of participation so great and so fairly spread about that no one feels neglected and everyone feels, with justice, that his viewpoint has been pretty fairly attended to’ (Dahl 1971: 112). 2.2.2  The concept of actors If participatory governance is about enhancing the realm of democracy by ‘bringing citizens back in’ then participation is not necessarily related to collective or even ‘corporate actors’,7 as Greven (2007: 236–7) argued. Without any doubt, those collective actors play an unneglectable role and their ‘resources and cooperation are perceived as useful to compensate or overcome state – or  arket – failure in the provision of common goods or at least avoidance of  common bads by cooperative action in governance arrangements’ (Greven 2007: 236). However, neither in practice nor in a normative way does this imply a ‘de-­ individualization of political participation’ (Greven 2007: 237). It reflects an

Starting points and key conceptual issues   11 unclear understanding of whose participation is being referred to in different contexts and in which sphere or sector of a political system and level of decision­making it should refer to. This is the reason why in this book (see especially Section 3.2) various spheres or sectors of a political system are highlighted, in each of which specific collective or corporate actors do play a role – as parties, associations or interest groups, civil society groups or organized addressees of intervention of public administration. These collective or corporate actors play a particular role due to the governance modes dominating in each of these sectors of a political system. But the opportunities offered to individual actors by the different sectors of a political system are crucial to influence policy-­making through collective actors. In this respect the following should be taken into account.8 The equality of all citizens and the right to participate in law-­making is guaranteed in representative systems of territorial interest intermediation, but it is restricted to voting. Furthermore, it can be said that both parties (as the relevant ‘composite actors’ involved in this sector of interest intermediation) and majoritarian decisions (as the dominant governance mode in this sector or way of interest intermediation) contribute decisively to a ‘crisis of egalitarian politics and the trivialization of democracy’ (Crouch 2004: 6) because parties have more and more lost their links to their members as well as their voters, and majoritarian decisions are flawed as a result of being increasingly influenced by a over-­ simplification of alternatives by key policy-­makers (political leaders) and their attempts to create the image of being able to take effective decisions. With reference to interest intermediation in the sphere of civil society, political and legal equality and the right to participate as equals in political decisions are not feasible from the outset because it is not seen as possible that all persons are recognized and taken seriously with the arguments they bring to public debate. However, it cannot be assumed that there is a dominance of particular collective actors in this sphere of interest intermediation because it is decisive in this sector of interest intermediation to convince others and to become hegemonic through communications. In public debate individual actors can work through organizations to articulate their positions and reasons collectively, but they do not have to do that to succeed politically. It can be sufficient that they just form a ‘discourse community’ by articulating in their particular fields of interaction the same positions and reasons like others. To demonstrate that these reflections on participatory governance neither entail a factual nor a ‘normative de-­individualization of political participation’ (Greven 2007: 237), different governing orders will be distinguished and ‘three worlds of democratic actions’ outlined (see Section 2.5). Against the background of these governing orders and the ‘three worlds of democratic actions’, the political and legal equality of every human being and the right to participate among equals in political decisions is linked to different themes – namely either (i) to agreements on general or just on policy-­specific cognitive or normative points of  reference relevant for framing (inter-) actions, (ii) to the political design of institutional settings and policies (programmes) or (iii) to their implementation.

12   Starting points and key conceptual issues Furthermore, the forms of participation and the way to influence political decisions differ between these governing orders. This affects the opportunities to exercise influence individually or collectively in a particular way.

2.3  How to define the performance of governance arrangements? Emphasizing participation and highlighting its functional aspects means claiming that performance in an institutional setting improves through the involvement of actors. In general, this performance can refer to (i) the activities of actors operating within an institutional setting and (ii) the institutions which make the activities possible. In this section, institutional performance is considered, though the dimension of how actors make use of institutionally determined opportunities and constraints is also addressed.9 Traditionally the performance of a political system is defined as the relationship between inputs (resources of time, money, energy, etc.) and outputs (actions taken by the political system). This relationship is critical when analysing political performance, as the performance of political institutions differs when the same input of resources leads to different outputs, or when similar outputs are achieved with differing resources. For example, when Putnam measured the outputs of the Italian regional governments, he could assume that the administrative resources (financial, legal) of the regions were similar. Very different outputs (such as efficient services for the citizens or innovative political regulations) could thus be taken as clear indicators of differing institutional performance (Putnam 1993). Yet, for most performance analyses, the situation is obviously different from Putnam’s: • •

•

Available resources are not similar. In fact, the very mobilization of resources might be an indicator of good institutional performance, especially in terms of interaction with society. Nor are there similar institutional settings. This holds true for most comparative policy analysis of the performance of political systems and individual policies linked to them. Research on this mainly focuses on the question of how different institutional settings affect the achievement of certain objectives, e.g. to lower unemployment rates or to increase the GDP per capita.10 Yet this perspective does not seem to be suitable for purposes where it is doubtful whether certain outputs can always be defined as desirable. After all, the desirability of a policy objective can also be a function of the political institutions themselves, their ways of interest mediation and public discourse.11

Against this background, a contextual and reflexive understanding of institutional performance needs to be developed. Such an understanding of institutional performance has to consider the following: •

Institutional performance does not refer only to the quality of outputs, o­ utcomes or impacts (output legitimation). It also refers to the quality of

Starting points and key conceptual issues   13

•

participation (input legitimation) and transparency (throughput legitimation).12 This means that performance can be differentiated according to different stages of the policy cycle. However, it is not sufficient to measure institutional performance according to different stages of the policy process and criteria of democratic legitimacy. Policy initiatives should be evaluated as a whole and also according to the overall challenges they pose. This is for two reasons. First, it would not be credible to conclude, for example, that a particular governance arrangement is ‘good’ at the stage of agenda setting, yet ‘inefficient’ and ‘ineffective’ at the stages of decision-­making and implementation.13 Second, it is also not enough to state that a particular governance arrangement has addressed new problems, made decisions on them efficiently, and solved them satisfactorily. For it might be that these problems were by their nature not difficult to address or solve.

Clarence Stone’s reflections on performance (which are focused on urban leadership) can help to assess the performance of governance arrangements in terms of effective problem-­solving, transparency and authentic participation by considering different policy challenges and employing the notion of ‘change from a base point’ (Stone 1995: 105). Taking this view, performance is not identical to ‘efficiency’ or to achieving a possible objective, but stands for the difficulty in achieving a politically defined objective. Stone (1995: 106–7) points to the following three performance indicators to measure the degree of difficulty in promoting change: • •

•

the ‘redistributive character’ of policies pursued and implemented ‘the scope of who is involved, the degree to which followers are actively engaged, and the extent to which they are moved [. . .] to see themselves in a different and less narrow way’, or, in short: the activation of citizens versus passive acquiescence ‘the extent of institutional change achieved’ or ‘institution building’.

However, because Stone’s work is on urban regime analysis, his approach of a triple ‘test’ of leadership performance has to be reformulated. This can be done in the following way. In broad terms, the first aspect Stone mentions can be labelled the substantial policy challenge, which refers to the content of policy initiatives. If one takes a simplified view of governance as relying on unanimous decisions because of the horizontal, i.e. non-­hierarchical, relations between involved actors, an effective redistribution of resources would be impossible within such forms of societal co-­ ordination. However, if one views governance as performing ‘in the shadow of hierarchy’, one can argue that actors can be convinced by considering the costs of non-­cooperation (Scharpf 1993). The difficulty linked to the content of policy initiatives should however not be reduced to the question of redistribution, or more generally re-­allocation. It seems reasonable to add complexity as a second

14   Starting points and key conceptual issues central indicator. Policy initiatives then are more difficult if they have redistributive objectives or implications since this causes stronger resistance (see the classical account by Lowi 1972 on this topic). They are also more difficult if a multiplicity of objectives and long-­term effects have to be taken into account. This means that (a) the knowledge base has to be improved and complex communicative interactions have to be established without losing decisiveness, (b) short-­term considerations (e.g. the wish to be re-­elected) have to be balanced against long-­term considerations, and (c) impacts (e.g. long-­term distributive effects) are uncertain in the eyes of relevant actors. Thus both redistributive implications and complexity are potential sources of severe conflict. Stone’s second point concerns the scope of involvement, and can be called the procedural policy challenge. Again, there are two key indicators, in accordance with two basic forms of interest intermediation (see Chapter 3) and the different types of actors linked to them: (i) the activation of civil society, and (ii) co-­operation with actors controlling particular relevant resources. A policy initiative is more difficult if, as Stone notes, citizens are to be actively involved. It is especially difficult to activate groups of citizens that are usually passive, whether that passivity is due to social marginalization, a lack of social capital, a shortage of time or disinterest. Yet, in addition to Stone’s observation, a policy initiative is also more difficult if it seeks to mobilize the resources that would otherwise not be available from (private/corporate) actors from different social sectors. In this case, sector-­specific logics have to be linked in order to find (i) a compromise satisfying the actors (by bargaining) or (ii) a ‘common language’ or shared understanding of the problem and the way to solve it (by arguing; see Section 2.4.2). The third aspect identified by Stone can be called the institutional policy challenge. It is more challenging to establish new institutional arrangements that promise durable innovative policy-­making, i.e. that imply (i) stability, and at the same time (ii) the capacity for adaptability and dynamic change. This means that it is even more challenging to establish institutional arrangements that do not run the risk of sclerosis, but are open to their social environment when circumstances demand it, i.e. are capable of learning (see Section 2.7, especially 2.7.1). Giving governance arrangements a clear institutional form (not necessarily formalized) can make the societally binding co-­ordination of interactions transparent – an important pre-­condition for embedding governance in democratic principles of legitimacy. Furthermore, institutionalizing governance also means defining the rights and duties of participants, thus requiring (and expressing) the conscious commitment of these participants (and re-­enforcing that commitment). It should again be stressed that these are not, per se, indicators of ‘good governance’, but address difficulties in governing. To sum up, governing is more difficult if it faces complex questions with redistributive implications, if citizens are activated or societal actors mobilized and if they aim to establish new institutions. It is also important to be aware that this notion of performance refers to the dynamics of making change happen. One should not link empirical reflections

Starting points and key conceptual issues   15 on the notion of performance as increasing governing capacity in a simplistic way. In some cases redistribution is more easily achievable than in others, due, for example, to the extent of authoritative powers within the governance arrangements. What is at stake is the change that is made possible by political action compared to an ex ante situation and a specific problem/issue on the political agenda for which traditional means were not sufficient to solve the problem, at least in the eyes of the actors involved. Better performance can therefore mean better outcomes than before with the same use of resources (of the same kind),14 achieved by a particular kind of governance arrangement.

2.4  Governance and different governance modes 2.4.1  From government to governance That there is a ‘shift from government to governance’ going on does not only refer to government failure. These reflections go deeper; they refer to the relationship between public institutions and the society within which they are embedded. In brief, there used to be (and still is in some parts of the political world) a strong belief in replacing co-­ordination of societal interaction by ‘the hidden hand’ of the market with intentional guidance and control by the state or, more precisely, by government based on democratic representation and using a professionalized administration as its allegedly neutral instrument. However, the expectation of solving market failure through the state led to the diagnosis of state (or government) failure. This appraisal is based on a mixture of arguments. One basic argument is that the typical (or ‘traditional’) instruments used by the state to intervene in society, i.e. law and money, are structurally incapable of co-­ ordinating societal interactions effectively and efficiently. Another basic argument stresses that there will inevitably be ‘governmental overload’ in a democratic, i.e. in an inclusive political system, because such a system potentially allows everyone to turn his/her problem into a political one and to shift the responsibility for problem-­solving to the state/government (see Rose 1980; Luhmann 1981). From this perspective, it has been argued that a shift from government to governance should – and can – be observed, independent of the type of institutional system that has been established (but maybe supported by it). ‘Governance’ means a different way of co-­ordinating societal interactions: away from the subordination and regulation of society by the state (be it a parliamentary or presidential, a consociational or competitive, a direct or representative democracy) towards ‘horizontal’ and co-­operative modes of co-­ordination. There are a several sources of this debate (see Kooiman 2002: 71–3; Pierre and Peters 2000: 14–69 for an overview). However, there are some crucial ­elements that constitute a basic definition of ‘governance’. Some of them are captured in the following definition by Schmitter: ‘Governance is a method/ mechanism for dealing with a broad range of problems/conflicts in which actors

16   Starting points and key conceptual issues regularly arrive at mutually satisfactory and binding decisions by negotiating with each other and co-­operating in the implementation of these decisions’ (Schmitter 2002: 53). But governance not only covers decision-­making and implementation (through mutual agreements as well as regular negotiations and co-­operation). It may also include, according to Kooiman, ‘all those interactive arrangements in which public as well as private actors participate aimed at solving societal problems [. . .] and the stimulation of normative debates on the principles underlying all governance activities’ (Kooiman 2002: 73). Accordingly, governance addresses both the interaction of public and private actors in policy-­making and the definition of commonly agreed problems and objectives. These aspects of governance are perceived as crucial to overcome market as well as government failure. As with the models of democracy, concepts of governance are shaped by certain political traditions and approaches. The question of governing beyond state and market has already been addressed in the debate on neo-­corporatism, which was preceded by the debate on competitive and consociational democracy, partly initiated by the same protagonists.15 The basic assumption was similar to that in the debate about the strengths of consociational democracy. The stronger the neo-­corporatist arrangements between the state and the ‘social partners’ and their orientation towards compromise and mutual adjustment, the better the performance of the country in solving problems of inflation and unemployment (which were the crucial topics of the political debate in the late 1970s and the 1980s). Pluralist countries characterized by weak interest groups and a dominance of party-­based competitive democracy got the lowest ranking in the famous ‘corporatist scales’ of the time, reflecting their poor performance (see Keman et al. 1987; Castles et al. 1988). Although this assumption was fundamentally questioned not only in scholarly debate but also in the course of the political and economic development of the 1990s, one can observe that ‘the Corporatist Sisyphus is headed back up the hill’ (Schmitter and Grote 1997: 1). This is not surprising because: the ‘corporatist approach’ emerged as one subspecies of a much broader genus of theorizing in political economy that has been labelled ‘institutionalist’. Its central claim was (and still is) that behaviour – economic, social or political – cannot be understood exclusively in terms of either the choices and preferences of private individuals or the habits and impositions of public agencies. Somewhere between markets and states there are a large number of ‘self-­organized’ and ‘semi-­public’ collectivities that individuals and firms relied upon to structure their expectations and each others behaviour and to provide ready-­made solutions for their recurrent conflicts. (Schmitter and Grote 1997: 1) In a similar way the policy network approach of the early 1990s (Marin and Mayntz 1991) not only argued that there is some hybridization (in the form of

Starting points and key conceptual issues   17 policy networks) between market and hierarchy (Mayntz 1993: 44, referring to Williamson 1985). It also emphasized that a weak state on the one hand, and the growing importance of policy networks and involved strong societal actors on the other, are an expression of societal modernization addressing the challenges of the increased complexity of modern societies (Mayntz 1993: 41) – provided that societal actors are focused on consensus and problem-­solving. In the Netherlands and Germany in particular, the policy network approach developed through close conceptual links to the new governance approach, addressing theoretical questions of politische Steuerung (‘political steering’). By way of contrast, in the Anglo-­Saxon world, the idea of policy networks was more often used in the empirical analysis and evaluation of specific state-­society relations16 – particularly because the ‘traditional’ dichotomy between pluralism and neo-­ corporatism seemed to be too general to capture observed differences in state-­ society relations (see Jordan and Schubert 1992). Bearing in mind these origins of the idea of governance, it is of interest that this debate was developed in and empirically based on the experiences of particular countries. It is not only in academic debate that we see different concepts of democracy emerge. Democracy itself and its linkages to certain state-­society relations differ between the political orders of a range of societies. Governance may have considerable advantages compared with market and hierarchy as modes of societal co-­ordination (see Jessop 2002: 44): It provides options for (i) simplifying models that reduce complexity without neglecting negative externalities; (ii) developing capacities for dynamic interactive learning; (iii) creating methods for co-­ordinated actions between different interests, and over different spatial and temporal horizons; and (iv) establishing a common world view to underpin the orientations and expectations of the actors involved, and the corresponding rules of conduct. However, there is also the likelihood of governance failure, which is closely linked to these advantages. This failure can be summarized as ‘noise’ or ‘talking shop’ (Jessop 2002: 39) as well as problems of accountability and biased power structures (see for example Pierre and Peters 2000: 67–8). Jessop has two recommendations for overcoming market, state and governance failure. Based on the diagnoses that ‘every mode of economic and political co-­ordination is failure-­prone’, his first recommendation is to develop ‘the capacity to switch modes of co-­ordination as the limits of any one mode become evident’ (Jessop 2002: 52). Such a ‘requisite variety’ means being prepared to switch from market to government or governance, or from government to market or governance – and back. This is important because ‘different periods and conjunctures as well as different objects of governance require different kinds of policy mix’, which means that ‘the balance in the repertoire will need to be varied as circumstances change’ (Jessop 2002: 52). Second, he recommended: [. . .] seek to involve others in the process of policy-­making, not for manipulative purposes but in order to bring about conditions for negotiated consent and self-­reflexive learning. [. . .] place self-­organisation at the heart of govern­ance in preference to the anarchy of the market or the top-­down

18   Starting points and key conceptual issues command of more or less unaccountable rulers. In this sense self-­reflexive and participatory forms of governance are performative – [. . .] they [. . .] become a self-­reflexive means of coping with the failures, contradictions, dilemmas, and paradoxes that are an inevitable feature of life. In this sense participatory governance is a crucial means of defining the objectives as well as objects of governance as well as of facilitating the co-­realisation of these objectives by reinforcing motivation and mobilising capacities for self-­reflection, self-­regulation, and self-­correction. (Jessop 2002: 55) The context- and/or problem-­related view on the appropriateness of the modes of co-­ordination (emphasized by Jessop’s first recommendation) seems important for empirical analysis because normative and conceptual openness is required in analysing a particular mix of the modes through which societal interactions are co-­ordinated under specific circumstances. But, more importantly, the political evaluation and selection of the modes of co-­ordination depend on discourses, interest intermediation and decisions about what is appropriate. Jessop (2002: 49) calls this process of re-­articulating and ‘collibrating’ the different modes of co-­ordination meta-­governance. The process of evaluating and selecting the modes of co-­ordination depends crucially on a participatory form of self-­reflection, learning and consent-­building (highlighted by Jessop’s second recommendation), and it can be argued that the self-­reflexive and consent-­ oriented character of this evaluation and selection process forms the core notion of democratic choices. Such choices can be understood as referring to different territorial levels of government and how, on and between these levels, governance mechanisms are evaluated and (re-) designed in an interactive way between politico-­administrative institutions and societal actors. However, one should not concentrate on territorial levels because what is meant by meta-­governance concerns general publicly-­agreed choices about whether public affairs should be regulated by: • • •

the market hierarchical interventions based on and legalized by decisions of representative bodies horizontal interactions between public and societal actors based on communication

or a mixture of these options. We will return to this topic in Section 2.5. 2.4.2  Different governance modes and governance arrangements The term ‘governance’ is used in a large number of definitions and contexts within and across scientific disciplines, as indicated previously. What can be added here are the origins of the debate, which are crucial for understanding the terms ‘governance’, ‘governance modes’ and ‘governance arrangements’ used in this book.

Starting points and key conceptual issues   19 First, it is important to take on board the view introduced by Williamson (1985) from the perspective of economic theory. He argues that beneath the market mechanism and the hierarchy (of the firm/enterprise) there is also the possibility of reducing transaction costs via hybrid forms, namely networks. This perspective has been taken up by political scientists, for instance by Mayntz (1992; 1993), who emphasized that the societal binding co-­ordination of actions is increasingly undertaken through policy networks as hybrids between market and hierarchy. Together with Marin (Marin and Mayntz 1991), she also reflected on ‘political exchange’ as the logic of such networks. The interactive logic characterizing policy networks, in which neither hierarchy nor majoritarian decisions can be applied, also featured in Scharpf’s work in the late 1980s and early 1990s (e.g. Scharpf 1993). Based on the action orientations of the actors (either confrontational or consensual) Scharpf distinguished between ‘bargaining’ and ‘problem solving’ (1988a; 1988b). A similar distinction has been introduced by Elster (1991) to distinguish two ‘modes of communication’ in political interactions. He stated: To argue is to engage in communication for the purpose of persuading an opponent, i.e. to make the other change beliefs about factual or normative matters. [. . .] To bargain is to engage in communication for the purpose of forcing or inducing the opponent to accept one’s claim. (Elster 1991: 3) These reflections on different ‘modes of communication’ are helpful in clarifying the distinctiveness of network-­based forms of governance because their internal logic specifically relies on communication. Second, the term ‘governance’ entered the debate in political science via the formula ‘governance without government’ coined by Rosenau (1992) for constellations of collective action at the international level where a central authority (like a state) is missing. Yet again the particular features of communicative actions (in international relations) are emphasized and a distinction is made between arguing and bargaining (see for example Risse 2000; 2004; Müller 2004).17 Arguing is characterized by a ‘triadic’ structure of communication because those who are involved in this kind of communicative interaction refer to commonly shared and accepted problem definitions and understandings of how the problem should be solved appropriately (see Saretzki 1996: 34–5). Such commonly shared and accepted problem definitions and understandings of how to act can become apparent in ‘external authority’, i.e. agencies trying to ensure that particular problem definitions and understandings of how to act are taken seriously (see Risse 2004). But a ‘triadic’ structure of communication is not a precondition for arguing. Rather, actors can be compelled to develop a shared problem definition and a common understanding of how to solve the problem by communication because neither the definition of the problem nor an orientation of how to act had existed before.

20   Starting points and key conceptual issues Bargaining does not have such a ‘triadic’ structure because communicative interaction of this kind is basically structured by problem definitions and action orientation (preferences) that are relevant for the actors involved. This implies a dyadic structure of communication. In general, therefore, the term ‘governance’ is used for network forms of governing in multi-­actor constellations and processes of autonomous self-­governing. Governance from this perspective describes a way of co-­ordinating social action based on horizontal and co-­operative mechanisms rather than on direct state intervention and control. However, this position has not remained uncontested. Davies (2003) for example draws a distinction between ‘orthodox’ and ‘sceptical’ positions in the governance debate. He associates the ‘orthodox’ approach mainly with Rhodes (1996), who referred to self-­organizing inter-­organizational networks of governing. While in this narrow sense the term ‘governance’ is reserved for non-­ hierarchical and often consensus-­based means of guidance and control, ‘sceptics’ point out that this might be exaggerated because governance cannot only be influenced by power and conflict but is also affected by centralization and hierarchical intervention by the state (as Davies 2003: 325 demonstrated in the case of local partnerships in the UK). Based on this discussion the term ‘governance’ is used in this book on the one hand as a general frame of reference through which complex patterns of collective action and changing processes of governing are considered (as suggested for instance by van Kersbergen and van Waarden 2004). On the other hand, the term is also used more specifically to refer to the co-­ordination of societal interactions through: • •

non-­hierarchical networks of autonomous but interdependent public and private actors reaching a binding co-­ordination of interactions by bargaining, and non-­hierarchical networks relying on arguing for reaching and influencing societally binding decision-­making.

However, beside these ‘new’ governance modes there also exist ‘traditional’ forms leading to a co-­ordination of societal interactions through • •

decisions taken by a majority which are in a democratic political order based on equal voting rights and systems of representation, and hierarchy or hierarchical interventions in society relying and being legitimized in a democratic political order by majoritarian decisions (taken either by citizens directly or by representative bodies on behalf of the represented).

Apart from these political modes of governance characterized by attempts to ­co-­ordinate societal interactions by conscious binding decisions, societies are also governed (unconsciously) by the ‘hidden hand’ of the market, i.e. by the

Starting points and key conceptual issues   21 imposition of constraints and abilities to (inter-) act as a result of the price mechanism, which reflects supply and demand (and leads to a particular allocation of resources). Therefore, the market can also be considered as a governance mode. These five governance modes are, of course, ‘pure’ or ‘ideal types’. From both an empirical and from a conceptual perspective (see Jessop 2002), a certain combination of them has to be institutionalized to co-­ordinate societal interactions, meaning that specific forms of hierarchy, market-­based exchanges, interactive networking by bargaining and/or arguing between autonomous but interdependent actors have to be established. At best they complement each other, but they can also lead to internal contradictions. Therefore, governance modes can be distinguished from governance arrangements which combine the ‘pure types’ of the five governance modes in a particular case.18 Following on from this, it is not assumed that one of these governance modes is appropriate to all situations. The question is in which combination do these governance modes serve the objective of achieving participatory governance. Bargaining and arguing as governance modes may be limited in co-­ordinating interactions in a binding way. This is because blockages through non-­agreement are always present in the communicative relations between interdependent, but at the same time more or less autonomous, actors (see for instance Scharpf 1993, Mayntz 1993). But they also have specific potential. Processes of reasoning as well as bargaining systems in which different public and private actors are involved can bring about awareness of the challenges to intervene in complex ‘modern’, i.e. functionally differentiated, societies to achieve particular objectives (see Mayntz 1992: 21). Furthermore, such processes of reasoning and bargaining systems can be seen as preconditions to achieve governability by taking the motives of other players into account, to secure their willingness to comply and to mobilize the resources they possess (Mayntz 1987: 96–7). The latter is related not only to financial resources but also to knowledge, especially knowledge relevant to achieving the intended policy objectives. Finally, complementarities of these governance modes with others have to be addressed (see for instance Scharpf 1993). For instance, there is: •

• • •

the option to overcome blockages in bargaining systems through the ‘shadow of hierarchy’, i.e. through majoritarian decisions by representative/ parliamentary bodies and/or hierarchical (administrative) interventions in the case of non-­agreement; the creation of veto rights as well as of procedural rules by governmental authorities (the state) which have to be taken into account by those involved in deliberative interactions or bargaining systems; the transformation of results reached by communicative exchange between interdependent but at the same time also autonomous actors into binding law; the creation of guiding principles in respect of public goods and the interests or concerns of those not involved (‘third parties’) by governmental authorities (the state).

22   Starting points and key conceptual issues

2.5  Different dimensions of governance – and the ‘three worlds of democratic action’ Jessop (2002) places the frequently cited shift ‘from government to governance’ in the context of the growing complexity and uncertainty (if not ignorance) of modern society. Like Kooiman (2002; 2003; see also below) he uses the expression ‘meta-­governance’. For him meta-­governance ‘involves re-­articulating and “collibrating” ’ (Jessop 2002: 49) different modes of societal co-­ordination, for instance: • • •

the ex post co-­ordination through the anarchy of the market; the ex ante co-­ordination through imperative co-­ordination by the state as well as through hierarchy in all kinds of organizations; and reflexive self-­organization through ongoing negotiated consent in a corporatist order or horizontal networking (see Jessop 2002: 38–9).

In other words: ‘[Meta-­governance] is the organisation of the conditions for governance and involves the judicious mixing of market, hierarchy, and networks’ (Jessop 2002: 49). Jan Kooiman (2000: 143ff.; 2002: 86–7; 2003: 133ff.) – who distinguishes different governing orders (first order, second order and meta governing)19 – addresses the same topic with the expression ‘meta governing’. Meta governing can be linked to the formation of general or policy-­specific images (or paradigms, Leitbilder). It is underpinned by communicative rationality based on deliberation. Meta governing and the development of images implies a linguistic coding of problem definitions and patterns of action which are binding through ‘ethical standards’ – as Kooiman (2002: 92) phrased it. But it is not just ethical standards in the sense of normative images or ideas of appropriateness20 that are a matter of concern when it has to be considered how and why a certain linguistic coding of problem definitions and patterns of action becomes binding for interactions. Shared or commonly accepted and therefore dominant assumptions about causality and ‘factual matters’ (how the world works) are also crucial. In these kinds of interaction in which normative images of appropriateness and assumptions about causality are developed, participants can use their voice to influence debate through ‘good reasons’. For the development of this kind of participation it is important to consider the distribution of ‘voice-­options’ and the conditions under which it is possible to be influential by (public) reasoning. Such conditions can be laid down by law, as was the case with the EU and member state legislation on environmental impact assessment (see Heinelt et al. 2001a). But against the background of the multitude of specific local circumstances, the use of legally fixed formal ‘voice-­options’ depends heavily on local adaptation or local institutional design taking specific spatial conditions into account (Haus and Heinelt 2005a: 34). First order governing is oriented towards operational actions or the ‘world of action’ (Kiser and Ostrom 1982) with more or less narrow institutionally defined choice options. This is the world of implementation and concerns mainly admin-

Starting points and key conceptual issues   23 istrative interest intermediation where public administrations, their agents and supporters meet those who are affected by a specific policy or where policy addressees implement a programme autonomously but not unrelated to the influences from and on other actors. Participation in this context means that those who could be affected by a policy have to be involved in its implementation. Voice again can be an important element of such an engagement. But the importance of participation (by voice) in the context of first order governing is less related to ethics or images of appropriateness than to effectiveness. This means that through participation the implementation of a programme can be secured in line with policy objectives by taking the motives and concerns of the policy addressees into account. Furthermore, the willingness of policy addressees to comply can be secured by their participation. And finally, the knowledge necessary for achieving a given policy objective can be developed through participation. This underlines not only the importance of creating ‘voice’ options but also to reflect on the circumstances and conditions under which specific actors can be influential. However, there is another kind of participation based on communication in the context of first order governing, namely bargaining. Bargaining rests on a specific kind of power which derives from exit options, the option of non-­ compliance or holding back relevant knowledge. This has to be contrasted with arguing, which can be of influence only if ‘good reasons’ referring to assumptions about causality can be put forward or if normatively binding images are employed, developed at the meta governing level. How do circumstances and conditions develop under which specific actors can be influential by voice – or, more precisely, by arguing and/or bargaining? At first sight it does seem plausible that they can develop endogenously in society or autonomously from politics. In fact, they develop or are established by political design and are related to certain statuses or features of citizenship (which is addressed in Section 2.6). The political design of conditions under which specific actors can be influential by voice is a task of second order governing, as Kooiman called it. Second order governing is geared towards institution building and the creation of policy instruments or programmes. Effectiveness can be seen as a standard of second order governing, just as in first order governing. By achieving effectiveness, second order governing can acquire a specific kind of legitimacy, that is, output legitimacy.21 However, this kind of legitimacy is not only poor in a normative sense, but it is also insufficient in relation to sustaining and changes in institutions, or, to put it in general terms, the political order. This requires input legitimation by participation, and it is questionable if forms of participation relying on voice (arguing as well as bargaining) are sufficient in this respect because (depending on the specific regulation in question) broader aspects of the  political order can be affected. Depending on the (perceived) extent of being  affected, input legitimation by participation through voting (vote) can become indispensable, that is, a legitimation based on the equal right of all ­citizens to participate in systems of majoritarian decision-­making. In summary,

24   Starting points and key conceptual issues the traditional forms of participation through the election of representative bodies or through directly expressed agreement or disagreement by referendums are crucial for second order governing. This underlines the crucial role of traditional forms of participation through representation and parliamentary structures for second order governing. Furthermore, it is important that representative bodies and ‘parliamentary politics’ associated with them have a ‘holistic character’ (Lord 2007: 147) in so far as they offer a place for political decisions: in which all problems can be comprehended in relation to all others. This [. . .] is important if representatives are to influence trade-­offs of value across the range of public policy, and control the externalities and cumulative unintended consequences associated with individual actions. (Lord 2007: 147) This is particularly true in complex and interdependent societies (see Habermas 1996a: 151ff.). Normative ideas or views on appropriateness and particular dominant understandings of causalities may have been developed through public deliberation at the level of meta governing but they become relevant at the end only through decisions which are taken as binding in society. To ascribe second order governing to this function and to relate it to majoritarian decision-­making (which is based on the mutual recognition of individuals as citizens possessing the same political rights) seems to be trapped in a ‘methodological nationalism’ (Beck 2000). But territorial interest intermediation is still taking place and representative/parliamentary bodies have not been totally superseded. Not to take account of their potential for the shaping of the political order – especially in complementing other forms of co-­ordinating interactions – would be naïve. Furthermore, not only in scholarly debate ‘good reasons’ are put forward in favour of a strong epistemic coupling of democracy and the nation state (see for instance Nagel 2005 or Christiano 2006) or of democracy and territorially defined ‘political units’. Such a coupling also still exists in the minds of most of those subordinated to political power, i.e. most people. Indeed, a strict and isolated coupling of second order governing with majoritarian decision-­making is already broken by the embeddedness of second order governing in processes of meta governing through which second order governing is influenced indirectly by communicative rationality and by the forms of participation based on (public) arguing. Furthermore, at the level of second order governing itself, a lot of opportunities of direct influence by communicative interactions (i.e. by voice) do exist – using either the mode of arguing or that of bargaining (for instance by lobbying). Against the background of the distinction between the three governing orders, it is possible to reflect on the interrelation between participatory governance and democracy or, more precisely, between different forms (or common perceptions) of democracy, i.e. between the models of liberal and of deliberative democracy.22

Starting points and key conceptual issues   25 •

•

‘Liberal democracy’ stresses the individual’s right to participate in general elections. Through this, the aggregation of individual preferences to form guidelines for those in representative bodies or in government, and the option to make this accountable to the individual citizen, can be related to second order governing. ‘Deliberative democracy’ giving emphasis to free, open and public reasoning – and thus referring to the crucial element of participatory governance – is important for meta governing as well as for first order governing. However, it has limited importance for second order governing.

These reflections can be transformed into a model of ‘the three worlds of democratic action’ (to modify the expression of the ‘the three worlds of action’ from Kiser and Ostrom 1982): the world of meta-­governance, the world of second order governing and the world of first order governing (see Figure 2.1). In such a model the specific features of individual levels as well as linkages between them can be addressed conceptually. ‘One person – one vote’ is applicable in only one of these worlds (the world of second order governing), and the same applies for arguing in another world (the world of meta-­governance). Because meta governing is about the clarification of what problems are about and how to solve them in a way perceived as appropriate, it is related to cognitive and normative questions. Answers to cognitive questions (how the world is functioning or from which assumptions of causality one starts thinking) as well as answers to normative questions (how the world should function or look like) are based on communicative rationality, i.e. on communication characterized by the exchange of reason as well as the necessity to justify the validity claim resulting from an articulated reason (Habermas 1984). In other words (and to use  the terms introduced above): ‘ethical standards’ and images can only be Meta governing images ethics arguing Second order governing institutions and policies effectiveness and legitimacy vote (arguing and bargaining)

Liberal democracy Deliberative democracy

First order governing action/implementation effectiveness hierarchy as well as arguing and bargaining

Figure 2.1  The three worlds of democratic action (source: based on Kooiman 2002).

26   Starting points and key conceptual issues g­ enerated by arguing or ‘good reasons’. As shared norms or understandings they cannot be negotiated by bargaining, but rather their relevance in a certain situation can be agreed through this mode of communicative interaction. The same applies to majoritarian decisions, especially those made by representative bodies. What has been agreed upon as appropriate can be recognized through majoritarian decisions (by law) either in a particular situation or for a certain time. Meta governing impacts on second as well as on first order governing through ‘framing’ (for more about ‘framing’, see Goffman 1974; Campbell 1998; Hay 2002: 194–215; Daviter 2007), and by this meta governing influences answers to the questions of who should participate in governance arrangements. But it should be emphasized that second order governing is crucial for creating conditions for being involved (and how) in first order and in meta governing by setting up entitlements to participate. Through this, conditions for arguing and bargaining are established through majoritarian decisions. It should have become clear that participation beyond elections is crucial for meta governing as well as for first order governing. But what about representative bodies which are situated at the level of second order governing and their (possible) complementary function for forms of participation of citizens and societal actors in the model of the ‘three worlds of democratic action’ and in particular in respect to meta governing and first order governing? They are crucial for creating and securing the linkages between the different governing orders (or ‘worlds of democratic action’), marked as arrows in Figure 2.1. They are important for the task of establishing and securing opportunities to participate (in the sense of ‘voice’ options) at the levels of meta and first order governing, and also for addressing the challenge to put into effect what emerges from deliberations at these different levels. It has to be emphasized that the levels distinguished above do not represent territorial levels. Instead it has to be highlighted that meta governing, for instance, concerns local discourses about images of city or regional development, such as where a particular understanding of sustainability is developed. However, these local discourses are embedded in arguments at ‘upper’, even global, levels about a linguistic coding of problem definitions and the appropriateness of particular strategies and actions. Although first order governing (the sphere of implementation and the shaping of policies in the context of their application) represents more or less a domain of local actions, the fact that the application of policies always happens at a specific place should not lead to equating ‘place’ with ‘local’. This becomes clear, for example, in the case of competition policy (increasingly determined at a wider level than nationally). Its implementation happens at a specific place, namely, where regulations have to be imposed on enterprises as well as on public entities. But this place is spatially separated from the local context in which the regulations are directly taking effect, for instance at different production sites or in market transactions which are increasingly hard to localize.23 The decisions of upper-­level authorities (governments) regarding policies, as well as the political design of institutional settings (e.g. municipal codes) and

Starting points and key conceptual issues   27 procedural rules (e.g. in planning), do of course play a crucial role in second order governing. However, in relation to the application of particular policies and procedural rules as well as institutional settings decisions of upper-­level authorities simply represent instructions or guidelines for ‘subordinate’ actors. But these instructions or guidelines form a ‘channel of policy choices’ and define feasible options (a more or less broad ‘feasible set’). Within such a ‘channel of policy choices’ decisions have to be taken by ‘subordinate’ actors – from the politically defined feasible options. This opens up opportunities for the design of particular forms of problem solving, the involvement of specific actors and also for the coupling of ‘new’ forms of governance with ‘traditional’ government-­ related forms to govern in a way that is adapted to the particular context. What has been addressed so far regarding the model of the ‘three worlds of democratic action’ could be considered in more detail. However, only some issues are addressed in the following paragraphs as they are of direct relevance for the arguments developed in both this and later chapters. In a rapidly changing, complex and interdependent world, a variety of options (redundance) built into a polycentric structure is essential to keep systems running under conditions of possible sudden external shocks and unavoidable internal malfunctioning. According to the model of the ‘three worlds of democratic action’, one should look for a variety of options for democratic participation to complement forms of democratic participation which are not functioning adequately. If one considers for instance the ‘democratic deficit’ attributed to the EU and to domestic policy-­making, it becomes clear that it is essentially an ‘accountability deficit’ (see for example Lord 2001 and Majone 1998). The need to overcome it by placing emphasis on second order governing and the vote, that is strengthening the ability of citizens as voters to express their preferences and concerns and to put pressure on their representatives, should not be denied. However, the basic prerequisite for reaching accountability is transparency of policy-­making and access to information about the reasons and the reasoning why a certain decision has been taken. Or to put it precisely: the black box where the input is converted into an output has to be opened by extended forms of participation or participatory governance. This offers the opportunity to reach what can be called throughput legitimation.24 The commentary on the ‘three worlds of democratic action’ underlines the remark by Schmitter (1993: 4) that a democratic political system is not to be conceived of as one ‘regime’, ‘but as a composite of “partial regimes” ’ because it consists of a complex web of various forms of participation. This also means that in a democratic political system ‘citizenship, its most distinctive property, is not confined to voting periodically in elections’ (Schmitter 1993: 4). However, this suggests a need to re-­define or re-­conceptualize the notion of citizenship.

28   Starting points and key conceptual issues

2.6  What are the conditions for participatory governance? 2.6.1  From citizens to holders – and back Participation based on citizenship is related to legal entitlement underpinned by the state as the authority traditionally seen as ultimately responsible and – because of the monopoly of power – capable of taking binding decisions. This is not only the case for the right to participate in elections. The same also applies to shareholders or owners whose legally secured property rights are the basis for their involvement, when specific collective decisions affect the private world of ownership. There can also be a legal entitlement for individuals to come together collectively and attain the legal (or licensed) status of a corporate actor involved in institutionalized forms of interest intermediation. What do the assumptions about governance mean for the concept of citizenship? To put it precisely, because governing and the sphere of governance extend far beyond a state-­centred vision of policy-­making, citizenship based answers to the question ‘Who should participate?’ seem to be insufficient. Against this background, Schmitter’s reflections on ‘holders’ are interesting, i.e. on ‘persons/organizations who could potentially be invited or allowed to participate [because] they possess some quality or resource that entitles them to participate’ (Schmitter 2002: 62). Based on the specific ‘quality or resource that entitles them to participate’ he distinguishes specific holder categories (Schmitter 2002: 62–3). Only one of them refers to: [r]ights that are attached to membership in a national political community and that presumably entitle all those having them to participate equally in all decisions made by that community [.] In this case, the holders are usually called citizens. (Schmitter 2002: 62) Beside these ‘rights holders’, Schmitter distinguishes between the following other ‘holders’ according to the quality or resource they possess: • • •

•

•

spatial holders, that is, residents; shareholders, that is to say, owners; stakeholders, or those who ‘– regardless of where they live, what their nationality is or what their level of information/skills may be – [. . .] could be materially or even spiritually affected by a given measure’ (Schmitter 2002: 63); interest holders, specifically someone who ‘demonstrates sufficient awareness about the issue being decided and makes known the desire to participate in the name of some constituency’ (Schmitter 2002: 63), for example ‘(voluntary) spokespersons’ or the interested public; knowledge holders who are experts of different kinds holding specific knowledge (or skills) which are ‘presumably needed if the policies taken are going to be technically effective’ (Schmitter 2002: 62);25 and finally

Starting points and key conceptual issues   29 •

status holders, i.e. actors (according to Schmitter, usually organizations) ‘that have been recognized by the authorities ultimately responsible for decision and formally accorded the right to represent a designated social, economic or political category’ (Schmitter 2002: 63) or; more precisely: ‘(corporate) representatives’.

These distinctions can be very helpful in undertaking empirical analysis because they enable researchers (see Heinelt 2002a: 15): • • •

to classify governance arrangements according to the involvement of the different kinds of holders; to identify changes in governance arrangements (for instance by ‘marketization’) linked with a shift within the set of holders involved; and to relate the effectiveness and legitimacy of policy processes to the participation of different holder categories.

However, because Schmitter concentrates on ‘the apposite criterion according to the substance of the problem that has to be solved or the conflict that has to be resolved’ (Schmitter 2002: 63) his answer to the question: ‘Who should participate?’ has a bias towards effectiveness. In short, only those possessing some quality or resource to solve a particular problem or to resolve a specific conflict are entitled to participate.26 Based on Kooiman’s reflections on the three governing orders – and the related concept of the ‘three world of democratic action’ outlined earlier (in Section 2.5) – this seems to be plausible for first order governing. However, second order governing and meta governing are also guided by standards other than effectiveness – namely in the case of second order governing by legitimacy and in the case of meta governing by shared assumptions about causality and normative images of appropriateness. Additionally, as is shown at the end of this section, legitimacy and concepts of appropriateness play a role in first order governing as well. Legitimacy, assumptions about causality and normative standards of appropriateness are important because the design of forms of participation and of entitlement is a political task in the purest sense, that is, a task based on an intentional and binding co-­ordination of societal interactions. To recognize the design of forms of participation and of entitlement as a political task and to relate it to standards of legitimacy and appropriateness is important, if it can be assumed that it is participatory governance that brings democracy in the sense outlined in Section 2.2.1 into the wider sphere of policy-­ making opened up by the shift from government to governance. This emphasizes the importance of the question: how should the concept of citizenship be re-­ framed in a way that the question ‘Who should participate?’ can be answered in a society in which governing extends far beyond a state-­centred vision of policy-­ making? To answer this question it is necessary to perceive citizenship not within a static concept but within a historical and dynamic one (see, for instance, Marshall 1964). This means that – depending on changing societal conditions – one

30   Starting points and key conceptual issues can and should imagine new forms of citizenship beyond the familiar civil, political and social forms of citizenship. Consequently, the development of citizenship has to be seen as a reflexive mechanism dealing with the negative consequences of societal change. Against this background it can be argued that due ‘to its dynamic character “full citizenship” will never be reached but will remain always a goal’ (Roth 2002: 79). How new forms of citizenship develop can be observed for instance in the cases of ‘ecological’ (Roth 2002) and ‘technological citizenship’ (Saretzki 2002), as well as in relation to ethnic groups or gender issues (see for example Rossili 2000). What one can draw from the relevant political and academic debate is the following: • •

•

•

New statuses develop incrementally and ‘locally’, i.e. from the ‘world of action’, and not a priori from an authority ultimately responsible and capable of taking binding decisions. The relationship between a new status and the existing and constitutionally protected forms of civil, political and social citizenship has to be clarified and determined. This is important because one cannot only presume positive feedbacks between the various types of citizenship. Unfortunately, there is not ‘one model of citizenship in the theory of democracy that can serve as a normative foundation’ (Saretzki 2002: 102). ‘Therefore concepts aiming at a further democratization [. . .] by “bringing the citizen back in” will have to take into account that these efforts will have to address all the differences and conflicts that already exist between liberal, communitarian, republican and deliberative positions in democratic theory’ (Saretzki 2002: 102–3). As an overall conceptual consequence one can argue (Saretzki 2002: 103) that one should not construct new citizenships ‘apart from and unrelated to existing political “polities” ’. It is better to start ‘from existing democratically constituted and legitimated polities’ (Saretzki 2002: 103) and the challenges ‘to existing democratic polities to introduce processes of a problem-­oriented deliberation, in order to try to understand collectively what it means to be a “citizen” ’ (Saretzki 2002: 103).

Whatever citizenship can mean, one aspect remains fundamental: citizenship is based on the design of a certain ‘status’27 secured by the authority ultimately responsible for the political co-­ordination of societal interaction, i.e. the state. This fundamental feature of citizenship can be related to Schmitter’s holder concept in respect to the category of status holders. Particular holders have a status by being ‘recognised by the authorities ultimately responsible for decision and formally accorded the right to represent a designated social, economic or political category’ (Schmitter 2002: 63). It can be argued (and demonstrated empirically; see Heinelt 2002c: 20–2; Heinelt and Smith 2003) that these particular holders have been ‘recognised’ and formally accorded a specific right of representation because otherwise a particular policy runs the risk of losing or

Starting points and key conceptual issues   31 never acquiring legitimacy, or political and societal acceptance. In this respect, the ‘granting’ of a status addresses the effectiveness of a policy, but not in a mere economic or technical sense, rather in an essentially political way, i.e. by addressing the issue of legitimacy. Usually, such a status is introduced in parallel to politically defined and legally required procedures and contents of a specific policy, where such procedures and contents are crucial, because the policy and the likelihood and/or credibility of its implementation are – in the shadow of (potential) political conflicts – politically and socially accepted only when the procedures and contents have been securely underpinned. Furthermore, assumptions about causality and normative standards of appropriateness or ethics can play a role. They are underpinned by communicative rationality about what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ or even ‘appropriate’ or ‘inadequate’ – for a society as a whole or for a specific sector of society. Provided such assumptions and images have acquired the status of a shared ‘meaning system’ (Scott 1994: 70ff.), they can have an influence on the answer to the ‘question of political design’ for participatory governance in a similar way to statuses ‘granted’ to actors by political authorities. This is because such assumptions about causality and images of normative appropriateness influence the choice of the ‘apposite criterion’ for identifying those who should participate based on the nature of the problem to be solved. Returning to Schmitter’s category of ‘status holder’ which is (as mentioned previously) related by him to corporate actors, especially to the ‘social partners’ in neo-­corporatist arrangements, it can be reinterpreted and broadened in two respects. On the one hand, the right ‘to represent a designated social, economic or political category’ (Schmitter 2002, 63) can also be given to groups which are not organized as corporate actors (like classical neo-­corporatist associations such as trade unions or employer organizations) but as collective ones. This applies especially to civil society organizations which for instance articulate and represent concerns like the protection of the environment, or advocate consumer or human rights. As collective actors they are ‘composite actors’ (Scharpf 1997: 54) but they neither show a high ability to commit their members or supporters nor do they have a monopoly to represent particular concerns or interests. Instead, they articulate concerns or interests in a pluralistic way.28 On the other hand, the right ‘to represent a designated social [. . .] category’ can also be granted to social groups without an organizational structure. This can be illustrated by the case of gender rules, which particularly grant women a specific status that can be claimed by individuals for themselves and on behalf of others for the whole group. The same applies to disabled people as well as increasingly to elderly people, and, in particular, in societies characterized by ethnic and religious cleavages, rules do exist which grant not only such groups a specific status but also their individual members. It is crucial that with the recognition as a ‘status holder’ actors gain an authorized ‘quality’ and resource which allows them to participate in a particular range of decisions. But this authorized ‘quality’ and resource is not from the outset

32   Starting points and key conceptual issues bound by law and secured by the state (or any governmental agency). Instead, it can endogenously develop from and become embedded in societal interactions.29 To sum up, participation may be determined mainly by effectiveness. Nevertheless, legitimacy plays a crucial role. To guarantee political and societal acceptance of political interventions, some actors are assigned a specific political status which permits them to participate. Such a status implies bargaining power which can limit the discretion of other actors (for example shareholders). ­Furthermore, particular assumptions or beliefs about factual and normative matters are needed to agree on the ‘apposite criterion’ for identifying those who  should participate. Politically determined statuses and commonly developed understandings of causality and images of appropriateness have to be understood as elements for defining a new kind of citizenship, not just for defining holders. As mentioned above, such new statuses develop incrementally and ‘locally’ and are not usually built up from nothing by an authority ultimately responsible and capable of taking such binding decisions (or by second order governing). 2.6.2  The structuration of participatory governance To reflect on conditions for participatory governance, specific opportunities and constraints are crucial which are determined by institutional rules, material and non-­material resources, constellations of problem, socio-­economic circumstances and role perceptions. Opportunities should not be seen simply as options or alternatives for actors to choose from. Instead, it is crucial that actors should extend or create their opportunities by forming ‘governing capacities’ by changes in institutional rules and role perceptions as well as by increases in available resources. Such a perspective suggests an approach based on neo-­ institutionalism and ‘structuration’ (Giddens 1984), combining theories focused either on actors or on structures (see Scharpf 1997: 36–8). For the creation of (new) statuses or normatively and legally determined entitlements to participate, an ‘older’ contribution to this debate is helpful: the two-­ filter model developed by Elster (1979: 113). In this model structural constraints – ‘such as institutional arrangements, rules, physical and technological conditions’ (Windhoff-­Héritier 1991: 38) – filter out in a first step of the immense number of possible options a relatively small ‘feasible set’ from which actors have to choose, in a second filtering process, one of the available options. The basic components of this second filtering process consist of the political definition of challenges or problems in a particular context, the mediation of conflicts on how to respond to these challenges or problems, as well as the definition and pursuit of common objectives on how to govern effectively and in a way perceived as legitimate. This points to specific contextually embedded informal and formal rules for interactions and for defining a context-­related logic of appropriateness. In this way actors are not only able to choose a particular pathway to govern, they are also in a position to get round or even reshape constraints and to exploit the enabling potential of the contextual conditions.

Starting points and key conceptual issues   33 Attributes of the physical world

Action arena Action situations

Attributes of the community

Patterns of interaction

Outcomes Actors

Rules in use

Evaluative criteria

Figure 2.2  The action arena (source: Ostrom et al. 1994: 37).

A tool for systematically identifying (and empirically) recognizing institutionalized rule systems of governance arrangements has been developed by Ostrom et al. (1994), the ‘Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework’. The IAD framework allows for analysis of both constraints and potential of pre-­existing formal and informal rules brought about by a specific application and mix of governance modes. According to the IAD framework, actors who have to interact in a particular action situation to produce a policy outcome are placed in an action arena. In this arena actors are not interacting freely. They have to refer to: (i) given ‘attributes of the physical world’; (ii) ‘attributes of the community/communities’ surrounding them; and (iii) ‘rules-­in-use’, because these three components structure their interactions. The ‘attributes of the physical world’ refer in general to the ‘material’ character (nature) of the physical context in which actors have to interact in a given situation – such as the geographical and geological location and the built environment of a city. But such features do not have a direct impact just by being there. Instead, it depends on how they are interpreted collectively (on their ‘reading’) by the actors who have to interact in a context characterized by these features.30 For instance, it is not a wide river running through a settlement as such which impacts on planning decisions taken by a local authority, but the image assigned to this river by the inhabitants of the city or by the community of planners. Furthermore, both specific political challenges and also opportunities emanating from the particular ‘nature’ of a problem to be solved (like the water supply of a community) can be subsumed under the ‘attributes of the physical world’. As such, specific political challenges and opportunities together with the type of policy connected to the action arena can be considered as ‘attributes of the physical world’. According to Lowi’s (1972: 299) dictum ‘policy determines politics’, a redistributive policy content leads to confrontation between those affected while a distributive or regulatory policy content with unclear impacts is likely to lead to more co-­operative interaction (see Heinelt 2007a). This can impact on the way actors are allowed to enter and participate in a particular way in the related action arena. But, as emphasized by Lowi, such impacts do emerge from perceptions of the problem and – more important – perceptions of possible

34   Starting points and key conceptual issues policy effects because: ‘It is not the actual outcomes but the expectations as to what the outcomes can be that shape the issues and determine their politics’ (Lowi 1964: 707). This means that conflicts are predictable, for instance, in cases in which it is perceived that a regulation is likely to restrict the activities of some actors (i.e. by forbidding particular activities) whilst not restricting others. However, where a regulation has an uncertain impact or is covered under a ‘veil of ignorance’ (Rawls 1971), co-­operative and open-­minded interaction can be expected. This may be more likely in situations where regulations can have unforeseen effects in the future rather than in the case of coping with problems where the costs and burdens of a specific regulation (and who has to bear them) are unambiguous. Redistributive effects (and who benefits or bears the costs and burdens) can also be linked to the ‘scope rules’ and the ‘payoff rules’ considered below. ‘Scope’ in the sense of the extent of a problem or issue can matter and be considered as an aspect of ‘physical conditions’. This is particularly clear in respect of planning. It can make a difference if a plan covers a broader or more limited spatial area (as in the case of local or regional land use planning) or is thematically focused (on water supply or alternative sources of energy). In all cases, the spatial or geographic dimensions of the problem have to be recognized as likely to be crucial aspects of the ‘physical conditions’. These aspects refer both to the spatial dimension of the problem itself (is it local, regional or global?) and to the spatial origin or location of the actors together with the factors that cause the problem and play a role in its possible solution. On the ‘attributes of the community’ three aspects have to be taken into account. The first refers to the kinds of actors (individual versus ‘complex’ or ‘composite actors’) and their internal character (collective or corporative; for these distinctions, see Scharpf 1997: 54; also note 22). These distinctions are important in order to identify conditions for participatory governance at least in two respects, which are only briefly outlined. If a community is characterized by the absence of ‘composite actors’ and unorganized individual actors, it is a big challenge for parts of this community to organize themselves to gain influence. Otherwise parts of this community will get little chance to participate or only some members will be involved as individual actors. If a community is characterized by the dominance of one or a limited number of corporative actors then the interests of this community might be well articulated and represented. However, under these circumstances it can be hard for individual actors to bring particular concerns to within this kind of actors or alongside them. By way of contrast, individual actors can have a better chance of being heard when the community is dominated by collective actors which are (according to Scharpf’s definition) ‘dependent on and guided by the preferences of their members’ (Scharpf 1997: 54). But it depends on the ability of collective actors to find organizational forms on the one hand to respond to divergent interests of their members or supporters and on the other hand to get access to and have influence in the action arena.31

Starting points and key conceptual issues   35 The second is the dominant policy style of the community. The most important difference in policy style is the distinction between ‘consensual’ and ‘majoritarian’ or ‘conflictual’ styles (see Richardson et al. 1982; Freeman 1985; van Waarden 1992). Actors operating in an arena structured by a consensual policy style are more likely to deploy arguing and bargaining behaviour in relation to other actors (even in institutional arrangements that are basically seen as, albeit soft, versions of hierarchy) because one-­sided ordering is not compatible with such a style. One-­sided ordering fits to a conflictual style where those who are in power (having a majority) tend to use this power to put through a particular policy choice by hierarchical interventions against the preferences of others (the minority).32 A third relevant attribute of the community is the prevalence of trust and shared norms. In agreement with social capital theory (for instance Putnam 1993), it can be assumed that a high level of interpersonal trust creates an environment that is conducive for collaboration. In the words of Robert Putnam (1993: 171): ‘Trust lubricates cooperation. The greater the level of trust within a community, the greater the likelihood of cooperation.’ Co-­operation stimulated by trust as well as by shared norms can lead to openness towards the participation of others. However, co-­operation and openness towards participation with others can be restricted to members of a particular community and ‘outsiders’ can face severe difficulties in participating (as emphasized by Putnam 2000: 21–4 by the distinction between ‘bridging’ and ‘bonding social capital’).33 Furthermore, the extent to which an individual’s, or community’s networks are characterized by linkage between those with very unequal power and resources [is important]. Given the inherent asymmetry of such bonds, linking social capital may necessarily involve norms of mutual respect or moral equality that counterbalance the narrow, rational self-­interest of the resource rich. (Halpern 2005: 25; emphasis added) Finally, regarding opportunities for participation, the IAD framework is of particular interest because it offers options for systematic thinking about institutional rules (‘rules in use’). The ‘rules in use’ are also characterized as ‘rules in the head’ (Ostrom 1999: 53), which puts emphasis on their conceptualization beyond formal rules. Ostrom et al. (1994) distinguish seven types of rules (see also Ostrom 1990): •

• •

Position rules establish positions and assign them to participants. They essentially determine who is responsible for what, who has what kind of formal powers, etc. Therefore, they form the starting point for other types of rules. Boundary rules regulate the entry and exit of actors. Authority rules assign the set of actions related to a particular position, allocate rights and obligations to positions, settle the means available for the

36   Starting points and key conceptual issues

• • • •

positions to carry out their tasks and specify alternatives to act at a certain position. Aggregation rules determine how decisions in the arena have to be taken or outcomes have to be reached through contributions of the different position holders. Scope rules stipulate possible outcomes and spell out how the outcomes are related to other arenas. Information rules regulate what information should be available to which position holder. Payoff rules allocate benefits and costs of the interactions in the arena as well as of achieved outcomes.

These rules can overlap, and they can also be related to the question of how ‘holders’ can have an impact on governing activities through their participation and what the creation of (new) statuses may imply. Furthermore, specific problems resulting from particular combinations of these rules can occur. Take the case of the ‘rights holder’, the traditional role of the citizen as voter.   Boundary rules’ identify who in a particular territorially defined spatial unit is allowed to vote; ‘position rules’ determine the role as a voter; ‘authority rules’ define how to vote; ‘aggregation rules’ fix the forms of the majority rule as the decision mode and ‘information rules’ provide opportunities to inform and to be informed. Problems arising from arrangements in which ‘rights holders’ act in accordance with certain rules can also be highlighted by considering the other ‘rules in use’ in those same arrangements. Against the background of the debate about loss of sovereignty of statehood and the very evidence of spatial interdependencies of decisions taken by voters and representative bodies, problems can be highlighted when looking at the ‘scope rules’ and ‘payoff rules’ because it cannot be taken for granted that what ‘rights holders’ have tried to achieve can actually be achieved and have an impact just on them but not also on others. In thinking broadly about the design of particular ‘status holders’, it is important to consider: (i) how ‘boundary rules’ determine conditions for entering the ‘action arena’ and therefore the participation of particular actors; (ii) how ‘position rules’ fix their role within the ‘action arena’; (iii) whether or not ‘authority rules’, for instance, either allow them just to articulate their concerns or ‘good reasons’, or grant them a kind of veto power; (iv) whether or not ‘aggregation rules’ specifying how decisions are taken offer them an opportunity to participate effectively; (v) how ‘scope rules’ ensure the relevance of decisions in which they have been involved (not least in relation to a particular scope respecting the autonomy of others or other ‘action arenas’); and (vi) how ‘payoff rules’ regulate the distribution of costs and burdens as well as the benefits and advantages of decisions in which they have been involved. By referring to the distinction between the forms of participation articulated by Arnstein (1969) in her model of a ‘ladder of citizen participation’, the reflections on the aforementioned seven rules can be developed further.

Starting points and key conceptual issues   37 8

Citizen control

7

Delegated power

6

Partnership

5

Placation

4

Consultation

3

Information

2

Therapy

Degrees of citizen power

Degrees of tokenism

Non-participation 1

Manipulation

Figure 2.3  Ladder of citizen participation (source: Arnstein 1969: 217).

For Arnstein only three out of eight forms of ‘citizen participation’ were relevant insofar as they facilitate that ‘ “nobodies” in several arenas are [becoming] “somebodies” with enough power to make the target institutions responsive to their views, aspirations, and needs’ (Arnstein 1969: 217). The other five forms of participation (see Figure 2.3) were shown by Arnstein not to be worth characterizing as such because they either do not really lead to participation or just pretend to lead to participation. The third rung of the ladder refers to the provision of information to citizens by decision-­makers ‘with no channel provided for feedback and no power for negotiation’ (Arnstein 1969: 219). In such a constellation ‘information rules’ may have broadened access to information for a larger group of actors but ‘position’, ‘boundary’, ‘authority’ and ‘aggregation rules’ do not allow the informed actors ‘to make the target institutions responsive to their views, aspirations, and needs’ (ibid.). Consultation is, according to Arnstein, also tokenism ‘since it offers no assurance that citizen concerns and ideas will be taken into account’ (Arnstein 1969: 219). In the case of consultation ‘information rules’ may have broadened access to information for actors and ‘boundary rules‘ allow them to enter a related action arena. Furthermore, ‘position rules’ assign particular actors an active role (‘position’) in this arena so they can articulate concerns, ideas and suggestions. But ‘authority’ and ‘aggregation rules’ do not allow them to ensure that the articulated concerns, ideas and suggestions are taken into account in decisions (the ‘choice of action’). Different kinds of advisory groups are examples of this form of participation. In addition, a legal right to be actively involved in hearings (for instance within environmental impact assessment; see for example Heinelt et al.

38   Starting points and key conceptual issues 2001a) opens up an opportunity for this form of participation. But advisory groups can – according to the rules enhancing participation – also be subsumed under partnership as a form of participation. In the case of partnership ‘power is in fact redistributed’ and in particular rules are made ‘to share planning and decision-­making responsibilities through such structures as joint policy boards, planning committees and mechanisms for resolving impasses. After the ground rules have been established [. . .], they are not subject to unilateral change’ (Arnstein 1969: 221). In contrast to the aforementioned forms of participation, rules are different in the case of partnership insofar as articulated concerns, ideas and suggestions cannot just be ignored because the ‘authority rules’ grant all those involved in the action arena bargaining power and the ‘aggregation rules’ lay down decision­making procedures which reflect shared decision-­making (or planning) competences. ‘Delegated power’ refers to cases where responsibilities for specific tasks are transferred. In such cases, the ‘information’, ‘position’, ‘boundary’, ‘authority’ and ‘aggregation rules’ allow the involved actors to take decisions quite autonomously. But through ‘scope rules’ the range and the compulsory nature of decisions are limited to those who have taken them or to a particular group of affected people. Furthermore, ‘payoff rules’ can play a crucial role in two ways. First, they can put a limit on costs which have to be covered by those beyond the actors directly involved or those who should be intentionally affected (for instance by limiting the funding of activities). Second, they can influence intended gains and their distribution, for instance, by defining funding objectives or tasks to be undertaken. An example of ‘delegated power’ is the transfer of the implementation of a programme – including the spending of funds – to (non-­ governmental) independent bodies according to fixed general objectives. Such independent bodies could be neighbourhoods in a city, for instance, those in England responsible for developing and implementing a specific area-­based ‘action plan’ within the context of the EU structural funds (DETR 1997a; 1997b). With respect to ‘citizen control’, Arnstein emphasized that ‘no one in the nation has absolute control’ (Arnstein 1969: 223) – ‘including the President of the United States’ (Arnstein 1969: 216). By ‘citizen control’ she meant those forms of participation which refer to self-­administration (for instance of schools) or the self-­government of city districts or neighbourhoods with respect to single policies or programmes. In contrast to the forms of ‘delegation’, the ‘payoff rules’ are designed in the case of ‘citizen control’ in such a way that available financial resources can be used according to decisions of the involved actors (citizens) and the effects these actors are trying to achieve. Klok and Denters (2005: 43) have argued that, in respect to Elinor Ostrom’s reflection on the ‘rules in use’, the question can be raised: who should and could interpret the rules in a binding way and secure compliance? The authoritative interpretation of the rules does not necessarily flow from a particular formal position within an action arena because some action arenas are characterized by

Starting points and key conceptual issues   39 non-­hierarchical relations between actors and by the availability of exit options. Therefore, compliance strongly depends on perceptions of appropriateness, and deviant behaviour can lead to a new reading of the rules. Against this background it is important to be aware that rules can be defined and changed at different levels, namely, through deliberative design at ‘superior’ levels (meta or second order governing) or through processes of adaptation at the ‘operational’ level (first order governing). 2.6.3  Political capital and participation The argument outlined above on an incremental and reflexive process of identifying and recognizing actors who should participate in governance arrangements can be linked to the debate on political capital which reflects (i) different resources which permit integration in the political sphere and the achievement of political objectives, as well as (ii) the accumulation of such resources (see Booth and Bayer 1998). Legal entitlements are, of course, seen in this debate as a crucial political resource, but greater emphasis is placed on social networks and norms, not least for making effective use of the former. ‘Political capital, like social capital adheres in the relation between people’ (Fuchs et al. 2000: 6). The emphasis placed on social networks and norms in this debate can be related to the argument outlined above insofar as social interactions and communication are crucial for developing and reproducing a common understanding of ‘apposite criterion’ for identifying those who should participate. Another issue also links the idea of an incremental and reflexive process of identifying and recognizing actors who should participate to the debate on political capital, namely the emphasis given to conflict as well as to consensus. Although it is stated in the debate on political capital that existing social capital can be used to create political capital (see Birner and Wittmer 2000) it is also assumed that ‘it is quite possible, and very likely, that political capital may be acquired apart from social capital’ (Fuchs et al. 2000: 6). The main reason for this is that political capital can be based on and develop from confrontational or conflict strategies pursued by actors within close social or policy networks – and not only from friendly links between people, as usually assumed by proponents of the social capital approach. Finally, the distinction between structural political capital and instrumental political capital drawn from concepts of political resources is instructive (Birner and Wittmer 2000: 5–7). Whereas instrumental political capital refers to ‘the resources which an actor, i.e. an individual or a group, can dispose of and use to influence policy formation processes and realize outcomes which are in the actor’s perceived interest’, structural political capital ‘refers to the structural variables of the political system which influence the possibilities of the diverse actors to accumulate instrumental political capital’ (Birner and Wittmer 2000: 6). Furthermore, with structural political capital, the conditions that determine how different types of instrumental political capital can be used effectively (ibid.) are considered.

40   Starting points and key conceptual issues Following the argument presented above, structural political capital includes legal entitlement and legally fixed procedures and support schemes (established by second order governing) as well as shared ‘images’ and ‘meaning systems’ (developed by meta governing) through which political involvement can be mobilized and actors are given opportunities to participate. For this formal empowerment to be exploited by actors, instrumental political capital is crucial as it relies on the relationship between actors which enables them to take advantage of the opportunities that arise. Whilst instrumental political capital plays a crucial role in the sphere of first order governing, it is also important for the other two ‘worlds of democratic action’, i.e. meta governing and second order governing.

2.7  Governance and knowledge Since the 1990s ‘beliefs’, ‘ideas’ or ‘knowledge’, as well as processes of communicative interactions such as persuasion, argumentation and learning, have received increasing attention in different sub-­disciplines of political science for the understanding of political changes. Even if these terms and their underlying theoretical and methodological starting points are quite diverse and sometimes incompatible, they nonetheless commonly owe their renewed relevance to certain scepticism against two alternative approaches to the explanation of political reality, namely institutionalist and rational-­choice approaches. From a cognitive perspective, these approaches either fail to explain political changes in situations which are not clearly determined by institutions (as is the case with institutionalism) or neglect the relevance of processes of preference formation and alteration in explaining political changes (as is the case with the rational-­choice approach).34 By way of contrast, the growing literature arising within the so-­called ‘cognitive turn’ (Edmondson and Nullmeier 1997), ‘constructivist turn’ (Checkel 1998) or ‘argumentative turn’ (Fischer and Forester 1993) in political science highlights the importance of concepts such as knowledge, ideas and learning for understanding processes of preference formation and transformation as well as for policy or institutional changes. Constructivist approaches assume that interests are not exogenously defined or given, but endogenously defined within processes of collectively interpreting reality, constructing shared meanings and defining problems. To understand the way actors come to know what they want is therefore essential for the analysis of political processes. In this context, ideas defined as knowledge about reality play a central role, since they serve as a filter for interpreting and making sense of the world and for guiding action. Knowledge, according to these approaches, is composed of cognitive as well as normative components. Whereas the normative dimension covers accepted values of right or wrong (or normative standards of appropriateness) providing compelling ethical and moral motivations for action, the cognitive component expresses cause-­effect relationships about the state of the world and how it is

Starting points and key conceptual issues   41 functioning. Knowledge in this sense (developed by what has been called meta governing; see Section 2.4.2) provides guidance for achieving desired objectives defined not only at a cognitive but also a normative level. However, knowledge not only constitutes the framework through which interests are defined, but also through which ‘external’ factors (e.g. ‘attributes of the physical world’, ‘attributes of the [surrounding] community’ and ‘rules-­in-use’) are perceived.35 In a constructivist approach, external factors are therefore not competing variables of explanation, but conceptualized as knowledge held by actors about those factors. For this knowledge to be influential, it constantly needs to be reproduced or even transformed during interaction processes. Linked to the cognitive turn in political science, the term ‘learning’ has also received increasing attention in debates about policy and institutional change and its underlying causes.36 In this context, learning based on experiences is usually understood as a process of redefining the interests and objectives actors pursue on the basis of ‘new’ knowledge which affects the fundamental beliefs that underpin actions and which in turn may lead to policy and institutional change. However, although this recent ‘turn’ has done a great service in redirecting our attention to ideational factors, several questions remain. The most pressing concerns the conceptualization of mechanisms through which learning happens.37 Against this background, the purpose of this section is rather modest. Whilst avoiding claims of providing a full and systematic overview of current ideational and learning scholarship, it aims to provide a brief overview of selected approaches to the importance of learning and knowledge in political processes, linked to different governance modes (described in Section 2.4.2), which can support the creation and functioning of participatory governance. 2.7.1  Learning in governance arrangements As already noted, political processes based on arguing as a specific governance mode can change the positions and preferences of those involved through a transformation of perceptions of problems and guidelines for action. This kind of change can be linked to ideas about ‘learning’ or to related notions of ‘social learning’ and ‘policy oriented learning’. This link is based on the idea that learning is a process which leads to a shift in the understanding and construction of problems and aims of a given policy. To appreciate in an abstract sense that learning is taking place raises the question in which ‘entity’ learning is taking place how – or: who is learning how? (See Figure 2.4.) Policy learning is often personalized as ‘the process whereby decision makers revise their current policy choices in the light of past mistakes or success’ (John 1998: 205). But if learning is seen not only as individual learning, that is, something done by a person in isolation from others or as an intra-­personal process (for instance, in the case of Robinson Crusoe living alone on a remote island), then learning has to be understood as a collective process.

42   Starting points and key conceptual issues

Learning

Individual

Organizational

Intra

Inter

A person (individual learning)

A group of persons (learning in interaction with other persons)

An organization (organizational learning)

A network (of organizations) (learning in a policy network)

Figure 2.4  Individual and organizational learning.

Learning as a collective process can happen in different forms. First of all, one can think of the interaction between individual actors by which these actors interpret their surroundings or their experiences collectively and try to make sense of them. Such inter-­personal processes can be called learning through interaction. In modern societies such processes do usually not happen without any structuration through organizational settings. But in an organizational context, learning processes are basically affected by the knowledge base or ‘memory’ of the organization to which an actor belongs. From the literature it is possible to identify some widely shared assumptions about organizational learning as intra-­ organizational processes (for overviews see Dodgson 1993; Fiol and Lyles 1985). The analysis of organizational learning processes usually starts with the assumption that learning in organizations is on the one hand dependent on their members, but at the same time is more than the sum of individual learning pro­ cesses (Hedberg 1981): The subject of organizational learning processes is therefore the organization as an entity, which may alter its knowledge base as a result of interaction with the external environment. An organization can be seen to operate in a complex and unstable environment, in which it needs to change its perceptions of problems and its action strategies in order to secure its continued existence (Duncan and Weiss 1979: 91). In other words, there are ‘theories of action’ which incorporate ‘norms for corporate performance [. . .], strategies for achieving norms [. . .], and assumptions which bind strategies and norms together’ (Argyris and Schön 1978: 14). This knowledge, which forms the basis for individual and organizational action as well as learning in an organization is generated through interactive processes of perceiving, selecting, interpreting and processing information by members acquiring new knowledge, assuming the newly generated knowledge is defined intra-­organizationally as valid, and is available to other members of the organization (Duncan and Weiss 1979: 87–8). As learning is always a question of modifying existing normative and cognitive assumptions, a high resistance to change can be assumed especially in organizations since these assumptions form not only parts of the identity of individual

Starting points and key conceptual issues   43 actors as members of the organization but also of the organization itself as a ‘composite actors’ (Scharpf 1997: 54). Finally, learning can take place within inter-­organizational processes where single organizations are interconnected in a (policy) network. As networks are stabilized, inter-­organizational relationships are characterized by a mutual recognition of the organizational interests and identities of those involved (Mayntz 1993), so the possibility of learning within networks seems to be quite complicated. This is, in the main, due to the fact that in order to learn it is not only necessary to change existing perceptions of problems but also usually to redistribute power and competences between those involved. But learning in a (policy) network is not just an inter-­organizational process, it is essentially an inter-­personal process because organizations (as ‘composite actors’) cannot interact. Instead, individual actors as representatives of organizations have to interact. This opens up the opportunity for those interacting in policy networks together on behalf (as agents) of their organizations (and in this respect for their principle) to develop common own perceptions of what the problems are about and how to solve them appropriately. So inter-­personal processes of learning can take place between these agents beyond the control of their principles and beyond the limitations of organizational learning. This leaves room for particular forms of organizational learning to be opened up by ‘intersection’ through policy networks, as is outlined below with reference to Wiesenthal (1995). A well-­known distinction between different forms of organizational learning has been developed by Argyris (1976) and Argyris and Schön (1978). They argue that it is useful to distinguish between ‘single loop’, ‘double loop’ and ‘deuteron’ learning as different types of learning.38 ‘Single loop’ or simple learning describes environmentally adaptive selection processes which are based on ‘systems of rules’ (see Wiesenthal 1995: 139). Such systems of rules can be found in job sheets, job descriptions, etc., and act as a visible record of organizational action which constitutes a kind of memory. Systems of rules also shape the regular and formal conversations of the individuals in the organization, and at the same time the continuous communication of the individuals acting as members in an organization contains a latent organizational memory.39 ‘Double loop’ or complex learning refers to the consequences of applying rules that lead to changes in strategy and assumptions. The central point is that it does not just relate to the external environment but also covers autonomous changes in behaviour. However, if the core beliefs of an organization are the object of complex learning processes, then change will probably be met by strong resistance from the members of an organization. Finally, ‘deuteron’ or reflexive learning relates to the ability ‘[to] reflect on and inquire into previous episodes of organizational learning, or failure to learn’ (Argyris and Schön 1978: 27) and thereby the competence to reflect on one’s own learning processes and to become familiar with ‘selective learning strategies’ (Wiesenthal 1995: 14; translation by the author). Such capacities can be ascribed to individuals. For organizations, reflexive learning is possible as a

44   Starting points and key conceptual issues c­ ollective phenomenon only if structures and procedures have been developed which enable their members to develop these competences collectively and use them effectively within the organization. Wiesenthal (1995) described the forms of learning developed by Argyris and Schön as ‘conventional organizational learning’ and introduced three further ‘unconventional’ forms of organizational learning. He started with the question, ‘what happens when organizations can no longer reliably control their boundaries with the environment’ (Wiesenthal 1995: 145; translated by the author). Building on this idea, Wiesenthal looks for forms of learning which are based on ‘intrusions’ by individuals. Unconventional forms of organizational learning are produced by: • • •

invasion, i.e. the uncontrolled arrival of new members into the organization who bring in a different stock of knowledge to that hitherto valid within the organization; dissidence, i.e. challenging behaviour by dissident individuals, such as troublemakers, traitors or free thinkers; intersection, i.e. the overlapping of separate sets of ideas within an organization which are linked to separate systems of knowledge outside the organization. This occurs ‘when organisations are dependent on professional guidance without being able to control the self referential impact of professional systems of knowledge on the fate of the organisation’ (Wiesenthal 1995: 147; translated by the author).

These reflections are important because by abandoning the standard assumptions of organizational theory, namely that organizations are able to control their boundaries, and thereby admitting the possibility of ‘intrusions’, the assumption that only homogeneous ‘core beliefs’ or ‘cognitive frames’ are valid in organizations has to be discarded. It becomes more likely that organizations can have a ‘multiple identity’ (Wiesenthal 1995: 151–2). This is significant in three respects. First, the common ways in which organizations affect the perception and interpretation of the external world by its individual members, are undermined. Second, the self-­referential underpinning of the organization is broken and as a result there is an increase in awareness of potential external influences. Existing interpretations based on dominant re-­constructions of reality and causal constructions are challenged. One implication is that the interests of an organization might be ambiguous or even undefined, so that those representing the organization in inter-­organizational settings might have room for manoeuvre. This implies that in such settings representatives of organisations can engage in debate in order to develop an appreciation of the key aspects of a problem and hence to formulate an understanding of their own interests. In other words, in these circumstances where those involved do not enter into interactions with a precise understanding of their own interests, arguing becomes more likely. Furthermore, the possibility of learning is increasing if those involved feel they are

Starting points and key conceptual issues   45 ‘in a crisis or faced with clear and incontrovertible evidence of policy failure’ (see Checkel 1998). Third, if it is assumed that organizations possess ‘multiple identities’, then the implementation of inter-­organizationally based learning might be eased, since the newly acquired knowledge would not have to be incorporated across the board in a comprehensive organizational belief system, but could be implemented just in specific parts of the organization. As mentioned above, work on policy learning frequently lacks a clear answer to the question of ‘who is actually learning’, or policy learning is personalized as ‘the process whereby decision makers revise their current policy choices in the light of past mistakes’ (John 1998: 205). However, if we are concerned with knowledge and learning in connection with the term ‘governance’ we are not dealing in the main with individual learning processes. Rather, we are referring to organizational or even inter-­organizational learning processes since the notion of ‘actor’ applied within the governance concept does primarily focus on ‘composite actors’ (Scharpf 1997: 54), i.e. organizations or other types of collective units. We therefore need to analyse forms of knowledge and their alteration that are held by collective units (e.g. organizations, inter-­organizational networks, milieus). Knowledge in this sense can be understood as representing the ‘inter-­ subjective (socially) shared constructions of reality’ (Berger and Luckmann 1966) that contain shared hypotheses of the actors about collective behaviour and its consequences. Correspondingly, the application of the term ‘learning’ does not just capture individual learning processes that might be a precondition for collective learning processes. Rather, the focus has to be more on the learning processes of collective actors which lead to the application of forms of knowledge that are agreed upon and accepted by the members of the relevant policy community with regard to the validity and utility of this knowledge for future actions. In other words: how can we think about the shift between ‘old’ and ‘new’ knowledge in a policy community? Is it going to happen (i) as a collective process of arguing, (ii) as a result of strategic interaction (bargaining), (iii) as mutual adjustment taking place beyond the intentions of actors (in the market) or (iv) as adjustment within the hierarchical setting of a formal organization? Bargaining and arguing are two different modes of interaction that are based on communication. With bargaining, the aim of those involved is to defend their positions by applying bargaining power, such as material or legal resources and exit options, and by leaving preferences and positions unchanged. With arguing, specific positions are commonly developed and adopted based on empirical evidence, internal consistency and impartial assumptions. A position can be legitimately defended or altered only if good and acceptable grounds can be presented which convince other actors. Such a process of preference transformation can be linked to the term ‘learning’. Introducing communication based on arguing processes as a means of reaching mutual understanding and fostering collective learning processes implies that the actors are able to question each other’s beliefs, to challenge the validity claims involved in communication, and to try to

46   Starting points and key conceptual issues convince each other to change their causal and principal beliefs in order to reach a reasoned consensus. ‘And, in contrast to rhetorical behaviour, they are themselves prepared to be persuaded. Successful argumentation means that the “better argument” carries the day, while ones’ material bargaining power becomes less relevant’ (Risse 2000: 9). 2.7.2  Governance arrangements and knowledge In this section, a heuristic model is outlined by which the knowledge dimension can be incorporated into reflections about the functioning of governance arrangements. The basic components of the analytical model are taken from the IAD-­ approach of Ostrom et al. (1994; Ostrom 1990; 1999) outlined in Section 2.6.2 (see also Figure 2.2). A governance arrangement refers to an action arena in which actors in a particular action situation interact in a certain way, that is, they engage in particular patterns of interaction that lead to specific outcomes. As argued above, actors in an action arena have to refer to: (i) given ‘attributes of the physical world’; (ii) ‘attributes of the community’ or communities surrounding them; and (iii) ‘rules-­ in-use’ structuring their interactions. In other words: actors are placed ‘in positions who must decide among diverse actions in light of the information about how the actions are linked to potential outcomes and the cost and benefits assigned to actions and outcomes’ (Ostrom et al. 1994: 29). Therefore, actors are supposed to have information and knowledge processing capabilities to realize what is or seems to be possible (what their feasible set is) as well as selection criteria and rules to choose a particular option from a feasible set. In this context we can distinguish between two different knowledge-­related filtering processes (see Figure 2.5). Via a first filtering process, a knowledge formation takes place. As a result of which, those features of the ‘attributes of the physical world’, the ‘attributes of the community’ and the ‘rules-­in-use’ what are relevant for actors’ interactions in particular action arenas are determined. This filtering process results in a specific place-, context- and actor-­related combination or bundling as well as ordering of different knowledge forms for which the term ‘knowledge order’ can be used, because different knowledge forms are related to each other in a hierarchical arrangement rather like in Sabatier’s (1988: 145) ‘belief systems’ which are composed of a hierarchical structure of ‘core beliefs’, ‘policy beliefs’ and ‘secondary aspects’). Such knowledge orders are not only context- and actor- but also place-­related because different knowledge forms are bound to more or less (weak or strong) institutionalized networks and milieus embedded in a particular spatial context.40 The integration of what is meant by knowledge order as an additional element in the IAD-­framework has far reaching consequences. The aforementioned elements of the ‘attributes of the physical world’, the ‘attributes of the community’ and the ‘rules-­in-use’ are not taken as constraints or opportunities which determine collective actions in the action arena directly. Instead, the knowledge of

Starting points and key conceptual issues   47 Action Arena

Rules in use

Actors

Second filtering process choice of knowledge and action in a particular action situation

Attributes of the community

First filtering process choice of interpretation and knowledge leading to a knowledge order

Attributes of the physical world

Output

Figure 2.5  Knowledge and the action arena (source: based on Ostrom et al. 1994: 37, amended by Heinelt, Krüger and Zimmermann).

constraints and opportunities is crucial emerging from ‘attributes of the physical world’, ‘attributes of the community’ and ‘rules-­in-use’. In other words, actors have to know what is constraining them and have to develop an understanding of what can be achieved by them, how and with whom, which also refers to knowledge. However, this filtering process and the related formation of a specific knowledge order depend on interplay with a governance arrangement which has gained dominance for the action arena. This results in a dominant mixture of generic governance modes and related types of rules (explained in Section 2.4.2). It all rests on social processes of interpretation of what the problem is about and what the challenges and opportunities for solving it are. Clearly, these processes of choosing an interpretation or a ‘choice of interpretation’ (‘Deutungswahl’; Nullmeier 1993) are genuinely political processes. These processes form an essential part of meta governing, i.e. the development of particular images of what the problem is and how to address it in a way seen as appropriate. By this not only certain forms of knowledge are chosen (i.e. a ‘choice of knowledge [‘Wissenswahl’; Nullmeier 1993] is taken place) – and others are neglected. At the same time particular actors, such as knowledge holders, rights holders, etc. (see Section 2.6.1), are favoured which means that they gain (more) influence. It is also crucial to note that some actors are able to gain access to the action arena – and others are not. The exclusion of actors and their knowledge is obviously linked to the configuration of rules (see Section 2.6.2). This applies not only to knowledge holders, that is, those possessing certain forms of knowledge, but also for other actors holding some quality or resource essential to solve the perceived problem or to resolve a conflict linked to a particular problem definition. In addition to this it has to be emphasized that all holders are in some sense knowledge holders. Furthermore, they might act as multiple holders combining for instance the role (or status) of a rights holder with that of a spatial holder. By this they are influencing the formation of certain knowledge forms and perhaps the knowledge order as such in a given (spatial) context.

48   Starting points and key conceptual issues The dominant governance arrangement and the particular knowledge order – drawing on particular elements of universally available knowledge – form an opportunity structure in the action arena for the actors interacting in a particular action situation to solve a problem. In such a situation the actors selected to take part in interactions in the action arena are (more or less) empowered to enter into communicative interaction again about the interpretation of what the concrete problem is about and how to address it appropriately. Such processes also lead to a ‘choice of knowledge’ offered by the particular knowledge order linked to the action arena. This implies a second filtering process (see Section 2.6.2) as a result of which knowledge (and the spectrum of knowledge forms) is further restricted, this restricted knowledge is finally taken into account in the debate or discourse about concrete ‘choice of action’ (‘Handlungswahl’; Nullmeier 1993), that is, concrete output-­related decision. Outcomes of these decisions can result in changes in the ‘rules-­in-use’ (which would lead to institutional change), and they can impact on the physical world and the community related to the action arena. However, outcomes and their effects are also subject to evaluation processes which may lead to transformations in the action arena by learning and by altering the stock of knowledge relevant for the interaction of actors in the action arena. In this sense the analytical model has a dynamic trait. The linked development of debate or discourse and decision-­making – and the co-­evolution of knowledge formation and institutional arrangements of rules – also takes place between different governing orders (see Section 2.5). The interaction can vary depending on the dominance of: (i) specific modes of political interaction (arguing, bargaining, majoritarian decision and hierarchical interventions); (ii) the topic of the interactions (agreeing on images through meta governing, deciding on specific institutions and policy content through second order governing, implementing defined policy objectives/programmes through first order governing); and (iii) the related reference points of interactions (ethical standards, legitimacy or effectiveness).

3 Different sectors of interest intermediation and their ‘composition’ in political systems

3.1  The need to reconceptualize citizen participation In the current social science debate, changing concepts of democracy are addressed in the main within the context of the debate on the subject of governance (as noted previously). These notions include both the limitations placed upon (nation) state politics as a result of globalization and the deterioration of hierarchical relations between the state and society. Re-­conceptualizing the state in this way means that traditional concepts of democracy are bound to be questioned because they are linked to the system of parliamentary representative interest intermediation. This goes hand in hand with criticism of ‘the democratic deficit’ as the debate on the EU shows (see, for example, Andersen and Burns 1996). The current transformation of the idea of democracy along with associated conceptual challenges to contemporary political theory, is – from a historical perspective – concisely outlined by Robert Dahl (1994, see also Dahl 1989). As indicated earlier, a democratic dilemma can be identified by the fact that in modern societies ‘system effectiveness’ is secured through a wide range of bargaining systems – both at the international level and within society – at the cost of abandoning democracy in the sense of ‘citizen participation’, or by dramatically reducing it. In other words, the debate on whether the political system is to be rationalized in terms of inputs or outputs seems to favour output (performance or capacity of performance) rather than input (free and accessible participation). This approach is bound to upset the balance between the input and output dimensions of the legitimacy of the political system (see Scharpf 1970: 21–8) which emphasizes self-­determination insofar as those who are affected by policy-­making are not only able to define policy objectives by their ‘inputs’ but also get or achieve desired outputs. If the relevance of democracy in the sense of ‘citizen participation’ is not just the result of normative prescriptions but is derived from the specific features of a particular model of governing, it can be argued that the factual democratic transformation is a transformation of this model of governing in highly complex societies. The factual democratic transformation could reveal attempts to overcome, or at least compensate for, the restrictions of traditional forms of ‘citizen participation’ in the input sector of the political system. These attempts are being

50   Sectors of interest intermediation and their ‘composition’ c­ onstructed in political practice through a ‘self-­formatting’ of the political system (see Schmalz-­Bruns 1995: 159–65). Nonetheless, are the characteristics of democracy not just based on normative grounds, but also associated with a model of governing in highly complex societies? As pointed out earlier, Charles Lindblom (1965) identified participation as one of the characteristics in The Intelligence of Democracy, in which he argued that effectiveness of a democratic order is actually generated by participation. Participation is effective in the realization of policy objectives because it can help to overcome problems of implementation by: (i) taking account of motives, (ii) fostering the conformity/compliance/adherence of policy addressees, and (iii) tracing the mutually dependent effects of policy interventions through the mobilization of the knowledge of those affected (see Mayntz 1987). Participation does not, therefore, stand in contrast to ‘system effectiveness’. It is actually one of its conditions. However, forms of participation have to be (re)designed and (re)considered according to particular circumstances, going beyond those offered by traditional forms of representative democracy. This is important for another reason. Democratic structures and procedures that rely on participation do ensure the legitimacy of political authority. This is a second characteristic of democracy, associated with a model of governing in highly complex societies. Only via legitimacy can political systems succeed in generating a general willingness to comply (Luhmann 1969). This willingness, in turn, allows binding decisions to be implemented (without relying on coercion except in extreme cases) despite conflicts of interest. Complex societies must be able to rely on voluntary compliance in the vast majority of cases. These societies compensate for the increasingly obsolete use of physical force by calling on legitimacy. Suppressing ‘citizen participation’ or a disturbance of the input/output symmetry would indicate the delegitimization of political authority in modern societies. Yet, this delegitimization occurs only if new participatory structures and processes that are capable of securing legitimacy are not present or evolving. It is the aim of this chapter to reflect conceptually on participatory governance related to civil society based interest intermediation – or to shorten this convuluted phrase, to civil interest intermediation – and its anchorage in the political system. Attention is given to civil interest intermediation in order to look for its potentials to compensate for or lessen shortcomings in other sectors of the political system as well as contribute to creating and stabilising legitimacy via civil participation. Civil interest intermediation is seen as an opportunity to formulate and to apply binding regulations in a way that would not be possible to develop elsewhere inside or outside the political system of a functionally differentiated society. Furthermore, it is considered who, for the function of other sectors of interest intermediation, relies on contribution of civil interest intermediation. The key issue in these respects is the fact that a binding code of problem definitions and patterns of action can be created through an argumentative mode of interest intermediation linked to civil society. This code can be applied to other areas of the political system.

Sectors of interest intermediation and their ‘composition’   51 In order to illustrate this line of argument, the concept of a regime composition of a political system is developed, and the notion of civil society used in this context is defined. To assess the democratic potential of civil interest intermediation, the concept of the sector composition of a political system is applied in Section 3.3 to the multi-­level system of the EU. The political system of the EU is a fascinating subject to analyse because the phenomenon of governance in such a system (beyond the state) – which is linked to particular ‘democratic deficits’ (for an overview see Follesdal and Hix 2005) – can be related to processes of ‘self-­ formatting’ (Schmalz-­Bruns 1995: 159–65) or a ‘democratic experimentalism’ (Dorf and Sabel 1998), aimed at achieving and safeguarding an effective and legitimate political authority. In addition to the potential of participatory governance based on civil society organizations, its limitations are also discussed. This is followed in Section 4.3 by reflections on debates on possible developments of the political system of the EU, potentially complementing a strengthening of participatory governance based on civil society organizations.

3.2  The regime composition of political systems and the sector of civil society related interest intermediation The starting point for the following considerations is to conceive of a democratic political system not as a regime ‘but as a composite of “partial regimes” ’ (Schmitter 1993, 4; for the concept of regime composition, see also Schmitter 1992). This is useful because it consists of an extremely complex institutional system with various forms of interest articulation and intermediation as well as binding decision-­making processes (see Schmitter 1993: 4). In addition, in a democratic political system, ‘citizenship, its most distinctive property, is not confined to voting periodically in elections. It can also be exercised by [. . .] joining associations or movements, petitioning authorities, engaging in “unconventional” protest, and so forth’ (Schmitter 1993: 4). Based on this understanding the model outlined here (and shown in Figure 3.1) can be assumed for the political system.1 In this model the infrastructure, or ‘core of civil society comprises a network of associations that institutionalizes problem-­solving discourses on questions of general interest inside the framework of organized public spheres’ (Habermas 1996a: 367), surrounds – as ‘peripheral context’ – the ‘core’ of the political system consisting of the parliament, the government and the bureaucracy (Peters 1993: 422ff.). This core of the political system is embedded in various sectors of interest intermediation that function according to different governance modes (majority decisions, hierarchy, bargaining and arguing). They are differently aligned and complement each other. The sector of territorial interest intermediation covers representative democracy. Here, conflicts of interest between (voting) citizens can be addressed through parties and through the mode of majority decisions. For this sector to be

52   Sectors of interest intermediation and their ‘composition’

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Figure 3.1  Sectors of interest intermediation with the political system.

effective, it is essential that the citizens living in a particular territory recognize one another as political subjects, and therefore are seen as equals, that they take part in decision-­making and accept majority decisions as legitimate and ultimately subject themselves to them. It is this submission to majority decisions – particularly with regard to redistributive policies – which requires individual identification with the ‘political community’. Generating and stabilizing this identity requirement for democratic decision-­making processes (see Lepsius 1991; Zürn 1996: 39–40) does – in the last resort – depend on whether and to what extent a political community is developed through public discourse. It is a crucial function of the sector of civil society related interest intermediation to create and to foster this public discourse. In the sector of functional interest intermediation, conflicts can be solved through negotiation between associations in which interests of particular (functionally determined) parts of society are organized. Solving conflicts of interests or aims between actors such as trade unions and employer organizations depends on the bargaining results achieved through mutual agreement. This does not,

Sectors of interest intermediation and their ‘composition’   53 however, exclude asymmetries between the interest groups involved. As a consequence of differences in the ability to articulate and to organize interests, asymmetries should be presupposed. However, the need to achieve consensual solutions in the bargaining process indicates that the actors involved are free to pursue their interests. This implies that they can question the binding nature of a decision by way of disagreement or non-­compliance, or by ‘dropping out’ (‘exit’). This sector of interest intermediation is particularly relevant for the conscious co-­ordination of societal actions in a binding way in those (functional) spheres of society where majoritarian parliamentary decisions (or decisions taken by forms of direct democracy) are ineffectual or where decisions would challenge the underlying structures (like private ownership of production or contractual labour in the production process) of a functionally differentiated (capitalist) society. This applies particularly to wages policy as a typical issue of interest intermediation between trade unions and employer organizations. The Achilles heel of these arrangements is, as frequently shown, submission to and compliance with the agents of the organizations by the members. In addition, there are problems for ‘latent’ interest groups (like consumers) to form an organization for the common articulation and the representation of their interests. Furthermore, ‘latent’ interest groups face problems in avoiding free-­riding (Olson 1965). In order to overcome individualistic self-­centred preferences which can lead to free-­riding, public discourse in the sphere of civil society could be important in terms of developing solidarity, ‘collective interests’ or even a widespread sense of what is appropriate (or not). This sector of functional interest intermediation is furthermore dependent on contributions from the sector of territorial interest intermediation, as has been frequently highlighted in the neo-­ corporatist debate. This applies particularly where mutual agreements between autonomous associations which have to be reached by bargaining are blocked, so that binding solutions to conflicts of interests are instead reached through legitimized majority decisions. In this situation, it is frequently enough for bargaining parties to perceive the ‘hierarchical shadow’ as a potential threat to independent interactions. In addition, binding decisions taken in the sector of territorial interest intermediation provide a framework for interest intermediation between interest groups – from statutory licensing of them as agents of interest intermediation to procedural regulation of their interactions (see Schmitter 1979; Lehmbruch 1979), for example in reaching wage agreements. The sector of administrative interest intermediation2 covers the implementation of decisions based on the various sectors and related forms of interest intermediation but which are finally taken in the ‘core’ of the political system. Here bargaining, and sometimes also arguing, takes place between administrative bodies and private actors (even individual actors) involved in or affected by implementation. Key features of this are the well-­known implementation problems (summarized, for example, by Pressman and Wildawsky 1973; Mayntz 1987). In order to achieve targeted compliance with and implementation of policies, it is necessary to address motives and to find ways to safeguard the willingness to comply on the part of those involved or addressed as well as

54   Sectors of interest intermediation and their ‘composition’ mobilizing the knowledge of these actors relevant for achieving the intended effects through communicative interactions. Within these interactions, private actors can exercise bargaining power by ensuring that the intended policy objectives are actually achievable. Additionally, they can influence implementation by pointing out that particular arguments have to be taken into account to achieve the intended objectives effectively. Opportunities for private actors to influence implementation processes either by bargaining or by arguing depend not only on their resources (e.g. financial means as well as knowledge) or their abilities to evade the binding interventions of administrative bodies. But their opportunities are also shaped by legally defined rights. First of all, there is the right to question decisions taken by the administration (e.g. through litigation). This also applies to rights to be involved in implementation or administrative decisions, i.e. rights forcing the administration either to listen to articulated concerns and ‘good reasons’ or to take these into account. Finally, private actors involved in implementation do have a number of options which enable them to influence decision-­ making on policy objectives in the ‘core’ of the political system either by providing relevant expertise or by lobbying. The latter option depends heavily on the importance of these actors for overcoming implementation problems. The development of this sector shows that the state’s capacity to act vis-­à-vis the social environment relies to a greater extent on co-­operation and bargaining relations with autonomous actors affected by the policy in question. What is essential to note is that co-­operative, frequently informal, administrative action can be located in self-­perceptions of the administrative and private actors involved as well as in the perceptions of ‘external’ observers in the grey zone ‘between co-­ operation and corruption’ (Benz and Seibel 1992). This problem can be addressed and (possibly) solved by political regulation stipulating and legitimising particular interactions between administrative bodies and private actors. However, whether or not these kind of administrative actions are legitimate or not is one question. Quite another is whether or not these actions are broadly seen as appropriate or not. This depends on processes of norm formation, which are based on a public understanding generated by a crucial extent in the sphere of civil society. The sector of civil society related or civil interest intermediation relies on fora of political self-­articulation and public deliberation (reasoning) offered by civil society composed of: ‘those nongovernmental and non-­economic connections and voluntary associations that anchor in the communication structures of the public sphere in the society component of the lifeworld’ respectively of those more or less spontaneously emergent associations, organizations, and movements that [. . .] distill and transmit such reactions in amplified form to the public sphere. The core of civil society comprises a network of associations that institutionalizes problem-­solving discourses on questions of general interest inside the framework of organized public spheres. (Habermas 1996a: 366–7)

Sectors of interest intermediation and their ‘composition’   55 From this idea of civil society, these networks of associations include collective actors which pursue public goods (such as social cohesion or environmental sustainability) or universal values (such as human rights) – and in this respect reflect the general interest (Kohler-­Koch and Quittkat 2009). A further characteristic of these collective actors is that they try to influence societally binding decisions by public deliberation, that is, by arguing or using the ‘power of “good reasons” ’. In contrast to the other three sectors, the sector of civil society related or civil interest intermediation is directly linked to the infrastructure or core of civil society. This link is crucial for shaping a public sector characterized by processes of argumentative communication between participants who relate to each other in a reciprocal dialogue and with open opportunities for participation. Because communication is based on reciprocal dialogue, the public sphere here differs from communications between citizens and the political leadership, which are largely, though not exclusively, determined by an elite-­dominated process of intermediation.3 Additionally, although the circle of participants is open in principle, it cannot exclude the danger that communication is concentrated round a socially biased ‘assembly of citizens’. Furthermore, the principle of openness does not simply imply that discourse has to take place in the public arena. Discourse is inherently related to the public space. It can thereby achieve political decisiveness. The link between the sector of civil interest intermediation and the infrastructure of civil society guarantees continuity of public discourses (which contrasts with the media and their frequently changing topics). Continuity is important, because only by continuity can the public discourse become important within the political system. Moreover, it is only by continuity that collective learning can occur between and within (discourse) communities of those engaged in publicly exchanging ‘good reasons’ for co-­ordinating interactions in a socially binding way. ‘These “discursive designs” have an egalitarian, open form of organization that mirrors essential features of the kind of communication around which they crystallize and to which they lend continuity and performance’ (Habermas 1996a: 367). The way in which public interest intermediation based on civil society influences and ‘frames’ processes in the other sectors was outlined earlier. Hence, parts of the sector of civil interest intermediation function directly as ‘bridging agencies’ to the ‘core’ of the political system consisting of the parliament, the government and the bureaucracy. Because ‘bridging agencies’ are closely related or even directly linked to the ‘core’ of the political system, they can transfer problem definitions developed within civil society and perspectives how problems should be solved best directly into the decision-­making happening in the ‘core’ of a political system. Due to their relation to or direct link with the core sector, these ‘bridging agencies’ are, however, at risk of being instrumentalized to ‘colonize’ civil society and to influence the discourse in the sector of civil interest intermediation.4 In this chapter, four different sectors of interest intermediation and the ­relations between them have been described. Their relevance can be assessed in

56   Sectors of interest intermediation and their ‘composition’ concrete terms, for example, by looking at a specific regime composition of these sectors within the context of a political system in general or a policy field in particular. In such contexts, the given institutional structures and processes of interest intermediation (i.e. conflict and consensus building) can be examined in relation to both specific policy areas and, more generally, reflecting the historical and a particular societal background. Consequently, the dominance of administrative interest intermediation, which may relate to ‘feedback’ from civil society, can occur in a particular policy area on the basis of past decisions made in the sectors of functional or territorial interest intermediation. A different sectoral composition can be expected in a situation where fundamental societal issues affecting the political community are on the agenda. In this situation the sectors of functional and/or territorial interest intermediation are of special significance, together with serious deliberations in civil society. The existing institutional structures as well as processes of interest intermediation characterizing a particular regime composition are, however, not just based on specific policy areas and general socio-­historical characteristics. Another factor is the spatial level5 in which the political system is located, and the coupling of the political system with other levels. This is addressed in the next section.

3.3  The general structure of the regime composition of the EU and the role of civil society within it The argument developed conceptually in the previous section on the regime composition of different sectors of interest intermediation will be applied in this section to the EU. Particular emphasis is given to the sector of civil society related interest intermediation in order to address those forms of participatory governance within the EU context which rely on civil society organizations.6 To do this, we need first of all to summarize key features of the different sectors of interest intermediation at the EU level. In the EU the sector of territorial interest intermediation is characterized by the fact that the resolution of interests by citizens (or the electorate) through parties and majority decisions is extremely limited. There are at least two reasons for this. First, it is not just the decision-­making competence of the European Parliament that is institutionally restricted, although it has been strengthened step by step by the changes to the governing treaty since the second half of the 1980s (since the Single European Act; for an overview, see Rittberger 2003). There are also major constraints on a parliamentary interest intermediation based on political parties due to the lack of an integrated European party system and, consequently, limited opportunities for a mediated party based consensus. Another point is that submission to parliamentary majority decisions requires individual identification with the political community. Yet this is obstructed by the lack of a collective identity relying on common memories, experience and communication (see Kielmansegg 1996: 54–8, including reference to Lepsius 1991). Europe

Sectors of interest intermediation and their ‘composition’   57 and even the core of Western Europe is not a community of communication. It has some common memories but in a very limited area of common experience (Kielmansegg 1996: 55). However, merging nationality and state citizenship, which has occurred in various forms in the European nation states, has led to a kind of identity construction. This construction allows for solidarity as well as the acceptance and legitimization of policies (including redistributive policies) laid down through majoritarian decisions (Lepsius 1990; 1991). Second, territorial interest intermediation takes place through intermediation between member state governments. They represent interests that are principally shaped by parties and parliamentary (majoritarian) decisions at the national level. These interests have to be considered in the bargaining system at the European level, and at the same time decisions negotiated and taken at EU level have to be justified and implemented in the national systems of territorial interest intermediation characterized by party competition (see Putnam 1988 on such ‘two level games’). With EU-­wide referendums it would be possible to make the sector of territorial interest intermediation at the EU level more accessible to citizens, not just in terms of direct interest articulation but also in terms of initiating EU wide political discourses. Consequently, a community of communication could be established and it would be possible to create a basis for common memories and experience. The ‘discourse phase’ preceding any referendum would – from the perspective of a civil society related democratization – be at least as important as the voting itself (see Zürn 1996: 51). Political decisions (and decision-­makers) within the political system would be evaluated not just in terms of the results of the referendums but also during public debate concerning policy content and decision-­making processes triggered as a result of the debate. However, as demonstrated in recent years, national referendums on EU issues are at risk of being instrumentalized for domestic purposes. This problem is not automatically addressed by transforming national referendums into EU-­wide ones. Even in a highly heterogeneous community, referendums can be overloaded with populist elements. They can lead to polarizing effects and (additionally) paralyze the decision-­making process at the EU level, which is based on mutual agreement. The potential contribution of EU referendums to the evolution of a civil society is therefore clearly open to question (for example, the Irish referendum on the Nice treaty and the Dutch and French referendums on the ‘constitutional treaty’). The European Parliament does in one way provide an opportunity for more civil society related developments within the EU system of territorial interest intermediation.7 Insofar as the European Parliament is not really a place of party mediated representation, it could be a forum for articulating positions generated by a broad spectrum of bodies, varying from non-­governmental organizations operating at supranational level and movements to decentralized active pressure groups. In other words, the European Parliament would be in an even better position to act as a bridging agency for public debate if the links to and the ­influence of the parties in the member states were weaker. Such trends towards

58   Sectors of interest intermediation and their ‘composition’ independence of the European Parliament away from the influence of member state parties (although they are usually classified as ‘functional deficits’ in parliamentary interest intermediation) can be identified (see Maurer 2001: 199). At the same time the Parliament performs a role in instituting EU-­wide and EU-­specific debates beyond member state and party political controversies, and in carrying these debates into the political system. This trend results from the fact that members of the European Parliament are able to compensate for their usually weak positions in their national parties with exclusive contacts with civil society and other non-­governmental organizations (see, for instance, Wessels 1999: 109–12). An important feature which promotes such developments is that inter-­party coalitions have to be formed in the European Parliament in order to safeguard its influence in negotiations with the Commission and the Council of Ministers. This is especially important in the co-­decision-making procedure where ‘the Parliament, acting by an absolute majority of its members, has the power to propose amendments to the Council’s common position or to reject it’ (Greenwood 1997: 47). The so-called ‘Intergroups’ of the European Parliament are an important organizational form for building such coalitions. The Intergroups are formally created by members of the European Parliament but they are surrounded and supported by non-­governmental actors, including civil society organizations (Judge and Earnshaw 2003: 198–9). ‘[T]he Intergroup on Consumer Affairs, partly created by the efforts of a one-­time chairman of the consumer organisation, BEUC, is one expression of this’ (Greenwood 1997: 47). In the sector of functional interest intermediation, alleged functional deficits offer a way forward for a democratization related to a stronger involvement of civil society. A functional deficit in this sector is identified where interest intermediation is substantially less corporatist at the EU level than in most member states (see Streeck and Schmitter 1991). This is illustrated by the fact that associational actors are not usually in a strong (‘licensed’) position such as is required for neo-­corporatist interest intermediation. As a consequence, associational actors are mostly restricted to lobbying (see Eising and Kohler-­Koch 1994: 176), although their lobbying activities differ (for a classification, see Karr 2006: 59–72). In conjunction with the central position of the Commission in the ‘core’ of the political system at the EU level, this leads to interdependence between the sectors of functional and administrative interest intermediation. At the same time, at the EU level there is a need for direct participation by relevant actors in the policy process because the production of binding decisions in the sector of territorial interest intermediation encounters the same constraints as attempts to implement binding decisions under the hierarchical co-­ordination of the European Commission. Participation in any form does not just aim to improve and guarantee the effectiveness of political intervention during implementation, but also to obtain legitimacy.8 By involving public and private actors in decision-­making and implementation processes, policy networks emerge in which policy-­related and general discourses reaching beyond the particular policy areas in question can be triggered.

Sectors of interest intermediation and their ‘composition’   59 These discourses can initiate or affect political problem definitions and perspectives of actions beyond the decision-­making process in the ‘core’ of the political system and territorial interest intermediation.9 The fact that, as mentioned above, associational actors at EU level do not have a monopoly of representation but reappear as EU umbrella organizations among the numerous lobbying agents means that access to the ‘core’ of the political system of the EU (especially the European Commission and the European Parliament) is relatively open – although not necessarily egalitarian or pluralistic. This opens up opportunities for establishing ‘bridging agencies’ of civil society (like the European Environmental Bureau or the consumer organization BEUC) and points to perspectives of a ‘post-­corporatist democracy’ (Eder 1995; translated by the author) in the sense of a more pluralistic associational interest intermediation beyond the dominance of particular selected corporate actors. In addition, the usual degree of commitment to neo-­corporatist interest intermediation, that is, the binding of EU associations to their members and member organizations, is low.10 This limits their importance from the Commission’s standpoint, since involving associations in bargaining systems at EU level does not necessarily mean that they can guarantee compliance with the results of negotiations or the implementation of agreed decisions. Therefore, European associations do not necessarily have any advantage, in terms of their function of formulating and implementing binding decisions, over civil society organizations articulating problem definitions and patterns of action embedded in society.11 Involving civil society organizations in interest intermediation processes can be as crucial as involving associational actors. Even if targeted and effective implementation of policies cannot always be guaranteed by involving civil society organizations, their participation certainly provides a good opportunity for learning about motives and for securing the willingness to comply on part of the target groups as well as for obtaining knowledge about policy effects – and thereby a good option for achieving governability. On the question of what makes civil society related interest intermediation at the EU level competitive with, and perhaps even superior to, lobbying by associational actors such as employer organizations or business associations, it is worth re-­emphasizing that EU lobbying and the Commission’s offers to participate correspond to demands by the latter for information, expertise and strategic concepts. The Commission is better able to assert its goals the more it supports articulated ‘European interests’ and can hence claim legitimacy. To meet these requirements, lobbyists and associational actors dependent on lobbying largely rely on self-­restraint. Associational actors and lobbyists discredit themselves if they articulate obviously selfish motives along with political pressure. If the Commission publicly accepted such forms of lobbying, it would be suspected of being partial. This would be detrimental to the bargaining options available to the Commission as the moderator in the bargaining processes at EU level. ­Compared with the participation of associational actors, the involvement of actors from civil society offers rather better opportunities to legitimize Commission proposals, since civil society organizations do not openly follow selfish

60   Sectors of interest intermediation and their ‘composition’ arguments but refer to general interests. Furthermore, civil society organizations can supply the Commission with information, expertise and strategic concepts from ‘below’ and from counter experts.12 It is precisely this recognition of experts and counter experts that enables interests based on ‘representativeness’ to be identified – and thereby to generate legitimacy. Against this background, interpretations that derive from the specifics of EU institutions and argue that the political system of the EU does inevitably hold features of a ‘technocratic regime’ (see Bach 1994: 112) should be challenged. At first glance, the institutional differentiation of EU politics may assist in the establishment of a transnational ‘expertocracy’ shaped by the Commission and its numerous committees.13 Personnel recruitment both within the Commission and the committees – guided by technical and administrative competence criteria in addition to national proportional representation – may imply a ‘basic technocratic functionalist orientation of European specialists’ (Bach 1994: 124; translated by the author) and a political alignment towards ‘technical and administrative problem-­solving’ (Bach 1994: 124; translated by the author; see also Meyer 2001). This can favour ‘de-­politicization’ if the aim is to secure and optimize the efficiency and effectiveness of political interventions by mobilizing organizational innovation and technical opportunity. However, it is questionable whether political interventions do achieve legitimacy based only on effectiveness and efficiency, since legitimacy through effectiveness and efficiency in a ‘technocratic EU regime’ can at best be based on ‘specific support’ for the particular intervention. Yet, additional ‘diffuse support’ is required.14 In addition, the responsiveness of EU policy-­making needs to be increased as it has an ever increasing direct impact on the population of Europe. This responsiveness is not only needed in law-­making, i.e. on the level of second order governing, but is also needed to answer the questions on how affairs are to be regulated politically and on which beliefs about factual and normative matters political decisions should be based. This underpins the relevance of meta governing. Responsiveness, in the sense of learning about motives and securing willingness to comply on the part of target groups as well as identifying governance-­related effects, is linked to the feedback from the ‘lifeworld’ of society, particularly in respect to effectiveness. If these structures were further developed and used as transparent decision-­ making networks incorporating non-­governmental organizations with internal democratic structures, ‘sectoral publics’ (Eder 2000) that would strengthen the common ground of European policy-­making could develop. However, the evolution of transparent decision-­making networks and ‘sectoral publics’, incorporating civil society organizations and reflecting pluralist participation processes, encounters constraints arising from the specific functional requirements of the sector of civil society related interest intermediation at the EU level. The functional capacity of this sector of interest intermediation and the consensus-­based public dialogue mode of debates in the context of the EU depends on both the existence of ‘access points’ for civil society organizations – or their ‘bridging agencies’ – to the ‘core’ of the political system of the EU and

Sectors of interest intermediation and their ‘composition’   61 links from these organizations or ‘bridging agencies’ to the ‘peripheral context’ or the infrastructure of civil society in the member states. ‘Bridging agencies’ or organizations representing civil society are assigned high priority at the EU level because – in contrast to the member state level or even the subnational (regional and local) level, which are more closely linked to the ‘peripheral context’ of the political system – spontaneously emerging associations, organizations and social movements can hardly find direct access to decision-­making processes at the ‘core’ of the political system of the EU. The Commission also organizes ‘constituency support’ (as Mazey 1998: 138 phrased it in respect to gender-­ mainstreaming) for ‘bridging agencies’ or organizations representing civil society in order to legitimize its own activities and to marshal implementation processes more effectively. However, although ‘bridging agencies’ of civil society can be established at the EU level through support from the Commission – as evidenced in the environmental, consumer protection and anti-­discrimination policies – these actors can not be sure that they are recognized by relevant parts of civil society as their representatives. Organizations representing civil society thus face the same problem as the EU associations of business and other interests not linked to the national associational systems or relying on the need to relate to associational structures, which either vary in the member states or do not exist at all (see Streeck et al. 2005). But for ‘bridging agencies’ of civil society at the EU level (and for the Commission as their counterpart) this problem is defused to the extent that they rely far less than associational umbrella organizations on being rooted in an organisational infrastructure developed throughout the EU. In other words: a European public sphere based on vibrant dialogues stimulated by civil society is not affected by the fact that there is no well developed civil society or a strong participatory ‘civic culture’ in all member states.15 A public sphere could still be relevant for EU policies insofar as it becomes hegemonic (at the level of meta governing) and thereby can exercise influence on policy-­ making (at the level of second order governing as well as of first order governing). In any case, ‘bridging agencies’ of civil society, although they are sometimes established with assistance from the European Commission, are more likely (compared with associational umbrella organizations) to be able to develop links to spontaneously emerging organizations and movements in the ‘peripheral context’, or support them to become established. Furthermore, the European Commission can and does decisively influence the creation and strengthening of participatory governance arrangements in the member states. This is possible through regulatory requirements for policy-­ making by which opportunities and even rights to participate in particular procedures are established. These opportunities or rights both offer existing civil society organizations possibilities to participate and can also be incentives for the formation of new civil society organizations and movements in the ‘peripheral context’.16 In contrast to functional interest intermediation (based on bargaining and package deals), civil society related interest intermediation, as well as the connections between civil society organizations or ‘bridging agencies’ at the EU

62   Sectors of interest intermediation and their ‘composition’ level and the ‘peripheral context’ of the political systems, is generally concerned with consensus-­based processes of public reasoning. Consequently, as already noted, civil society related interest intermediation should be open and publicly oriented at EU level, and it should also be strengthened by enhancing democratic participation at the subnational level. The legitimacy of civil society actors at the EU level and improvement of the legitimacy and effectiveness of political interventions through the involvement of civil society related interest intermediation largely depends on how, in the European multi-­level system, intermediation of consensus-­based processes of public reasoning occurs between the supranational and subnational levels. Institutionalized procedures (formal rules) do play a role, as does their effectiveness. Effectiveness can be indirectly ascertained by a linguistic coding of problem definitions and patterns of actions as far as this coding successfully frames the decision-­making. Finally, from the perspective of participants in civil society related interest intermediation it is of central importance that control of the political shape of everyday life can be secured through public and consensus-­oriented reasoning (see Dahl 1994: 33–4). Public and consensus-­oriented reasoning that is characteristic of the sector of civil society related interest intermediation also limits the integration of this form of interest intermediation into the political system of the EU. Conflictual debates are compatible with bargaining systems, and consensus-­finding is suit­ able to interactions which are not only characterized by bargaining but also by ‘problem solving’, which is the normal style of interaction within the committee networks of the EU. However, a public feedback loop between civil society organizations or ‘bridging agencies’ at EU level and the infrastructure of civil society in the ‘peripheral context’ can prove problematic for the proper functioning of EU bargaining systems. On the one hand, the problem-­solving and co-­ ordination capacities of bargaining systems do not just depend on a limited number of direct participants. It is crucial that the direct participants are supposed to enter into bargaining and arguing to reach package deals and ‘step by step’ agreements in an arcane area of policy-­making, which is protected from public controversy. On the other hand, one requirement of civil society related interest intermediation is that it is preceded by public reasoning. The non-­public status of the bargaining situation may be maintained formally. Nevertheless, it is a functional requirement of civil society related interest intermediation that deliberation is conducted about bargaining positions and results, which have to be open and transparent. This may have the effect that participants from civil society are suspected by the Commission and hence excluded if they are unable to demonstrate the required discretion. Furthermore, it should be noted that civil society related interest intermediation is not equally represented in all policy areas (see Ruzza and Bozzini 2008). This is due to the fact that this form of interest intermediation relies on a high level of incorporation in and feedback from the ‘lifeworld’. This is illustrated by the fact that spontaneously emergent associations, organizations and movements are vital, and that the more closely experts and advocates act with citizens’ mandates, the more problems can be defined and prospective action can be articu-

Sectors of interest intermediation and their ‘composition’   63 lated by those affected through direct experience. Yet, direct experience does not yield statistical evidence. It depends on perceptions of impacts and concerns as well as on learning processes, which are not individual but collective. These observations preclude any preliminary definition of problems or policy areas that could be linked up to civil interest intermediation at the EU level.17 In an examination of civil interest intermediation in the multi-­level system of the European Union (Heinelt and Meinke-­Brandmeier 2006), a number of differences became clear in the logic and form of collective actions by civil society actors. While some sectorally oriented umbrella organizations (for instance, consumer groups) had only minor problems in organizing their members across the different territorial layers of the EU multi-­level systems around common topics and in mobilizing them to support specific issues, other groups (especially in the field of environment policy) had severe difficulties in achieving this high level of organization. These differences can be interpreted by different logics of collective action (Offe and Wiesenthal 1980).18 Where EU umbrella organizations of civil actors are able to organize their members (or supporters) around one basic demand and one crucial interest this implies demands that can be described as ‘different amounts of the same good’. Where there are difficulties in co-­ ordinating collective actions, it is usually the case that there are many and varied demands and interests. To put it precisely: demands for different goods have to be addressed. As a result, it is obvious that there are different conditions for interest articulation and interest organization. In most cases, actors demand ‘different amounts of the same good’, close co-­operation and a high degree of concertation under the umbrella of an organization acting at the EU level. Conversely, in fields where local, domestic and European groups demand a wide range of ‘different goods’, and divergent interests and demands for collective action are obvious, civil society actors have to concentrate on co-­ordinating their independent activities in a network. A network of co-­ordination, based on a loose coupling of actors and relatively unspecific agreements, is the most appropriate means in cases where it is difficult to reach internal agreement on a position. This kind of network-­based co-­ordination also benefits the actors involved in another respect. Network members active in lobbying and providing expertise to the Commission, the Parliament or even the Council of Ministers could – through a network – supply information to those acting at the national, regional or local level. Actors operating at these levels are then informed about what is going on at the EU level and are therefore able to actively influence national positions. Vice versa, by organizing a network, civil society actors engaged at the EU level are in the position to supply the Commission and the Parliament with specific expertise about the situation and the debates in the individual member states provided by civil society organizations acting at the national, regional or local level. These two examples demonstrate first of all the challenges civil society organizations are facing in the multi-­level system of the EU. They have to cope internally with different demands and positions of national and subnational members. Additionally, they have to manage this diversity in such a way that

64   Sectors of interest intermediation and their ‘composition’ broadly agreed views are fed into the negotiations at the EU level. At the same time, the autonomy of domestic actors has to be respected, and domestic actors have to be supported by a ‘downward’ flow of information in their attempt to influence national or local debates. But the two examples also show how to overcome these challenges. In the first case, civil society organizations try to develop and pursue a strategy by which an uncontested objective is put forward. By this means, existing controversies can be handled internally and collective action can be achieved. In the second case, civil society organizations reach agreements on basic common positions and leave it open to the member organizations to support these positions and to develop their own – be it at the EU, the national or the local level. Additionally, they can organize a network with two basic functions. First, a dense flow of information can be secured. Second, the network also provides an ability to act collectively at different levels in case the actors involved think this is necessary and appropriate. However, although civil society organizations may be characterized as distinctive collective actors in the sense highlighted above, the challenges listed above apply not only to them but to collective actors in general. This is particularly true in the EU multi-­level system where the contradiction between the ‘logic of influence’ and the ‘logic of membership’ (Schmitter and Streeck 1999) is hard to resolve by transforming collective actors into corporate ones through granting certain actors a monopoly of representation by an authority (the state), which is ultimately responsible and capable of taking binding decisions (Streeck and Schmitter 1991). The same is true for the mentioned strategies to overcome these challenges. They are not reserved only for civil society actors but are also suitable for collective actors in general. Despite the problem civil society organizations have to generate common positions from different demands, they do play a crucial role in the context of the EU in stimulating deliberation which can result in the processes characterized above as meta governing. This is particularly important as it helps to prevent the dominance of experts (or a ‘logocracy’; Cohen and Sabel 1997: 330) in defining standards of appropriate political interventions. This is linked to the key role of civil society organizations to politicize realms of societally binding decisions and to open up those spheres which would otherwise be likely to be closed by experts, leading to depolitization. Furthermore, it can be summarized that the involvement of civil society organizations cannot only contribute to the effectiveness of political interventions and a related output legitimation of the EU but also to the creation of input legitimation through the sector of civil interest intermediation. In addition, the structure of this sector of interest intermediation characterized by public reasoning can contribute to transparency and comprehensiveness of EU decision-­ making processes – and thus also adds to throughput legitimation.

4 Key features of the reforms of governance arrangements and of the perspectives on reform held by particular ‘discourse communities’ 4.1  Effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy as standards of ‘good governance’ Governability can be related (as is argued in Section 5.1) to politically determined constraints and opportunities for policy-­making in order to realize what is desired and known by actors and perceived as collectively achievable by them.1 Obviously, whose desires and knowledge, as well as whose perceptions of what seems to be achievable, are considered in policy-­making depends on specific opportunities for participation. Furthermore, against the background that not everything that is desired, known and perceived as achievable in a society (or parts of it) can be taken into account in policy-­making, it has to be assumed that even selectively made decisions are accepted as societally binding. Finally, it is an open question whether or not the effects intended by a political decision – based on dominant desires, hegemonic knowledge and that what is perceived as achievable – are in the end actually accomplished. This means that (‘good’) policies and governance arrangements are measured or judged according to: • • •

whether political decisions and their implementation achieve the effects or objectives that are intended; whether they are accepted and supported by the social environment of the political system – and are not rejected, thus eventually losing their status of having binding force; whether political decisions make the best use of given resources (time, funding, etc.) or are able to mobilize further resources.

The first dimension addresses effectiveness with respect to capacities to solve problems and to realize politically intended effects. It also emphasizes political self-­determination, insofar as those who are involved in (and affected by) policy­making are not only able to define but also to pursue their objectives. To do this effectively, they have to (i) reflect specific options and constraints and take them into account strategically, and (ii) be able to follow through with these strategies in their political actions (they have to have the capacity to act).

66   Key features of the reforms and perspectives on reform The second dimension refers to legitimacy, that is, acceptance, trust and support as well as political justifiability and enforceability of political interventions, both with respect to the decision and implementation processes and to the policy objectives as such. The third dimension concerns efficiency, the rational use of resources to reach a societally binding decision and to achieve a particular policy objective. These three dimensions may be seen as systemic imperatives which apply to any kind of political system. However, in reflecting more deeply on legitimacy in democratic political systems, three interrelated forms of democratic legitimation should be considered.2 Together they stand for the complex requirements of a sufficient ‘problem-­solving capacity of democratic self-­government’ (Scharpf 2000: 102):3 •

•

•

First, any democratic system needs to rest on some kind of ‘authentic’ participation. Authentic participation means the possibility of expressing consent or dissent with proposed policies and of influencing the decision on these policy proposals, i.e. getting one’s voice heard and one’s vote counted (input legitimation through participation). Second, any democratic system has to be measured according to the extent to which it solves the problems that affect the fate of the community it claims to represent. This implies acceptance especially by those actors who are crucial to the successful implementation of measures. It also implies the degree to which available information (or knowledge) is used to develop well informed decisions (output legitimation through effectiveness). Third, any democratic system has to be judged according to the transparency of its institutions and processes. Actors in the societal environment have to understand how measures are taken and who is responsible for them, in order to make actors accountable for what they have done and to understand the alternatives that have to be decided upon. Accountability is a precondition for the evaluation of political actors’ performance, and also for efficient decisions with respect to scarce resources like time and money (throughput legitimation through transparency).

Figure 4.1 summarizes the principles and criteria of legitimation, and the phenomena that lead to a crisis of legitimacy in relation to the three forms of democratic legitimation.4 The relevance of a distinction between these forms of legitimation as well as between the related criteria and phenomena of crises of democratic legitimacy can be observed in current reform discourses and policy changes in many countries. The guiding principles of such reforms are participation, transparency and effectiveness which should both (i) increase consent, accountability and problem-­solving capacities, and (ii) help to turn around the decline of voter turnout and distrust in political institutions, ‘opaque institutions’ or unclear decision-­making and policy failure. Furthermore, taking a closer look at these reform discourses and actual

Key features of the reforms and perspectives on reform   67

Principle

Criteria

Observable features of crisis

Input legitimation

Participation

Consent

Decrease of voter turnout

Throughput legitimation

Transparency

Accountability

Opaque institutions

Effectiveness

Problem-solving

Policy failure

Output legitimation

Figure 4.1  Different forms of democratic legitimation.

reforms it is helpful to reflect on the question of whether and how far these different approaches can complement each other in order to overcome a crisis of democratic legitimacy.

4.2  On reforms at the local level and related debates A wide spectrum of changes not only in political practice but also in academic debate creates the impression that a comprehensive reform of public administration and of a ‘modernization of the state’, especially at the local level, has been taking place in Western countries since the beginning of the 1990s, driven forward by a range of reform movements.5 According to commentaries in scholarly as well as political debate, one key factor for these reforms is the fundamental change in the very basis of political activity and in administrative interventions caused especially by the globalization of economic relationships and the consequent national, regional and local competition to attract investments. In addition, the globalization of societal relationships has been argued as a reason for limitations on the ability of state authorities to act according to democratic majority decisions in a hierarchical manner. Indeed, the very idea that society is hierarchically subordinated by the state has tended to crumble away. The fact that one can talk of a comprehensive reform movement of public administration is also related to the formation of specific discourse communities (Wittrock et al. 1991: 76ff.). In view of political and societal changes, these communities are searching for reform options (‘policy windows’; Kingdon 1984) and are operating in line with their ‘core beliefs’ (Sabatier 1988) or beliefs in factual and normative matters that keep them coherent in order to enable particular reforms to succeed. The key factor relating to the chances of success for a comprehensive reform can be seen in the fact that the various discourse communities are forming a ‘reform coalition’ (Wittrock et al. 1991: 44) – partly deliberately and partly not, because they turn out in the process of practical modernization of the administration to be complementary.

68   Key features of the reforms and perspectives on reform In the German context, Hellmut Wollmann (1996: 24ff.) has called these discourse communities the ‘new public management modernizers’, the ‘alternative modernizers’ and the ‘traditional modernizers’. It is possible to reconstruct the formation of these discourse communities taking account of specific shared assumptions about causality and normative images of appropriateness, as well as ‘instrumental decisions’ (Sabatier 1988: 145) necessary to achieve particular goals. This allows for areas of overlap, areas that the discourse communities have in common, which may form the basis for a reform coalition or just for commonly shared reform perspectives and supported reform options. Even if a reconstructive approach cannot be developed at this point, I would still like to proceed on the basis of the hypothesis that basic positions in the debate on modernization at the local level can be linked to possible areas of conflict in policy-­making which are marked by the triad of effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy outlined in Section 4.1. I will try to show how, on the one hand, tensions can emerge between effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy and how they become a central subject for discussion, but how, on the other hand, the aforementioned three discourse communities concentrate on one of these three relationships and strive to resolve these tensions. I aim to show that: • • •

the ‘new public management modernizers’ start with the relationship between effectiveness and efficiency; the ‘alternative modernizers’ with the relationship between effectiveness and legitimacy; and the ‘traditional modernizers’ with the relationship between legitimacy and efficiency. EFFECTIVENESS

(Responsiveness)

(Responsiveness)

‘Alternative modernizers’ Participatory policy-making the citizen as ‘homo politicus’ (active and organized) VOICE

‘New public management modernizers’ Public administration like an enterprise the citizen as customer (‘homo economicus’) CHOICE

(accountability)

LEGITIMACY

‘Traditional modernizers’ Institutional reforms the citizens as voter VOTE

EFFICIENCY

Figure 4.2  Overview of recent reforms and perspectives of reform at the local level.

Key features of the reforms and perspectives on reform   69 There are areas of overlap between the three discourse communities, not least because individual exponents of reform proposals are primarily focused either on effectiveness, efficiency or legitimacy. This opens up opportunities to link the perspectives of two discourse communities around effectiveness, efficiency or legitimacy. 4.2.1  Effectiveness, efficiency and the perspectives on reform held by the ‘new public management modernizers’ The first point is to address the relationship between effectiveness and efficiency and the perspectives on reform of the ‘new public management modernizers’. Tension between effectiveness and efficiency arises when, on the one hand, the achievement of an objective is pursued without regard for resource use, or, on the other hand, when resource consumption is in the foreground and there is too little thinking about the actual achievement of the objective or the intended effects of a specific policy. In administrative activity, this situation comes to a head for a variety of reasons (see, for instance, Wollmann 1996). First, programmes or policies which link interventions (especially if there is financial support) to particular conditions are in danger that in administrative activities no watch is kept on effectiveness and efficiency. Where predetermined conditions are demonstrated and confirmed (such as person-­related prerequisites for claims) financial, legal and directly person-­related interventions tend to be set in motion virtually automatically – without considering their impacts or the amount of resources required. Second, where programmes or policies are focused on vaguely defined final objectives (like social cohesion or economic competitiveness), the goal to be achieved may be the immediate object of administrative interventions but then tend to be detached from consideration of the use of resources. Furthermore, segmented policies and administrative fragmentation based on fixed competencies and departmented budget guidelines of administrative units (departments) make problem-­related interventions difficult and can contribute to problems of effectiveness and efficiency. The first central idea of the ‘new public management modernizers’ is to secure effectiveness by increasing the responsiveness of the administration to demands from the public. This should be done by structuring the relations between the public and the administration in the form of a market. Second, the administrative structures need to be ‘modernized’ internally according to business management methods. It is argued that only by means of such organizational innovation an increase in effectiveness can be successfully achieved together with reduced resource use. These ideas of New Public Management were originally developed in  English-­speaking countries in the 1980s as part of the so called neo-­ liberal  revolution; it was then taken up and further developed in Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands (see Pollitt and Bouckaert 2000; Wollmann 2004). In more detail, the New Public Management approach emphasizes the following:

70   Key features of the reforms and perspectives on reform 1

2

3 4 5

Clear separation of responsibility between politics (more precisely politicians) and administration, according to which elected representative bodies (such as city councils) should take over the function similar to that of a supervisory board (of an enterprise) and concentrate on decisions regarding objectives, monitoring and control. Representative bodies are therefore responsible for what is done and the administration for how it is done. This is intended to counteract both ‘politicization of the administration’ and ‘instrumentalization of politics by the bureaucracy’. Management by objectives instead of direct case by case interventions within the administration. According to this, the administrative heads restrict themselves to strategic tasks and have to conclude and to secure performance agreements with both external sub-­contractors and administrative units (departments) of the local authority. Decentralized (overall) responsibility of administrative units in line with the performance agreement – especially regarding finance and personnel. This requires a new type of central control. Like in a company, task analysis, co-­ordination, ‘quality management’ as well as monitoring and control are left to the administrative heads. Instead of guiding administrative units through the allocation of resources by budgeting (input control), emphasis is given to the performance of administrative units (output control). This implies that the ‘product’ to be provided has to be defined as clearly as possible. In addition, citizens should be seen as customers by the administration (see, for instance, Aberbach and Christensen 2005), and competition and performance comparisons (benchmarking) between administrative units should be introduced to activate them and to make them capable of innovation.

Therefore, ‘debureaucratization’ and conversion of administrations into organizations acting like enterprises are to be seen as interconnected to the transformation of public services into marketable products and of citizens into customers. It is argued by the proponents of New Public Management reform that the citizen as a homo economicus is not only given an important function to influence through their demands the services provided by public administrations. At the same time (consumer) choices offered to citizens by public administrations (and within the context of privatization to an increasing degree also by private service providers) are emphasized as something which creates freedom (Denhardt and Denhardt 2003). To sum up, ‘new public management modernizers’ are oriented towards the market as a mode for structuring and co-­ordination interactions. They are not only addressing with their problem diagnosis and reform perspectives the relation between efficiency and effectiveness but also legitimacy insofar as they emphasize the potential of output legitimation.

Key features of the reforms and perspectives on reform   71 4.2.2  Effectiveness, legitimacy and the perspectives on reform held by the ‘alternative modernizers’ The extent to which the relationship between effectiveness and legitimacy may be problematic and tense, especially under present conditions, has been succinctly shown by Robert Dahl (1994) in his essay ‘A Democratic Dilemma: System Effectiveness versus Citizen Participation’. As mentioned earlier, Dahl makes the point that via various bargaining systems, ‘system effectiveness’ may be maintained but only by paying the price of the erosion of citizen participation, and as a consequence legitimacy of a democratic political order. The ‘alternative modernizers’ argue that the importance of bargaining systems does not inevitably lead to democratic deficits. Instead, new opportunities for participation and legitimation can open up. It is ‘The Intelligence of Democracy’ (Lindblom 1965) that (system) effectiveness results from and is dependent on participation. By participation, the responsiveness of the political system can be achieved, which is not only crucial for its legitimacy but also for effectiveness because thereby policy objectives (politically intended effects) are defined and realized together with policy addressees. Thereby, desires and motives can be taken into account, which helps to actually achieve the policy objectives. Furthermore, through participation the knowledge of policy addressees relevant for achieving the politically intended effects (see Mayntz 1987) can be mobilized. These arguments provide the background for promoting empowerment and enabling in the debates on the reform of public administrations (see for instance OECD 1997). In concrete terms, the reform perspectives of the ‘alternative modernizers’ are related to models of an administration which interact with those affected by their interventions, and to forms of interest intermediation directly connected with civil society (Pierre 1995: 213ff.). Such a civil society related interest intermediation – based on an organizational infrastructure consisting of associations, initiatives and social movements (see Section 3.2) – allows for direct feedback from and to the lifeworld of society, public reasoning and agreements by means of direct dialogue between the administration and policy addressees. Examples of this are roundtables or more specifically ‘agenda 21’ initiatives at the local level (see, for example, Lafferty 1999). They are seen as a way to break the decision, planning and implementation deadlocks within administrative structures. This is done by means of public reasoning directly involving the relevant actors. Such processes of achieving both effectiveness and legitimation through participation or community involvement (for an overview, see Haus et al. 2005b; Heinelt et al. 2006) are seen as being associated with local politics being made more responsive and taken out of the town hall and dealt with publicly in the ‘forum’. The focus is thus on the citizen as a homo politicus who takes a political stand publicly – by means of voice – and in association with others (see Cohen and Rogers 1992). Furthermore, through participation not only can input and

72   Key features of the reforms and perspectives on reform throughput legitimation be achieved but there can also be an increase in the responsiveness of political interventions. This in turn can enhance effectiveness which can contribute to output legitimation. 4.2.3  Legitimacy, efficiency and the perspectives on reform held by the ‘traditional modernizers’ From the reform perspective of New Public Management it is the case that an efficient local administration does not have to be in conflict with democratically legitimated local politics. Nevertheless, it is precisely this reform perspective that indicates a possible contradiction resulting from the high transaction costs of democratic decision-­making and efficient service production. There are also more basic objections from other perspectives pointing out the specific features of: • •

the state and the market or hierarchy bound to democratic decision-­making and the market.

The ‘traditional modernizers’ resolve the tension between legitimacy and efficiency by starting from the specific features of democratically legitimated decisions. Nevertheless, they do not lose sight of the subject of efficiency as a central issue. Basically, they take up ‘political issues’ left open by the ‘new public management modernizers’ and ask how long the ‘rein’ should be on which the whole administration, as well as single administrative units, need to be kept. What is more important, however, is the fact that they approach the definition of the ‘output’ or the ‘performance’ of administrative units as an open issue. The definition of ‘outputs’ (or ‘performance’) is not just a question of product, production or service standards being laid down politically. Instead, from the point of view of efficiency, it is crucial to address how impacts are discussed. It is a question of how far effects of administrative interventions are measured, and this has consequences on what costs are included in financial calculations and how the efficiency of administrative action is judged. But if efficiency depends both on the political framework set and is discussed politically in terms of its effects (externalities), then justification of a political logic of economic activity is required. In other words: those who want to control and intentionally co-­ordinate administrative action on the basis of binding decisions outside the logic of the market have to carry the responsibility for these actions. Responsibility is highly dependent on accountability, a clear assignment of political decisions and their impacts (Aldons 2001). Therefore, the reform perspective of ‘traditional modernizers’ focuses on the strengthening of political responsibility and accountability of political decisions by altering institutional structures.6 Examples of this are reforms which range from deconcentration and decentralization as well as regionalization of the state administration (see Wollmann

Key features of the reforms and perspectives on reform   73 2008) to directly elected mayors (see Borraz and John 2004 as well as the contributions in Kersting and Vetter 2003 and in Denters and Rose 2005). Such reforms can strengthen accountability and allow the citizen as a voter to react to political decisions (at the various levels of territorial interest mediation) by means of voting. In addition, according to this reform perspective, more transparency can be brought into the ‘black box’ of the local political system because political representatives and decision-­makers are forced by a strengthened accountability to explain the reasons for their decisions. This opens up opportunities for throughput legitimation. 4.2.4  On the linkages between discourse communities: some examples The fact that, in spite of the various discourse communities we can talk about, the formation of one reform coalition does not just have to do with a partial, possibly not intended, complementarity of the reform perspectives discourse communities favour. What is more important is the fact that (as already indicated in Section 4.1) some exponents of these discourse communities orientate themselves primarily in their ideas towards effectiveness, efficiency or legitimacy. They thus obtain access to different (two) discourse communities. This flows, for example, from the reform perspectives of the ‘new public management modernizers’ as well as the ‘alternative modernizers’, when effectiveness is the pivotal issue in their ideas, since the relationship between effectiveness and efficiency and that between effectiveness and legitimacy are the central themes. If, for example, we start from the assumption of an effective social policy that actually reaches the target groups or meets political target definitions, an attempt can be made to increase responsiveness both by means of customer-­orientated control that goes for choice and by means of participation and (civil) community involvement orientated towards voice. If one starts from efficiency as the central point of reference, one can both (i) back customer orientation and associated changes to basic institutional structures (as is usual for the ‘new public management modernizers’) as well as (ii) emphasizing greater transparency of political decisions and thus accountability, which allows the citizen as a voter to react to and to influence political decisions by means of voting – especially with regard to higher efficiency in the spending of financial resources collected from the citizen as a tax-­payer (for such an argument, see, for instance, Wollmann 2003).7 Finally, increased and secured legitimacy is not only a matter of increasing the transparency of political responsibility and facilitating the accountability of political decisions in order to enable the citizen to make political voting decisions. It is also the case that if the citizen is involved as homo politicus in participatory planning and decision processes, as well as in the implementation of policies or programmes, the opportunities for political legitimation are opened up. Examples of such reform perspectives include ideas about the complementarity between urban political leadership and community involvement. Illustrations

74   Key features of the reforms and perspectives on reform of such a relationship can be found in a number of cities in Europe and beyond (see Haus et al. 2005a; Heinelt et al. 2006). These interrelated attempts to address problems of and tensions between effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy, and to offer citizens new options of choice as well as voice and vote in their different roles of customers, politically active citizens and voters, create the perspectives for a comprehensive reform of public administration and modernization of the state.

4.3  Possible developments for the political order of the EU The reflections (in Chapter 3) on the composition of political systems in general and of the EU in particular highlight the contribution civil interest intermediation can make to overcome the democratic deficit and ineffectiveness in policy-­ making that result from limitations in territorial, functional and administrative interest intermediation. Since civil interest intermediation is not only subject to functional requirements limiting its effects (see for example Greven 2007) but its meaning can also be seen as diffuse,8 it is not surprising that other perspectives on developing a political order for the EU are proposed. These perspectives are outlined below and are anchored in the current debate on democratic governance within the EU. Just as with the actual and proposed reforms at the local level, perspectives on the development of a political order within the EU can be seen emerging from tensions created by the tri-­polarity between effectiveness, efficiency and ­legitimacy. And similar to the reform at the local level, one can systematically EFFECTIVENESS

(Responsiveness)

(Responsiveness)

‘Civil perspective’ Civil opening of politics the citizen as ‘homo politicus’ VOICE

‘Expertocratic perspective’ Output-orientation the citizen as ‘homo economicus’ CHOICE

(accountability)

LEGITIMACY

‘Traditional perspective’ Changes of institutional structures the citizen as ‘voter’ VOTE

Figure 4.3  Overview of reform perspectives of the EU.

EFFICIENCY

Key features of the reforms and perspectives on reform   75 distinguish three different perspectives (promoted by particular discourse communities), each focusing on one of these relations, namely: • • •

an ‘expertocratic’ perspective on the relationship between effectiveness and efficiency; a ‘civil’ perspective on the relationship between effectiveness and legitimacy; and a ‘traditional’ perspective on the relationship between legitimacy and efficiency.

Links between the perspectives are also possible where the focus is on one of the three poles (i.e. effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy), thereby enabling connections to be made between any two of the perspectives, taking each pole as the main reference. 4.3.1  Effectiveness and efficiency from the ‘expertocratic’ perspective As explained in the last section, tension occurs between effectiveness and efficiency when, on the one hand, actions to achieve objectives take priority irrespective of resource input, and on the other hand when reflections about the actual achievement of objectives are undermined by concentrating on resource use. The core idea of the ‘expertocratic’ perspective is that institutional differentiation in EU politics helps to create a transnational expertocracy which aims at effective and efficient problem solving at one and the same time (for critical comments on this perspective, see Bach 1994 and Meyer 2001). Political consolidation of transnational expertocracy consisting of the Commission and numerous committees therefore heavily relies on proving its capacity in terms of effective and efficient problem solving. If it is successful, it creates opportunities for acceptance of the results of its actions (output legitimacy) within the political system and in the eyes of the citizens (see Scharpf 1999). However, an EU expertocracy of this kind legitimized by the perceived effectiveness and efficiency of its policy requires the citizens to concentrate in the main on the outputs of the EU. Although this creates opportunities for legitimacy via effectiveness and efficiency, it nevertheless implies a de-­politicization of decision-­making and passivity among citizens. Ultimately, this perspective relies on the idea that the citizen acts as homo economicus and that the services provided by the political system correspond to the preferences of citizens or that the services offered match the choices citizens wish to make. In turn, this requires responsiveness to be secured through interest intermediation (of whatever type) in order to determine output not just in an expertocratic manner but also in accordance with given social preference structures and expected choice options. Moreover, from this perspective, legitimacy and thereby the general willingness to comply are limited, because of a specific output expectation on the part of the public. In brief, the political system can

76   Key features of the reforms and perspectives on reform expect little more than specific support for particular outputs and only – if at all – limited general support.9 4.3.2  Effectiveness, legitimacy and the ‘civil’ perspective The ‘civil’ perspective has already been outlined earlier (see Section 3.3).10 In referring to Dahl (1994), it was also emphasized (see Section 4.2.2) that the relationship between ‘system effectiveness’ and ‘citizen participation’ does not necessarily equate to a dilemma of democracy in the sense of an either/or alternative, but embodies a dual relationship. ‘The Intelligence of Democracy’ (Lindblom 1965) relies on the argument that effective governance can emerge only when the actors affected are participating. Guaranteeing targeted implementation of policies, taking account of motives and ensuring that policy addressees are willing to comply, as well as identifying and mobilizing knowledge relevant for achieving the intended policy objectives (i.e. the intended effects), has to be put in the context of participatory governance and dealt with in terms of ‘responsiveness’. Civil reform options for the political order of the EU can be identified in this debate. The citizen as a homo politicus organized in or supporting civil society associations moves into the centre of the debate. Through participation the responsiveness of policy interventions is increased and thereby so are the chances of effectiveness. Furthermore, through the participation of civil society organizations opportunities for a better understanding of the decision-­making structures of the EU, as well as those of the whole nested EU multi-­level system, are opened up – in at least two respects: (i) in respect to decision-­making structures in general; and (ii) in respect to the specific case of a particular piece of legislation where participation has played a role. In this way the general reasoning (at the level of meta governing) and the particular reasons for a specific decision leading to legislation (at the level of second order governing), as well as the constraints and opportunities of its implementation (at the level of first order governing), can be better recognized and may be accepted – which can lead to throughput legitimation. 4.3.3  Legitimacy, efficiency and the ‘traditional’ perspective As already noted, a tension between efficient and democratically legitimized politics can be conceptualized in different ways. On the one hand, there is the claim that legitimacy through democratic decision-­making, accountability and responsibility produces high transaction costs which can be contrasted with calculations of economic efficiency in the production and implementation of binding social decisions. On the other hand, the particular features of political decision-­making are highlighted which can by no means be balanced by economic calculations. From a ‘traditional’ reform perspective (as argued in the last section) the tension between legitimacy and efficiency can be removed by accepting the characteristics of the political, democratically legitimized form of decision-­

Key features of the reforms and perspectives on reform   77 making without losing sight of specific criteria of efficiency. At its core, this perspective addresses the ‘political question’ left open in the ‘expertocratic’ perspective by emphasizing that the output of political decisions has to be defined in a clear and transparent way. In taking account of the output definition, the ‘traditional’ perspective is not just concerned with the political determination of standards of commodities, production or performance. In terms of efficiency, how policy impacts are treated is far more important. Determining the scope of the impacts that result from political intervention largely affects what costs are included in economic efficiency calculations. Therefore, the efficiency of political action can be assessed only within political settings. Yet, if efficient (expert) action in terms of impacts is treated as a political issue, it depends on the justification of the underlying ‘political logic’, whatever that may be. In other words, those who intentionally (wish to) co-­ordinate actions (beyond the logic of the market which is out of the control of individual actors) on the grounds of politically binding decisions need to take responsibility. Responsibility in this context therefore depends mainly on accountability, meaning linking decisions and their impacts to policy-­makers in the clearest possible way. It is known, on the basis of studies on the joint decision trap in multi-­level systems, that this is related to the problem of diffuse responsibility (Scharpf 1988a) because territorial authorities can transfer political responsibility onto one another. The key point of a ‘traditional’ reform perspective is to consolidate political responsibility and accountability for political decisions through changes in institutional structures. Such ‘unbundling’ (see Scharpf 1996: 32ff.) proposed for the multi-­level system of EU politics would strengthen accountability and allow people as citizens to respond to political decisions of the various territorial authorities and influence them through elections (vote). In addition, EU wide referendums and demands for a major extension of the political competences of the European Parliament (for an overview, see Lord 2007) are also relevant in this context. These reform perspectives aim to strengthen the role of citizens and the significance of elections and argue that accountability should be augmented in the sense of a definite attribution of political decisions and thereby responsibility. An argument by Lord (2007) for strengthening the European Parliament shows – in a similar way to the reform perspectives of the ‘traditional modernizers’ in the case of the reform debates at the local level – efforts to link an increase of legitimacy with higher efficiency. For him (drawing on Habermas 1996a: 181) ‘parliamentary politics’ leads to opportunities for clarifying basic questions of fairness and justice as well as the political identity of a community – and through this to an underpinning of the legitimacy of the political order (Lord 2007: 147). He also highlights the ‘holistic character’ of ‘parliamentary politics’ as a crucial point because it allows (as mentioned in Section 2.5) problems to be related to each other, and not to be dealt with (in functionally determined realms) separately and in isolation from each other. ‘This [. . .] is important if representatives are to influence trade-­offs of value across the range

78   Key features of the reforms and perspectives on reform of public policy, and control the externalities and cumulative unintended consequences associated with individual actions’ (Lord 2007: 147). With the control of externalities and cumulative unintended consequences the core challenges of efficient policy-­making are addressed. Yet, this perspective too, like the others, is subject to a range of restrictions (see Lord 2007 in relation to the practicability of ‘bringing parliamentarism back’), as already described in Section 3.3. 4.3.4  Reference points and potential connections between the perspectives To recap, if the three perspectives on the development of a political order are to be applied to different sectors of the political system in the EU (described in Section 3.3), the following combinations can be identified: •

• •

The ‘expertocratic’ perspective does not just refer to the relationship between effectiveness and efficiency. It focuses in the main on the interdependence of the sector of (lobby-­based) administrative interest intermediation and the sector of functional interest intermediation (based on organized interest groups). The ‘civil’ perspective not only addresses the relationship between effectiveness and legitimacy, but also focuses on the sector of civil interest intermediation. The ‘traditional’ perspective starts from the relationship between legitimacy and efficiency and is primarily concerned with the sector of territorial interest intermediation and its institutional (re-)organization.

The evolution of a political order in the process of European integration cannot simply consist of a partial and probably unintended complementarity of the perspectives outlined above. It is much more important (as already suggested) that particular strategic reflections and concrete developments are primarily oriented towards one of the three poles: effectiveness, efficiency or legitimacy. On this basis, links to two of the aforementioned perspectives can in each case be identified. Such a link for instance occurs between the ‘expertocratic’ and ‘civil’ perspectives when effectiveness constitutes the crucial starting point since both the relationship between effectiveness and efficiency and the relationship between effectiveness and legitimacy can be addressed. Consequently, if we emphasize the need for an effective policy which meets the desires but also the concerns of people, responsiveness has to be secured, even increased, by an output oriented policy-­making stance based on choice, as well as by voice oriented modes of participation. In concrete terms, this could be realized through the increased involvement of civil society organizations (and their ‘bridging agencies’) in the committee networks which have evolved in and around the European Commission.

Key features of the reforms and perspectives on reform   79 One particular option, to combine an output oriented policy-­making approach responsive to policy addressees with the strengthening of civil society related interest intermediation, is proposed by Schmitter (1999: 951). He argues for the introduction of a voucher system through which associations and civil society organizations active at the EU level can receive funding. In this proposal all EU citizens would recieve a voucher financed by the EU which they could give to an association and civil society organization (or distribute it between several of them). In this way not only activities of associations and civil society organizations at the EU level would be funded. Instead, the donations would be linked to the preferences of EU citizens and their satisfaction with the interest articulation, representation and intermediation by particular groups. Taking efficiency as the main point of reference the accent is on output and on the need for choices. Majone’s idea about the EU as a ‘regulatory state’ is an example of this perspective (see Majone 1994; 1996: 229–34; and critical comments by Follesdal and Hix 2005: 7–8 and 14ff.): the reason why the EU is focused on regulatory policy is mainly a result of the fact that for fundamental EU decisions consensus is needed. In addition, the fact that representatives (especially the governments) of the member states involved in the supranational bargaining systems of the EU are bound to the competitively structured decision arenas of the member states leads to bargaining at the EU level searching for pareto-­optimal solutions, that is, solutions which do not imply disadvantages for some partners compared with others. But if one takes efficiency as the main point of reference, the emphasis is not only on output and on the need for choices. The need for changing institutional structures is also emphasized to enable the citizen to respond to and influence political decisions through voting, which requires transparency, clear responsibility and accountability. An example in this context (although strongly related to the ‘expertocratic’ perspective) is the proposal by Harlow and Rawlings (2006) to solve the accountability problem by ‘accountability networks’, meaning by (i) a network of agencies specialising in a specific method of accountability, such as investigation, adjudication or audit, which (ii) come together or coalesce in a relationship of mutual dependency, (iii) fortified by shared professional expertise and ethos [and] “thickened” by the addition of a further element: (iv) the execution of a common purpose. (Harlow and Rawlings 2006: 5)11 In this way, not only can the efficiency of political interventions be increased but so too can legitimacy through internal bureaucratic control and transparency, as well as by throughput legitimation. From the standpoint of legitimacy, emphasis should be placed on institutional strengthening of transparency in institutions to achieve (higher) responsibility and accountability, for instance, by making controversial alternatives discussed in and between the Council and the Commission public through the involvement

80   Key features of the reforms and perspectives on reform of civil society organizations (as proposed by Follesdal and Hix 2005: 20ff.). This would enable citizens to use their formal right to vote in a reasonable way and to intervene by voting in political affairs. In the same way emphasis can be placed on a ‘directly-­deliberative ­polyarchy’ (Cohen and Sabel 1997), a political system that places deliberation at the EU level in direct relation to polyarchically structured decentralized settings. The requirement that each national administration justify its choice of rules publicly, in the light of comparable choices by the others, allows traditional political actors, new ones emerging from civil society, and coalitions among these to contest official proposals against the backdrop of much richer information about the range of arguably feasible choices, and better understanding of the argument about their merits, than traditionally available in domestic debate. (Sabel and Zeitlin 2007: 9–10) In this way, ‘democratizing destabilization effects’ would undermine technocracy but would ‘not automatically produce democratic outcomes. It means rather that the new forms of decision-­making promote forms of accountability that are consistent with some aspects of democracy, though not necessarily furthering representative democracy in any traditional way’ (Sabel and Zeitlin 2007: 10). The idea (referred to earlier) of opening up the sector of territorial interest intermediation at EU level through EU-­wide referendums applies equally to a civil perspective focusing on the introduction of EU-­wide discourses through such referendums. The views of Abromeit (1998: 95–135) are also relevant to the idea of legitimating ‘politics in a non-­state polity’ through referendums. Abromeit’s views imply a system of veto rights to be mobilized through referendums. Abromeit’s proposal is of special interest insofar as the consent of different territorial levels (particularly subnational units) is required and political decisions could be blocked by disagreement expressed through referendums at these levels. According to this proposal, units defined sectorally should also get veto rights. As a result, the sector of functional interest intermediation could be integrated systematically into decision-­making. But it is obviously difficult to identify and define ‘sectoral demoi’ to which such veto rights should be given. It may be possible to ask all those concerned about the topic addressed by a ‘sectoral referendum’ to declare ‘their interest in the matter at hand’ after a proposal for a referendum has been made and to include all those in the ‘sectoral demos’ who feel concerned about the referendum. But this option is problematic insofar as ‘boundary rules’ are defined without considering ‘scope rules’ and ‘payoff rules’ – and additionally without taking account of the issue of the decision and the community linked to it. Instead, it should be emphasized (reflecting the argument presented in Section 2.6.2) that a particular action (or decision) arena, as well as the ‘attributes of the physical world’ and ‘attributes of the community’

Key features of the reforms and perspectives on reform   81 impacting on this arena, should be considered when it comes to define the ‘rules in use’ which structure the opportunities to enter into the action arena and to act in it. In the end, the governing orders (described in Section 2.5) are crucial for the formation of such ‘rules in use’ and the linked recognition of statuses (as shown in Section 2.6.1).

5 Achieving governability The case of the EU structural funds and EU environment policy

5.1  What does governability mean? From the viewpoint of political science, reflections on governability should not be restricted to the question of whether or not certain policy objectives are achieved laid down in programmes or other policy documents, like ‘cohesion’ (the decrease of regional and social disparities) or ‘sustainability’ (reduction in energy consumption, emissions, etc.; see Knill and Liefferink 2007: 145–55 for an overview of the problems of implementing such goals). This may be sufficient for policy studies or for an efficiency-­oriented analysis of (financial) inputs and outputs.1 Instead, governability should be considered as the ability to steer and to control societal interactions.2 Against a background of widely discussed complexity and contingency in modern society, this ability to steer and control has to be conceptualized in such a way that the picture of an all-­powerful guiding and controlling entity is not the outcome. Instead, emphasis should be placed on context-­related choices faced by groups of actors so that they can consciously and collectively influence their current and future situations. From this perspective – which has already been demonstrated in contributions to the early debate on policy networks focused on governance aspects (mainly in those of continental European and, in particular, German scholars; see Marsh 1998) – an actor-­related capability comes into play. Whilst, on the one hand, actors are not in a position to control their social environment completely due to exogenous constraints, they are, on the other hand, able to influence their social environment through obtainable policy instruments and on the basis of existing (but changeable) institutional settings (Scharpf 1986: 12). From this perspective, governability can be linked to politically (and in this sense endogenously) determined constraints and opportunities to realize what is desired and known by actors and perceived as collectively achievable by them (Scharpf 1988b: 63–4; see also Mayntz 1997: 192).3 Thus, governing a modern (functionally differentiated) society is not in principle impossible (as was argued in the 1980s; see the Luhmann–Scharpf controversy; Luhmann 1989; Scharpf 1989). Instead, first, the ability to govern (or to influence deliberately societal interactions) has to be clarified depending on the specific issue under consideration. Second, specific actor-­related and politically determined opportunities to

Achieving governability   83 develop and to pursue certain strategies have to be identified. Such opportunities are clearly related to institutional and organizational conditions which may or may not allow for or support collective political action. In certain circumstances political actors may not be able to govern their societal environment completely but may be able to change policy instruments or organizational rules with the aim of deliberately influencing their societal environment. In other words, actors can develop a capacity to reform their social environment in line with their agreed policy objectives. Whether or not actors are actually able to achieve what is intended by a particular reform is another question (see Mayntz 1997: 192), but from an actor-­centred understanding of governability they need to demonstrate a capacity to react politically to failures and bring about reform by altering the definition of the problem, by questioning the reasons for the failure and by changing the policy instruments. However, this view on endogenously defined governability is dependent on how the ability to govern a certain issue is perceived within the relevant policy arena. This raises the issue that societal settings, which are to be altered by particular policy instruments according to the desires of actors involved, cannot be reduced intellectually to something which is objectively achievable. What is achievable can be determined only through what is known within the policy arena or what can be conceptualized as politically hegemonic knowledge or a particular knowledge order. Because this knowledge does not develop independently from discourses in society (and in academia), it is obvious that what is perceived as governable (and how) is dependent on processes taking place within the political system. In the case of EU cohesion policy, this becomes clear in taking into account the ‘paradigm shift’ introduced by the Single European Act in the 1980s, the intrusion of New Public Management (NPM) ideas in the late 1990s (see Heinelt and Malek 2002) and the current debate on competitiveness and the strengthening of (urban) growth poles (referred to in the so-­called Lisbon process). The same applies to the shift away from the ‘command and control’ approach and the emphasis placed on sustainability in the environment policy of the EU in the 1990s (see Heinelt et al. 2001b; Heinelt and Töller 2003). It is therefore possible that the distinction between what is determined politically as possible (and necessary) and what is an exogenously fixed ‘mission impossible’ may be blurred. Nevertheless, the question has to be asked: what are the endogenous political but not irresolvable constraints on policy-­making in order to achieve what is desired, known and perceived as possible by the actors involved? To answer this question is not easy in any circumstances, but is even harder in the context of fragmented and multi-­level policy-­making, such as in the EU. There is a great variation in both (i) exogenously given feasible conditions (in the individual member states and their regions) and (ii) what is desired, known and perceived as achievable by the multitude of actors involved at different levels and stages of policy-­making. Taking into account the debate on the development and the current specificities of the EU polity stimulated by the multi-­level governance approach, it is

84   Achieving governability important to emphasize that this approach was developed by going beyond the ‘traditional’ international relations theories of (neo-)functionalism and intergovernmentalism (Marks et al. 1996; see for a short overview Bache and Flinders 2004: 2–3). For the current purpose, it is more important to emphasize that the multi-­level governance approach highlights the implications of a polity characterized by penetrating into the centre of the (nation) state and distributing tasks and competences between different nested territorial levels. What does this mean for the question of how to achieve governability (in the sense defined above) in multi-­level policy-­making? It may be the case that penetration into the centre of the (nation) state and the distribution of tasks and competences over nested territorial levels can fit in with a constellation of differing feasible conditions in the individual member states (and their regions) and varying desires, knowledge and perceptions of the multitude of actors involved. Therefore, it is worth looking at what characterizes multi-­level policy-­making in order to identify features and mechanisms in such constellations which might provide the conditions for achieving governability in the sense outlined above. This is done with reference to two cases – namely the EU structural funds and EU environment policy. To look for characteristics of multi-­level policy-­making and to identify features and mechanisms which could be helpful in answering the question posed above these two policies are interesting because they differ in some possibly relevant respects. The EU structural funds or cohesion policy has a redistributive character and relatively few regulations as well as similar objectives and rules. Conversely, the EU environment policy is characterized by a regulatory content and comprises different regulations and a number of objectives.

5.2  Characteristics of the EU structural funds and the EU environment policy 5.2.1  The EU structural funds The history of the EU structural funds points towards a continuous capacity for reform and does not confirm the ‘joint decision trap’ hypothesis that has been often associated with policy-­making in the EU multi-­level system (Scharpf 1988a). How can this capacity for reform be explained, taking into account the specific conditions of redistributive policies (Scharpf 2001; Heinelt 1996a: 18–19)? The formation of the structural funds as a redistributive policy has typically been explained by reference to package deals and side-­payments in the context of major steps towards European integration. But is this sufficient, and what is the explanation for the further development of the structural funds and their relatively high stability over time? Furthermore, the EU structural funds have demonstrated that they are on the one hand leaving a lot of room for national and regional adaptation and variation, but on the other hand are shaping domestic regional (and labour market) policies. How can this kind of ‘Europeanizing’ be explained?

Achieving governability   85 In some of the earlier literature (Marks 1993; Hooghe 1996; Heinelt and Smith 1996), the main hypothesis was that specific policy networks in the EU multi-­level system are important. According to this hypothesis, the structural funds and their development as well as their adaptation at the national and regional level can be characterized as follows (Heinelt 1996a: 16–17): •

•

•

Key players are not only regularly present at particular points in time at the European level, when decisions have to be made on programme structures and budgeting. Due to the specific requirements of the policy field, funding measures must be dealt with according to programme targets. Also the flow of EU subsidies must be co-­ordinated with national funding programmes. These requirements lead to the development of permanent policy networks, which have had to be created at the implementation level. These implementation networks form a permanent structure. Also, the key people involved have formed a ‘policy community’ (Heclo and Wildavsky 1974: 389) between the EU, the member state and the subnational level, which has been held together by common interpretations of issues over the years. The decision network through which decisions have to be made about funding objectives and resources after individual programme periods have expired consists of a structure made up of member states and the Commission. However, this network structure does not exist in isolation from the implementation networks formed while the programme was being implemented, because the latter involves both the Commission and the departments of national governments as well as the subnational interests directly involved. This is most apparent in the case of the monitoring committees (monitoring the implementation of programmes). They ensure regular contact between key local players, national programme agencies and the Commission. The stability and continuity of policy networks in relation to the structural funds result in redistribution and funding objectives, funding resources and the implementation strategies remaining constant themes for the actors involved, and thus allow for ‘organised feedback loops’ in a multi-­level policy arena (Marks 1993: 403). Thus policy reactions can be continually fed into political processes which not only relate to problems of implementation but also to policy issues and may result in changes in policy goals and objectives.

This seems to be a theoretically convincing hypothesis. Empirical research (see Malek 2002; Heinelt et al. 2005a) on the historical development of the structural funds from the 1950s to the end of the 1990s and their implementation in a number of member states does, however, throw some doubt on the validity of this hypothesis. According to these more recent findings, there is little evidence for a highly integrated policy network that creates ‘organised feedback loops’ between policy implementation and policy reform. On the contrary, there is considerable evidence for a high degree of fragmentation within the policy network in the policy field under scrutiny. Fragmentation can be observed along at least four different lines:

86   Achieving governability •

•

•

•

Vertical fragmentation can be observed between implementation and policy reform networks in member states. European decision-­making on the revision of structural funds regulations as well as on funding objectives and the allocation of resources at the EU level is undertaken by top level representatives of the member states (together with the Commission) who lack close contact with those involved in the implementation of structural funds. The key players in the reform processes create a decision arena of their own without close links to the implementation of the funds. Horizontal fragmentation of policy specific implementation networks can be found in member states. Within the member states (to varying degrees), administrative structures (as well as their surrounding societal networks) are fragmented between different funds and policy areas. Implementation networks in the field of regional policy (the European Regional Development Fund, ERDF), for example, rarely interact with implementation networks in the field of labour market policy (the European Social Fund, ESF). This fragmentation is made more likely by variation in implementation rules and routines between different policies. Horizontal fragmentation of fund specific actor structures can be identified within the European Commission. In much the same way as in the member states, administrative structures within the Commission are fragmented into different Directorate-­Generals (DGs), each of which is responsible for a separate fund. Vertical fragmentation between implementation and policy reform networks can be noted in the Commission. Within each DG, the units responsible for implementation in the different member states are clearly separate from the units, which are responsible for co-­ordination and more general ‘political’ tasks, including policy reform.

These fragmentations are not only formal organizational characteristics. They shape formal and informal interactions and influence communication and, thus, the transfer of experience and knowledge. In the light of these fragmentations, policy reforms in the field of EU structural funds cannot be explained by the existence of a single closely knit policy network that encompasses both policy implementation and policy reform and by direct, sustained personal interactions between actors in a single policy community. How can the hypothesis on the crucial importance of policy networks for the development of EU structural funds be modified in the light of these findings? This question will be taken up after a brief look at the key features of EU environment policy. 5.2.2  EU environment policy ‘Environmental policy is seen as a case par excellence of “the dispersion of authoritative decision-­making across multiple territorial levels” (Hooghe and Marks 2001: xi)’ (Fairbrass and Jordan 2004: 148) and in this respect as an EU policy characterized by multi-­level governance. However, in view of its main

Achieving governability   87 regulatory character, it can be argued that it differs significantly from a redistributive policy such as the structural funds. With regulatory policy, networks can be found in which the links are considerably looser or more temporary (Héritier 1993: 435) between: (a) those actors who influence decisions on rules or procedures; (b) those who take those decisions; and (c) those who take into account rules or procedures and check that they are followed. Thus there is only a limited possibility of forming a policy community which has a common view of required actions. This is important not only in relation to the potential for developing a consensus oriented approach geared towards problem-­solving based on agreement and a common definition of policy challenges, but is also important in encouraging transformation of policy by means of interactions in policy networks. For regulatory policy it is plausible to assume considerably more fragile ‘issue [specific] networks’ (Heinelt 1996a: 17). From this point of view, fragmentation and diversity can be seen as a basic feature of environment policy due to its regulatory character. Furthermore, environment policy is composed – to an even higher degree than structural funds interventions – of different sub-­policies or sector-­specific measures – like water protection, air pollution control, waste management, control of chemicals or the protection of endangered species. Each one consists of a number of individual instruments regulating emission, product and process or production standards as well as environmental quality objectives in a ‘substantive’ way, that is, by prescribing certain limits/thresholds or specific goals (see Knill and Liefferink 2007: 41–3 and 48–51; in the case of air pollution control they identify eighteen different regulations). This diversity implies a highly fragmented distribution of responsibilities and tasks particularly in the administrations of member states but also within the Commission, even in DG Environment itself. But there are also overarching measures – such as environmental impact assessment (EIA), strategic environmental assessment (SEA) and the enterprise related eco-­management and audit scheme (EMAS). These measures aim to overcome the compartmentalization of the policy field resulting from the sector-­ specific measures in a ‘procedural’ way: i.e. by prescribing ways in which individual objectives as well as overarching principles of EU environment policy, such as prevention, precaution, integration or sustainable development (see Knill and Liefferink 2007: 27–35), can be achieved in a given case. For instance, this applies to decisions by public authorities on planning permission or to decisions in enterprises on how to organize production processes (see Heinelt et al. 2001b; Knill and Liefferink 2007: 41–3 and 46–8). These measures leave not only a lot of discretion at the level of implementation in the member states but also at the level of their case-­related application (see Heinelt et al. 2001a as well as Heinelt and Smith 2003 for EIA and EMAS) or – as it has been phrased previously – first order governing. Critical accounts of EU environment policy have to address the consequences of fragmentation and diversity. This applies first of all to interest intermediation between the member states (or their governments) at the EU level. It cannot only

88   Achieving governability be characterized as preventing EU legislation which could negatively impact on the competitiveness of their economies. More important, ‘regulatory competition’ (Héritier et al. 1996) can be seen as a main feature of policy-­making. It is oriented at avoiding the costs of adapting domestic organizational arrangements to new regulations. This reflects the European decision-­making undertaken by top level representatives of the member states (together with the Commission) who lack close contact with actors involved in the implementation of EU legislation. But ‘regulatory competition’ in this sense not only affects the strategies of member states in decision-­making at the EU level but also the implementation of EU legislation. Here, the blocking of organizational change is a main motive of governmental actors, although ‘Europeanization’ and especially the spread of particular norms and policy objectives cannot be ignored (see below). Against this background the ‘implementation deficit’ of environment policy (see Jordan et al. 1999) is a consequence of a fragmented multi-­level system in this policy field. More specifically, the ‘implementation deficit’ has been explained by the fact that objectives defined at the EU level cannot be properly achieved because domestic actors at the national and the ‘operational’ level are acting independently. It has been argued that the European Commission – neither directly linked to the implementation of EU legislation nor able to control its application – depends heavily on non-­governmental organizations (environmental groups) as ‘watchdogs’ to secure compliance (Heinelt and Meinke-­Brandmeier 2006; Koutalakis 2004). In this respect, the subnational mobilization of environmental groups as well as their involvement at the EU level by EU institutions (the Commission and the European Parliament) should be interpreted as a special feature of multi-­level governance (see Fairbrass and Jordan 2004: 162–3). However, not only does the subnational mobilization of environmental groups differ greatly between member states, but the involvement of environmental groups at the EU level is characterized by differences between these non-­governmental organizations in relation to their individual interests or objectives (as well as their organizational capacities). Therefore, fragmentation is also a main feature of interest intermediation in respect of these kinds of societal actors. Against this background, fragmentation can be observed in the field of environment policy in respect of the following: • • •

Those actors who take decisions on environmental legislation at the EU level or who influence them are clearly not linked to those who implement this legislation or check that it is followed. Within member states the key players in decision-­making at the EU level do not have close links to those implementing environmental legislation. Implementation networks in the member states are highly fragmented horizontally in line with different sub-­policies. This applies not only to typical sector-­specific measures like air pollution control but also to land use plan-

Achieving governability   89

•

ning policy, for which overarching measures have been established. In the latter it is obvious that the ‘vested’ interests of developers and of local authorities quite easily become hegemonic in defining an ‘appropriate’ land use in line with policies aiming at fostering local and regional (economic) competitiveness. Non-­governmental actors trying to influence environment policy are horizontally fragmented not only at the EU and national levels but also at the level of implementation because of their highly diverse interests and preferences.

Thus, multi-­level governance in the field of environment policy can be characterized by ‘complex, uncertain, and contested decision-­making’ (Fairbrass and Jordan 2004: 162). Nevertheless, ‘learning on the part of member states’ (ibid.) – and one can add ‘also other involved actors’ – can be observed. How can this be explained?

5.3  Achieving governability by loose coupling Do these observations question the relevance of linkages between different actors and layers within multi-­level governance – or is it the nature of these linkages which has to be reviewed? Contrary to earlier literature, particularly on the EU structural funds, linkages between the different actors and levels are not tightly horizontal and vertical, but rather loosely coupled. Against this background a hypothesis could be put forward that governability is a result of policy networks characterized by different aspects of loose coupling between relatively autonomous actors. The expression ‘loose coupling’ has its origin in older approaches developed in connection with organization studies, which emphasize that a ‘coupled’ unit in an organization as well as an organization coupled with others can secure ‘its own identity and some evidence of its physical or logical separateness’ (Weick 1976: 3), although they are dependent on and influence each other. Based on an increasing use of the expression of ‘loose coupling’ – as a result of which its meaning has become more and more blurred – Orton and Weick (1990) helpfully identified different applications of the concept. Orton and Weick (1990: 204ff.) draw a distinction between an ‘unidimensional’ and a ‘dialectical’ interpretation of loose coupling. The first considers tight and loose coupling as extremes. Therefore, it puts systems characterized by closeness and openness or by ‘independent’ and ‘responsive components’ in opposition to each other. In contrast, the ‘dialectical interpretation’ of loose coupling (adopted here) emphasizes the coexistence of closeness and openness as well as of ‘distinctiveness’ and ‘responsiveness’. This interpretation highlights the fact that units separated by processes of differentiation are able to secure autonomy and to develop specific logics and orientations for their actions even though they still depend on and interact with each other (Orton and Weick 1990: 205). This increases the opportunity to act more effectively with respect to specific problems and situations,

90   Achieving governability whilst at the same time being oriented towards common objectives and linked by overriding rules. In other words, it is the co-­existence of co-­ordination and autonomy, the ambiguity of overarching objectives and rules and selectivity on the part of key players that creates the conditions under which developments can come about quite quickly, and adaptability can be secured (Weick 1979). This applies especially to developments which can be related to the term ‘organizational learning’ (see Section 2.7.1). This is especially so for any analysis that adopts the idea of ‘unconventional forms’ of organizational learning (Wiesenthal 1995)4 which can be connected to the concept of loose coupling. As the idea of ‘unconventional forms’ of organizational learning questions the ability of organizations to resist the influence of external pressures, so it emphasizes the sensitivity of organizations to those external influences and the consequent organizational learning by ‘intrusion’, namely by ‘invasion’ of new members with different ‘ideas’ and new knowledge, tolerable dissent of members, and interaction of organizations with different rules, cognitive maps (Wiesenthal 1995: 145–7). Therefore, they are open to new development and policy options, or organizational changes which flow from the co-­existence of closeness and openness as well as co-­ordination and autonomy. On the one hand, it is necessary to take serious account of the phenomena of differentiation, namely (as in the cases of the EU structural funds or the EU environment policy): •

• •

the internal organizational fragmentation of collective actors,5 particularly in respect of (i) the vertical fragmentation between implementation and policy reform networks in the member states and (ii) the horizontal fragmentation of the different levels of implementation networks in the member states as well as of the European Commission (in DGs and their units) in line with specific responsibilities for individual funds, policies, sub-­policies and even single operational programmes; the functional differentiation between a decision-­making arena at the EU level and (task specific) implementation arenas in the member states or regions; the sequentialization of decisions at different levels of vertically fragmented policy sub-­systems and between these sub-­systems in terms of a break-­up of the entire reform and implementation processes into manageable chunks that are repeatedly processed at different levels and between the vertically fragmented parts of the decision system.6

On the other hand, we have to consider coherence mechanisms which can bring about loose coupling of the phenomena of differentiation. Such mechanisms include: • •

accepted rules and norms for the exchange of information and for coordinating actions; ideas or paradigms (like sustainability or partnership7) suggesting specific

Achieving governability   91

•

•

•

objectives for actions as well as definitions and measures through which problems can be solved in a way commonly perceived as appropriate; coupling institutions (like the monitoring committees in the case of the structural funds) where interactions are bound within a specific organizational context, i.e. where actors are forced to meet, to interact, and to explain and justify their particular choices of action as well as the underlying assumptions about causality and beliefs about normative matters; the anticipation of an authoritative final decision by an indirectly involved authority, for example, the ‘shadow of hierarchy’ within an organization or the possibility of a political decision (i) at a higher level in the negotiation system (e.g. by the Council of Ministers) or (ii) from a higher level within a network of organizations (e.g. by the Commission); and the existence of a public sphere – whether a sectoral or professional one – which can complement the ‘shadow of hierarchy’ insofar as the relevance of the aforementioned rules and norms as well as ideas or paradigms is emphasized and their violation can be criticized in a public setting.

Whilst the phenomena of differentiation reflect the autonomy of the units or parts of a system, the coherence mechanisms provide opportunities for coupling. This addresses the core of the ‘dialectical interpretation’ of loose coupling, i.e. ‘to combine the contradictory concepts of connection and autonomy’ (Orton and Weick 1990: 216). Loose coupling can be a result of the coherence mechanisms, but there is no inevitability in the development and the effectiveness of these mechanisms, and without them functional differentiation and organizational fragmentation can result in governance failure. The effectiveness of the coherence mechanisms depends on an alignment of orientations and routines of the individual as well as collective actors. This applies to ideas or paradigms as well as for the different dimensions of rules and norms for the exchange of information and the co-­ordination of actions. Also, the anticipation of a possible final authoritative decision of an indirectly involved authority – especially a hierarchical intervention – could shape the incentive structure of actors, but could also lead to evasive manoeuvres by the (formally) subordinate actors. This is reflected in the ‘dialectical interpretation’ of loose coupling ‘with its recognition of numerous structural dimensions, its emphasis on simultaneous coupling and decoupling, and its portrayal of structures as malleable through managerial intervention’ in that it forces researchers ‘to move more deeply into the human workings which underlie organizational structure’ (Orton and Weick 1990: 218). The emphasis on ‘simultaneous coupling and decoupling’ is particularly relevant with respect to hierarchical, one-­sided and power-­based options and competences for making and enforcing decisions. In a multi-­level system of joint decision-­making, they can lead to vetoes and blockages as well as to a reduction in the openness and the feasible set of involved actors (or units). Nonetheless, even in loosely coupled systems the binding nature of interactions has to be

92   Achieving governability enforced in order to avoid individual units becoming (too) independent, so that a real decoupling of collective actors takes place. As highlighted previously, the internal organizational differentiation of collective actors, the differentiation (sequentialization) of decisions at different levels, as well as the functional differentiation between a decision-­making arena at the EU level and implementation arenas in the member states or regions represent specific intra- and inter-­organizational capabilities in a system of EU multi-­ level governance which have been shown to be conducive to the development of innovative policies, responsive to their environment. They provide the actors involved in a multi-­level system with space for taking decisions and they offer area-­related opportunities for institutional evolution and organizational learning. However, the various forms of differentiation need to be loosely coupled by specific coherence mechanisms. Otherwise, there would be the risk of fragmentation in organizations and isolation of single sub-­units within certain policy areas which, in turn, could lead to implementation deficits and to the collapse of newly gained insights. Possible coherence mechanisms include the acceptance of rules and norms for the exchange of information and the co-­ordination of actions (e.g. informal and formal norms for procedures), ‘ideas’ or paradigms suggesting specific objectives for actions, as well as definitions of and solutions to problems. Furthermore, the option of a clear decision imposed on the actors by an indirectly involved authority within an organization or the possibility of a political decision at a higher level in a bargaining system, as well as the option of being ‘named’ and ‘shamed’ in public, are crucial to enforce the coherence mechanisms referred to above. In this respect, the ‘shadow of hierarchy’ can be complemented by the ‘light of the public sphere’. If coherence is guaranteed by such forms of loose coupling, then inter- and intra-­organizational differentiation may prove to be a precondition for adaptation and learning processes by the units involved – especially by those at the ‘operational’ level – as well as for governability with regard to the achievement of general policy objectives according to differing contextual conditions, whilst specific coherence mechanisms ensure that the actors still relate to each other within the frame of a multi-­level system. The fragmented structure and coherence mechanisms have not been developed and linked up in a systematic and consistent way.8 They have emerged incrementally from pragmatic decisions determined by the specific structures of the EU multi-­level governance system, as well as through the various path-­ dependencies of policy-­making in the member states. In other words, the array of formal and informal options open to actors in EU decision-­making to secure the role of ‘veto players’ as well as the divergence of organizational structures in member states, which shape the development and implementation of the structural funds and environment policy at the EU level, prevent a successful systematic and consistent design. Nevertheless, there have been successful political attempts to structure the multi-­level system of the EU which have had important consequences. This is

Achieving governability   93 demonstrated in the case of cohesion policy by the introduction of the principles of programming, implementation and partnership through the 1988 reforms as well as by the partial withdrawal of the geographical units of the Commission from the implementation arenas after the reform of 1999, or the move away from the command and control approach in the case of environment policy in the early 1990s. Although there is some evidence that these attempts had been influenced by scholarly debate (see Hooghe 1996; Heinelt et al. 2001b; Heinelt and Malek 2002), they are mainly based on or derived from the ‘intelligence of practice’. In brief, through their involvement in EU decision-­making, actors are able to use favourable (historical and/or organizational) conditions to place their specific definition of the ‘right’ problem and a corresponding ‘adequate’ perspective on the relevant action to take in a hegemonic position. This constitutes policy or organizational learning. These reflections on loose coupling may provide an answer to the question of how governability can be achieved in multi-­level policy-­making. Differentiation – usually seen as the reason for governance failure – can be used to realize what is desired, known and perceived as achievable by actors, providing coherence mechanisms are developed and used. This is crucial because what is desired, known and perceived as achievable by actors differs over time and space, according to historical and territorial contexts. In this respect the EU structural funds can be seen as a success story of a European model of policy-­making because a high degree of diversity at the subnational and national level can be observed when it comes to the implementation of a common funding scheme.9 This diversity allows not only the adaptability of the scheme to specific spatial and institutional as well as social and economic conditions but also to what is desired and known and perceived as commonly achievable by the actors involved in implementation. At the same time, the acceptance of overall policy objectives and particular rules for adapting the scheme have been secured – which leads to coherence of policy-­making and political interventions in this policy area. Furthermore, on one hand, the EU structural funds demonstrate the ability to change policy objectives and particular rules for adapting the scheme over time according to (i) changing conditions (particularly further steps towards European integration and enlargement) as well as (ii) political debates about the effectiveness and legitimacy of this redistributive policy. On the other hand, these changes have been achieved without losing core understanding of what the policy is or should be about. However, it may well be that these characteristics of the EU structural funds are fragile. It is, for example, an open question (which will be answered in practice in the near future) how the last reform of the structural funds – which put the strengthening of ‘competitiveness’ (in line with the Lisbon process) alongside the cohesion objective – and Eastern enlargement will affect this policy field. The example of EU environment policy points to weaknesses in a European model of policy-­making represented by the structural funds and in multi-­level policy-­making in general. If fragmentation is too extensive and far-­reaching and not counterbalanced by strong coherence mechanisms, integration of political

94   Achieving governability interventions cannot be achieved. The result is just a ‘nominal policy’ by which not only sub-­policies with different objectives and instruments but also diverse practices are subsumed under a common label. More important, a shared understanding of what the problems to be addressed are about, how these problems can be solved, and which policy objectives should be commonly achieved by particular policy instruments can be developed, if at all, only with difficulties although general principles, like prevention, precaution, integration or sustainability that address such a basic understanding, may have been established (see Knill and Liefferink 2007: 27ff.). Instead, actors act independently – if not unconnectedly – according to what they desire and know and to what they perceive as achievable in specific layers of the EU multi-­level system and within different organizational units and sub-­policies located at these layers. Under such conditions governability is unlikely to be achieved. However, overarching measures – such as environmental impact assessment and strategic environmental assessment or the enterprise related eco-­management and audit scheme – offer opportunities to reach a loose coupling in the aforementioned way in the field of environment policy, because they prescribe or, at least offer, opportunities to clarify in a particular case how individual objectives, as well as the overarching principles of the EU environment policy, can be achieved.

6 Multi-­level systems and flexible power geometry

At the beginning of this book the question was raised whether the diagnosis that governance has extended beyond the state into society (at the global as well as at the domestic level) can be interpreted positively. Or more precisely: can democratic self-­determination be redefined and extended into society beyond the limited realm of statehood? This question leads inevitably to a challenge of one of the fundamental premises or common ideas of democracy: that democracy is strongly linked with a concept of statehood which is in turn associated with territoriality. In other words, territorial units stand out due to the characteristic that, within them, individual people are able to see each other and themselves as equals in determining the binding co-­ordination of their (inter)actions. This is the essence of territorial interest intermediation based on voting and elections as well as the option of co-­ordinating (inter)actions by majoritarian decisions. Through voting, majoritarian decisions can be either taken on factual issues directly (direct democracy) or indirectly through the decisions of elected representatives or representative bodies. The results of majoritarian decisions lead to tangible policy contents and procedural rules of self-­determination which programme the legitimate use of physical force by the state in order to secure the co-­ordination of (inter)actions. This co-­ordination is enacted by the legitimate use of physical force in hierarchical form through the actions of public administration and the judiciary. There are two essential elements of the contents and procedural rules for the co-­ordination of (inter)actions to be secured by legitimate use of physical force. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain the opportunities for self-­determination as an individual right; on the other, it is equally important to grant individuals the right to control the agreed hierarchical co-­ ordination of (inter)actions by executive and judicial bodies. Because (i) elections to representative bodies take place periodically and (ii) direct majoritarian decisions can be taken (where they exist) whenever it is seen as appropriate by the affected community, self-­determination is open to change. This is the image of both representative and direct democracy – as well as of democratically bound political domination. Despite the familiar problems of representation – already defined by early representatives of elite theory (see Mosca 1939; Pareto 1991; Michels 1999) and illustrated by recent empirical studies (see, for example, Norris 1997a; 1997b) – this image still prevails in political

96   Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry discussion as well as in the scholarly debate. In addition, fundamental objections have been raised about direct democracy – both conceptually (as already in the ‘Federalist Papers’, see Hamilton et al. 1989) and empirically (for overviews, see Möckli 1994; Abromeit 2003). It should also be emphasized that the ideas of democracy discussed above are grounded in a demanding precondition – namely that minorities (or the minority) accept the decisions of the majority. In the past two decades there have been several examples of ‘failing states’ where the sector of territorial interest intermediation has been eroded because minorities defined by ethnic, cultural and/or religious characteristics were no longer willing to subordinate themselves to decisions of the majority underpinned by the state. However, it is not only in such ‘extreme cases’ that the precondition that minorities should accept the decisions of the majority turns out to be problematic. The same applies in a number of Western European countries in which regionalist movements are questioning the legitimate use of physical force based on the democratic decisions of the majority of citizens (see Keating 1998). An effective and historically demonstrable means to solve this problem is the formation of a federal system (see Dahl and Tufte 1973: 37). In this system, territorial sub-­units acquire self-­legislation and self-­administration powers in particular policy areas and at the national level a second parliamentary chamber is introduced for which the principle of ‘one person – one vote’ for the allocation of seats is not followed. This breach of the strict majority rule in federal systems goes hand in hand with a strengthening of bargaining-­based forms of co-­ordinating interactions emerging from veto points created by federalization (see Abromeit and Stoiber 2006: 79, with reference to Tsebelis 1995).1 These critical reflections on the prevailing model of democracy, as well as the common criticism of political parties as the essential mediators in the sector of territorial interest intermediation, are not taken further in this chapter. Rather, prevailing assumptions about conditions and limits of the model of democracy outlined are analysed in order to address them constructively and to avoid the conclusion that the ‘golden age of democracy’ is over and that of a ‘post-­ democracy’ is dawning. The next sections refer to assumptions about conditions and limits of effective self-­determination linked to the territorial notion of democratic self-­ government as well as of statehood (Section 6.1). These have been the central reference points for the debate on ‘size and democracy’. Furthermore, based on the debate on ‘size and democracy’, key characteristics of a flexible political geometry in the context of multi-­level systems are outlined and contrasted with structures of democratic self-­government based on territoriality. The challenges for effective and at the same time legitimate forms of governance embedded in a flexible political geometry are then discussed with reference to metropolitan governance (in Section 6.2). Referring to Wirth’s (1956) definition of ‘urbanism as a way of life’ a picture of democratic self-­governing is sketched out linked to the images of what makes up the distinctiveness of the city (or polis; Section 6.3). By defining ‘a city [. . .] as a relatively large, dense, and permanent settle-

Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry   97 ment of socially heterogeneous individuals’ (Wirth 1956: 116; see also 117–18), density, heterogeneity, the ‘number of population’ and durability of interactions can be seen as key characteristics of the city as an ideal type of community to which a particular notion of democratic self-­governing is related. Based on these reflections the question is addressed if such a conceptualization of the city and its specific forms of community formation can be helpful in thinking further about forms of community formation beyond the city and, in particular, beyond the nation state. To clarify specific political structures linked to statehood, the views of Nullmeier are taken (in Section 6.4) to separate the notion of statehood from territoriality and to contrast ‘territorial statehood’ with ‘functional statehood’. At the end of the chapter, this analysis is applied to the EU as a particular political unit characterized by a multi-­level structure.

6.1  Size and democracy It is undoubtedly the case that participation in elections is lessening (including in many countries whose political systems are without any doubt democratic; see, for instance, Franklin 2002) but for current purposes this is not the main issue. Instead, this deplorable phenomenon is addressed in depth from a particular starting point linked to the point that democratic self-­determination is commonly related to territoriality. So the question is whether the size of a territorial unit matters with respect to democratic participation in co-­ordinating interactions for this unit in a binding way. In other words: Is effective self-­determination – which would make participation in elections reasonable – irrevocably bound to a particular territorial size of a political unit? 6.1.1  Is there an optimal size for self-­determination? In the late 1960s and early 1970s Robert Dahl tackled the question of if and to what extent size and democracy are related to each other. Before his later diagnosis (Dahl 1994) that bargaining systems now play a key role in solving problems and thereby achieving ‘system effectiveness’ although this does question ‘citizen participation’ based on the vision of self-­determination founded on equal voting rights and parliamentary representation, he recognized a problem that: for most citizens, participation in very large units becomes minimal and in very small units it becomes trivial. At the extremes, citizens may participate in a vast range of complex and crucial decisions by the single act of casting a ballot; or else they have almost unlimited opportunities to participate in decisions over matters of no importance. At the one extreme, then, the people vote but they do not rule; at the other, they rule – but they have nothing to rule over. (Dahl 1971: 97) In a book written with Tufte (Dahl and Tufte 1973) the question was raised: ‘Can we say, then, that there is any optimal size for a political system?’ It was

98   Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry unequivocally answered: ‘In our view, the answer is clearly no. Different problems require political units of different size’ (Dahl and Tufte 1973: 135). However, the following fundamental questions were answered in a particular way: Is ‘democracy’ related in any way to ‘size’? How large should a political system be in order to facilitate rational control by its citizens? What are the comparative advantages and disadvantages enjoyed by political systems of different sizes? (Dahl and Tufte 1973: 1) In relation to the spatial size of a political system, two features were emphasized by Dahl and Tufte (1973: 20–5) as decisive in characterizing the system as one of democratic self-­government, namely citizen effectiveness and system capacity. They argued that, on the one hand, participation is necessary to underpin the idea that those allowed to take decisions and those affected by them are effectively determining policy-­making. Later on they emphasize (more precisely) that there has to be a ‘sense of effectiveness among citizens’ (Dahl and Tufte 1973: 65–6). On the other hand, the capacity of the political system is crucial to solve complex problems in accordance with expressed demands – in an efficient way. These features are more or less consistent with those of legitimacy, effectiveness and efficiency which have been pointed out previously as criteria for ‘good governance’ and which were used to reflect on approaches and perspectives of reforms at the local and the EU level (see Chapter 4). 6.1.2  Is effective democratic self-­government bound to a flexible political geometry? Although Dahl and Tufte did not provide a clear answer to the question of how big a political system ideally should be to allow democratic self-­government, they offer instructive starting points for further analysis. First of all their statement that ‘different problems require political units of different size’ points to the conclusion that one should think about a sort of flexible political geometry which implies a structure of coupled political units in which problems are addressed according to their specific, including spatially determined, challenges and opportunities to be solved by different political units each covering a differing space. In the words of Dahl and Tufte: Rather than conceiving of democracy as located in a particular kind of inclusive, sovereign unit, we must learn to conceive of democracy spreading through a set of interrelated political systems, sometimes though not always arranged like Chinese boxes, the smaller nesting in the larger. (Dahl and Tufte 1973: 135) This does not necessarily mean (although Dahl and Tufte point in this direction) that we have to think about a multi-­level system of vertically layered territorial units.

Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry   99 Instead, a multi-­level system clearly structured in a vertical sense – with layered territorial units each responsible for particular tasks and equipped with distinct competences – can be complemented by functionally determined (sectoral) political entities overlapping vertically and also breaking through single territorial levels. With such a flexible political geometry particular problems can be addressed effectively which means that system capacity can be built or secured. In addition, this structure also offers a broad spectrum of potential forms of participation which goes beyond affecting the membership of representative bodies periodically through elections. These forms of participation are linked not only to the different territorial layers of a multi-­level system but also to the flanking functionally determined (sectoral) political units. Such a broad spectrum of participation can contribute to citizen effectiveness. These reflections can be linked to the distinction between two (ideal) types of multi-­level system made by Hooghe and Marks (2003). These types refer to different kinds of communities (Hooghe and Marks 2003: 240): Type I jurisdictions are usually based on encompassing communities. Such communities are often territorial, but they may also be based on membership of a particular religious or ethnic group. In either case, the jurisdiction satisfies a preference for collective self-­government, a good that is independent of citizens’ preferences for efficiency or for a particular policy output. [. . .] Type I jurisdictions are often routed in community identity. [. . .] Correspondingly, Type I governance is oriented to voice, rather than to exit. [. . .] Exit [. . .] is difficult and is not conceived as a feasible option for those who disagree with the government. Exit in a Type I world usually means moving from one locality, region, or country to another. Where jurisdictions are designed around religion or group membership, exit demands that one change one’s identity. Type II jurisdictions are more pliable. They are set up to solve particular policy problems [. . .]. The constituencies of Type II jurisdictions are individuals who share some geographical or functional space and who have a common need for collective decision making [. . .]. These are not communities of fate [. . .], and one can be a member of several such groups. (Hooghe and Marks 2003: 240) To put it succinctly: ‘Type I jurisdictions [at least at the level of nation states] choose citizens, while citizens choose Type II jurisdictions’ (Hooghe and Marks 2003: 241). What these two types of [multi-­level] governance refer to is hence the coexistence of two different, but related categories of phenomena: •

the dispersion of authority to a limited number of non-­overlapping jurisdictions at a limited number of levels, bundling authority in quite large and relatively stable packages;

100   Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry •

the emergence of more complex, fluid, patchworks of innumerable, overlapping jurisdictions, possibly rearranged into functionally specific jurisdictions, as required by specific governance demands. (Gualini 2006: 889)

Following Dahl and Tufte, what is crucial is not only the problem-­solving capacity (i.e. ‘system capacity’ measured by standards of effectiveness and efficiency) of a flexible political geometry of this kind. It is also vital that those taking decisions and who are at the same time affected by those decisions are convinced that they can effectively influence policy-­making. This is central because the ability of a political unit to actually solve problems, i.e. to be effective is measured in relation to the demands (the intended effects) of those collectively trying to influence their living in a particular way and direction.

6.2  Metropolitan governance: an example taken from the search for a flexible political geometry Reflections on a flexible political geometry as outlined above are not totally new. One can find them not least in the scholarly debates on international relations (see Krasner 1982; Young 1986; Rosenau 1992; Kohler-­Koch 1989). They are not considered here. Instead, for a further elaboration of structures of a flexible political geometry embedded in a multi-­level system it seems worthwhile to examine metropolitan governance (for an overview, see Kübler and Heinelt 2005: 11–15). In contrast to the scholarly debates on international relations where the discussion on democracy and governance beyond the nation state (see, for instance, Zürn 1998; 2000) is fairly advanced, additional conceptual ideas can be expected to emerge from debates about metropolitan governance, mainly because the latter is focused on the transformation of the territorial dimension of governance within the state. This debate addresses in principle the same questions which were raised by Dahl and Tufte who argued: ‘If, as some demographers claim, there now exists one continuous urban area from Virginia to Maine, should we try to turn this into a single vast self-­governing megalopolis?’ (Dahl and Tufte 1973: 2). This question has become even more relevant in the light of the development of mega-­cities in some parts of the world in the context of globalization (see, for example, Siddiqui 2004; Léautier 2006): The scholarly debate and more fully the political discussion primarily focused on redistributive conflicts and consequently with solutions to particular challenges of political co-­ordination. Against the background of the fragmentation of metropolitan areas in different territorial units or jurisdictions, the main challenge in such areas is to find answers to the question of how to finance spatially unevenly distributed costs. For example, there are infrastructures relevant to the whole area, such as cultural facilities, but there are also systems of financial assistance to people in need. Furthermore, decisions on land use, for example, on housing for wealthy people or for commercial purposes, do have restributive impacts. Finally, unevenly dis-

Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry   101 tributed negative ‘spill-­over’ effects of certain facilities can arise, such as issues of waste disposal, energy production (power plants) or transport infrastructure. 6.2.1  How should metropolitan areas be governed? One answer to the question on how to govern metropolitan areas originated with the public choice approach as well as in the conditions found in the USA (see, for early examples, Tiebout 1956; Ostrom et al. 1961; Bish 1971). Emphasis is put on small territorial units (municipalities). Drawing on Tiebout’s (1956) classic idea of ‘voting with one’s feet’, public choice scholars think that the existence of a range of autonomous local constituencies allows citizens to choose the jurisdiction with the tax/service package that corresponds best to their personal preferences. At the aggregate level, they argue, the competition between local governments to attract new residents leads not only to effective matching of urban service demands, but also to efficiency in the allocation of public resources used to produce these services. (Kübler and Heinelt 2005: 9) In addition, it is argued that small political units allow for effective participation because citizens living in smaller units of local government have greater opportunities to participate in decisions over matters directly linked to their ‘lifeworld’ than in bigger ones. At the same time, proponents of this approach see in ‘functional overlapping competing jurisdictions’ (Frey and Eichenberger 2001) ways of undertaking tasks that cannot be addressed properly by small municipalities through using functionally oriented political units with a spatially broader coverage. These ‘functional overlapping competing jurisdictions’ can be founded and controlled by smaller territorial units. They do not necessarily cover a whole metropolitan region, and in some parts of such a region there may be similar functionally oriented jurisdictions which can lead to competition. Therefore, from a ‘public choice’ perspective, it is possible to avoid the scenario sketched out by Dahl and Tufte (1973: 1) at the beginning of their work: ‘Urbanisation and the population explosion have raised the specter of uncontrolled growth at all levels of government.’ In contrast, another approach, the metropolitan reform tradition (for influential early contributions, see Studenski 1930; Wood 1958): views the existence of a large number of independent public jurisdictions within a metropolitan area as the main obstacle to efficient and equitable urban service delivery. [. . .] Based on this perspective and with a somewhat Weberian trust in the rationality and planning capacity of large public bureaucracies, metropolitan reformers have advocated governmental consolidation, whereby institutional boundaries would be brought to match the territorial scale of the economic and social development of metropolitan

102   Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry areas. Consolidation, they argue, should be achieved either through annexation of suburbs by centre-­cities, or by the creation of metropolitan governments, i.e. two-­tier institutions with extensive competencies and autonomy, whose territorial scope covers the functional metropolitan area as a whole. (Kübler and Heinelt 2005: 9) This approach has not only focused on increased administrative efficiency through cost savings and an ‘economy of scale’ and on the effectiveness of administrative decisions, not least in the field of spatial and especially land use planning. It has also emphasized – in contrast to the public choice approach – that political programming and control of spatially enlarged administrative units have to be ensured by directly elected representative bodies. In practice, this approach is still influential when it comes to amalgamations through territorial reforms which affect all municipalities in a country. But for the territorial reform of single metropolitan areas, the metropolitan reform tradition has become more or less irrelevant due to political resistance not only on the part of smaller municipalities which would lose their autonomy but also by higher level government which would be faced with territorially extended as well as politically and administratively empowered political sub-­units (see Heinelt and Kübler 2005a). That it is difficult to overcome this political resistance through public pressure can be explained by the fact that, nowadays, the formation of a spatially extended territorial political unit tends not to be related to a democratic perspective. Such a perspective means that a representative body linked to this kind of metropolitan political unit and directly elected by those affected by its decisions (the citizen living in the jurisdiction of such a metropolitan political unit) would have to take on political responsibility and be accountable for the performance of public tasks in a newly structured territorial political unit. Instead, territorial reforms of metropolitan areas are usually just justified by an increase in efficiency and effectiveness. This leads to a debate about metropolitan reforms which does not attract much public attention. Proponents of a third (new) approach – called ‘new regionalism’ (for an overview, see Kübler and Heinelt 2005: 13–15; Kübler and Schwab 2007: 474–5) – argue that the two traditional schools of thought fail to debate contemporary issues of metropolitan governance. They analyse a ‘re-­scaling’ (Swynegedouw 1998; 2000) and a ‘recomposition of the political’ (Le Gales 1998: 501) in the context of both globalization and a functional differentiation of challenges for governing metropolitan areas. This approach can be directly linked to reflections on a flexible political geometry because its proponents explicitly emphasize that spatial units do not have to be considered primarily as territorially defined ‘containers’ linked to a particular jurisdiction. Instead of thinking about ‘action units’, emphasis is given to ‘action spaces’ (Schmitt-­Egner 2002) and ‘spaces of flows’ (Castells 1996) as well as ‘spaces of relations’ (Whatmore 1999: 34). In order to draw the boundaries of spatial units, functional aspects are considered but so are networks of social relations focused on functional challenges.2 Such ‘relational thinking’ (Massey et al. 1999: 12ff.) – strongly inspired by Anglo-­

Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry   103 Saxon ‘human geography’3 – can (from case to case) identify and stress the relevance of territorially determined ‘container spaces’ linked to particular levels of government, but it is also relevant for other kinds of spatial structures of interaction characterized by functionally determined ‘action spaces’. Although most of the work of the proponents of new regionalism has concentrated on the economic dimension and particularly on territorial competitiveness in the context of economic globalization (Brenner 2003), questions about the implications of new regionalism for democracy have also been raised. However, answers to these questions differ between proponents of this approach. These differences can be described as ‘pessimistic’ and ‘optimistic’ perspectives (see Kübler and Heinelt 2005: 14–15; Kübler and Schwab 2007: 477–80). The ‘pessimistic’ perspective focuses on economic ‘driving forces’ and particularly on the forces behind territorial competitiveness in the context of economic globalization (see for instance Brenner 2003; 2004). Furthermore, from this perspective, an ‘uneven re-­scaling’ (Keil and Boudreau 2005: 106) of governmental decision-­making competences is identified both ‘upwards’ in the sense of centralization and ‘downwards’ through decentralization or devolution. These processes of ‘uneven re-­scaling’ are seen to be the result of a particular spatially embedded hegemony of ‘class factions, populist groups and urban elites’ (Keil and Boudreau 2005: 106) which are able and willing to make use of the consequences of globalization that can occur at a particular geographical scale. Against this background it is claimed: that geographical scale is not an ontologically fixed category; instead, scales are actively produced by a multiplicity of social actors as a means to organize geographical differentiations [. . .]. As a social construction, scales constitute arenas in which power is exercised to construct spaces of exclusion/inclusion and form identities, and where divergent ideologies are expressed [. . .]. (Keil and Debbané 2005: 263) This leads to an appraisal similar to that of a ‘democratic dilemma’, to quote Dahl (1994). Success in global competition may be possible by an alliance between powerful actors (and for them) but at the expense of ‘citizen participation’. The result is a flexible political geometry but essentially this reflects ‘shifting geometries of power’ (Swynegedouw et al. 2002: 112) because this kind of structure allows for a ‘jumping of scales’. This process of ‘jumping of scales’ (Smith 1984) is not neutral in terms of power relations. In fact, with changing scalar configurations, new groups of participants enter the frame of governance or re-­enforce their power position, while others become or remain excluded. (Swynegedouw et al. 2002: 115) In social and political terms the unequally distributed conditions for influencing a flexible political geometry, lead – according to the ‘pessimistic’ perspective – per se to a biased ‘geometries of power’ (Massey 1999).

104   Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry The ‘optimistic’ perspective starts from the point that in today’s societies – despite all the tendencies towards homogenization related to globalization – the formation of perception of problems, of aims of actions as well as of political strategies takes place in different and, at times, spatially overlapping collective social units. These problem perceptions, objectives and aims of actions as well as political strategies differ because they result from an understanding of what is seen as appropriate or not which is spatially embedded in and reproduced by particular actor relations.4 This is related to what has been called ‘glocalisation’ (Swyngedouw 1997) – namely an increase in the relevance of a particular local setting through globalization because only a particular context offers the preconditions for an allocation of investments, services and production units which are potentially possible (globally) everywhere.5 These preconditions can be created or even influenced by actors (see the contributions in Boddy and Parkinson 2004a), and specific local political strategies are crucial for creating or even influencing such preconditions. There is an overlapping in respect to this conclusion with the ‘pessimistic’ perspective. But for proponents of the ‘optimistic’ perspective global challenges can and have to be mastered and shaped in a way that promotes democracy. This means that solutions have to be identified which are effective with respect to collective self-­determination and at the same time are also legitimate. More precisely, effectiveness is not only related to developing and securing competitiveness but at the same time has also to bring about and enhance social inclusion (see, for example, Boddy and Parkinson 2004b: 3–6; Haus and Heinelt 2005b: 55–69). 6.2.2  Participatory governance in the flexible political geometry of metropolitan regions Seeking a governance arrangement in a metropolitan area characterized by a flexible political geometry which is effective in co-­ordinating interactions and in solving problems and at the same time is also seen and respected as legitimate by the citizens within its jurisdiction implies a search for a point in a ‘cube of democratic metropolitan governance’ (see Figure 6.1 and Kübler and Heinelt 2005: 23)6 which reflects three dimensions pointing to different forms of interest intermediation (which have been distinguished in Section 3.2): •

• •

local government, the input and output orientation of which can differ according to institutional structures and – as a result – with differing ability and substantial scope of territorial and administrative interest intermediation at the local level; civil society and its strength (or ‘vibrancy’) on which the potential of civil interest intermediation depends; and policy networks of functional interest intermediation which can be open or closed.

Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry   105

Open

Policy networks

Closed

Empirical case

k

ea W il

iv

C ng

ro

y

et

St

ci

so

Input

Output Local government

Figure 6.1 The cube of democratic metropolitan governance (source: Kübler and Heinelt 2005: 23, based on Wolf 2002: 47).

An ideal point indicating what can contribute to governing metropolitan areas in an effective and legitimate way might be found in this cube. In this respect, one can place emphasis on a strong civil society as well as on functionally oriented policy networks which should be open but also closed if this contributes to their capacity to act. At this point a problem emerges which demonstrates that constructions referring to ideal types are, without any doubt, helpful and necessary to create general normative standards. But they do not in the end help to answer in a specific case the question of how to address the contradictory relationship between openness of and limited access to functionally oriented policy networks in which decisions have to be reached by consent through bargaining because the members of the network are more or less autonomous. To reach consent under such conditions is not only demanding because obvious interests can differ. Furthermore, the perception of problems and the identification of aims of actions can differ and result in different standards of appropriateness. Finally, in indicating an ideal point in this ‘cube of democratic metropolitan governance’, it can be postulated in respect of local governments7 that it is not only the opportunity to elect members of a representative body that is relevant for characterizing them as political units of self-­government. Rather, wide ranging competences in self-­administration as well as opportunities to respond to the concerns, demands and wishes of policy addressees in implementation processes are also important for governing metropolitan areas in an effective and

106   Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry legitimate way. In respect to this dimension, one can argue again that a specific case has to be made to identify an ideal point in this ‘cube of democratic metropolitan governance’. But empirical studies have shown that municipalities with broad competences in self-­government and self-­administration are the ones which are often opposed to inter-­municipal co-­operation and co-­operation with interest groups and similar kinds of association as well as individual actors (enterprises) from the business sector. Furthermore, they usually ignore civil society organizations. This applies particularly to municipalities of the ‘North and Middle European type’ of local government (Hesse and Sharpe 1991). Due to their institutional and political strength (combined with a legalistic administrative culture), these municipalities find it difficult to engage in metropolitan governance arrangements in which they would lose power or their high degree of political autonomy (for an international comparison, see Heinelt and Kübler 2005b: 194–5). Nevertheless, it should be emphasized from an ‘optimistic’ perspective on metropolitan governance that what individual units of local government can offer in respect of opportunities for territorial and administrative interest intermediation might be structured by state-­wide legal rules (such as municipal codes or funding allocation formula). But it depends on the interactions of actors whether available options or issues beyond their remit are taken up.8 However, when starting from generally applicable institutional rules which structure opportunities and the scope of local territorial and administrative interest intermediation and when looking for factors which determine across the board spatially differing features of a flexible political geometry of metropolitan governance, then the relevance of (i) functionally oriented policy networks (or specific local forms of state-­society relations) in which functional interest intermediation is taking place as well as of (ii) civil interest intermediation come into focus and one can conclude: Specific state-­society relations and a particular ‘vibrancy’ of civil society socially and culturally embedded in a territorial context are the main reasons why, against the background of globalisation, the importance of ‘place’ is highlighted for concrete features of societal and political developments. (Kübler and Heinelt 2005: 22) Furthermore, forms of functional and civil interest intermediation can compensate for deficits in effective co-­ordination of territorially fragmented jurisdictions. As well as thereby generating output legitimation, they can on one hand contribute to input legitimation through participating in various forms of functional and civil interest intermediation and on the other hand also contribute to throughput legitimation by public reasoning about problem perceptions and aims of actions as well as political strategies for solving the problems and achieving intended objectives. A core idea of this ‘positive’ position towards the development of metropolitan governance is that a broad spectrum of opportunities for political participa-

Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry   107 tion as well as a mixture of diverse interacting actors can be established by a case-­specific balancing of the three dimensions of the ‘cube of democratic metropolitan governance’ and by a combination of the different sectors of interest intermediation. This mixture can have spatially fluid boundaries, be internally fragmented and link different levels of government vertically (possibly only along functionally defined segments or certain policies or even single initiatives). The latter can emerge ‘downwards’ from the metropolitan level to the spheres of neighbourhoods, quarters and boroughs as well as ‘upwards’ to the national, EU or global level. This mixture is not just an assembly of actors which comes together by chance. Rather, it can be characterized as a specific political community because of the interactions of its members as well as by the perception of problems and the identification of objectives to be achieved by particular political strategies which can be shared but also debated. This leads back to the basic question from which Dahl and Tufte started: Whether or not these views about mass society are valid, they do call ­attention to the search for community, and thus to the question of the appropriate political units for expressing one’s identity as a member of a community. (Dahl and Tufte 1973: 3)

6.3  Density of interaction as well as cohesion and unity in heterogeneity – and their relevance for political orders Dahl (1971) and Dahl and Tufte (1973) are prominent examples of a much broader debate in which the formation of spatially grounded political communities and identities as well as associated ideas about forms of democratic self-­ governing is linked to the city (or polis) as an ideal type of community with a spatially distinct structure of interaction. Against this background, in this section, the following questions will be addressed: (i) what are (or is seen as) the characteristics of the city and its specific forms of community formation? and (ii) how can an answer to this question be used to think further about other forms of community formation? 6.3.1  The city (polis) as a spatially specific structure of interactions In the 1930s Wirth (1956) came up with a definition of the city. To identify ‘particular characteristics of the city as a particular form of human association’ (Wirth 1956: 112) he was looking for ‘distinguishing characteristics of urban life’ (ibid.) or ‘the urban mode of living’ (Wirth 1956: 111). He suggested referring to the following characteristics and their relation as basic elements for determining what a city is – namely the ‘size of the population aggregate’, permanency9 as well as density of interactions and heterogeneity (of individuals as well as of group life).10 The size of the population and density inevitably lead to heterogeneity. To cope with and possibly to take an advantage of the latter –

108   Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry and thereby to bring about and to secure permanency – a particular ‘system of social organization’ as well as certain ‘forms of collective behavior’ and distinctive ‘mechanisms of social control’ are necessary which are essential for ‘urbanism as a characteristic mode of life’ (Wirth 1956: 126). This general but systematic attempt to define characteristics of urbanism can be helpful in different respects for spelling out presuppositions behind particular ideas of the relationship between territoriality and democracy. This applies in particular to the phases of the transformations of democracy postulated by Dahl (1994) which are connected with changes in the spatial-­territorial context of self­government. So the first democratic transformation – referred to by Dahl as the formation of the polis-­democracy – is linked to the formation of what Wirth (1956: 116) called ‘relatively large, dense, and permanent settlements’. The polis-­democracy is characterized particularly by an ethical ‘densification’ which was internally structured in a hierarchical way and based on clear delineation between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ as well as clear rules for inclusion and exclusion – in particular in respect to free persons (‘freemen’) who enjoyed full citizenship. 6.3.2  The construction of density in the nation state and in a post-­ national constellation The territorially extended nation state – which requires according to Dahl a second democratic transformation – self-­evidently demonstrates characteristics of a large population and heterogeneity. In particular, density had to be realized in a broader spatial-­territorial sense freed from the spatial-­local context of a city, and also had to be newly conceptualized in relation to democratic self-­ government. This had been achieved by the concept of the nation state and the status of the individual deduced from the concept of the nation state. The latter structures the relationship between individuals and with the community as a whole. The fact this had been achieved and density had been created in a new sense depended crucially on the formation of collective identity, and – as elaborated by Kielmansegg (1996: 55) – communities of communication, experience and memory are essential to build, stabilize and reproduce collective identity. But it has to be emphasized that the concept of the nation state and the corresponding status of individuals differ markedly, or did at the time they were created. According to Schieder (1966), European nation states can be distinguished by whether they evolved from: • • •

(more or less) revolutionary transformations of absolutist monarchic regimes (which applies to France and England but also to the Netherlands) a merger of small principalities and kingdoms supported by (civil) unification movements (such as in Germany and Italy) or older transnational empires (such as Russia, the Ottoman Empire and the Austrian-­Hungarian Empire), either after they collapsed or through secession.

Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry   109 These differences have (had) relevance for building, stabilizing and reproducing communities of communication, experience and memory as well as a collective identity resulting from them. They have also been relevant for concepts of commonality leading to the formation of a sense of togetherness – and in this respect density. In the case of those European nation states which evolved from revolutionary transformations, these concepts find expression in fundamental normative beliefs materialized in constitutionally underpinned human and civil rights. In the other two cases of the formation of a nation state, ethno-­cultural commonalities of a people (or its ‘spirit’) are essential, and are expressed in terms of descent, language and cultural traditions. These factors clearly affect concepts of citizenship. For instance, the ‘jus sanguinis’ stressing descent determines the acquisition of citizenship in states which evolved through unification or secession. By way of contrast, the ‘jus soli’, for which the place of birth is significant for acquiring citizenship, is relevant in states like France, the UK and the Netherlands (Heinelt 1994: 20). What constitutes the challenges for the formation of a political community and identity within the constellation of a flexible political geometry, i.e. a political system structured in a vertical sense by layered territorial units complemented by functionally determined (sectoral) political entities, if the characteristics of a city and its specific form of community formation, as developed by Wirth, are taken into account? Can these characteristics be conceptualized in a way that is helpful for redefining democratic self-­government not only beyond a city but also beyond a nation state? The characteristics of a large population and of heterogeneity undoubtedly exist in different forms and represent, especially in certain combinations, a problem for a flexible political geometry beyond the nation state. Permanency or durability as a further element in a social and political order does not automatically emerge in such a flexible political geometry. But this also applies to the historical formation of the polis and the nation state. Durability of the structures of their social and political order had to be created, taking into account the density of interactions of a large and heterogeneous population. It is density which on the one hand leads – given the large population – to heterogeneity. However, on the other hand, density is the essential stimulus for the formation of a social and political order. Although the forms of density have changed in the historical formation of the polis and the nation state, two attributes remain identical. One is the density of interactions, which has been crucial for the formation of a political community and identity related to the polis, and is still shaping the understanding of democracy that emphasizes direct participation, not just participating in elections. The second attribute of density is more abstract. It highlights commonality and cohesion – in heterogeneity. This attribute had to be developed for the political community and identity linked to the nation state and has materialized on the one hand in ‘modern’ concepts of citizenship and on the other in ideas of democracy based on the equality of citizens in elections to representative bodies. Through these characteristics or constructions of density it became possible for durability (the fourth core element in Wirth’s concept of urbanism or ‘urban

110   Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry life’) to be brought about for the political order of the polis as well as for that of the nation state. These reflections suggest that the two attributes of density are essential for the formation of a flexible political geometry. In other words, how does density in the context of a changed spatial configuration appear or how, against the background of a changed spatial configuration, must it be re-­conceptualized in order to indicate the direction in which one should look for a new formation of the foundations of self-­government or for a re-­definition of self-­government? Starting with the density of interactions it can be observed that interactions in economic, social and political terms are moving out of the ‘container’ spaces of territorially determined (governmental) jurisdictions of the nation state. And this is happening in quite dense forms. This is what is meant by ‘spaces of relation’, referred to earlier. In the dense relationship of interactions, forms of functional as well as civil interest intermediation can develop which are not, per se, bound to governmental units or focused on governmental decisions or those of representative bodies linked to particular territorial entities. Heterogeneity in ‘spaces of relation’ can be reduced in scope through forms of functional as well as civil interest intermediation – often related to issues or the coverage of the decisions which have to be taken. For instance, with a limited scope of a regulation both the number of actors involved and their heterogeneity can be reduced. However, in general, nowadays heterogeneity is increasing due to growing interdependencies in everyday life and the functional differentiation of policy arenas. This leads to a fragmentation in public discussion on such topics as regulation which can no longer be ‘ordered’ in a comprehensive way by territorially based governmental units. In addition, it is open to question whether durability in the heterogeneous and differentiated arenas for a political co-­ordination of actions can be achieved. However, the question can also be raised whether durability in functionally and thematically oriented and aligned arenas for a political co-­ordination of actions is necessary or even reasonable. Instead, depending on the issue or scope of action, a temporary density of interaction can be sufficient to: • •

bring about (at the level of second order governing) societally binding decisions on particular issues of co-­ordination through functional interest intermediation (as in technical standardization; see Gentschel 1995), and create (at the level of meta governing) ‘visions’ or paradigms and a related linguistic coding of problem definitions and appropriate ways to solve them through civil interest intermediation (for instance, with respect to environmentally sound behaviour of enterprises).

It can be left over to action arenas at the level of first order governing to ensure in daily interaction the effectiveness of decisions on particular issues and of a linguistic coding of problem definitions and appropriate ways to solve them. However, it will depend on the demand of actors at this level to ensure the effectiveness of decisions and of a particular linguistic coding of problem definitions.

Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry   111 Fragmentation of the co-­ordination of interaction and temporary constellation of actors for reaching consent about basic rules for co-­ordination may be particular challenges to be addressed in a flexible political geometry in a post-­national constellation. But the extent and degree of the density of interaction can – particularly due to their spatial reach – make actors aware of interdependency and the risk of harmful impacts of own activities (see Willke 1992: 61, 68). This can help to include a possible risk of self-­harm as a result of selfish or narrow-­ minded actions as well as negative externalities in actors’ own calculations. This provides an opportunity to transform ‘external forces’ (Fremdzwang) into ‘internal forces’ (Selbstzwang). In this context it should be emphasized that external forces – according to the traditional understanding of statehood – are exerted by the state or governmental bodies through law-­based norm setting and enforcement to bring about ‘common goods’ or even ‘universal interests’ and to prevent negative externalities. However, the transformation of ‘external forces’ into ‘internal forces’ has also to be highlighted as a crucial aspect of civilization (see Elias 1994: 503ff.). Nevertheless, against the background of a distinctive heterogeneity of arenas of (inter)actions in the context of a flexible political geometry cohesion and commonality are decisive. In relation to the limitations of nation states to form and secure a social and political order, this second aspect of density requires re-­ consideration. First of all, the potential of meta governance can be taken into account, i.e. the development of a common understanding of causality as well as of normative standards of appropriateness. Basically, it is about an agreement on something held in common, but may be also on what is contested. In any case, the aforementioned processes of accommodation rest on the awareness of mutual dependency in realizing possible gains from co-­ordination and co-­operation – but the dependency on co-­ordination and co-­operation as well as the distribution of their possible effects need not be the same for all those involved. The experiences of the deep interdependency as a result of the density of interactions can play an important role in enhancing awareness of mutual dependency. In addition, the dense processes of media communication are crucial. This becomes clear, for example, in the debates about climate change or health risks through epidemics such as SARS or bird flu. Such processes of accommodation point to public reasoning anchored in the communication structures of the lifeworld in which particularly forms of civil interest intermediation are vital.11 Furthermore, statuses linked to citizenship may lose relevance in generating cohesion and commonality in the context of heterogeneity. However, they do not become obsolete. The same applies to public force which can be used by nation states to establish and secure statuses linked to citizenship. Nevertheless, the reflections (in Section 2.6.1) on new statuses which can develop complementary to the traditional rights guaranteed by the state have to be taken into account. Although they can be codified ex post and assured by the state, processes of mutual ascription and respect for rights rooted in society are crucial for them. These rights result from standards of appropriateness related to the processes of

112   Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry meta governing but they also open up opportunities for participating in arguments about such standards as well as in struggles in the other two ‘worlds of democratic action’, that is, in the context of second order governing in which institutional structures of the political order and policies are addressed and at the level of first order governing, the sphere of implementation.

6.4  Statehood beyond the territorial or nation state 6.4.1  How to define statehood beyond the territorial or nation state? Combining research on ‘governing beyond the state’ and on state institutions is confronted with at least one crucial challenge: reflections on state institutions need to move beyond a traditional understanding of statehood linked to the territorial or nation state. The nation state is clearly embedded both vertically and horizontally in institutional settings and actor constellations in which its ability to co-­ordinate societal interactions in a binding way is questioned. The multi-­ level governance approach addresses this challenge in helping us to analyse and to understand what is going on in such institutional settings and actor constellations. But taking the literature on multi-­level governance (or network governance) into account, one gets the impression that, together with questioning the relevance of the territorial or nation state, reflections on the institutionalization of statehood beyond these traditional forms and notions of the state have been lost. Therefore, it seems appropriate to reflect on the basic functions of statehood and to put into perspective those notions of statehood bound to the specific form of the territorial or nation state. Frank Nullmeier (2007) has provided some initial ideas for such an endeavour. He suggests starting from ‘political units’ and asking which functions they need to fulfill to ascribe to such ‘units’ the attribute of statehood. According to him these functions are the monopolization of: • • • • • •

the legitimate use of force law-­making (and – beyond Nullmeier – the formation of societally binding rules can be added) law enforcement (and – again beyond Nullmeier – the enforcement of rules in general) levying economic resources (taxation) intervening in economic processes legitimation by a community (Kolektivität; Nullmeier 2007: 12) related to the ‘political unit’ constituted through a process of free and public collective self-­definition (Nullmeier 2007: 10).

The last function is crucial insofar as a ‘political unit’ can (according to Nullmeier 2007) be seen as a kind of statehood only if it relies on a ‘collective’ or ‘entity’ of actors, a ‘unity of persons of a certain size’ or ‘association of persons’

Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry   113 (Personenverband) – or, in general, an ‘associative unit’ (Verbandseinheit; Nullmeier 2007: 12). To put it precisely, according to Nullmeier statehood is not only based on the monopolization of the functions listed above. In addition, the ‘associative unit’ has to be considered to which the monopolization of the functions is related. If it is assumed that the monopolization of these six functions as well as the associative quality of such ‘political units’ is not per se bound to territoriality12 but can also be exercised by functionally determined entities, one can distinguish between territorial and functional statehood. While territorial statehood regulates a variety of tasks in a territorial political context, by way of contrast, functional statehood is linked to the regulation of a particular task without being linked to the governing of other tasks (see Nullmeier 2007: 7). Against the background of the widely discussed fragmentation as well as interdependencies in modern societies, it cannot be assumed that a monopolization of the six key functions occurs either in the form of an overarching monopoly or in the form of territorial or functional statehood. Instead, functional equivalents of monopolies have to be built by agreements, cartels or oligopolies which are found empirically in institutionalized bargaining arrangements as well as more specifically in federal systems or the multi-­level structure of the EU. The latter is an example where different territorial levels of statehood are integrated vertically and at the same time are usually linked horizontally with functional forms of statehood – and (as is shown in the next section) these settings also differ between individual policies. Only through such agreements, cartels or oligopolies can a monopolization of the key functions be achieved.13 As a consequence of the focus on the monopolization of the aforementioned functions, which can be reached and secured only by means of functional equivalents of monopolies, as well as the associative character of ‘political units’, territoriality, autonomy and sovereignty lose their character as defining elements of the concept of a state (Nullmeier 2007: 15). But the crucial question is whether or not besides monopolization of the legitimate use of force, of law making and enforcement, of levying economic resources and of intervening in economic processes, monopolization of the last (the sixth) function characterizing ‘political units’ as a form of statehood is also reached, namely legitimation by an ‘associative unit’ constituted (according to Nullmeier) through free and public collective self-­definition. However, before addressing this question, another question has to be answered, namely how can such an ‘associative unit’ be defined? To answer this question, we are confronted with a similar problem to that discussed earlier (in Section 4.3.4) on Abromeit’s proposal for veto rights. According to this proposal (Abromeit 1998: 95–135), units defined sectorally should also get veto rights, and the question arises: how to define such ‘sectoral demoi’? But in addressing the question ‘how to define an “associative unit”?’ one can argue that the situation is different because such ‘associative units’ constitute themselves (according to Nullmeier’s definition) through free and public collective self-­definition – and therefore through a societal process. However, as argued earlier with

114   Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry r­ eference to Ostrom’s IAD framework (see Section 2.6.2), in relation to Abromeit’s proposal, it may be conceptually helpful to consider the particular action arena in which such a ‘associative unit’ is interacting or to which it is related. Just as it cannot be assumed that action arenas – structured by particular ‘attributes of the physical world’ and certain ‘attributes of the community’, as well as by the ‘rules in use’ which determine the opportunities to enter the action arena and to act in it in a specific way – develop from scratch, so it cannot be supposed that an ‘associative unit’ related to this arena appears out of nowhere. Instead, its formation has to be considered as a process in which the governing orders (as described in Section 2.5) are crucial for the re-­formation of ‘rules in use’ and the linked recognition of statuses of actors forming an ‘associative unit’. In this respect meta governing is crucial for developing ideas why it is appropriate to constitute and involve such an ‘associative unit’ and second order governing has to determine the rules for their functioning. At the level of first order governing it must be shown how and why an ‘associative unit’ of this kind has to acquire a particular status. Thus the formation of an ‘associative unit’ is indeed a public process and it is free in the sense that it depends on collective choices – but not just of a collective self-­definition of those forming this ‘associative unit’ but of a much broader (policy) community. When an ‘associative unit’ has been built, then the initial question (raised above) of how it can furnish legitimation can be addressed. Drawing on the argument put forward by Nullmeier, legitimation refers to the support and the willingness to comply on the part of those who form the ‘associative unit’ to which the monopolization of all six functions is related. Such support and willingness to comply can be expressed explicitly. But (going beyond Nullmeier’s reflections) as a minimum criterion for fulfilling the function of legitimation, one can state that the exercise of the other functions by political units of territorial or functional statehood should not be seriously challenged by the ‘associative unit’. Thus legitimation, expressed either explicitly or implicitly by not substantially questioning the exercise of the functions of statehood, can be reached and maintained by input legitimation through different forms of participation, by output legitimation through reaching desired effects of political interventions and by throughput legitimation through transparent policy-­making processes and the understanding of the reasons why certain political decisions have been taken and others have not. To reach a ‘co-­ordinated public policy’ an interplay between all the six mentioned functions is needed. Theoretically, this can be reached only by an interplay between different levels of territorial statehood. But usually for maintaining the monopolization of the aforementioned function as well as their interplay territorial and functional political units have to interact in a particular way. This typically occurs in tripartite neo-­corporatist arrangements (of capital, labour and state), but also in certain forms of health policy, or more specifically, in public health care or in the area of technical standardization, and obviously in EU policies (as is shown in Section 6.4.3). Figure 6.2 is an attempt to illustrate this graphically in respect to the EU. The ellipses indicate the possibilities for carrying out the individual functions in

Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry   115 Territorial statehood EU

National

Subnational

Functional statehood Function A

Function B

Monopoly over use of force Monopoly over taxation Monopoly over law making Monopoly over law enforcing Monopoly over intervening in economic processes

Monopoly over legitimation

Figure 6.2 Linkages between territorial and functional statehood in the EU (source: modified according to Nullmeier 2007: 10).

institutionalized forms by combining different forms of territorial and functional statehood. So a monopolization of the legitimate use of force can be exercised within the context of the EU by the EU institutions together with the national level of the member states – based on contractual agreements between the nation states forming the EU. A monopolization of levying economic resources is accomplished in the member states. In federal systems, such as Germany, it is reached by regulations fixed in the constitution or by law. Additionally, arrangements have to be considered by which – based on laws passed at the national (or subnational) level of territorial statehood – economic resources can be levied by functionally determined political units to fulfil their particular tasks, such as the services provided by chambers of commerce funded by contributions from enterprises which are collected and administered by the chambers themselves. The monopolization of law-­making (not to consider the societal formation of norm) – if not undertaken solely by the national level of territorial statehood – can either take the form of a federal system where it is achieved through the clear distribution of competences between the national and subnational level or of the EU multi-­level system where competences are defined and shared between the EU and the national level of the member states. The monopolization of law enforcement (again beyond the enforcement of norms in general) is usually accomplished by joint efforts by different levels of territorial statehood, including the EU and with a particular role for the sub­ national level of statehood which is nearest to the ‘world of action’ where the application of law has to take place and compliance has to be ensured. However, to effectively accomplish the enforcement of law, different levels of ­territorial

116   Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry statehood can delegate this task to functionally determined political units which are then responsible for ensuring compliance in a particular sector of society. In a similar way, one can think about the monopolization of intervening in economic processes. But in this case the subnational level and functionally determined political units are less relevant and the importance of the EU has increased over time. In thinking about the monopolization of legitimation one has first of all to consider the input legitimation that representative bodies and governments of political units at various levels of territorial statehood acquired through elections. This legitimation can be transferred by agreements at these levels to other levels of territorial statehood either ‘upwards’ (as with the EU or in federal systems) or ‘downwards’ (as in cases of devolution or decentralization) in order to strengthen the legitimation of the political units at the level to which legitimation is transferred. In addition, political units at different levels of territorial statehood can transfer legitimation acquired by elections to political units of functional statehood to enable them to exercise or to strengthen their exercise of state functions. But at the same time, legitimation acquired by political units of functional statehood through different kinds of participation can contribute to the monopolization of legitimation in a political arena in which a ‘co-­ordinated public policy’ has to be achieved. Furthermore, the acquisition of output legitimation through an achievement of politically intended effects (i.e. through effectiveness) can essentially depend on a joint (an ‘oligopolistic’) exercise of state functions in which political units of territorial and functional statehood are involved. Whether or not throughput legitimation is obtained depends crucially on the transparency of these ‘monopolies’. Furthermore, for obtaining throughput legitimation these ‘monopolies’ have to ensure that reasons for a particular exercise of the monopolized functions are given and publicly justified. 6.4.2  A flexible political geometry through co-­existence between territorial and functional forms of statehood If the core of a flexible political geometry is seen as a political structure formed by vertically layered territorial political units which are supplemented by functionally determined political units, which are not bound to territorial levels, but that span across them, then this fits with the Nullmeier’s considerations about the co-­existence of territorial and functional statehood. Nullmeier’s considerations as well as those on a flexible political geometry are focused on a structure of coupled political systems in which problems are taken up and addressed by different spatially related political units depending on specific and in most cases spatially determined challenges, as well as the means to address them. First of all, one can talk meaningfully about statehood with respect to different vertically layered territorial units only when they obtain a monopolization of all six functions and are also related to an ‘associative unit’ of actors. However, it is essential – as emphasized by Nullmeier – that units of territorial statehood can usually obtain the monopolization of the aforementioned six functions only

Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry   117 through ‘agreements’ or through particular institutionalized forms of a joint exercise of functions. The characteristic of an ‘association of actors’ of the units of territorial statehood is created through citizenship and the associated construction of cohesion and commonality in heterogeneity. Furthermore, in several action areas (or policy fields) the monopolization of functions is only possible through individual functional forms of statehood. Going beyond Nullmeier’s account, it is vital to point out that functional forms of statehood require support from territorial statehood for the monopolization of all six functions. This is generally true for legitimation and the use of force in any action area, but can also apply to the other functions (not least for the levying of economic resources). Here an important role is taken on by second order governing, though framed by communication processes at the level of meta governing. In addition, political units can only be defined as ‘functional states’ if they are linked to an ‘associative unit’. Such ‘associative units’ can be formed from the density of interactions in an action arena. However, normally this requires support from territorial statehood through which cohesion and commonality among actors in a particular functionally defined sphere are constructed or existing interactions are strengthend by support leading to a more organized or structured form of interactions. The formation of an ‘associative unit’ may occur through such support from territorial units of territorial statehood or societally due to the density of interactions. In either case it results in the establishment of a particular status of actors. Such statuses enable the participants in an action area to become members of the ‘associative unit’ and to influence the operation of the corresponding functional forms of statehood. This is the linchpin for establishing participatory rights, and second order governing takes on a significant role for the formation of ‘associative units’. But also for the monopolization of the six mentioned functions provision from units of territorial state is required. With reference to ‘associative units’, reflections on a ‘global political structure building’ and the ‘emergence of global statehood’ (see, for example, Albert and Schmalz-­Bruns 2008) have to be taken on board. Without a doubt the development of a ‘global public sphere’ and the formation of the ‘semantics of a global community’, a related ‘logic of community’ and ‘elements of a normative grammar of statehood’ can be interpreted as indications for the formation of an ‘associative unit’ to which a territorially defined ‘global statehood’ would have to refer. However, this has not yet evolved. As a result, Figure 6.2 shows no global unit in the column for ‘territorial statehood’.14 6.4.3  Co-­existence between territorial and functional forms of statehood in particular EU policies As mentioned earlier (in Section 5.2.1), the multi-­level governance approach has been developed with strong reference to the case of EU structural funds. In a similar way, environment policy is seen as an EU policy characterized by

118   Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry ­ ulti-­level governance (see Section 5.2.2). Also the two (ideal) types of multi-­ m level systems distinguished by Hooghe and Marks (see Section 6.2.2) can be found in these two policies. But do they really appear in the same form in other EU policies – or in different combinations? This question is taken up by developing the arguments presented in the last section and applying them to the multi-­level system (or flexible political geometry) of the EU, more precisely to different EU policies. EU policies are considered because it can be shown that within them the monopolization of the six basic functions of statehood is distributed in different ways over various territorial layers of statehood and among territorial and functional forms of statehood (graphically outlined in Figure 6.2) to reach a co-­ordinated public policy. First of all, the enforcement of law (and of rules) and its monopolization play a crucial role because in ensuring compliance with and the application of political decisions it has to be shown whether or not ‘system effectiveness’ and self-­ determination is achieved. The achievement of ‘system effectiveness’ and self-­determination is the reason why monopolies are formed for the legitimate use of force, law-­making, levying economic resources, intervention in the economic sphere, as well as legitimation. Implementation and the shaping of policy content through its application is usually found at the local level. This is clearly the case in relation to the EU structural funds and EU environment policy (see, for instance, Heinelt and Smith 1996; Heinelt et al. 2001a; Heinelt and Smith 2003; Heinelt et al. 2005a). But the fact that the application of policies happens in a particular place should not (as argued in Section 2.5 in discussing first order governing) lead to the conclusion to locate this place at the local level. For example, the implementation of EU competition policy happens at specific places. This is where the regulatory content of competition policy has to be enforced in relation to enterprises and public territorial units. But these places are spatially disconnected from the local contexts where the regulations should have an impact, namely from the different production sites or the market transactions. The same applies to EU monetary policy15 and the EU’s foreign trade policy where, as in the case of competition policy, the WTO plays a crucial role.16 These examples demonstrate that co-­ordinated public policy in the EU is not always embedded in a multi-­level system like in the cases of EU environment policy and the EU structural funds, although the latter is seen as a ‘classical’ feature of the EU, a system characterized by a structure of layered territorial levels (from the subnational via the national to the EU level) to which functionally determined political units or private/societal actors are linked. Instead, EU policies can be seen to have been formed as a co-­ordinated public policy through a multi-­level system in which both the subnational and the national territorial levels play a limited role in the monopolization of the legitimate use of force, of law-­making and enforcement, of levying economic resources and intervention in the economic sphere as well as of legitimation and the interplay between these functions of statehood, as it can be exemplified in the case of monetary policy in the Euro zone.

Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry   119 What differences can be detected between EU policies with respect to the monopolization and interplay between the aforementioned functions? And how is it possible to characterize multi-­level systems which do not match with the ‘classical’ features of the EU multi-­level system observed in the examples of the EU structural funds and EU environment policy? In the ‘classical’ example of an EU multi-­level system in the field of the structural funds, the monopoly for the legitimate use of force is reached and secured by common regulations between the member states and between them and the EU. However, if it has to be exercised17 it is by interventions of the individual member states through their subnational agencies. The levying of economic resources (by taxation) is undertaken by the national level and, under certain circumstances, also by the subnational level of the member states. The monopolization of law-­making for these funds and the transfer of this monopoly to the EU level are regulated by contracts between the member states. Legitimation is monopolized on the one hand by a codified decision-­making procedure between the Council and the European Parliament. On the other hand, it is monopolized through the participation of subnational and societal actors in programme planning and the implementation of operational programmes according to the ‘partnership principle’ as well as partly in decision-­making at the EU level. With respect to the EU structural funds, a monopoly designed to allow interventions in the economic sphere has been established and handed over to the European Commission again by contracts between the member states. The European Commission allows, in the context of competition, policy intervention in favour of individual enterprises or other actors in the economic sphere. Apart from regulations on competition, the monopoly of law or rule enforcement refers in the field of the EU structural funds to the application of funding rules and procedurally oriented rules for the interactions of actors involved in programme planning and the implementation of operational programmes. Differences in the application of these rules between the member states (see Section 5.2.1) demonstrate that governmental actors at the national and subnational levels do have, together with societal actors, a fair amount of discretion to determine in a binding way which and how economic and social effects should be realized and which are seen as relevant for a particular spatial context. There are a number of differences between the structural funds and EU environmental policy (see Section 5.2.2), although the latter is usually also seen as a policy embedded in a ‘classical’ multi-­level system. EU environment policy, like environment policy in the member states, is (as outlined in Section 5.2.2) composed of different sub-­policies. This is the reason why a monopolization of the functions emphasized by Nullmeier is in the end only possible at a general level, such as the monopoly of the legitimate use of force, or in a segmented way when it comes to concrete forms of these functions and their monopolization. Therefore, a co-­ordinated public policy in a multi-­level system is, in the case of environment policy, achievable only for individual sub-­policies. However, the diagnosis that EU environment policy has severe problems of implementation (referred to in Section 5.2.2) can be taken as an indication of a difficult or failed

120   Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry monopolization – especially of the functions of law-­making and rule enforcement. Moreover, the diagnosis that these problems of implementation are related to a specific politicization in this policy area and to strong political struggles – or a ‘regulatory competition’ (Héritier et al. 1996) – may indicate fundamental problems in trying to operate for this policy a multi-­level system in which a co-­ ordinated public policy is made possible through a monopolization of the aforementioned range of functions and their interplay. In monetary policy – especially in the Euro zone – a co-­ordinated public policy has been achieved because the essential functions of territorial statehood have been transferred by contracts between member states to a functional political unit at the European level, namely, the European Central Bank. Nevertheless, this functional political unit is integrated in a dense web of relations with the finance ministers and the national central banks of the Euro zone states as well as with the Ecofin Council. The great efforts to achieve co-­ordination indicate the level of challenge to reach and secure a monopolization of the range of aforementioned functions (not least that of legitimation) and their interplay. Because EU monetary policy is placed in an international context, one can argue that a multi-­level system is created that still includes to a limited extent the national level but which is extended ‘upwards’. A similarly ‘upwards’ extended European multi-­level system can be found in the case of foreign trade policy (for such a erweitertes europäisches Mehrebenensystem, see Knodt 2005) in which interaction with the WTO is essential, but the national level plays only a minor role and the subnational level no role at all in the development of a co-­ordinated public policy. With the more limited relevance of the international level (compared with the two cases mentioned before), EU competition policy is also embedded in a multi­level system which extends ‘upwards’ and at the same time includes the national level to a limited extent and the subnational level not at all. Therefore, at least two types of multi-­level systems can be detected in EU policies – namely: •

•

‘classical’ EU multi-­level systems consisting of layered subnational and national territorial political units and the EU level with horizontal relations to functionally determined political units (collective or corporate societal actors) ‘upwards’ extended EU multi-­level systems to the international level, which include the national level but are typified by a bundling together of functions by EU institutions and functionally determined political units at the European level without the involvement of territorial and functional political units at the subnational level.

Whereas the EU structural funds represent the ‘classical’ case for the first type of a multi-­level system, the monetary, foreign trade and competition policies reflect the second type of EU multi-­level systems under which the common foreign and security policy can also be subsumed. Whilst EU environment policy

Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry   121 can be seen to be another ‘classical’ case, this policy tends to fragment into individual sub-­policies with different features with respect to the monopolization of the legitimate use of force, of law-­making and enforcement, of levying economic resources and interventions in the economic sphere and of legitimation, as well as to the interplay of these functions which is necessary to reach a ‘co-­ordinated public policy’. Furthermore, education policy can be placed in the first type of an EU multi-­level system because, despite the fact that subnational territorial units do not have competences in this in education policy in all EU member states, the monopolization of law enforcement depends in this policy field heavily on the involvement of subnational territorial political units. This also applies to EU gender policy for which the local level is not only essential for enforcing legal norms but also for asserting normative standards of appropriateness by societal actors or, more precisely, civil society organizations. When the question is raised whether subnational political units are essential for ensuring a monopolization of the range of the aforementioned functions and their interplay, it becomes clear that this does not apply in all cases. As shown above, they do not play an essential part in competition policy. Obviously, effects to be achieved in the policy fields of consumer protection, agriculture, health, traffic, and labour and employment have to be reached in a specific spatial context. But with respect to the monopolization of law-­making, law enforcement, taxation and legitimation (not to mention the monopolization of the legitimate use of force and intervention in the economic sphere), territorial or functional political units located at a subnational level are not per se required. Therefore, a third type of EU multi-­level systems can be identified, which can be called ‘downward’ shortened EU multi-­level systems where the subnational level is less or not essential. A fourth pattern of a multi-­level system appears in the case of EU development policy. In this case, one can talk about an ‘outward’ extended EU multi-­ level system because it operates only in non-­EU countries with the national and to an increasing degree subnational level of the territorial state as well as with functional political units in these countries. The latter are comprised of the ‘endogenous’ civil society but also of international actors involved in development policy. As in the case of the ‘upwards’ extended multi-­level systems, a bundling of functions by EU institutions can also be detected in this type of a multi-­level system. In Figure 6.3 different EU policies are assigned to these four types of multi-­ level systems. It can thus be shown that the ‘classical’ type of an EU multi-­level system – mainly developed from scrutiny of the EU structural funds – is not the most common. The political geometry of the EU is much more differentiated than is suggested when it is said that the EU is characterized by a multi-­level system (in the singular). Indeed, the EU shows a flexible political geometry because different multi-­level systems have been developed to address the basic challenge – namely, to reach co-­ordinated public policies at a time when it is not possible to leave this task to the state. Instead, the basic functions of statehood, i.e. the legitimate use of force, law-­making and enforcement, levying economic

122   Multi-level systems and flexible power geometry

‘Classical’ EU multi-level systems

‘Upwards’ extended EU multi-level systems

‘Downward’ shortened EU multi-level systems

‘Outward’ extended EU multi-level system

Structural funds

Common foreign and security policy

Consumer protection

Development policy

Environment policy

Foreign trade policy

Agricultural policy

Education policy

Monetary policy

Traffic policy

Gender policy

Competition policy

Health policy Labour and employment policy

Figure 6.3 Different types of EU multi-level systems (source: based on Heinelt and Knodt 2008: 318).

resources, intervention in the economic sphere and legitimation, have to be monopolized beyond as well as within the territorial state. This also means that these functions have to be exercised by political units spread across different territorial levels as well as across functionally determined spheres sometimes cross­cutting the territorial levels. This has to be done in a flexible way depending on the kind of problem, as well as perspectives around it and the means to solve it. But the problem, the perspectives and the means have to be defined by political processes captured in the notion of meta governing. Second order governing must take concrete binding decisions on the monopolization of functions of statehood by the member states and at the EU level to address the problem at hand in a particular manner. Finally, first order governing determines whether the monopolization of state functions can be exercised in this manner.

7 Perspectives

This book started from the diagnosis that in modern societies the sphere of governance extends far beyond a state- or government-­centred vision of policy-­ making. Against this background it is argued that it has to be asked how this extension of policy-­making into society can be used to expand democratic self-­ determination rather than to see it as a limitation to democracy. More precisely, it has been argued that it is a political task to turn the inevitability of governance into a participatory form. To assess the democratic quality of participatory governance, the following elements have been defined and taken into account: • • • • •

its openness and accessibility the quality of deliberation taking place within it its effectiveness (meaning actually achieving the objectives determined by collective decisions) links to the public sphere the making and enforcement of rules for these governance arrangements through direct or indirect democratic decisions taken by those who are affected by policy outputs emerging from the governance arrangements.

7.1  The ‘three worlds of democratic action’ and perspectives of participatory governance One way in which the extension of policy-­making into society can be used to expand democratic self-­determination is addressed through the conceptualization outlined earlier of the ‘three worlds of democratic action’. To begin with, the core elements of democracy, as defined by Follesdal (1998), need to be taken into consideration: 1) institutionally established procedures that regulate 2) competition for control over political authority, 3) on the basis of deliberation, 4) where nearly all adult citizens are permitted to participate in 5) an electoral ­mechanism where their expressed preferences over alternative candidates

124   Perspectives determine the outcome, 6) in such ways that the government is responsive to the majority or to as many as possible. (Follesdal and Hix 2005: 14–15) This definition does cover the traditional understanding of representative democracy. However, it also emphasizes the fifth of the aforementioned elements for assessing the democratic character of participatory governance. Within the concept of the ‘three worlds of democratic action’, it refers to the ‘world’ which has been called (following Kooiman) second order governing. Second order governing is also important if and how new decisions are reached in reaction to the failure of previous political decisions taken in this ‘world of democratic action’. Flowing from this, the enforcement of rules is located also in this ‘world of democratic action’. This is of vital importance as it cannot be assumed that the openness and accessibility of participatory action arenas and their connection to the public (the first and fourth of the criteria for assessing the democratic character of participatory governance) develop endogenously from society. The same applies to a certain durability of participative action arenas and their capacity to co-­ordinate interactions in case of conflict. Decisions or sanctions at the level of second order governing can be crucial in these instances. Enforcement of rules of participatory governance arrangements cannot be left solely to the ‘world’ of first order governing, since it does not just include those spheres of implementation where the administration is directly involved and can apply sanctions. Rather, first order governing also covers areas where social actors implement relatively autonomous policies. In these areas, the rights of individual actors can be created on the basis of mutual dependency and mutual recognition of the rules of interaction, particularly those which allow for participation. Nonetheless, the rights of actors are confined to the context from which they have emerged. This can contribute to the effectiveness of these rights but can also restrict their coverage to particular situations or constellations. Second order governing is not predicated just on participation in the form of voting and majoritarian decision-­making (through representative bodies). At this level the democratic quality of political decisions also needs to be measured by the scale of deliberation, which is the third item in Follesdal’s definition of democracy and in this book is also construed as a key criterion for the assessment of participatory governance. In this context emphasis should be put on the aspect – as argued by Follesdal and Hix (2005: 14–15) – that ‘competition for control over political authority [should take place] on the basis of deliberation’. This implies an understanding of democratic self-­governing by which political competition is not based solely on the majority of ballots cast. In fact, for matters put to the vote reasons should be publicly discussed and justified. In addition, according to this understanding of democracy, political competition is ‘framed’ by public debates about causality as well as normative standards of appropriateness in relation to the decisions which have to be taken. The debates on causality and normative standards of appropriateness are to be found in the world identified as meta governing. That these debates have to be

Perspectives   125 public seems obvious because they have to become hegemonic – otherwise they are unlikely to be seen as having societal relevance. From the aspect of a participatory design, it is significant that these debates that lead to meta governing have to be accessible. This should be emphasized because inaccessible debates held by elites or a ‘logocracy’ (Cohen and Sabel 1997: 330) governed by scientific expertise can also be hegemonic and therefore societally relevant. Therefore, the openness of and accessibility to the debates are vital to ensure the articulation of a wide range of views. To achieve this, ‘rules in use’ are essential and compliance should be overseen by authorities at the level of second order governing. Otherwise the possibility of particular choices of interpretation and of knowledge – and by this a formation of a specific knowledge order – could emerge, which in turn would have an influence on what is seen as appropriate for decisions in a multitude of action arenas at the levels of both first and second order governing. Involvement by individual citizens in the debate on assumptions about causality and normative standards of appropriateness for binding decisions, as well as in deliberation in the world of second order governing, is of great importance with respect to participatory governance – and even if it is no more than the adaptation and promotion by individual citizens of particular points of view and their representation in daily communications. The relevance of this is derived from both an ‘instrumental’ and a normative set of reasons. From an ‘instrumental’ point of view, standards of appropriateness have to be understood by citizens and should in principle be supported by the majority of them to ensure effectiveness with respect to the legitimation of political interventions – especially output legitimation, often disregarded in political science. When governing does bring about the intended effects, it has to be assumed that these effects have been demanded by the majority, i.e. are regarded as appropriate. Involvement by individual citizens in the debate on issues of meta governing is essential for normative reasons because individuals (as argued by Habermas 2007: 434) should not hand over to representatives or representative bodies decisions on ‘controversial interpretations of need’ addressing their understanding of themselves and the world. It is the key function of meta governing to tackle such controversial interpretations of need. In this respect it is not only sufficient but, taking account of the political resonance of debates, also crucial that individual citizens articulate their views in ordinary communications and in doing that they act as supporters and promoters of a particular position. An understanding of democratic self-­governing, the essence of which is that ‘collective decision-­making is to proceed deliberatively – by citizens advancing proposals and defending them with considerations that others, who are themselves free and equal, can acknowledge as reasons’ (Cohen and Sabel 1997: 327) – does not merely refer to the debate about assumptions about causality and normative standards of appropriateness (on the level of meta governing) and debate (the political competition) on the institutional and policy-­oriented arrangement of a political order (within second order governing). This understanding of democratic self-­determination according to the model of deliberative

126   Perspectives democracy extends also to the application of political decisions. Democratic self-­governing, in the sense of self-­determining, the political order and through it individuals’ own circumstances in life, also entails that the application of democratically formed decisions cannot be understood just as a hierarchical form of implementation. Rather, in the course of applying political decisions, reasons for an appropriate implementation have to be substantiated, particularly since implementation always requires interpretation as well as decision-­making because policy objectives are usually quite general and have to be applied to specific contexts. Against this background, participation in implementing political decisions is not only reasonable in ‘instrumental’ terms to prevent implementation deficits or failure by taking account of motives of policy addressees to ensure that they are willing to comply and by mobilizing their knowledge relevant for achieving the intended policy objectives. Participation in implementing political decisions is also sensible on normative grounds. The model of deliberative democracy can be applied, particularly at the level of first order governing, in the form of potentially very broad participation, as ‘deliberative problem-­solving is by its nature focused on addressing specific problems in local settings. Giving reasons under these conditions is, generally speaking, a matter of offering considerations recognized by others as pertinent to solving the problem at hand’ (Cohen and Sabel 1997: 330). It is, however, indisputable that, at the level of first order governing, a ‘logocracy’ can evolve consisting of members of administration – and in the private sector of managers who are geared toward short-­term economic performance – and ‘holders’ of expert knowledge. This has to be counteracted (as in the other two ‘worlds of democratic action’) by setting and securing rules, which ensure openness and accessibility especially with regard to the mobilization of local knowledge through broad participation as well as public debates providing for the exchange of ‘good reasons’. For the level of first order governing, it is important that effectiveness in the sense of a real self-­determination is provided and that participatory governance arrangements do not become mere ‘talking shops’. For this purpose, rules are crucial as they ensure decisions reached by deliberation are taken into account, including in those spheres of society shaped by functional interest intermediation. There is good reason to assume that, particularly in European societies integrated into the institutional structures of the EU, the shift from government to governance is leading in some respects to participatory governance beyond the (nation) state. Notably, inside some transnational sectoral publics (Eder et al. 1998) processes of meta governing can be observed, which strengthen the opportunities for participation by certain actors. This is linked to a variety of participatory practices in the field of first order governing. These practices rely on rules, formed by second order governing in the member states, and there are indications that these rules are copied by processes of ‘policy transfer’ between the member states. EU legislation supports such processes of transferring ‘good (participatory) practice’ from one member state to another. Additionally, the EU has played a significant role in the design of participatory governance arrange-

Perspectives   127 ments by creating and institutionally consolidating ‘holders’ by means of regulatory guidelines (Hilger 2008 tried to give an overview about such ‘engagement policies’). Furthermore, in environmental policy, consumer protection and equal opportunity policies, one can observe groups of actors being awarded statuses which indicate the evolution of new components of citizenship. However, in the context of the EU (not to mention political structures extending beyond it in spatial terms) it cannot be assumed that an institutional linkage between the three governing orders or the ‘three worlds of democratic action’ does exist as in a national state where such a linkage rests upon a specific connection between inclusion and deliberation. As argued by Habermas (2007: 435), only in the context of the nation state does a connection exist between the rights to communicate, form associations and participate in political elections. This connection ensures that the formation of public opinion has consequences. First and foremost the right to vote makes the political opinion of citizens crucial, based on their ‘yes’ and ‘no’ statements accumulated over time on the topics discussed in the public arena and programmatically sharpened in the competition between political parties. In fact, temporary and topical transnational publics (even in the EU) fall far below the potential for integration which national publics have. However, on the one hand, national publics are no longer locked away from each other (Habermas 2007: 436) or from temporary and topical transnational publics. On the other hand, it may be the case that national, as well as regional and local, publics can generate integration. The basis for the latter is the inability to lock themselves away from other people and a growing awareness of being dependent on each other. Therefore, in these contexts social challenges have to be resolved politically, not just at the national, regional or local level but also spatially specific occurrences of global challenges. If it is the case that national, regional and local publics cannot lock themselves away from each other, the prospects for achieving integration are enhanced as they can be established by loose coupling. However, this requires mechanisms that can bring about a reasonable level of coherence. Such coherence can be established through various publics, but this is not the only mechanism. In addition, coherence can also be achieved by coupling institutions, such as monitoring committees in the case of the structural funds, where interactions have to take place within a specific organizational context. As indicated earlier (in Section 5.3), coherence can also be achieved by the sanctioning power of different decision-­making bodies at the level of second order governing, located at various points within the flexible political geometry of a multi-­layered system. In conjunction with the various publics, these coherence mechanisms have to prove the validity of ‘images’, ideas and norms, through which a particular understanding of appropriate problem-­solving emerges that in turn informs the definitions of problems as well as the objectives of action and means of achieving goals. The same applies to rules for the exchange of information and for co-­ordinating actions, which by means of particular norms and procedures for interaction usually include formal and informal rights of participation.

128   Perspectives

7.2  The ‘regime composition’ of political systems and the perspective of complementarities between different sectors of interest intermediation By reflecting on the sector composition of political systems, one can become more sensitive for complementarities resulting from developments in the different sectors of interest intermediation, particularly from the sector based on civil interest intermediation. The core of these complementarities consists of how not only effectiveness, but first and foremost legitimation of political interventions in the sense of democratic self-­determination can be established and secured. In this respect, the challenge (outlined, for instance, by Habermas 2007: 443) to find institutional arrangements is addressed, which can secure democratic legitimation by adding means that meet the standards of deliberative democracy. Furthermore, if it is indeed true that the functioning of a rapidly changing, complex and interdependent society is essentially dependent on a variety of options then the reflections about complementarities between different forms of interest intermediation and varying forms of democracy and participation related to them are crucial insofar as they point to different ways to participate built into political systems. Thereby, problems of effectiveness as well as of legitimacy occurring in some parts of the political system could be solved or at least reduced. This kind of thinking presupposes the premise that democracy qualifies as a model for governing highly complex societies insofar as the modes of participation connected conceptionally to democracy are also means to secure the effectiveness and legitimacy of a political order and to facilitate a balance between input- and output-­orientated rationalizations of the political system. In this context beside input- and output legitimation, the dimension of throughput legitimation also has to be considered. It can be related to the democratic deficit attributed particularly to political processes in the EU but also in nation states, which is essentially an ‘accountability deficit’ (Lord 2001; Majone 1998). The fundamental requirements for producing accountability for political decisions are the transparency of the decision processes and access to information on the reasons for decisions. In other words, the key challenge is to open the ‘black box’ of the political system, in which input is converted into output. This makes it possible to achieve what has been described as throughput legitimation, that is, legitimation of political decisions (and the associated authorities) through transparency and traceability of decision-­making and their alternatives as well as their reasons. To guarantee this, interest intermediation based on civil society can play a significant role by offering fora for public debate on proposed solutions to problems and the reasons for decisions. To secure effective interest intermediation based not only on civil society but also on the sectors of territorial, administrative and functional interest intermediation, changes are necessary. Through these changes openness of and accessibility to governance arrangements needs to be ensured. Additionally, governance arrangements have to be related to the public

Perspectives   129 sphere. Finally, the effectiveness of participation in the sense of self-­determination has also to be ensured. For these purposes the remaining power of territorial statehood (see Peters and Pierre 2006) with the linked forms of territorial interest intermediation can be utilized for legitimized political intervention. This also allows for feedback through direct and indirect democratic decisions of voting citizens. In doing so, it is vital to connect in a reflexive way, in order to achieve effectiveness and legitimation, the levels of territorial interest intermediation with other forms of interest intermediation. To prevent or remove deficits in legitimation and effectiveness, it is essential to take into account what, in a particular territorial and functional context, is desired, known and perceived as achievable.

7.3  Linkages between debates about reforms and their possible complementarities As has been shown in respect to political changes as well as in debates about reforms at the local and EU level, ideas behind these changes and debates are, neither at the conceptual level nor in political practice, as conflictual as one might have initially assumed. Instead, it has been possible to identify linkages between reform perspectives and to point to complementarities of different forms of interest intermediation and of co-­ordinating interactions preferred by particular reform perspectives. This finding can be interpreted as a search taking place in political practice to address the fundamental tensions between effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy but can also be seen as an attempt to solve problems of responsiveness of decisions and of accountability. At the core of this search are processes of meta governing and, related to this, struggles about the hegemony of particular beliefs about factual and normative matters affecting problem definitions as well as action orientation. This search can also be related to what has been called meta-­governance by Jessop, namely, a ‘collibrating’ of the different governing modes and through this a struggle to find answers to the key question: when and in which mixture should the regulation of public affairs be left to (i) the market; (ii) hierarchical political interventions legitimated by the decisions of representative bodies; or (iii) horizontally structured relations between political and societal actors interacting either by bargaining or arguing? In the end this search expresses processes of conflict and consensus building about choices of interpretation and of knowledge (Deutungs- and Wissenswahl; see Section 2.7.2) which finally lead to the formation of a particular knowledge order related to a specific governance arrangement – both structuring action arenas in which actors in a particular action situation have to make a specific choice of action (Handlungswahl). Learning is also embedded in these processes of conflict and consensus building about choices of interpretation and of knowledge. In the context of the EU, the particular form and the location of these processes indicate that learning is more likely to be characterized as learning in networks. By way of contrast, in the context of ‘modernization’ at the local level learning in organizations is more likely, namely, in the organizational setting of local government.1

130   Perspectives It is usually the case that such a search does not take place consciously. Instead, proponents of specific proposals or approaches and perspectives on reform prevail and claim to offer the one and only solution. As a result of these kinds of attitudes, opportunities are blocked to discover and to make use of rewarding linkages and complementary relationships between reforms undertaken in parallel. In other words: possible synergies are lost.

7.4  The contours of a flexible political geometry The reflections on a flexible political geometry presented in Chapter 6 can be linked to those on the regime composition of political systems because they also point to a co-­existence and possible complementary relationships between different forms of interest intermediation. In addition (and in contrast to Dahl and Tufte), the concept of regime composition does not necessarily equate to a vertically layered system of territorial units.2 Accordingly, it can be assumed that the sectors of territorial and administrative interest intermediation do exist at different vertically layered levels in a multi-­level system. This structure of territorial units is flanked by the sectors of functional and civil interest intermediation. The latter can spread over single levels of territorial and administrative interest intermediation and also be coupled horizontally with the sector of functional interest intermediation. Furthermore, the reflections of Dahl and Tufte on the relationship between ‘citizen effectiveness’ and ‘system capacity’ can be linked directly to the understanding of governability (see Chapter 5), as ‘citizen effectiveness’ essentially means that those taking decisions which they are affected by are trying to influence policy-­making according to what they desire, know and think is achievable for them. And ‘system capacity’ has to be demonstrated by the ability of the political system to achieve the intended effects. The idea – following the comment by Dahl and Tufte (1973: 135) that ‘different problems require political units of different size’ – of emphasizing a flexible political geometry can also be connected to the notion of governability insofar as what is emphasized is how the desired, the known and what is perceived as achievable is actually realized. It has been demonstrated by the commentary on the EU structural funds and EU environment policy (in Chapter 5) that governability understood in this way requires a loose coupling through different cohesion mechanisms because the desired, the known and what is perceived as achievable can be quite diverse in the context of fragmented and differentiated levels, sub-­units and single decisions. It can be taken for granted that a flexible political geometry is characterized by such levels, sub-­units and decisions, and coherence mechanisms are required to couple them. Such coherence mechanisms consist of accepted rules and norms for the exchange of information and the co-­ordination of actions as well as ‘ideas’ or paradigms suggesting specific objectives for actions, and definitions of and solutions to problems in which commonly shared assumptions about causality and standards of normative appropriateness are crystallized. To bring these kinds of

Perspectives   131 coherence mechanisms about is the core function of meta governing. In addition, coherence can be created through coupling institutions, that is, through institutional arrangements by which interactions are concentrated within a particular organizational context. In the case of coupling institutions, it becomes obvious what applies for participation in general: it is crucial that the rules for participation and the rights for particular actors to participate are clearly laid down. It is certainly possible (as argued in Section 2.6.1) that such rules and rights develop endogenously from within society by mutual recognition between actors. Such processes are likely to evolve in the ‘world of action’ where implementation is taking place (i.e. in the sphere of first order governing). Second order governing plays an essential role in determining the rules for participation and the rights of particular actors to participate. Thereby, such rules and rights are formalized after they have been established by societal processes of mutual recognition between actors. The threat of sanctions as a coherence mechanism does play a role which can affect (inter)actions negatively as well as positively (by incentives). This may be the ‘shadow of hierarchy’ linked in the context of a flexible political geometry to structures of territorially grounded statehood and first order governing related to it. A crucial role can also be exercised by detached bargaining systems. In a global context, on the one hand such bargaining systems can be supranational institutions and on the other hand this function can be exercised by transnational bodies in which non-­governmental actors can determine international rules. Finally, the ‘light of the public sphere’ (certainly just that of sectoral ones) plays a role by naming activities (and the relevant actors) which are not in line with the rules and rights or with standards of appropriateness and by insisting on compliance underpinned by the threat of loss of reputation or by measures such as a boycott. Taking note of Nullmeier’s argument on the basic functions of statehood and their monopolization in different forms of territorial and functional statehood, the notion of a flexible political geometry can be further specified and connected to the conceptual considerations presented in previous chapters. Nullmeier’s views reinforce the notion that a flexible political geometry can be linked to the concept of a regime composition of political systems, on the one hand in which co-­existence and possible complementary relationships between different forms of interest intermediation can be achieved, and which on the other hand is not predetermined as a vertically layered system of territorial levels. Moreover, in elaborating on the notion of a flexible political geometry, Nullmeier’s argument can be related to the discussed statements by Dahl and Tufte on the relationship between ‘citizen effectiveness’ and ‘system capacity’ as well as to the understanding of governability underlying the argument developed in this book. Thus it needs to be stressed that ‘citizen effectiveness’ has to prove itself in different contexts of territorial and functional statehood by allowing those authorized to take decisions and those who are the addressees of these decisions to truly influence the political process and its outcomes according to

132   Perspectives what they desire, know and perceive as achievable. And ‘system capacity’ should prove itself through the capability of the specific, yet linked, forms of territorial and functional statehood to reach in practice the politically intended effects. In general, it needs to be emphasized that the reflections on territorial and functional statehood are very closely related to other concepts, in which territorial units are distinguished by the fact that within them individuals mutually acknowledge each other as equals in (self) determining a binding co-­ordination of their actions. In doing so, however, the concept of the ‘three worlds of democratic action’ should be brought back into play. Second order governing plays a role in the formation of functional forms of statehood in two respects. It can be decisive in establishing a monopolization of the six functions of statehood. Furthermore, second order governing can support and even promote the formation of ‘associative units’ to which functional forms of statehood refer. The formation of an ‘associative unit’ is usually linked to the creation of statuses and thereby opportunities to participate in the ‘associative unit’. Both of these roles played by second order governing can be influenced politically by means of voting and majoritarian decisions. Thereby, input legitimation and, depending on the transparency of the decision processes, also throughout legitimation can be generated for the formation of functional forms of statehood. However, in the model of the ‘three worlds of democratic action’, the function of second order governing is conceptually not solely bound to the possibility of voting. It also rests to a great degree in multiple ways on the communication based modes of action co-­ordination through bargaining and arguing – namely, at the level of second order governing itself as well as by its framing through processes of meta governing. Additionally, feedback from first order governing (the implementation) is observable, where bargaining and arguing can play a significant role as well. The communication based modes of action co-­ordination by means of bargaining and arguing are important in the areas of functional and civil interest intermediation, and it is necessary to think about the forms of functional interest intermediation which dominate in functional forms of statehood. In this respect, a perspective is of little use if within it second order governing is just reduced to processes in territorially defined political units and to voting and majoritarian decisions. Finally, according to the model of the ‘three worlds of democratic action’ it is not laid down in which territorial context or on which territorial level binding decisions about institutional structures are made. Thus, the model of the ‘three worlds of democratic action’ is in principle open to arguments that tie ‘modern governing’ to a flexible political geometry.

7.5  Loose coupling and the perspective of diversity In introducing the idea of loose coupling, a contribution towards answering the question of how and on what grounds problems of governability can be overcome is put forward in the sense that differentiation, which may appear as a

Perspectives   133 cause of the problems of governability, can be utilized to realize the desired, the known and what is perceived as achievable, when they are made manageable by coherence mechanisms. Such coherence mechanisms are not merely created by meta governing, but have also to be introduced and reinforced by second order governing – possibly in addition to (sectoral) publics. This is significant because the desired, the known and what is perceived as achievable differs over time and space according to the historical and spatial context. Conclusions that emerge from these reflections can be summarized as follows: • • •

Deny the desirability of homogenization and uniformity which is linked to a particular vision of state-­based or state-­like policy-­making. Emphasize the recognition, the respect and also the enabling of diversity, for instance of cities and regions but also of various functional political spheres of co-­ordinating interactions that are not territorially determined. Secure at the same time integration through introducing and strengthening fundamental norms which suggest specific definitions of problems and measures to solve them, as well as ways of exchanging information and co-­ ordinating actions.

In this respect, the EU structural funds are a success story of a European model. Sabel and Zeitlin (2007: 11; 56ff.) have argued with respect to this model, which is compatible with the concept of a ‘directly deliberative polyarchy’ (Cohen and Sabel 1997): So far from being aberrant, EU governance, understood as a whole rather than an assemblage of unusual parts, may be a forerunner of new forms of governance especially suited to the temper of our times at both national and global levels. (Sabel and Zeitlin 2007: 11) The advantages of loose coupling, through which governability is ensured in a context sensitive way and in accordance with what actors desire, know and perceive as achievable, can be related back to the recommendations made by Jessop (see Section 2.4.1) to focus in light of the omnipresence of market, government and governance-­failures on a ‘requisite variety’. This phrase means changing – depending on the situation – from market to government or to the horizontally structured and communication based governance modes of bargaining and arguing or from government to market – and back again. This implies public debates at the level of meta governing on how (i.e. in which form and combination) the regulation of matters should be left to the market, to hierarchical political interventions (legitimized by the decisions of representative bodies) and/or to a horizontally structured and communications based interaction of governmental and societal actors. Ultimately it depends on how the specific advantages of majority decisions and hierarchical action co-­ordination as well as of

134   Perspectives bargaining and arguing based forms of participation are utilized and how effectively their weaknesses are compensated for or prevented. So where there are complementary relationships between the majoritarian decisions of representative organs, administrative action and the participation of societal actors, the majoritarian decisions of representative bodies and the possibilities of hierarchical administrative interventions can provide support for a participatory design and the functioning of policy networks and fora of participation as well as for their public responsibility. Furthermore, an effective implementation of intended effects is more likely to be ensured because participation by actors with a heterogeneity of opinions cannot only offer a voice on behalf of different interests but can also mobilize the knowledge of these actors, expose their motives, ensure their willingness to comply and additionally can raise awareness of negative externalities arising from the of decisions taken. In addition, by ensuring the implementation of intended effects self-­determination can be realized. Finally: Where through practices of participation there is a public obligation to justify and put forward reasons for actions, then processes in representative and administrative decision-­making arenas can also become more transparent and reflexive. The light of the public sphere and the shadow of hierarchy then jointly revive democracy. (Haus and Heinelt 2005b: 29; translated by the author)

Notes

1  Introduction   1 For another overview about the development overtime of the understanding of democracy see Dunn (1992).   2 This project (entitled ‘Achieving innovative and legitimate policy through participatory governance in a multi-­level context’) was funded from 2000 to 2002. Among others Bernard Gbikpi, Brigitte Geissel, Panagiotis Getimis, Stefan Gramel, Grigoris Kafkalas, Jürgen Grote, Maria Kaïka, Tanja Kopp-­Malek, Britta Meinke-­Brandmeier, Randall Smith, Philippe Schmitter, Erik Swyngedouw, Georgios Terizakis and Annette E. Töller have been involved. This project’s finding can be found in Grote and Gbikpi 2002; Heinelt et al. 2002; Heinelt and Smith 2003.   3 The PLUS-­project (‘Participation, Leadership and Urban Sustainability’) was funded from 2002 to 2004. Among others Henry Bäck, Alessandro Balducci, Bas Denters, Björn Egner, Panagiotis Getimis, Robin Hambleton, Michael Haus, Jan Erling Klausen, Pieter-­Jan Klok, Murray Stewart, David Sweeting and Pawel Swianiewicz have been involved. It led to the following books: Haus et al. 2005a; Haus et al. 2005b; Heinelt et al. 2006.   4 The G-­FORS-project (‘Governance for sustainability’) addressed the relationship between governance and knowledge (see Atkinson et al. 2010). It was funded from 2006 to 2009. Among others Henry Bäck, Alessandro Balducci, Rob Atkinson, Bas Denters, Sonja Fahrner, Panagiotis Getimis, Gerd Held, Jan Erling Klausen, Pieter-­ Jan Klok, Tanja Kopp-­Malek, Ilona Pálné Kovács, Ulf Matthiesen, Pawel Swianiewicz, Georgios Terizakis and Karsten Zimmermann were involved.   5 Tanja Kopp-­Malek, Jochen Lang, Bernd Reissert and Frieder Naschold (until his death) were involved in this project which resulted in the following publications: Heinelt et al. 2003; Heinelt et al. 2005a and Heinelt et al. 2005b.   6 Eva Athanassopoulou, Panagiotis Getimis, Georgia Giannakourou, Karl Heinz Haunhorst, Malcolm McIntosh, Tanja Kopp-­Malek, Randall Smith, Nicola Staeck, Jürgen Taeger and Annette E. Töller participated in this project. Results have been published in Heinelt et al. 2000; Heinelt et al. 2001a.   7 This project was carried out with Britta Brandmeier-­Meinke and Georgios Terizakis. Publications include Heinelt and Meinke-­Brandmeier 2006; Heinelt et al. 2005c.   8 This project started early in 2008 and will end in December 2010. Those involved include Nicole Krüger, Marta Lachowska, Eran Razin and Karsten Zimmerman.   9 Parts of sections 2.1, 2.2, 2.5, 2.6.1 and 2.6.3 are published in Heinelt 2007b. The basic ideas presented in these sections have already been published in Heinelt 2002c, in one of the books from the EU-­funded project on ‘Achieving innovative and legitimate policy through participatory governance in a multi-­level context’ referred to in note 2. Sections 2.3 and 2.4.1 draw in part on a joint publication with Michael Haus (see notes 10, 11 and 12). Some ideas presented in these sections have been already

136   Notes published in Heinelt 2000: 2–5 and Heinelt 2002c: 23–5. The beginning of Section 2.7 and Section 2.7.2 rely in part on an unpublished paper from the research project ‘Governance for Sustainable Development’ (see notes 4 and 14). Section 2.7.1 has been developed from Heinelt et al. 2001b: 16–19 (see note 13). Chapter 3 represents an extended version of Heinelt 2002b: 97–111. Section 3.3 has been extended by results of the research project on the role of civil society organizations in EU policies on environment and consumer protection (see note 7). Section 4.1 is also based on a joint publication with Michael Haus (see note 12). In Section 4.3 reflections are further developed from an outline in Heinelt 2002b: 112–118. Chapter 5 is based on Heinelt 2008b which in part relies on Heinelt et al. 2003 (see note 15). Furthermore, (as already mentioned) a slightly different version of this book has been published in German (Heinelt 2008a). The revision in this English edition was stimulated by statements from three anonymous reviewers who were asked by the publisher to comment on the book proposal (and the German version of this book). 10 Haus and Heinelt 2006: 22–5. 11 Haus and Heinelt 2005a: 18–22. 12 Haus and Heinelt 2005a: 14–15. 13 Heinelt et al. 2001b: 16–19. 14 This paper was written by the author of this book with Gerd Held, Tanja Kopp-­Malek, Ulf Matthiesen, Eva Reisinger and Karsten Zimmermann. 15 Heinelt et al. 2003. These parts were mainly written by the author of this book and Tanja Kopp-­Malek. 2  Starting points and key conceptual issues   1 A more direct translation, i.e. ‘political society’, seems to be inappropriate because the intellectual ‘copyright’ for this term belongs to John Locke. Furthermore, the expression ‘politicized’ seems more suitable because it emphasizes an open process and not a given status or the status quo.   2 This can be related to the relevance of ‘arguing’ as a governance mode (as discussed in Section 2.4.2).   3 Papadopoulos and Warin (2007) include efficiency. But as the focus is on effective self-­determination, and not on the necessary use of resources to achieve it (see Section 4.1), efficiency is not used as one of the criteria for defining the democratic quality of participatory governance.   4 On this, see Schmitter’s (2002: 58ff.) considerations on ‘design principles for governance arrangements’.   5 However, as some authors (such as Hayek 1989: 38–47) argue from a historical perspective, trade and institutions linked in a certain way to reliable and durable societal interactions developed without a highly organised state.   6 This applies to Follesdal (and Hix), as well as Dahl or Schmitter and Karl, to cite just three examples. • Follesdal (1998) summarizes as basic characteristics of democracy: ‘1) institutionally established procedures that regulate 2) competition for control over political authority, 3) on the basis of deliberation, 4) where nearly all adult citizens are permitted to participate in 5) an electoral mechanism where their

Notes   137 expressed preferences over alternative candidates determine the outcome, 6) in such ways that the government is responsive to the majority or to as many as possible’ (Follesdal and Hix 2005: 14–15). • Dahl, who characterizes democracy developed in the nation state in a particular form – namely ‘polyarchy’ (‘rules by the many’; Dahl 1998: 90; see also Dahl 1989: 220ff.) – cited ‘voting equality’, ‘effective participation’, ‘enlightened understanding’, ‘control of the agenda’ and ‘inclusion’ as general characteristics of democracy. To realize them, seven ‘institutions’ have to be established in a political system: ‘elected officials’, ‘free and fair elections’, ‘right to run for office’, ‘freedom of expression’, ‘alternative information’ and ‘associational autonomy’ (Dahl 1989: 221–2; Dahl 1998: 85–6). • Schmitter and Karl (1991: 76) state that ‘[m]odern political democracy is a system of governance in which rulers are held accountable for their action in public realm by citizens, acting indirectly through the competition and cooperation of their elected representatives.’   7 For a distinction between collective and corporate actors on the one hand and individual actors on the other, see Flam 1990 and Scharpf 1997. Collective and corporate actors are ‘composite actors’ when compared to individual actors (Scharpf 1997: 54). Corporate actors are characterized by ‘a high degree of autonomy’ in the definition and pursuit of their objectives in relation to their members or ‘the ultimate beneficiaries of their activities’ (ibid.). By way of contrast, collective actors are composite actors ‘that are dependent on and guided by the preferences of their members’ (ibid.).   8 Opportunities to participate in sectors of functional and administrative interest intermediation are not considered at this point (for more details, see Section 3.2).   9 Both dimensions occur again in Section 2.6 where the issue of performance is linked to neo-­institutionalist approaches to create and to use possibilities for participation. 10 Furthermore, one has to ask: what is the exact relationship between the activities of governments and observable changes in society (e.g. decreasing unemployment)? This question of causality within a complex interaction of variables is usually obscured by relying on a high number of cases and few variables, analysed by statistical methods, whereas actual causal relationships can be uncovered only by qualitative case studies (see Scharpf 1997: chapter 1). 11 This is not to suggest a completely relativist notion of what political objectives may be. On the contrary, economic competitiveness and social inclusion, for example, can be seen as two policy objectives which are generally desirable – an assumption that can be defended on either normative or empirical grounds. Yet these are complex objectives, which mean that they have to be grounded and interpreted by political actors. 12 For the distinction between input, output and throughput legitimation, see Section 4.1. 13 A system that constantly identifies and addresses new questions but does not respond to them effectively is not ‘half effective’ but ‘self destructive’, as it increases demand without providing supply – which can lead to the phenomenon of (democratic) governmental ‘overload’ (Rose 1980). 14 Of course, governing capacity might be increased by the mobilization of further resources which were not accessible before. This can be seen as one of the rationales for extended participation. 15 See Schmitter and Lehmbruch 1979; Lehmbruch and Schmitter 1982; Lijphart 1984. For these scholarly debates, see Czada and Schmidt 1993; Steiner and Ertman 2002. 16 For the differences between these two policy network approaches, see Börzel 1998 and Marsh 1998. 17 Müller (1994; 1995) and Risse-­Kappen (1995) initiated this debate in the mid-­1990s in Germany. For a critical account of the linkages between this debate and the theoretical approach of Habermas, see the contributions in Niesen and Herborth 2007.

138   Notes 18 Lange and Schimank (2004: 23) call governance arrangements in this sense ‘governance regimes’. 19 For a similar approach to the ‘three worlds of action’ – with a ‘constitutional choice’, ‘collective choice’ and ‘operational choice level’ – see Kiser and Ostrom 1982, as well as Ostrom 1990: 50–5. 20 I refer here to the distinction between the ‘logic of appropriateness’ and the ‘logic of consequentiality’ made by March and Olsen (1989). 21 For the distinction between legitimacy and legitimation as well as the different dimensions of input, output and throughput, see Section 4.1 22 See Habermas 1996b: 289–302; Bohman and Regh 1997; Pierre and Peters 2000: 137–41; or Cohen 2007 and for early debates Pateman 1970. 23 For EU competition policy and foreign trade policy (both strongly influenced by the WTO) see Cini and McGowan 1998 as well as Nicolaïdis and Meunier 2002. 24 The distinction between the three governing orders as well as the linkages to different forms of democratic participation can be quite helpful for empirical analysis, for instance, of European policy-­making (see Heinelt 2002a: 15). Meta governing and linked forms of participatory governance can be addressed through analysis of the debate about legislation at the EU level. Additionally, the national debate in member states about the specific policies and policy instruments can be analysed in the same way. Second order governing can be scrutinized through analysis of the decisions on the institutional settings and the legal basis for policies at both national and EU level. First order governing and related forms of participatory governance can be investigated on the operational (mostly local) level where policies are implemented. 25 According to Schmitter (2002: 62), under certain conditions these kinds of knowledge holders exercise the role of ‘guardians’, securing what is perceived as ‘proper’ policy-­ making (e.g. economic experts in central banks or law experts in [supreme] courts). 26 Reflecting on this idea of ‘holders’, one can agree with Greven (2007: 242) who commented in respect of certain tendencies in the EU: ‘This is the traditional expertocratic approach of replacing citizens’ democracy by technocracy.’ 27 See the debate about ‘status’ and ‘contract’ in Marshall 1964. 28 For the challenges resulting from this, see the reflections at the end of Section 3.3. 29 See Teubner’s (1997b) reflections on the development of global law without the state, especially the ‘ex mercatorio’, that is, the global rules of commercial law in areas such as ‘[t]echnical standardization, professional rule production, human rights, intra-­ organisational regulation in multinational enterprises, contracting, arbitration’ (Teubner 1997a: xiii). Teubner refers to Ehrlich (1936), a law professor from Czernowitz in the Bukowina, a far eastern part of the Austrian Empire. The vision of a ‘global Bukowina’ is based on the following statement by Ehrlich (1936: 390): ‘The center of gravity of legal development [. . .] from time immemorial has not lain in the activity of the state, but in society itself, and must be sought there at the present time.’ For Ehrlich ‘it is civil society itself that will globalize its legal order, distancing itself as it does from the political power complex in the Brave New World’s Vienna’ (Teubner 1997b: 3). In Section 6.4.2 this idea will be taken up critically. 30 This issue is taken up again in Section 2.7.1. 31 This challenge is addressed in Section 3.3 with reference to civil society organisations operating in the multi-­level system of the EU. 32 It is important to note that policy styles can vary locally and that they are not necessarily a national characteristic. 33 Closely related to the comments on social capital are those on political capital. Political capital is not considered here but subsequently in Section 2.6.3. Although one can see political capital as an element of the ‘attributes of the community’ it is seen here as a resource of actors. Whether actors have this resource depends not only on their relationships with others in a particular community but on rights determined by the ‘rules in use’ which impact on an action arena.

Notes   139 34 By referring to the concept of ‘bounded rationality’, advocates of the rational-­choice approach introduced cognitive factors such as habits or frames into their theoretical design. However, whatever ‘the details, in the rationalist view interests are given and logically prior to any beliefs held by the actors’ (Goldstein and Keohane 1993: 4). 35 This is further addressed in Section 2.7.2. 36 See, for example, Heclo 1975; Haas 1991; Hall 1993; Sabatier 1988; Bennett and Howlett 1992; May 1992; Levy 1994. 37 See, for example, Etheredge and Short 1983; Haas 1991; Levy 1994; Knopf 2003. 38 This three way distinction of policy learning can be referred to as ‘first’, ‘second’ and ‘third order change’ (Hall 1993: 281–7). 39 Therefore, staff changes which cause continuous communication to break down can mean that such systems of rules cease to be effective and the latent organizational memory is ‘deleted’ or lost. 40 Matthiesen (2005; 2006; 2006b) invented the term ‘knowledgescape’ to reflect the emphasis given to place-­related aspects. 3  Different sectors of interest intermediation and their ‘composition’ in political systems   1 See Bernhard Peters (1993: 330–40) on the basic structures of this kind of model. Jürgen Habermas (1996a: 354–9) also refers to the model developed by Peters.   2 See Lehmbruch 1987 on administrative interest intermediation.   3 See Habermas 1962: Chapters VI and VII on policy intermediation without direct dialogue mobilizing public approval shaping ‘public opinion’ through the mass media.   4 In addition, ‘bridging agencies’ of civil society are characterized by specializing in particular policy fields or even specific topics. This is often essential for gaining access to the ‘core sector’ of the political system.   5 It should be emphasized that reflections on the spatial context of a regime composition are not per se bound to a territorial level related to particular governmental structures (see Section 6.5.3).   6 It should be clear that the notion of civil society used in this book (as described in the last section) differs sharply from that used by EU institutions. Civil society has been defined here in line with Habermas. Accordingly, only those collective actors who pursue general interests and try to influence societally binding decisions by public deliberation are seen as parts of civil society. EU institutions usually use a much broader definition. According to the White Paper on governance (European Commission 2001: 14) ‘civil society includes the following: trade unions and employers’ organizations (“social partners”); nongovernmental organizations; professional associations, charities; grass-­roots organizations; organizations that involve citizens in local and municipal life with a particular contribution from churches and religious communities.’ This broader definition reflects a particular understanding of the function of civil society – namely the following: ‘Civil society plays an important role in giving voice to the concern of citizens and deliver services that meets people’s needs’ (European Commission 2001: 14). In contrast to this definition, the one used in this book emphasizes that only those organizations qualify as a part of civil society who first pursue particular kinds of interests – namely general interest (i.e. public goods such as social cohesion or environmental sustainability or universal values like human rights) – and second are ‘political’ in the sense that they are trying to influence societally binding decisions by arguing or the ‘power of “good reasons” ’.   7 For empirical work on the role of the European Parliament in decision-­making on the Eco Audit directive, see Heinelt et al. 2001a; on the Fauna Flora Habitat regulation and the Novel Food directive, see Heinelt and Meinke-­Brandmeier 2006.   8 A widely discussed example of this is the structural funds in which decentralized actors responsible for implementation are heavily involved in decision-­making,

140   Notes p­ rogramme planning and evaluation processes (see Chapter 5). The same has been shown for environment policy and consumer protection by Heinelt and Meinke-­ Brandmeier 2006 and for the involvement of EU umbrella associations representing municipalities by Heinelt and Niederhafner 2008.   9 Again drawing from the EU structural funds, reference can be made to the effects of dialogue-­based deliberations in the monitoring committees (see Heinelt 1996a: 16f.; Heinelt 1996b: 308f.). 10 For national associations, influencing ‘their’ government which has central decision-­ making power in the Council of Ministers (see Streeck and Schmitter 1991) is still a relevant means of influencing EU decisions. 11 For the role of environment groups as ‘watchdogs’ of the European Commission, that is, as organizations monitoring the implementation of EU policies and securing that the implementation is carried out in accordance with EU regulations, see Heinelt and Meinke-­Brandmeier 2006. However, this does not mean that this task can be fulfilled successfully on every occasion (see Heinelt and Meinke 2003 for an illustration). 12 See Heinelt and Meinke-­Brandmeier 2006, with reference to the conceptual ideas of Bouwen 2001 and 2004 on ‘exchange goods’. 13 See Buitendijk and van Schendelen 1995; Falke and Winter 1996; Joerges and Neyer 1997; Töller 2002 on the EU committees and in particular the so-­called comitology. 14 See Almond and Verba 1963 on the difference between specific and diffuse support. 15 For an assessment of the potential of civil society in thirteen EU member states, see Heinrich 2008. 16 For such regulatory requirements in the case of environment policy, see Heinelt et al. 2001a. 17 Yet there must have been ample grounds to open up environmental policy to the infrastructure of civil society, but not for sectors such as technical standardization and telecommunications. 18 Offe and Wiesenthal (1980) referred to differences between interest mediation by trade unions and employer organizations. 4  Key features of the reforms of governance arrangements and of the perspectives on reform held by particular ‘discourse communities’   1 By talking about ‘what is desired and known by actors and perceived as collectively achievable by them’ I refer to Scharpf’s (1988b: 63–4) definition of governability (in the sense of ‘Steuerungsfähigkeit’; see Section 5.1).   2 Differences between legitimacy and legitimation are not considered in detail here (see Sternberger 1968). However, the following short distinction may be helpful for understanding the argument. Legitimacy concerns the acceptance of and reliance on a political order as a status, whereas legitimation covers the process of acquiring such acceptance and reliance by putting forward ‘arguments that justify the exercise of governing authority’ (Scharpf 2000: 102). Every political order needs legitimacy. Otherwise, subjection of people has to be secured by overt pressure, if not violence. A democratic political order has the option to acquire legitimacy through the forms of legitimation considered in this section. Other political orders have different ones, e.g. the doctrine of divine right in the case of monarchy.   3 On the different dimensions of legitimation within a ‘complex’ concept of democracy see Scharpf (1999). Scharpf himself explicitly mentions only the input and the output dimensions of legitimation, yet also refers to the legitimatory role of throughputs. Easton’s reformulation of systems theory introduced the ‘withinputs” of a political system, but basically as a black box with no autonomous meaning for policy-­making (Easton 1965: 114). A distinction between input, output and throughput aspects of legitimation has also been made by Benz (2001: 5; 2006: 101), at least implicitly. He

Notes   141 connects the legitimating principle of accountability – emphasized here as a separate dimension of legitimation (called throughput legitimation) – to the feedback stage of policy-­making. Nevertheless, the following has been stressed by him: ‘Representatives have to give reasons for their decisions and the represented have to be able to punish them if they are not convinced by these decisions or by the reasons which endorse them. As a minimum this requires transparency of policy-­making, clear responsibilities of decision-­makers, and effective ways to control representatives’ (Benz 2006: 101).   4 This argument neatly reflects the distinction (made by Almond and Verba 1963) between ‘specific support’ and ‘general support’, where the first refers to acceptance and support of particular policy objectives which can be achieved by output legitimization and the latter to acceptance and support of the overall political order, thus referring to input and output as well as to throughput legitimation.   5 See, for example, Bouckaert and Halachmi 1995; Naschold 1995; Pollitt and Bouckaert 2000; Christensen and Laegreid 2002; McLaughlin et al. 2002; Peters and Pierre 2002; Bovaird and Löffler 2003; Pollitt et al. 2007.   6 The designation of the ‘traditional’ reform perspective may be justified not only by the focus on the characteristics of political, democratically legitimized decision-­ making, but also by the concentration on institutional reforms.   7 An example for linking the perspectives of the ‘new public management modernizers’ and the ‘traditional modernizers’ in Germany has been the former director (Gerhard Banner) of the KGSt, an agency supporting municipalities in organizational reforms, who has not only been a promoter of New Public Management ideas but also of the introduction of directly elected mayors.   8 See the results of an online survey among ‘civil society experts’ carried out by Kohler-­Koch and Quittkat (2009).   9 For the distinction between general and specific support, see Almond and Verba 1963. 10 For an overview about the ‘civil society discourse in Brussels’, see also Freise 2008. 11 This proposal points also to the relevance of courts. 5  Achieving governability: the case of the EU structural funds and EU environment policy 1 For the EU structural funds, see Beugelsdijk and Eijffinger 2005; Cappelen et al. 2003; Castells and Espasa Queralt 2003. As demonstrated in the debate on the ‘financial perspective 2007–2013’ of the EU (see Bachtler and Wishlade 2005), such studies are strongly linked to policy-­making, which is not bad in itself. However, one has to be aware about the predisposition of such a debate to lose the opportunity to reflect on the basic political logic of governing public affairs in the sphere of politics, especially in the multi-­layered one of the EU. Furthermore, there is a danger that such studies can easily be captured by those actively involved in policy-­making, who are part of what is being researched. 2 The understanding of governability presented in this book refers to what is called Steuerungsfähigkeit in German. With reference to the EU, see Grande and Jachtenfuchs 2000. 3 I use here and below the terms the ‘desired’, the ‘known’ and the ‘achievable’ as possibly idiosyncratic translations of words in the following statement by Scharpf (1988b: 63–4; emphasis added). ‘Die Rede [ist bei Steuerungsfähigkeit; added by the author] nicht von exogen bestimmtem Nicht-­Können, sondern von endogen – aber nicht unüberwindlichen – Schwierigkeiten der Politik, das Gewünschte, Gewußte und objektiv Erreichbare auch zu tun.’ 4 As was pointed out in Section 2.7.1, the expression ‘unconventional forms’ of organizational learning is used by Wiesenthal in contrast to ‘conventional forms’ of organizational learning developed by Argyris (1976) and Argyris and Schön (1978).

142   Notes 5 See, for such phenomena, the argument put forward by Mayntz. In her terms a ‘strong internal differentiation of the political-­administrative system’ is related to the ‘observed change of fulfilling political tasks which can be described by a tendency to govern partial tasks through and in bargaining systems’ (Mayntz 1996: 157; translation by the author). The internal differentiation of the political-­administrative system is almost a basic requirement for bargaining by which ‘the societal problems of interdependencies can get on the agenda of governmental actions’ (ibid.), and ‘intra-­governmental bargains’ are crucial for avoiding the danger that ‘the shift of political decisions into sectoral policy networks only leads to fragmentation’ (ibid.). 6 It should be noted that these are probably not the only phenomena of differentiation within EU cohesion and environment policy – and not even for EU policies in general. But they are the most relevant ones for these two policy areas. 7 For the partnership principle in the context of the EU structural funds, see Bauer 2002. 8 It is possible to draw lessons from these findings and try to develop design principles for European governance arrangements reflecting these advantages. But this was not the purpose of this chapter. For an attempt to develop ‘generic design principles for European governance arrangements’ focusing on the achievement of effectiveness and legitimacy, see Schmitter 2002. 9 This observation can be linked to the concept of ‘democratic experimentalism’ (within a ‘directly-­deliberative polyarchy’), see Cohen and Sabel 1997; Dorf and Sabel 1998; Sabel and Zeitlin 2007. 6  Multi-­l evel systems and flexible power geometry   1 This also applies in a limited form to regionalization and decentralization of territorially defined political systems. In these cases self-­administration and – in the case of regionalization more than in decentralization – limited self-­government is granted to territorial sub-­units.   2 These comments are closely linked to those on ‘urban regimes’. For the debate on ‘urban regimes’, see Elkin 1987; Stone 1989; 2004a and 2004b, as well as critical responses by Davies 2002; 2003 and 2004; Imbroscio 2003 and 2004.   3 For the debate on ‘space’ and ‘locality’ and its origins, see Gregory and Urry 1985; Savage et al. 1987.   4 This reflection can be linked to the debate about social capital (see, for instance, Coleman 1990: 300ff. and Putnam 1993) in which the relevance of concrete spatially embedded actor relations and social norms shared within them is emphasized.   5 For specific knowledge-­based services as such preconditions, see Heinelt et al. 2007.   6 The model outlined refers to the views of Klaus Dieter Wolf (2002) on normative standards of legitimate governance ‘beyond the state’ (and a related figure on a ‘cube of democracy beyond the state’).   7 In most countries local government comprises a fixed vertically layered structure of a number of levels – like municipalities and counties, Landkreise or provinces.   8 This applies to municipalities for which generally applicable regulations (in the constellations referred to) do not stimulate horizontal interactions with governmental (including municipal) and societal actors. It also applies to those municipalities, like those in the UK or Southern Europe, which are weak in relation to their competences and resources and therefore – to widen their scope of action – are structurally more dependent on and also more likely to be oriented to co-­operation with societal actors (Heinelt and Kübler 2005b: 195–8).   9 Wirth mentioned the characteristic of a ‘permanent settlement’ at the beginning of his article (1956: 116) but did not reflect on it further. Presumably he assumed that this characteristic did not need further elaboration. 10 Dahl and Tufte (1973: 17) consider density – beside inhabitants and space – as a dimension of size. Heterogeneity is reflected as ‘complexity and diversity’ (Dahl and

Notes   143 Tufte 1973: 30ff.). In contrast to Wirth, they assume that smaller units are per se more homogeneous than bigger ones (Dahl and Tufte 1973: 91ff.). 11 In this respect I disagree with Teubner. Although he started, by referring to Ehrlich (1936), that ‘it is civil society itself that will globalize its legal order’ (Teubner 1997b: 3), he finally stated (Teubner 1997b: 7): Clearly, the ‘lifeworld’ of different groups and communities is not the principal source for global law. [. . .] The social source of global law is not the lifeworld of globalized personal networks, but the proto-­law of specialized, organizational and functional networks which are forming a global, but sharply limited, identity. The new living law of the world is nourished not from stores of tradition but from the ongoing self-­reproduction of highly technical, highly specialized, often formally organized and rather narrowly defined, global networks of an economic, cultural or technological nature. 12 For the constitution of an ‘associative unit’ through (autonomous) law-­making and willing subjection under this law as well as the possibility of a total separation of such law and territory, see Maus 2002: 234–5. Maus refers to Rousseau who mentioned Judaism as an example as well as to Marx who pointed in his publication Zur Judenfrage (MEW, Vol. 1: 375) to ‘the “imaginary nationality” and the “territorially enrooted law” of Jews’ (Maus 2002: 235; translated by the author). 13 However, where a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, taxation, law-­making and enforcement, intervention in the economic sphere as well as legitimation is impossible to establish, that is, where extensive pluralization, competition and unintegrated diversity prevails, ‘one no longer speaks of a “state”, but of “markets”, “civil war” or, “failed states” ’ (Nullmeier 2007: 10; translated by the author). 14 By contrast, Nullmeier included such a global political unit in a figure, upon which Figure 6.2 has been modelled. 15 For an overview, see Eichengreen 1996; Bini Smaghi and Casini 2000; Buiter 2006; Goodhart 2006. 16 For an overview, see Cottier 1998; Nicolaïdis and Meunier 2002; Woolcock 2005. 17 This function can be observed, for example, in the case of a claim for the return of funds which have not been used according to the rules or where the funds have been distributed although it turned out that the recipient of the funds was not eligible. 7  Perspectives 1 For the different kinds and ‘locations’ of learning, see Section 2.7.1 (summarized in Figure 2.4). 2 That a flexible political geometry can add up to a regime composition is reflected in the statement by Dahl and Tufte that the bigger the unit ‘the greater the number of organisations and subunits it will contain, the more governmental subunits it will contain, and the greater the number of organized interest or interest groups it will contain’ (Dahl and Tufte 1973: 40; emphasis added.). But this implies that ‘organized interest or interest groups’ are not only those groups focused on the sector of territorial interest intermediation. Civil society organizations that are oriented towards the sector of civil interest intermediation can also be included.

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Index

Aberbach, Joel 70 Abromeit, Heidrun 13–14 accountability deficit 27, 128 action arena 33, 46–8 actor-related capability 82–3 actors: concept of 10–12; kinds of/internal character of 34 administrative interest intermediation sector 53–4 ‘agenda 21’ initiatives 71 aggregation rules 36–9 Aldons, Malcolm 72 ‘alternative modernizers’ 68–9, 71–2, 73–4 Andersen, Svein S. 49 appropriateness and participation 29–32 arguing 19–20, 21, 45–6, 53–4 Argyris, Chris 42, 43, 44 Arnstein, Sherry R. 36–7, 38 associational interest intermediation 59 associative units: definition of 113–14; and functional states 117; and second order governing 132 authority rules 35–9 Bach, Maurizio 60, 75 Bache, Ian 84 bargaining 20, 21, 23, 45–6, 52–4, 62 Bayer, Patricia R. 39 Beck, Ulrich 24 Benz, Arthur 54 Berger, Peter 45 Birner, Regina 39 Bish, Robert 101 Boddy, Martin 104 Booth, John A. 39 Borraz, Olivier 73 Bouckaert, Geert 69 Boudreau, Julie-Anne 103 boundary rules 35–9

Bozzini, Emanuela 62 Brenner, Neil 103 bridging agencies 59, 60–2 Burns, Tom R. 49 Campbell, John L. 26 Castells, Manuel 102 Castles, Francis G. 16 Checkel, Jeffrey 40, 45 Christensen, Tom 70 Christiano, Thomas 24 cities, historical formation of 109 citizenship: nature of 51; statuses linked to 111–12 ‘civil’ perspective: effectiveness and legitimacy 76; reference points and connections between perspectives 78–81 civil society 104–7, role in EU 56–64 civil society/interest related intermediation sector 54–5, 106, 128–9; EU level 61–4 Cohen, Joshua 8, 9, 64, 71, 80, 125–6, 133 coherence mechanisms 90–2, 127, 130–1 cohesion 107–12 collective actors 34 collective learning 45–6 common foreign and security policy 121–2 communication model 19–20 communicative rationality 25–6, 31 community attributes 34–5, 46–8 competition policy 26, 118, 120, 122 conflictual policy style 35 consensual policy style 35, 62 constructivist approaches 40–1 consultation 37–8 consumer choice 70, 78–9 consumer protection policy 122 ‘conventional’ organizational learning 44 Council of Ministers 58, 91 Crouch, Colin 1, 11

166   Index Dahl, Robert A. 1, 3, 7, 10, 49, 62, 71, 76, 96, 97–8, 100, 101, 103, 107, 108, 130, 131 Davies, Jonathan S. 20 Daviter, Falk 26 Debbané, Anne-Marie 103 debureaucratization 70 decentralization 70, 72–3 delegated power 38 deliberative democracy 24–5, 125–6, 128 democracy: characteristics of 10; and size 96–100 democratic deficit 27, 49, 51 ‘democratic dilemma’ 103 democratic legitimation forms 67 democratic quality of participatory governance 9–10 Denhardt, Janet Vinzant 70 Denhardt, Robert B. 70 density, construction of 108–12 Denters, Bas 38, 73 DETR 38 ‘deuteron’ learning 43–4 development policy 121–2 ‘dialectical’ interpretation, ‘loose coupling’ 89–90, 91 differentiation 90–3, 132–3 Directorate-Generals (DGs) 86 discourse communities 67–73; linkages between 73–4 distributive policy 33–4 diversity, perspective of 132–4 Dodgson, Mark 42 Dorf, Michael C. 51 ‘double loop’ learning 43 Duncan, Robert 42 durability 109–10 dyadic structure of communication 20 Earnshaw, David 58 economic intervention, monopolization of 116 economic resource levies, monopolization of 115 Eder, Klaus 59, 60, 126 Edmondson, Ricca 40 education policy 121–2 effective democratic self-government and flexible political geometry 98–100 effectiveness: ‘alternative modernizers’ perspective 68–9, 71–2, 73–4, 78–81; ‘civil’ perspective 76, 78–81, 98–100; ‘expertocratic’ perspective 75–6; as good governance standard 65–7;

legitimation through 60, 66–7; ‘new public management modernizers’ perspective 68–70, 73–4, 78–81; and participation 29–32; relationship with system capacity 130–2 efficiency: ‘expertocratic’ perspective 75–6, 79; as good governance standard 65–7; legitimacy through 60; ‘new public management modernizers’ perspective 68–70, 73–4, 79; relationship with effectiveness 68–9; ‘traditional modernizers’ perspective 68–9, 72–3, 76–8, 79 Eichenberger, Reiner 101 Eising, Rainer 58 Elias, Norbert 111 Elster, Jon 19, 32 encompassing communities 99 endogenous political constraints, policymaking 83–4 environment policy, EU 86–9, 93–4, 117–22 European Commission 58, 59–60, 61, 75, 78, 79–80, 85, 87, 88, 90–1, 93 European Council 79–80, 119 European Environment Bureau 59 European national states, historical formation of 108–9 European Parliament 57–8, 77–8, 88, 119 European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) 86 European Social Fund (ESF) 86 European Union (EU): co-existence between territorial and functional forms of statehood 117–22; common foreign and security policy 120; developments for political order 74–81; environment policy 86–9, 93–4, 117–22; links between functional and territorial statehood 114–15; multi–level systems 122; structural funds 84–6, 89, 118–22, 133; structure of/role of civil society 56–64 Europeanization 88 ‘expertocratic’ perspective, effectiveness and efficiency 75–6; reference points and connections between perspectives 78–81 Fairbrass, Stephen 86, 88, 89 federalism 96 Fiol, Marlene C. 42 first filtering process 46–8 first order governing 22–7, 29, 126 Fischer, Frank 40

Index   167 flexible political geometry: contours of 130–2; and effective democratic selfgovernment 98–100; of metropolitan regions 104–7; search for 100–7; through co-existence between territorial and functional forms of statehood 116–17 Flinders, Matthew 84 Follesdal, Andreas 51, 79, 80, 123–4 foreign trade policy 118, 120, 122 Forester, John 40 fragmentation, policy networks 85–9 ‘framing’ 26 Frankenfeld, Philip J. 7 Franklin, Mark N. 97 free-riding 53 Freeman, Gary P. 35 Frey, Bruno 101 Fuchs, Ester R. 39 functional differentiation 90–1, 92, 102, 110 functional forms of statehood; co-existence with territorial forms 116–22 functional interest intermediation: sector of 52–3; at EU level 58–61 functional statehood 113–16, 128–9; linkages with territorial statehood 115 functionally overlapping competing jurisdictions 101 funding: common funding scheme 93; voucher system 79

‘government to governance’ 15–18, 126–7 Greenwood, Justin 58 Greven, Michael T. 7–8, 10, 11, 74 Grote, Jürgen R. 8, 16 Gualini, Enrico 3, 99–100

Gbikpi, Bernard 8 gender policy 121–2 Giddens, Anthony 32 globalization 100, 103, 104 ‘glocalisation’ 104 Goffman, Erving 26 good governance, standards of 65–7 governability: achieving by loose coupling 89–94; meaning of 82–4 governance failure 8–9, 15, 17–18 governance modes 15–21 ‘governance without government’ 19 government arrangements: defining performance of 12–15; and knowledge 46–8; learning in 41–6; types of 18–21 government reforms 67–74; linkages between discourse communities 73–4; local level 67, 68, 69–74; perspectives of ‘alternative modernizers’ 71–2’ perspectives of ‘new public management modernizers; 69–70; perspectives of ‘traditional modernizers’ 72–3

identity construction, EU 57 implementation deficit 88 individual actors 34 individual learning 41, 42 information rules 36–9 input control 70 input legitimation 13, 64, 23–4, 66–7, 106, 114, 116, 129, 132 Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework 33, 35, 46–7 institutional policy challenge 14 instrumental political capital 39–40 integration, potential for 127 Intelligence of democracy (Lindblom) 50 inter-organizational learning 43 interactions: city as spatially specific structure of 107–8; density of 107–12 interest holders 28 interest intermediation: sectors of 51, 52, 53–6; complementarites between 128–9; EU level 56–64 Intergroups, EU 58

Habermas, Jürgen 24, 25, 51, 54, 55, 77, 125, 127, 128 Halpern, David 35 Hamilton, Alexander 96 Harlow, Caral 79 Haus, Michael 22, 71, 74, 104, 134 Hay, Colin 26 health policy 122 Heclo, Hugh 85 Hedberg, Bo 42 Heinelt, Hubert 5, 22, 29, 30, 33, 37–8, 47, 63, 71, 74, 83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 93, 100, 101–3, 104, 105, 106, 109, 118, 122, 134 Héritier, Adrienne 87, 88, 120 Hesse, Joachim J. 106 heterogeneity 107–12 Hilger, Peter 127 Hix, Simon 51, 79, 80, 123–4 ‘holders’ 28–32, 127 homo economicus 68, 70, 74–5 homo politicus 68, 71–2, 73–4, 76 Hooghe, Liesbeth 85, 86, 93, 99, 118 horizontal fragmentation 86, 88–9, 90 horizontally structured relations 2, 129, 133–4

168   Index intra-organizational learning 42 intra-personal learning 41–2 Jessop, Bob 8, 9, 17–18, 21, 22, 133 John, Peter 41, 45, 73 ‘joint decision trap’ 84 Jordan, Andrew 86, 88, 89 Jordan, Grant 17 Judge, David 58 ‘jumping of scales’ process 103 ‘jus sanguinis’/‘jus soli’ 109 Karr, Karolina 58 Keating, Michael 96 Keil, Roger 103 Keman, Hans 16 Kersting, Norbert 73 Kielmansegg, Peter Graf 56–7, 108 Kingdon, John W. 67 Kiser, Larry 22, 25 Klok, Pieter-Jan 38 Knill, Christoph 82, 87, 94 Knodt, Michèle 120, 122 knowledge holders 28 knowledge order 46–7 knowledge: and the action arena 47; and governance 40–8; and governance arrangements 46–8 knowledge-related filtering processes 46–8 Kohler-Koch, Beate 55, 58, 100 Kooiman, Jan 15, 16, 22, 23, 25, 29, 124 Krasner, Stephen D. 100 Kübler, Daniel 100, 101–3, 104, 105, 106 labour and employment policy 122 ‘ladder of participation’ 36, 37 Lafferty, William M. 71 law-making/law enforcement 115–16, 118–20 Le Gales, Patrick 102 learning in governance arrangements 41–6 learning through interaction 42 Léautier, Frannie A. 100 legitimacy: ‘civil’ perspective 76, 79–80; as good governance standard 65–7; ‘alternative modernizers’ perspective 68–9, 71–2, 73–4, 79–80; and participation 29–32; of political authority 50; ‘traditional’ perspective 76–8, 79–80; ‘traditional modernizers’ perspective 68–9, 72–3, 79–80; through effectiveness and efficiency 60 legitimation, monopolization of 115, 116, 119

Lehmbruch, Gerhard 53 Lepsius, M. Rainer 52, 56–7 liberal democracy 25 Liefferink, Duncan 82, 87, 94 Lindblom, Charles 8, 50, 71, 76 lobbying 54, 58, 59–60 local government 104–7 local level reforms 67, 68, 69–74 loose coupling 130–1; achieving governability by 89–94; ‘dialectical’ interpretation 89–90, 91; and perspective of diversity 132–4 Lord, Christopher 24, 27, 77–8, 128 Lowi, Theodor 14, 33–4 Luckmann, Thomas 45 Luhmann, Niklas 15, 50, 82 Lyles, Marjorie A. 42 Majone, Giandomenico 27, 79, 128 majoritarian policy style 24, 26, 35, 51–2, 95–6 Malek, Tanja 83, 85, 93 management by objectives 70 Marin, Bernd 16–17, 19 market failure 17–18 Marks, Gary 84, 85, 86, 99, 118 Marsh, David 82 Marshall, Thomas H. 29 Massey, Doreen 102, 103 Maurer, Andreas 58 Mayntz, Renate 16–17, 19, 21, 43, 50, 53, 71, 82, 83 Mazey, Sonia 61 Meinke-Brandmeier, Britta 63, 88 metagovernance 18, 22, 24–7, 124–7, 129; potential of 111 metropolitan areas: governance of 101–4; participatory governance 104–7; as spatially specific structure of interactions 107–8 metropolitan reform tradition 101–2 Meyer, John W. 60, 75 Michels, Robert 95 Möckli, Silvano 96 monetary policy 118–20, 122 monopolization of functions 112–22 Mosca, Gaetano 95 Muecke, Douglas C. 9 Müller, Harald 19 multi-level governance approach 83–4 ‘multiple identity’ of organizations 44–5 Nagel, Thomas 24 nation-states, formation of 108–9

Index   169 national referendums 57 neo-corporatism 16 network learning 43, 129–30 network-based forms of governance 19–20, 63 ‘new public management modernizers’ 68–70, 72, 73–4, 83 new regionalism 102–3 Norris, Pippa 95 Nullmeier, Frank 3, 40, 47, 48, 97, 112–13, 114, 115, 116–17, 119, 131 OECD 71 Offe, Claus 63 Olson, Mancur 53 ‘one-sided ordering’ 35 organizational learning 41, 42, 93, 129–30; unconventional forms of 90 ‘organized feedback loops’ 85 ‘orthodox’ governance approach 20 Orton, J. Douglas 89, 91 Ostrom, Elinor 22, 25, 33, 35–6, 38, 46, 47, 101, 114 output control 70 output legitimacy 23–4, 75, 128 Papadopoulos, Yannis 9 Pareto, Vilfredo 95 Parkinson, Michael 104 parliamentary politics 77–8 participation: legitimation through 66–7; need to reconceptualize 49–51; and political capital 39–40 participatory governance: advantages of 8–12; conditions for 28–40; democratic quality of 9–10; metropolitan regions 104–7; perspectives on 123–7; structuration of 32–9 payoff rules 34, 35–9 performance indicators 13–14 performance, defining 12–15 personnel recruitment, EU 60 Peters, Bernhard G. 6, 15, 17, 51, 129 physical world, attributes of 33–4 Pierre, Jon 6, 15, 17, 71, 129 planning decisions 33–4 policies, EU 117–22 policy community 6, 45, 86–7, 114 policy failure 45, 66–7 policy learning 41–6, 93 policy networks 16–17, 19, 104–7; EU 58–9; fragmentation in 85–9 policy oriented learning 41, 93 policy style 35

political capital and participation 39–40 political exchange 19 political orders: EU developments for 74–81; relevance of density of interaction, cohesion and unity 107–12 political systems, regime composition of 51–6 politicised society, challenges of governing 6–8 Pollitt, Christopher 69 polyarchically structured decentralized settings 80 population size 107–8 position rules 35–9 preference transformation process 45–6 Pressman, Jeffrey L. 53 ‘problem-solving’ capacity 62, 66 procedural policy challenge 14 public choice approach 101 Putnam, Robert D. 12, 35, 57 Quittkat, Christine 55 Rawlings, Richard 79 Rawls, John 34 reasoning 54–5 redistributive conflicts 100–1 redistributive policy 13–15, 33–4, 93; EU structural funds as 84–5, 87 referendums, EU 57, 77–8, 80 reflexive learning 43–4 reform perspectives, EU 74, 75–81; linkages between 129–30 regime composition: EU 56–64; political systems 51–6, 128–9 regionalism 102–3 regionalist movements 96 regionalization 72–3 regulatory policy 33–4, 86–9 regulatory state, EU as 79 resource inputs 12–13 responsibility: diffusion of 77; separation of 70 Rhodes, Roderik 20 Richardson, Jeremy 35 ‘right holders’ 28, 36 Risse, Thomas 19, 46 Rittberger, Bernhold 56 Rogers, Joel 71 Rorty, Robert 9 Rose, Lawrence E. 73 Rose, Richard 15 Rosenau, James N. 19, 100 Rossili, Mariagrazia 30

170   Index Roth, Roland 30 roundtables 71 ‘rules in use’ 35–9, 46–8, 80–1, 125 Ruzza, Carlo 62 Sabatier, Paul A. 46, 67–8 Sabel, Charles F. 8, 51, 64, 80, 125–6, 133 sanctions as coherence mechanism 131 Saretzki, Thomas 19, 30 Scharpf, Fritz W. 13, 19, 21, 31, 32, 34, 43, 45, 49, 66, 75, 77, 82, 84 Schieder, Theodor 108 Schmalz-Bruns, Rainer 51, 117 Schmitt-Egner, Peter 102 Schmitter, Philippe C. 8, 15–16, 27, 28–9, 30, 31, 51, 53, 58, 64, 79 Schön, Donald A. 42, 43, 44 Schubert, Klaus 17 Schwab, Brigitte 103 scope rules 34, 36 Scott, W. Richard 31 second filtering process 48 second order governing 23–7, 29, 123, 125–6, 132 Seibel, Wolfgang 54 self-determination, optimal size for 97–8 self-referential organizational underpinnings 44–5 shared norms 26, 35 shareholders 28 Sharpe, Laurence J. 106 Siddiqui, Kamal 100 ‘simultaneous coupling/decoupling’ 91–2 Single European Act 56, 83 ‘single loop’ learning 43 size and democracy 96–100; flexible political geometry 98–100; optimal size for self-determination 97–8 Smith, Randall 30, 85, 87, 118 social capital 35, 39 social learning 41 spatial holders 28 spatially specific structure of interactions 107–8 stakeholders 28 state failure 8–9, 10, 15–16, 17–18 state modernization 67–74 statehood: co-existence between territorial and functional forms of 116–17; defining 112–16 status holders 29, 30–2 Stone, Clarence N. 13–14 Streeck, Wolfgang 58, 61, 64

structural funds, EU 84–6, 89, 93, 118–20, 133 structural political capital 39–40 structuration of participatory governance 32–9 Studenski, Paul 101 substantial policy challenge 13–14 Swynegedouw, Erik 102, 103, 104 system capacity 98–100; relationship with citizen effectiveness 130–2 technocratic regime, EU as 60 technological change 7 territorial forms of statehood: co–existence with functional forms 116–22 territorial interest intermediation: sector of 51–2, 95–7. 128–9; EU level 56–8 territorial statehood 113–16; linkages with functional statehood 115 ‘three worlds of democratic action’ 11–12, 25, 26–7, 29, 123–7, 132 throughput legitimation 13, 27, 64, 66, 72–3, 76, 106, 114, 116, 128 Tiebout, Charles M. 101 Töller, Annette E. 83 ‘traditional’ governance modes 20 ‘traditional modernizers’ 68–9, 72–3, 76–8 traditional perspective: legitimacy and efficiency 76–8; reference points and connections between perspectives 78–81 traffic policy 122 transparency, legitimation through 66–7 triadic structure of communication 19–20 trust 35 Tsebelis, George 96 Tufte, Edward R. 3, 96, 97–8, 100, 101, 107, 130, 131 two-filter model 32–3 umbrella organizations 59, 61, 63 ‘unconventional’ organizational learning 44 ‘unidimensional interpretation’, ‘loose coupling’ 89–90 unity 107–12 van Kersbergen, Kess 20 van Waarden, Frans 20, 35 vertical fragmentation 86, 90 veto rights 80, 113–14 Vetter, Angelika 73 voice 22–3, 71–2, 78–9 voluntary compliance 50 voting 6–7, 9–10, 20, 23–4, 51–2, 79, 96

Index   171 voucher system, funding 79 wages policy 53 Warin, Philippe 9 Weick, Karl E. 89, 90, 91 Weiss, Andrew 42 Wessels, Bernhard 58 Whatmore, Sarah 102 Wiesenthal, Helmut 43–4, 63, 90 Wildavsky, Aron 53, 85 Williamson, Oliver E. 17, 19 Willke, Helmut 111 Windhoff-Héritier, Adrienne 32

Wirth, Louis 96–7, 107–8, 109–10 Wittmer, Heidi 39 Wittrock, Björn 67 Wolf, Klaus Dieter 105 Wollman, Hellmut 68, 69, 72–3 Wood, Robert C. 101 Young, Oran R. 100 Zeitlin, Jonathan 80, 133 Zolo, Danielo 1 Zürn, Michael 52, 57, 100