In this context, social coordination refers to the ways in which disparate but interdependent social agencies are coordinated to achieve specific social objectives. And in these terms, one could define the general field of governance studies as concerned with the resolution of (para-)political problems (problems of collective goal attainment or the realization of collective purposes) through specific configurations of governmental (hierarchical) and extra-governmental (non-hierarchical) institutions, organizations and practices.
In theoretical terms, this can be linked to certain paradigmatic crises in the social sciences in the 1970s and 1980s – crises partly due, in turn, to dissatisfaction with their capacity to describe and explain the ‘real world’. An interest in ‘governance’ as a major theme is rooted in the rejection of several simplistic dichotomies that inform the social sciences. These include market vs hierarchy in economics; market vs plan in policy studies; private vs public in politics; and anarchy vs sovereignty in international relations. Indeed, Fritz Scharpf (1993) was prompted to write:
Considering the current state of theory, it seems that it is not so much increasing disorder on all sides that needs to be explained as the really existing extent, despite everything, of intra-as well as interorganizational, intra-as well as intersectoral, and intra-as well as international, agreement and expectations regarding mutual security. Clearly, beyond the limits of the pure market, hierarchical state, and domination-free discourses, there are more – and more effective – coordination mechanisms than science has hitherto grasped empirically and conceptualized theoretically. (Scharpf, 1993: 57; translated by BJ [author])
In general terms, it could be suggested that the various approaches to governance share a rejection of the conceptual trinity of market–state–civil society that has tended to dominate mainstream analyses of modern societies. Thus reflexive self-organization has been greeted as a new social-scientific paradigm, as a new mode of problem-solving that can overcome the limitations of anarchic market exchange and top-down planning in an increasingly complex and global world, and as a solution to the perennial ethical, political and civic problems of securing institutional integration and peaceful social coexistence. In part, this recent interest involves little more than an attempt to put old theoretical wine in new bottles and/or reflects one more turn in the never-ending policy cycle whereby disenchantment with one mode of coordination leads to excessive faith in another – until that, too, disappoints.
Political scientists, for example, have expressed growing dissatisfaction with a rigid public–private distinction in state-centred analyses of politics and its associated top-down account of the exercise of state power. Whereas statehood (or, less abstractly, authoritative government) presupposes a state apparatus, territory and population, the notion of governance lacks this core juridico-political or otherwise relatively fixed institutional reference point. If statehood is a concept that applies in the first instance to the polity, then governance relates more to politics and policy. It concerns public politics, public policies or public affairs (Larsson, 2013: 107) rather than the state-cum-polity that provides the framework in which these unfold. However, it is even broader in scope because governance practices are not limited to the polity and indeed, are often advocated as a means to avoid the iron fist (even when concealed in a velvet glove) of state power. This has been reflected in growing concern with various forms of political coordination that not only span the conventional public–private divide, but also involve ‘tangled hierarchies’, parallel power networks or other forms of complex interdependence across tiers of government and/or different functional domains.
The Köln School has been an influential contributor to governance studies under the rubric of Steuerung (steering).7 It has thereby developed a distinctive approach to the problems of governing functionally differentiated, organizationally dense and complex societies. Its leading figures recognized that these problems involved both the steering capacity of governing subjects and the governability of the objects to be governed (Mayntz, 2003: 29; cf also Mayntz, 1993). While these problems can lead to ‘steering pessimism’ (for example, in the work of Niklas Luhmann), the Köln School was more optimistic, influenced, perhaps, by specific examples of successful administrative reform and the overall record of neocorporatism in Germany in promoting economic development and sustaining a high-waged, high-tech, globally competitive ‘Modell Deutschland’ (German Model). Two key figures in developing these ideas were Renate Mayntz and Fritz Scharpf who codirected the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies at Köln for many years. A distinctive feature of this school is its actor-centred institutionalism, namely, its interest in how the interaction between micro-and meso-level actors and institutional factors shapes the possibilities of effective governance. Indeed, Mayntz (2004) later emphasized that the actor-centred political steering (Steuerung) approach to policy-making was quite distinct from the governance (Regulierung) approach, which is more institutionalist and deals with regulatory structures combining public and private, hierarchical and network forms of action coordination. In this spirit, the Köln School explored how to (re)design the interaction between institutions and actors to improve the chances of overcoming policy problems. This is yet another way in which the topic of metagovernance (or, in this context, metasteering) has emerged.
Theoretical background to metagovernance
The notion of metagovernance obviously builds on that of governance. As noted, in its most basic and general sense, it denotes the governance of governance. Whereas some scholars and practitioners explicitly refer to metagovernance, many other terms have been used to denote or connote this phenomenon. This linguistic variety is linked in part to the relatively ‘pre-theoretical’ nature of work on governance and metagovernance, to the diversity of theoretical traditions with which more rigorous work is associated, to the different political traditions and tendencies that have shown interest in governance, to the great heterogeneity of the subjects and objects of governance and, a fortiori, of metagovernance, and to the challenges involved in translating theoretical reflections on governance and metagovernance into policy paradigms or indeed, commercial consultancy in the public, private and third sectors.
This is illustrated neatly in Louis Meuleman’s work on metagovernance (2008: 73). He shows some significant routes to interest in metagovernance in two theoretical traditions (rational choice vs sociological) and with respect to the three most commonly identified modes of governance (market, hierarchy and network). Of particular interest in his analysis is an implicit distinction between first-, second-and third-order governance, to which we return below, as well as the key role this distinction accords to reflexivity, deliberation and normative commitments in second-and third-order governance, which are also the two main sites of what he identifies as metagovernance.
One of the two authors most often cited as the originator of the term ‘metagovernance’ is the Dutch scholar, Jan Kooiman, who belongs to a broader Dutch tradition of sociocybernetic inquiry (see, for example, Kickert et al, 1997; Edelenbos and Klijn, 2007; Meuleman, 2008; see also Deutsch, 1963). Interested in the problems that states faced in governing complex societies, he drew on sociocybernetics to explore state–society interactions not only in terms of automatic cybernetic mechanisms but also in terms of conscious guiding actions (Kooiman, 1993a, 2003). Rather than assume that the state stands over and against society, he viewed governments as cooperating with key societal actors to guide societal development.
Accordingly, he stressed the need for requisite variety among modes of government–society interactions that range from hierarchical governance (top-down intervention) through cogovernance (joint action) to self-governance (societal self-organization without government interference). Whereas Kooiman recognized that each mode has its own specific properties, he argued that they also interact to produce hybrid, or mixed, patterns of governance (Kooiman, 2003: 7). He further noted the importance for effective governance of cultivating the capacity to reflect on, and rebalance, the mix among these modes in response to changes in the challenges and/or opportunities that exist at the interface of market, state and civil society. Governing in modern society requires an interactive perspective concerned to balance social interests and facilitate the interaction of actors and systems through self-organization,
