(broadly conceived) and is then translated into demands for restructured and/or new governance regimes. This helps to explain the growing breadth of interest in the relative weight of government and governance.
Defining governance
Having emphasized the polyvalent, polycontextual and essentially contested nature of ‘governance’, I will now engage in the seemingly self-defeating exercise of offering a definition of governance. But at least this will provide a basis for later discussion in this book and illustrate ironically the importance of self-reflexive irony in addressing complex problems. This approach involves two analytical steps, the first identifying the broad field of coordination problems within which governance can be located, the second providing a narrow definition that identifies the differentia specifica of governance within this broad field. In broad terms, governance is one of several possible modes of coordination of complex and reciprocally interdependent activities or operations. What makes these modes relevant for our purposes is that their success depends on the performance of complementary activities and operations by other actors – whose pursuit of their activities and operations depends in turn on the performance of complementary activities and operations elsewhere within the relevant social ensemble (see Table 1.1).13 In general, the greater the material, social and spatio-temporal complexity of the problems to be addressed, the greater the number and range of different interests whose coordination is necessary to resolve them satisfactorily, and the less direct the reciprocities of these interests, the greater will be the difficulties of efficient, effective and consensual coordination regardless of the method of coordination that is adopted (for further discussion of complexity, see the chapters in Part I). It is still useful to distinguish four main forms of coordination of complex reciprocal interdependence: ex post coordination through exchange (for example, the anarchy of the market); ex ante coordination through imperative coordination (for example, the hierarchy of the firm, organization or state); reflexive self-organization (for example, the heterarchy of ongoing negotiated consent to resolve complex problems in a corporatist order or horizontal networking to coordinate a complex division of labour); and coordination through drawing as needed on unconditional commitments based on more or less extensive solidaristic relations in an imagined community. It is the third type of coordination that I refer to as ‘governance’ when the term is otherwise unqualified.
Table 1.1: Modalities of governance
| Exchange | Command | Dialogue | Solidarity | |
| Rationality | Formal and procedural | Substantive and goal-oriented | Reflexive and procedural | Unreflexive and value-oriented |
| Criterion of success | Efficient allocation of resources | Effective goal attainment | Negotiated consent | Requited commitment |
| Ideal typical example | Market | State | Network | Love |
| Stylized mode of calculation | Homo economicus | Homo hierarchicus | Homo politicus | Homo fidelis |
| Spatio-temporal horizons | World market, reversible time | Organizational space, planning | Rescaling, path shaping | Any time, any where |
| Primary criterion of failure | Economic inefficiency | Ineffectiveness | ‘Noise’, ‘talking shop’ | Betrayal, mistrust |
| Secondary criterion of failure | Market inadequacies | Bureaucratism, red tape | Secrecy, distorted communication | Codependency, asymmetry |
| Significance | Anarchy | Hierarchy | Heterarchy of civil society | |
Source: Jessop (2017)
Reflexive self-organization can be distinguished from the other three types of coordination in terms of the basic rationale for its operations and its institutional logic (see Table 1.2). Thus, market exchange is characterized by a formal, procedural rationality that is oriented to the efficient allocation of scarce resources to competing ends. In contrast, imperative coordination has a substantive, goal-oriented rationality that is directed to the effective realization of specific collective goals established from above. In turn, governance, as defined here, has a substantive, procedural rationality that is concerned with solving specific coordination problems based on a commitment to a continuing dialogue to establish the grounds for negotiated consent, resource sharing and concerted action. As such, it is a form of self-organization that, in contrast to the anarchy of exchange, depends not on purely formal, ex post and impersonal procedures, but on substantive, continuing and reflexive procedures.
Solidarity, conversely, relies on an unreflexive and value-oriented rationality. It has roots in the voluntary giving of public goods, akin to classical liturgical associations (Kelen, 2001: 7–40). Since then it has taken many forms in ancient societies, analysed by Marcel Mauss (1990) in his book on gift giving, and it appears across history in diverse forms of commoning based on solidarity, mutuality and conviviality (de Angelis, 2017). More recently it is seen to depend on attitudes of mutual acceptance, cooperation and mutual support in times of need (Banting and Kymlicka, 2017: 3). Following Banta and Kymlicka (2017: 4), we can distinguish three dimensions of solidarity:
•Civic solidarity: this involves mutual tolerance; a commitment to living together in peace, free from intercommunal violence; acceptance of people of diverse ethnicities, languages and religions as legitimate members of ‘our’ community; and openness to newcomers from diverse parts of the world.
•Democratic solidarity: this involves support for basic human rights and equalities; support for the rule of law and for democratic norms and processes, including equal participation of citizens from all backgrounds; tolerance for the political expression of diverse political and cultural views consistent with basic rights and equalities; and acceptance of compromises among legitimate contending interests.
•Redistributive solidarity: this involves support for redistribution towards the poor and vulnerable groups; support for the full social inclusion of people of all backgrounds to core social programmes; and support for programmes that recognize and accommodate the distinctive needs and identities of different ethnocultural groups.
Governance procedures are concerned to identify mutually beneficial joint projects from a
