Lecture 1, introduction
Transformations:
Institutions are important why ‘things go as they go’, why people behave in a certain way,
their societal patterns.
Working on spatial or environmental transformation means understanding these patterns
and changing them.
What are institutions?
Institutions as organizations EU parliament
Institutions as ‘rules of the game’ we need rules that guide our behavior. Flipperkast and
we are the ball
Institutions as both social and societal patterns (ways of doing) and discourse (ways of
thinking)
Schools of thought, three types of institutionalisms:
Historical institutionalism
Rational choice institutionalism
Sociological institutionalism
Historical institutionalism
Big meta institutions
Level of political systems. Technological systems, culture and power relations
Why do some countries expand state influence while others are allergic to that?
Wy are labor unions striking one country and are they negotiating with employers
organizations in another?
Example, energy policy in NL:
Historical view: how have we become so dependent on fossil fuels in our societies and how
is this changing? Path dependence
What are the mechanisms of this institutional stability and change on the long run?
Core concept: path dependency
= history matters
= institutions started in contingency and often even accidental. But once the path is chosen, it makes
it difficult to develop alternatives.
Rational choice institutionalism
Prima assumption: individuals choose the alternative that is likely to give them the greatests
satisfaction or profit
People will act rationally within the bound of institutions (as rules of the game)
Rules sometimes from state origin, sometimes market, sometimes community agreement
Example energy policy in NL:
Rational choice; what is important for people with regard to energy efficiency?
What rules of the game that guide energy behavior must we change?
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, What incentives work out best?
Sociological institutionalism
Connects to the more inclusive, also cultural view on institutions
It is about formal organizations, rules, procedures. But more importantly, about society’s
informal rules, code of conducts metaphors, problem conceptions, frames of meaning.
Example energy policy in NL:
Is energy a commodity that is produced by multinationals necessarily?
Can we become energy producers? So, we can change our view of energy and therefore the
energy market
PART II from government to governance:
Governance according to Steurer 2013: “formulating, promulgating, implementing and/or enforcing
societally relevant rules by government, business and/ or societal actors whereby the rules can apply
to others and to themselves”
Government state officials tells you what to do
Governance together talk about steering our society
PART III shifts in governing:
Increasing involvement of stakeholder (both market and civil society); participation
From the nation state to societal groups e.g. through advisory boards, but also civil society
(socialization/collaboration)
Sometimes called: multi actor governance
Relating to multiple arrangements and sectors in society; integration
Integrating concepts: sustainability, smart cities, resilience, circular economy, life
environment
Governance of integration; sometimes called: multi sector governance
Multi level governance from nation state to international levels of decision making. So
from cabinet to EU parliament?
State has the core command or meganism comply to the rules we set. Market is about price supply
and demand. Civil society we build on collaboration of each other and trust on each other, we guide
our behavior through. We get to know each other and trust each other, but not state and not
market.
Lecture 2, state
Governance:
Public management and policy-making through interaction between state, local government, market
and civil society. Examples:
Decentralization of spatial and environmental planning
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, Mandate for housing associations For social housing and other types of houses, this was
intended as a way to stimulate the housing development, it hasn't been a success, this is an
example of where it attempts to and is one of the explanation why our housing is not good.
In the end we are building very little while we want to build a lot, this is a dilemma in local
housing policies.
Tendering of public transport the rail infrastructure, that in my areas, the public transport
is under operation of other companies. In the last decades, the transport has been improved
a lot.
Relational state as composing (samenstellen), steering (not rowing), regulating.
Stoker (1998), focussing on five key elements:
1. More centres of power (rhetorical use). Several market actors, civil society, ngo's or all kind of
representative organizations which alline to create policy networks and divisions of labour to
address all kind of spatial and environmental issues. Governance is sometimes a stamp on
what there already was, he doesn’t give one definition of governance, but sees it as a
discourse.
2. Pushes responsibilities onto private and voluntary sectors (active citizenship). Businesses and
on the other hand it is the citizen, this is been very strong in the .. World. Involving citizens has
been become important. The questions of Stoker were more in line we did in the exam.
a. Is about a change in the long-standing balance between the state and market. The
proper answer should be NO.
3. Systemic co-ordination: 'games about rules' rather than 'games under rules'. Emphasises the
importance of a governance. Rules have always been adapted, since we have government and
state. This have prelifilated under governance. This is kind of irony, looking at 1 and 2, is the
central state the central rules in government and policy, live is steering and not implimenting
and doing it by itself. The tendency has be to make more and more rules, what we see in
politics is that state level is all about making more and more rules.
4. Counterpart of this, making networks that govern themselves. 'self governing networks':
common-pool vs regimes. Transport network as a common pool issue, there are many
common-pool issues, what better to organize a community around it. This is more informal,
that we say as the old boy network, that people are working and taking care of that area. If
you run through the world and especially where the tax system is more local than national,
there these regimes are very important, the self governing networks. Self governance has two
aspects, on the one hand it is community based and invested interest that powers and rules
have.
Is there an ideal country of common pool, Sweden --> very strong local government, very
effecting in housing and environment. The bigger cities are struggling under social and
economic problems.
5. The final point, increasingly this game of governance, is about rules and tacktics, it is an
authority that develops us, that is a tendering system that includes certain preferences and
systems, but where the development of these systems is very much based on all kind of rules,
regulations. It is the system that works, instead of a voice saying this is how we do it. This is all
kind of agents with their interest, all kind of tactics to include businesses etc. More tools and
tactics than authority "decomposition and co-ordination: collibration and steering; integration
and regulation".
What are the negative sites, try to remember, which are so important for the wicked problems.
Governance: issues (stoker 1998)
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, 1. Legitimation deficit. We have a state and government ruited in a public law, there was not
much of a devisit there, as long as the government was working well. If we include all kind of
other lectures, it becomes more and more indirect, if housing associations. If health issues are
allocated to health regions how are they responsible, how are they legtigimate via the
municipality.
2. Who is responsible if something get wrong? Few years ago our railway system got a lot of
problems, that was endless blaming to the different companies. That is happily of over, that is
a key example of who is fault? This is pressing in many fields
3. Unintended and unanticipated consequences as the game unfolds. Rules upon rules, the
consequences are very difficult to overseen, some hardly function. Airpolution is a good
example, we play around with rules until we hit a barrier and suddenly action need to be
taken. Have been used in many environmental fields.
4. Two accountablity deficits: internally and against those excluded (power). They want the
government structure to work in a fair way. What you see is that many actors to net get full
respect or a full voice, they thing the system doesn’t work very well. The network includes
actors but also exclude actors, in many fields you can see.
5. All these rules get problems with governmental failure. The government has to meet certain
goals and ambitions and sometimes even certain goals like the sustainable development goals.
This is called the vast and unresolved agent government, this is the central issue that should
involves.
Key question in the field: what role should the state have.
How to govern ‘self-governance’?
“The solution would appear to rest in bringing government back in some form. The networks have a
significant degree of autonomy… yet government, while not occupying a sovereign position, can
indirectly and imperfectly steer networks, so the argument goes of those who believe that
governance can be managed”
Public interest (PI): ‘liberal’ legitimization of public policy.
“In its most limited sense ‘public interest’ is used to express approval, approbation or
commendation of public policy”
“The public interest suggests that there’s something at stake… associated with welfare or
profit”
‘Republican’, liberal position: public interest prudently legitimizes and substantiates the
state: Res Publica
Four types along two dimensions (Alexander, 2002)
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