,1 Plenary
Multi-level Governance
- In this course we analyze policy on three levels:
o Within institutions (meso-level)
o In people’s daily practices (micro-level)
o In the broader socio-political context (macro-level)
- And how these levels interact
Governance
- Is dynamic
Two examples
Strategy
- Strategy as design
- Strategy as practice
,1 Tutor group: Unraveling the concept of governance
Details
- The term ‘governance’ is used in both an empirical and descriptive manner, pointing at
mechanisms of steering, and as a theoretical concept to conceptualize governing structures
and processes. Governance points at governing in networks, encapsulating the role of social
actors, infrastructures, values, and technologies. As a theoretical concept, governance can be
rather abstract and intangible. In this class, we aim to unravel the theoretical concept of
governance by attending to the literature. We conduct a close reading of four scientific articles,
each focusing on different aspects of governance and its consequences. By discussing the
literature in-depth, we seek to come to grips with the governance concept.
Governance
- Dynamic instead of static as previously
- Makes it also more complex more actors and dependences, more involved stakeholders
and people that think or want input
Preparation
1. How is governance defined and described in the four articles?
a. Peters (2001)
i. Multi-level governance: steering between institutions and intergovernmental
relationships
ii. Refers to negotiated, non-hierarchical exchanges between institutions at the
transnational, national, regional and local levels (micro, meso, macro)
iii. Thus, multi-level governance refers not just to negotiated relationships
between institutions at different institutional levels but to a vertical ‘layering’ of
governance processes at these different levels.
iv. But although we think of these institutional levels as vertically ordered,
institutional relationships do not have to operate through intermediary levels
but can take place directly between the transnational and regional levels, thus
bypass the state level.
v. Governance to multi-level governance
1. Decentralizing and more on macro level like EU related
vi. Power: dispersed/not structured. All actors on different levels have different
powers
b. Rhodes (2007)
i. Governance: governing with and through networks
ii. Networks: author’s focus is on macro but also pints at micro-level practices to
explore how governance plays out in daily practices
iii. Refers to a new process of governing; or a changed condition of ordered rule;
or the new method by which society is governed.
iv. Is about England
v. Hollowing out the state – means simply that the growth of governance
reduced the ability of the core executive to act effectively, making it less
reliant on a command operating code and more reliant on diplomacy. In what
ways has the capacity of the British core executive been eroded? The state
has been hollowed out from above (for example, by international
interdependence); from below (by marketization and networks); and sideways
(by agencies and the several species of parastatal bodies)
1. The state is not completely broken up, can still change the rules of
the game, but central government model requires correction
vi. Governance wearing public administration and public policy spectacles:
, 1. Interdependence between organizations: Governance is broader than
government, covering non-state actors
2. Continuing interactions between network members, caused by the
need to exchange resources and negotiate purposes.
3. Game-like interactions, rooted in trust and regulated by rules of the
game negotiated and agreed by network participant.
4. A significant degree of autonomy from the state. Networks are not
accountable to the state; they are self-organizing. State can only infer
indirectly.
vii. Governance refers to governing with and through networks.
viii. Shift from government to governance early 1980s with Margaret Thatcher
1. The government of Margaret Thatcher sought to reduce their power
by using markets to deliver public services, bypassing existing
networks and curtailing the ‘privileges’ of professions, commonly by
subjecting them to rigorous financial and management controls.
2. But these corporate management and marketization reforms had
unintended consequences. They fragmented the systems for
delivering public services and created pressures for organizations to
cooperate with one another to deliver services. In other words, and
paradoxically, marketization multiplied the networks it was supposed
to replace.
3. Marketization privatization (like railways)
c. Scholten (2018)
i. Hospital governance: governance set of processes and tools related to
decision making in steering the totality of institutional activity, influencing most
major aspects of organizational behavior, and recognizing the complex
relationships between multiple stakeholders
ii. Institutions at meso level: Internal (hierarchal) vs external (societal) dynamics
iii. Dual hospital governance
iv.
1. Duality: managers and doctors have their own goals and decision
making structure, but are also interdependent
2. Depend on each other but both keep their autonomy, boundary
between their professions
v. So dependent on each other, so doctor take up managerial tasks
vi. Middle is boundary spanning positions
d. Riley (2006)
i. Governance of operating room nursing: power (micro-level) is dispersed and
intimately related to knowledge
ii. Nurses: against classic image of nurses as subjected to power of surgeons
iii. It transcends the traditional lines of authority and control in the nurse-doctor
relationship.
iv. Self-control and self-discipline in the OR
v. Governmentality (Foucault):
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