a systems theory of governance

8/13/2019 A Systems Theory of Governance

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Paper prepared for ICPP, Grenoble 2013. Panel 45/session 1.

A systems theory of Good Governance

Henrik Bang & Anders Esmark

The advent of network societyor control society (Deleuze 1995)poses a challenge to

critical theory and practice insofar as it suggests an appropriation of democratic vocabulary

and the critical imaginary by a new managerial paradigm of good governance, hailing

empowerment, individual freedom, creativity and self-governance framed by the

democratic vocabulary of participation, transparency and accountability. Good governance

relies instruments of governance that nurtures and strategically utilizes the self-governing

potential of civil society under the strategic supervision of public authorities, seen in such

diverse areas as employment policy, police power and crime prevention, health policy and

biopolitics, employment policy, educational policy, accounting practices etc. (Bang and

Esmark, 2009).

The paper first maps out this strategy of good governance the main implications for public

governance policy and organization. Secondly, the paper discusses the main tenets of

governance research, in particular the critical responses to good governance based on

deliberative and radical democracy. Based on this reading, the paper suggests two

theoretical adjustments to the analysis of governance. First, we suggest a reintroduction of

macro-sociology and a revised analysis of the political system and current modes of

governance. Secondly, we suggest an alternative analysis of the relation between power andfreedom involved in good governance.

The strategy of good governance

To avoid initial confusion: the notion of good governance does not refer to a scientific

theory of governance or governance as a research program. Good governance refers to an


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empirically observable politico-administrative way of making public policy-making,

reforming and organizing. There are countless applications of the concept of governance, as

has been noted by several observers (Rhodes, Jessop), leading others to question the

theoretical value of the concept (Sabatier xxx,). Moreover, the many applications of the

governance concept oscillate between scientific and practical applications, between

research programs and policies, between observation and the object of observation itself

(Jessop 2012, Meuleman 2008). Indeed, governance theory is often part and parcel of the

strategy of good governance rather than an external observation.

Against this background, our starting point is a firm commitment to the study of good

governance as an empirical phenomenon rather than to governance studies as a research

tradition. Indeed, it is one of the central claims of the book that the empirical implications of

good governance cannot be fully grasped by remaining with the meso-level type of theory

to which most governance research belongs. Clearly governance research provides an

important source of debate, to which we shall return, but our application of the governance

concept involves no initial concern for governance as a research program, be it in terms of

the theoretical coherence of the concept of governance itself (Hughes 2012) or the

development of a conventional parsimonious researchprogram around this concept(Frederickson et al. 2012).

Providing some empirical parameters to good governance may still prove enough of a

challenge, given that we are dealing with a complex or even heterogeneous phenomenon,

which can be observed in and across a variety of different dimensions, levels, territories,

institutions and policies. Setting aside for now its many local variations, however, the overall

strategy of good governance can be seen as a set of guidelines for politico-administrative

practice in three relatively distinct ways. First and foremost, it is a particular thinking about

how to govern, or simply how to conduct public governance. But it also a political agenda,

i.e. a particular set or even hierarchy of policy issues as well as a way of framing these

issues. Finally, good governance involves particular stances and notions about the

organizational reform of the public sector. As such, good governance covers three basic

politico-administrative domains: public governance, policy and organization.


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Good governance as self-governance

The preoccupation with governance indicates a particular concern with the problem of

steering. In theory as well as practice, the underlying point of the governance perspective is

to relocate politics and administration from the problem of the state to the problem of

steering, or, put differently, to reframe the state as one particular construct that can be

utilized within the more general problematics of government (Rose & Miller, 1992). This

general problematic of government is essentially instrumental and practical; it is concerned

with how to govern, or, if we are to do away with the remaining state connotations of

government: how to steer. Correspondingly, good governance is technical (or technocratic,

in the proper sense of the word) before anything else: it is concerned with the humble and

mundane mechanisms by which authorities seek to instantiate government (Rose & Miller,

1992: 183). The end result of good governance is specific techniques of government, and its

main ambition is continuous innovation and refinement of these techniques.

Correspondingly, one very basic way to circumscribe good governance is in terms of the

techniquesthat it deploys. These techniques include, for example Total Quality

Management (TQM) such as the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) developed

specifically for the administrations of EU member states (REF), taximeter management or

other forms of funding by units of production, self-development plans for job-seekers,

public campaigns, competitive bidding, benchmarking, peer-review, management by

contracts, inspection etc. We do not purport to present a full list of the techniques relevant

to good governance at this point, but merely to provide an indication of what we are looking

for at this level of analysis. Techniques can be more or less complex and more or less

specific in terms of policy focus, ranging for example from simple guidelines for risk

assessment in relation to alcohol consumption to budgetary mechanism covering the entire

administration of a given political system. The techniques of good governance all aim,

however, to establish aframework for self-governance. The techniques of good governance

are deeply ambiguous: on the one hand, they presuppose and in moist cases also aim to

strengthen the self-governening capacity of organizations and/or individuals, but on they

other hand they approach this self-governing capacity as a resource of government; as


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something that will increase the effectiveness of government if provided with proper

guidance and direction.

The heterogeneous array of good governance techniques does not form a consistent field of

intervention in itself, but rather a domain of circulating instruments and mechanisms that

can be deployed in relation to specific problems and imagined solutions. This takes place

through what has been called translation between techniques andprograms (Rose &

Miller, 1992, Power XXXX). Programs are identification of particular problems in the

conventional sense of a reality failing to live up to a desired state of affairs. We can also talk

of strategies: identification of problems and possible solutions leads to specification of

means and ends; of certain goals and ways to achieve these. Although programs and

strategies can sometimes be fairly abstract and inter-textual, they are often also very

straightforward to locate: we find them laid out rather clearly in the reports, white papers,

proposals and position papers of ministries, agencies and organizations, as well as in certain

types of legislative acts. Good governance strategies are diverse, but they share a common

language of problematization, including possible solutions. On this level then, good

governance amounts to a strategy of mobilization. This strategy involves, on the one hand, a

call for flexible integration of various forms of knowledge, expertise and resources to tacklecomplex or wicked policy problems and provide sufficient innovation and ownership of

solutions, and, on the other hand, an appropriation of democratic vocabulary in terms of

inclusion, accountability and participation.

Techniques and programs do not exist in a vacuum. They are constituted in relation to

specific rationalities.In most formulations, rationalities are treated as being largely akin to

discourses or paradigms (Rose & Miller, 1992..). Taking this approach in a slightly more

functionalist direction, we can distinguish between two aspects of the issue of rationality. At

the most basic level, the rationalities are determined by particular symbolically generalized

mediums of communication such as political power, money, law, love, truth, news value etc.

(REF). Such mediums define a specific rationality in the very simplest sense: through binary

oppositions such government/opposition, employer/worker, true/false etc. Mediums and

their codes isolate certain communicative domains, also known as function systemsthe

political, economy, science, family etc.within which a number of preconditions and


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motives can be taken as given. In this respect, the question of rationality is a question of

orientation towards mediums and their respective systems. But the question of rationality

also refers to the more specific semantic configurations that have developed in relation to

the symbolically generalized mediums and their codes. It is on this level that we can talk of

various political rationalities in terms of semantics of welfare, justice, freedom etc.

It is of course tempting to think of good governance as a particular kind of political

rationality in this sense. This would finally provide some coherence to a phenomenon that

has so far appeared as rather heterogeneous on the levels of techniques and strategies. But

the empirical reality of good governance, unfortunately, is not coherent on the level of

rationality either. For one, good governance is not restricted to the political domain in the

narrow sense. Although we focus good governance as politico-administrative strategy, i.e. as

a question of public governance, the majority of its instruments and techniques are an

emulation of business, science, family etc. and their various rationalities. Second, although

there are clearly semantics of good governance centered around concepts such as

competition, performance, quality and innovation,this semantic complex is neither

coherent in itself, nor is it necessarily comprehensive in relation to good governance on the

levels of strategy and techniques. Attractive as the idea may seem, strategies andtechniques do not converge towards a common reference point on the level of rationalities.

And vice versa: we cannot think of the strategies as being simply derived from rationalities

and of techniques as the implementation of strategies. Rather, good governance emerges

only as the partial coupling of certain techniques, strategies and rationalities.

The political agenda of good governance

Good governance also involves a political agenda. Traditionally, a political agenda denotes a

set of policies (labor market, immigration, environment etc) and political issues

(unemployment, pollution, traffic etc.) presented as a rather straightforward list so as to

communicate a clear hierarchy of priorities and interventions. The archetypical examples of

such agendas are party programs and election campaigns. Although party programs and

campaigns can certainly express ideas related to good governance, the framework of


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national elections and party systems has never been the most important institutional

framework for good governance. By the same token, good governance does not involve a

specific ideological attachment. The argument has been made that good governance is

simply a form of neo-liberalism or a form of advanced liberalism. However, good

governance conforms neither to the ideology of wider rationality of liberalism in terms its

agenda. The political agenda of good governance has been developed and maintained

primarily by national and international technocrats, administrations and knowledge

institutions.

Before turning to the substance of the policy issues on the agenda of good governance, a

remark on the form of these problems is needed. An absolutely crucial part of good

governance is its interpretation of policy problems as wicked problems. The term wicked is

widely applied, but clearly not in a consistent manner. It does, however, involve one or

more of the following properties. For one, wickedness refers to the transgressing nature of

most current policy problems. Policy problems are typically not limited to a specific

functional domain and its corresponding policy area (education, health etc.) and neither is it

limited to a particular level of governance (global, regional, national or local). Policy

problemsand any attempt to solve themhave effects across a number of dimensionsand levels. Secondly, wickedness refers to the complexity of policy problems. The full set of

causes of a problem is hard to come by and the computational power needed to sort out

their dependencies far from given. Third, wickedness refers to the mounting risks involved

in policy making. Policy decisions are increasingly made in a horizon of global risks where

unintended and potentially irreversible consequences are always lurking, placing policy

making in a perpetual state of risk management. Consequently and finally, solutions to

wicked problems are necessary responses to actual or potential crises and dangers. The

challenge is not to reach political compromises between interests and identities, but to

conduct prudent risk management. The list of wicked problems is open-ended and changing,

but we can none the less point to three areas of particular importance to good governance:

the development of a public administration policy, strengthening competition and

maintenance of security.


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Public administration policyis the simple act of making the entire administration of a

political system the object of policy formulation. Simple as this is, it clearly involves a

particular kind of policy that is internal compared to the various objects of regulation

outside of the political system. For the same reason, public administration policy is by

definition cross-sectoral or even reflexive in relation to conventional regulatory or

distributive policies, pertaining to the premises of the latter regardless of their functional

specification. As such, public administration policy is clearly not a policy in the conventional

sense of an institutionalized sector largely corresponding to a specified area or sub-area in

the portfolio of particular ministries, departments and directorates of a political system.

Although specific agencies or institutions charged with strengthening and developing the

public administration can be found everywhere, public administration policy is

institutionalized much less consistently than the standardized list of ministerial policies

found in most political systems.

Of course, no political system has ever come into existence without constitutional

discussions, more or less openly, about basic polity design and the role of the public

administration within this framework. Turning public administration into policy, however,

departs decisively from this constitutional approach. The purpose of public administrationpolicy is not constitutional reform or rethinking basic polity principles. Neither does it have

much to do with the conventional discussions about the degree of compliance with

Weberian ideal types. In general, public administration takes over where constitutional

issues stop. Public administration policy takes the constitutional framework as given and

works at the level of budgeting techniques, management philosophy, training and

education, wage negotiations and salaries, citizen involvement, project organization etc.

As such, public administration policy is a rather recent invention. Historically, the different

objects of public administration policy have not emerged and developed as the result of a

common strategic policy framework. For the better part of their life, budgeting techniques

have been the result of a mix between technological innovation, political needs and

institutional path-dependency. The preoccupation with continuous training and qualification

of public servants is a much later addition, prompted by the inclusion of education as key

aspect of labor market negotiations in the public and private sector etc. But irrespective of


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their diverse histories, these different domains become increasingly linked during the 1980s

and coalesce into a common policy framework concerned with their mutual

interdependence as dimensions of a common strategy for the development of the public

sector. The is of course dependent on regional, national and local circumstances, but none

the less the timing is remarkably alike between a significant number of countries, settings

and organizations.

An important part of this development is New Public Management (NPM). In many ways,

NPM has been conducive for the formation of public administration policy. However, public

administration policy cannot be reduced to NPM as the emergence of public administration

policy was well under way before NPM, and public administration policy will clearly also

outlive NPM. As established by the various landmark definitions, NPM remains a specific

market-based approach to public administration, setting aside for now the issue of how to

disaggregate this approach into various components (Pollit, Hood, Dunleavy). The degree to

which NPM constitutes a coherent paradigm and whether it has been more or less

consistently implemented in various countries, which has been the main themes of the NPM

debate, are of course valuable questions, but from our perspective the importance of NPM

lies first and foremost in the way it has contributed to the routinization of reflection aboutotherwise disparate elements of public administration within a common policy framework.

Put differently, NPM has provided a reference point that has helped bring about a fully

fledged public administration policy.

In contrast to the internal focus of public administration policy, structural competition policy

is directed towards objects of regulation outside the political system in a more conventional

fashion, but it also lacks the contours of a distinct sector or ministerial policy. Structural

competition policy is decidedly cross-sectoral, tying together established policiesor rather

certain areas of these policiesthe most important of which are enterprise, labor market,

education, science, innovation and to some extent macro-economics and tax policy.

Structural competition policy functions as a meta-policy that establish interdependencies

between certain policy areas according to a common framework of interpretation. What is

particular about structural competition policy is not that it establishes a new object of


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intervention, but rather that it frames and connects existing policies and their various

regulative domains according to a shared strategic orientation.

The origins of this idea are found in economical theory and policy, in particular the

distinction between business cycles and the structural dimension of the economy. Whereas

cyclical instruments are determined by the fluctuations of the economy, mostly short-term

and monetary and financial in nature, structural polices are long-term and directed at

improving the basic structures of the economy. For the same reason, structural policy

instruments are not primarily macro-economical, but directed at business structure, labor

market function, education and research. However, structural competition policy also has

its roots in the idea that globalization implies a sweeping transformation not just of the

economy, but also of culture, communication and the social domain in the widest sense.

The exact nature of globalization remains in contention, also for structural competition

policy, but none the less the force of globalization defines the most basic challenges and

conditions of structural competition policy.

The most basic idea of structural competition policy from the wider globalization debate is

the notion that regional, national and local communities are in a state of global competition.

Growth and development is dependent on the ability of nations and localities to establish a

position in the global marketplace by having a clear business strategy about the desired

business structure and a instruments providing business with the best possible framework

to operate in terms of flexible labor markets, a workforce with the proper competencies,

infrastructure, acceptable tax levels etc. As such, structural competition policy is a form of

enterprise policy, although not simply in the sense of a revamped industrial policy, but

rather of a cross-sectoral strategy to foster and nurture enterprise. The exact composition

of instruments may of course vary, but the basic line of reasoning is rather consistent:

states, regional and local authorities needs to develop a business plan and making a list of

necessary policy adjustments according to this plan in order to thrive or even survive in the

state of global competition.

The final item on the political agenda of good governance is security policies. Security

policies are a much more heterogeneous set of policies than the sectors and domains

included under the umbrella of structural competition policy. Although globalization forms


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an equally important interpretative framework for the current policy understanding of

security issues, we cannot speak of a consistent security policy even on the level of meta-

policies. The list of key security policies includes the conventional domains of military and

policy security as well as information security, environmental issues and energy as well as

the array of biopolicies including not only public health, but also consumer safety, the

workplace etc. Additionally, welfare policies are increasingly being reframed as a question of

security rather than benefits, rights and entitlement.

In spite of their rather disparate nature, the different items on the list of security policies do

share the common feature that they somehow aim to provide security as well as the

fundamental notion that threats and risks are growing at an exponential rate because of

globalization. In the area of military and policy security, asymmetrical warfare, terrorism,

transnational crime organizations constitute the new threat scenario. Threats to corporate

and political information, either in terms of secrecy or an operative communicative

infrastructure, are threatened by intrusion from anywhere on the globe. Climate changes,

pollution and environmental dangers poses and immediate threat on a global scale. Over-

population, pandemics, multi-resistant bacteria and unknown consequences of genetic

modification are just the most self-evidently global domains of public health. Welfare is notso much about labor entitlements as security for those damaged by globalization.

In some cases, the does establish new links between hitherto policy areas, such as the

securitization of climate change and energy. But in other cases the involved policy areas

function very much according to their own logic and traditions, sharing nothing more than a

common (re)orientation towards security in the face of mounting dangers and risks posed

by the process of globalization. Even more than in the case of structural competition policy,

security policies are more or less by definition posed as necessary policies: they are not the

result of mediation between social interests or identities, but rather of necessary risk

management. Security decisions are not based on deliberation between particular political

interests, but rather battles between interpretations of available evidence and knowledge

about minimizing risks and dangers the effects of various types of intervention. In the final

instance, the necessity of security policies comes from the fact that they are assumed to be


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decisive for our survival. Even though they are far from always presented that dramatically,

security policies always operate in the horizon of fatal and irreversible consequences.

Good governance and organizational (re)form

The final dimension of good governance concerns the issue of organization. In addition to its

array of instruments and techniques of steering and its policy agenda, the strategy of good

governance also provides a paradigm for public sector organization and reform. The core

idea of good governance in this respect is the inadequacy of bureaucratic organization.

Specific critiques can be more or less fundamental, ranging from the notion that the bureau

is an obsolete form of organization to more compromising ideas about the bureau as a

necessary, but also insufficient form of public organization. Good governance provides two

basic alternatives to bureaucratic organization: more or less anarchical forms of

organization (markets and quasi-markets) or networks. Whereas anarchical organization is

usually seen as more or less antithetical to the hierarchy of the bureau, networks offer a

third way between hierarchical and anarchical organization.

The first problem is known generically as fragmentation, usually meaning the inability of

functionally delimited bureaus to handle wicked problems. The basic principle of

bureaucracy is functional specification and distinction between bureaus with specific tasks

and competencies. The strengths of functional differentiation are well known: focus,

specialization, professionalisation, elimination of overlapping competencies etc. But the

problems are equally well known: isolation, compartementalization, lack of coordination,

infighting between bureaus etc. The main claim of good governance in this respect is that

problems related to functional specification has been exasperated to the extent that they

potentially make bureaucratic organization dysfunctional. The problems related to

functional specification have always been endemic to bureaucratic organization, but, so the

good governance logic goes, the rapid growth in wicked policy problems means that

decisions taken within specific bureaus limited by their own operational logics and concerns

are now more likely than ever to be inefficient or even damaging.


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The problem also extends to other founding bureaucratic principle of organization, i.e. that

of the hierarchy. In conventional bureaucratic theory, functional differentiation and

hierarchy are mutually supporting principles of organization, providing a kind of

organizational equilibrium. Organizing bureaus as parallel hierarchies is thus the

conventional solution to the problem of coordination, involving a cabinet or another

organizational forum of bureau leaders coordinating their bureaus top down. According to

good governance, this has, however, become a completely inadequate solution. For one,

the main expertise required to meet current policy are found among the rank and file.

Coordination between bureaus therefore required on all levels of the bureau, and not

simply at the apex of the pyramid. Moreover, bureau leaders are assumed not to be

completely in control of the vast organizations that they are formally heading, or at least

subject the conventional problems of the principal-agent relationship. In most cases, bureau

leaders are also politicians as well as administrators, making them prone to interpret policy

problems politically rather than substantially.

In addition to the problems related to the surge of wicked policy problems, good

governance also subjects bureaucracies to critiques from the perspective of efficiency. On

the one hand, this involves the more or less standard red tape accusations of rigidprocedures, slow pace, stalling, the culture of street-level bureaucrats etc. On the other

hand, this line of critique involves the more decidedly economist notion that bureaucracy is

an inefficient form of organization in terms of public spending. The core of the latter

argument is that budget maximizing it more or less endemic to bureaucratic organization. In

addition to the organizational principles of bureaucracy, the economist critique also involves

assumptions about motivational structures and utility functions on the micro-level, but the

end result is that bureaucracy is seen as a form of organization prone to sub-optimal results

and spending on the systemic level.

Good governance can also involve critiques of bureaucratic organization of the more moral

persuasion. This line of arguments contrasts bureaucracy with the entrepreneurial and free

spirit required of public (and private) employees in the modern workplace. The

entrepreneurial spirit requires active participation, innovation, (self-) development as well

as social and personal competencies far beyond the merely professional, which can easily be


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contrasted with the archetypical figure of the bureaucratic as a rule-bound and rigidly

professional servant. As demonstrated convincingly by Paul du Gay, this line of argument

has clear parallel in humanistic critiques of bureaucracy found in Christian theology as well

as the political theory of emancipation. Whether du Gays defense of bureaucracy is the

only response to bureaucracy bashing, is, however, another matter.

As noted, good governance provides two organizational alternatives to bureaucracy. The

first of these is to opt for anarchical forms of organization in the shape of markets and

quasi-markets. This option is rooted mostly in the economist critique of bureaucracy and

constitutes an important part of the NPM approach. The suggestion is that the reliance on

markets and market-like forms of organization is more economically efficient. The

preference for markets may result in options such as contracting out, selling of public assets,

creating of public-private companies in the area of energy, transportation and

communication etc. The more important part of the market solution in good governance,

however, pertains to the creation of internal quasi-markets among formerly bureaucratic

organizations, which are then reshaped as autonomous businesses subject to some level of

competition and pervasive performance measurement. Posing anarchical forms of

organization as the solution are clearly not based on seeing fragmentation as the problem:fragmentation is rather seen as means to achieve more efficiency, balanced by the creation

of centralized agencies charges with performance measurement.

For the same reason, NPM has been criticized for having no solution to the challenge of

coordination, or more to the point: making coordination effectively impossible due to

increased fragmentation. Such observations form an important backdrop for the theory and

practice of network governance, i.e. the creation, utilization and management of networks

in public governance. Network governance takes the notion of wicked policy problems and

the need for coordination in and across functional domains and levels as their starting point,

arriving at network organization as the optimal form of organization to meet this challenge:

All these transformations require the diffusion of interactive, multilayered networking as

the organizational form of the public sector. This is tantamount to the reform of the state.

Indeed, the rational bureaucratic model of the state of the industrial era is in complete

contradiction to the demands and processes of the network society (Castells 2006, p.16).


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The strategic use of networks in contrast to the addition of yet more formal-bureaucratic

organizations and reliance on detailed legal regulation does not take place at the margins of

the public sector, but provides the basic road map for current and future organization and

policy development in a number of the most advanced public authorities. Although Castells

notion of the networked state poses a particularly strong version of bureaucracy bashing in

favor of networks, more conventional versions of the argument are still highly critical of

bureaucracy even though they see networks rather as a supplement to bureaucratic

organization. In the latter version networks are seen as a specific remedy to the

shortcomings of bureaucracy.

The function of such network vary from policy formulation to implementation, as does their

size, stability, the level of inclusion and their type of anchorage in the political system. But

the network paradigm forms an essential part of good governance. It comes in the shape

of a call for increased public-private corporation, partnerships, stakeholder involvement and

public innovation. Networks are crucial to the mobilization strategy of good governance,

given that they form the organizational bedrock for the involvement of experts,

representatives of organizations and businesses as well as citizens seen to carry resources of

importance to the solution of specific wicked problems. Networks are also posed as thesolution to the challenge of inter-departmental coordination on and across levels of

governance. Finally networks can be seen as a purely intra-organizational addition to the

formal offices of the bureau in terms of project organization, teams and groups.

Governance on governance

The most ardent observers of good governance as politico-administrative strategy are found

in the growing field of governance research. The relation between the governmental

strategy of good governance and governance research is rather intimate, involving a

substantial degree of conceptual and ideational cross-fertilization (Jessop 2012, Meuleman

2008) as well as strong linkages through consulting, seminars, think-tanks, personnel

exchange etc. Such cross-fertilization is of course fundamentally positive and in keeping

with the tradition in the larger realm of public administration and public policy research,


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which forms the primary background for governance research. The potential downside,

however, is of course a lack of distance between governance research and its object of

observation. This is not meant to suggest a retreat to the safety of the academy in fear of

engaging the practical side of government, but on the other hand the virtually

indistinguishable conceptual and ideational framework of governance research and good

governance does pose some limits on the possible strategies of observation and analysis. In

order gauge the implications of good governance more fully, an alternative framework is

needed.

Governance studies do not form a research programme in the narrow sense, but it does

revolve around a shared interest in the growth, management and performance of markets

and networks in public governance. These forms of governance are then contrasted with

conventional forms of governance, making the distinction between hierarchy, market and

networks the constitutive conceptual framework of governance research. This framework

reflects the distinction between state, market and civil society, which has served as the

dominant image of modernity since the birth of sociology.

Current governance research is certainly not the first to apply this distinction in political and

administrative science. Previous variations include hierarchy, market and negotiation (Dahl

and Lindblom, 1953), politics, market and persuasion (Lindblom, 1977), hierarchy, market

and relational contracts (Williamson, 1985) and hierarchy, market and solidarity (Kaufmann,

1983; Offe, Streeck and Schmitter, 1985), as demonstrated convincingly be Helmut Willke

(1998: 88). The distinction between hierarchies, markets and networks used almost

univocally in current governance research basically continues this tradition (Bevir and

Rhodes, 2003; Jessop, 2003; Kickert Klijn, and Koppenjan, 1997; Kettl, 2002; Koppenjan and

Klijn, 2004; Srensen and Torfing, 2007; Mayntz, 2003; Rhodes 1997, 2003, Scharpf 1993).

Although state and hierarchy are not strictly synonymous, the two terms, together with the

concept of bureaucracy, are used more or less interchangeably to describe a broad state

tradition of steering and coordination inthe governance debate. The notion of governance

based on the market mechanism is used more or less invariably in governance debates. The

relation between the networks and civil society is perhaps less straightforward, but most

definitions of the network tradition of governance none the less retain the essential


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attributes of civil society. Although the concept of networks was originally imported to

governance research from organisational sociology and work on inter-organizational

networks, the broad network tradition of governance is often defined in terms of cultural

and communicative attributes traditionally seen as the province of civil society, such as

dialogue or solidarity (Jessop, 2003: 102), reflexive rationality (Bang, 2003; Torfing, 2007), a

culture of reciprocity and utilization of trust as a medium of exchange (Bevir and Rhodes,

2003: 55, Consedine and Lewis, 2003: 133).

Governance research has produced an astounding number of permutations and positions

(see, Rhodes, Jessop, Meulemann, for overviews), but they essentially remain within the

framework of state, market and networks. Within this framework, governance research also

displays a rather pronounced tendency to argue in favour of network governance.

Governance research is almost unanimous in its critique of bureaucracy as an insufficient

form of governance. Although networks are typically presented as a necessary addition

rather than a wholesale alternative to bureaucracy, there is clear tendency towards

bureaucracy bashing in governance research. The use of market mechanisms in public

governance, on the other hand, is typically seen to involve the danger of market failure.

Correspondingly, governance research tends to focus on networks as an optimal third waybetween the over-steering of bureaucratic governance and the under-steering of the market

(SrensenXX).

The result is an extensive discussion of network performance from the perspective of

regulatory efficiency. Inputs to this item on the governance research agenda include studies

of the extent to which networks have contributed to policy formulation and implementation

within various institutional settings and policy areas (OToole/Meier 2004, Hall/OToole

2004, Rodriguez et.al. 2007, Imperial 2005, Provan/Milward 1995 (ikke printet), discussions

of the structural features that enhance or hinder network performance (Moynihan 2008,

Provan/Kenis 2007, Graddy/Chin 2006, Berry et. Al. 2004, OToole/Meier 2004b, Keast+

2004, Mandell 2001, Millward/Provan 2001, 1998), and not least discussions about how

about how to increase network performance through network management

(Rethemeyer/Hatmaker 2007, Herranz 2007, Agranoff 2006, McGuire 2002, KKK 1997,

Klijn/Koppenjan 2000).


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However, governance research also includes a strand of thinking that is highly critical of the

preoccupation with regulatory efficiency. This line of argument draws, on the one hand, on

the discourse analytical approach to power and ideology and, on the other hand, on the

theory of deliberative democracy (Fischer 2003, 1995, 1993, Hajer and Wagenaar 2003). The

critical position advanced by this type of discursive or deliberative policy analysis has been

developed in marked opposition to the perceived uncritical nature of the technocratic

focus on regulatory efficiency in governance research (and public policy research in general).

This critique involves, first, an image of the technocratic approach as an instance of

totalizing (and usually failed) social engineering, highlighting the limits of empiricist

epistemology, evaluation methods and theoretical models of the policy process, the lack of

irrefutable positive effects on socio-economic development and not least the unwillingness

of the technocratic approach to engage the issues of power, subordination and totalizing

tendencies in public governance. Second, the technocratic approach is blamed for elitism

and insufficient attention to the issues of broad democratic participation and deliberative

quality in the policy process quality of public policy-making (Fischer 1995, 2003).

Applying the standard of regulatory efficiency to network governance and public

governance in general can, according to the this approach, be seen as the key instance ofthe technocratic tradition and its lack of critical potential: the focus on regulatory efficiency

displays the kind of bureaucratic top-down rationality with little or no attention paid to

issues of participation and deliberation considered emblematic of the technocratic

framework. This has led some observers of network proliferation and recent

transformations in public governance to supplement the standard of regulatory efficiency

with criteria of democratic performance. Within this group of contributions there is

widespread agreement that networks cannot be considered democratic from the

perspective of minimalist, liberal and electoral democracy. But on the other hand, networks

are seen to harbour substantial democratic potential based on alternative criteria such as

inclusion, deliberative quality and accountability (Klijn/Skelcher 2007, Mathur/Skelcher

2007, Srensen/Torfing 2007, Srensen 2002, Fung/Wright 2001).

This conclusion has, however, also been strongly opposed by proponents of radical

democracy. In a particularly exemplary argument, Mark Bevir reiterates the argument by


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bracketing good governance and the bulk of governance research as one and the same

instance of system governance that may invoke democratic ideal, but essentially uses such

ideal to cloak the technocratic nature of governance (Bevir, 2006). Agents in favour of

network governance may invoke any number of democratic ideals such as openness,

participation and accountability, but do so in a manner subordinating democracy to

efficiency and stability. The use of networks in public policy is rarely, if it all, meant as an

instrument of democracy, but based rather on neo-institutional and communitarian

concerns for trust and social consensus over values, policies, and the legitimacy of the

political institutions themselves as a precondition for efficiency and overall systemic

stability. Democracy is not the real concern of network governance: at its best, so the

argument goes, network governance blends tensions between the goals of broadening

participation and preserving existing authorities (Bevir, 2006, p.434).

While warnings about undemocratic practices in public governance should of course never

be taken lightly, the widespread agreement among contemporary proponents of critical

policy analysis on the fundamentally uncritical nature of the systemic and technocratic

strand of thought seems questionable. In more general terms, the fact that the debate on

the role of networks in public policy is currently being caught up in a distinction betweencritical and technical approaches to network performance, largely resembling the division of

labour between normative theory and empirical studies in the larger research community of

political science, seems quite unfortunate. It seems a more productive strategy to maintain

that the technocratic orientation within policy studies implies a critical attitude of its own

and that the issue of reiterating democratic standards, critical as it is to normative theory,

does not always make that much of a difference when brought down to the level of

operational standards.. The main problem with governance research, however, is not a

question of technocratic vs. democraticor more or less radical versions of the latteras

standards of evaluation. The pivotal problems, according to our view, are rather the

conceptual and analytical shortcomings of the underlying framework of state, market and

networks as a theory the political system in relation to other systems, as well as a theory of

power.


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The sociology of network society

To some extent, recent debates on governance have reflected the deep-seated dogma in

most critical theory, and perhaps more generally, that technocratic reasoning is the very

definition of uncritical theory and practice. It is beyond the scope of this article to pursue

the reasons for this attitude towards functionalism, but part of the explanation is

undoubtedly the widespread (and understandable) fatigue with the kind of grand social

theory exercised by Parsons. Interpreted in this way, functionalism can be seen to embody

exactly the kind of top-down and technocratic system governance, which either excludes

or co-opts the experiences and capacities of citizens and civil society organisations and

replaces real participation and deliberation with forms of inclusion and discourse fitted to

the needs of systemic stability and control (Bevir 2006).

This critique, however, rests on an unfortunate blurring of functionalism, technocratic

thinking and the notion of system governance. Whereasgood governance is certainly often

functionalist, it is debatable whether this is inherently a problem related to technocratic

rationality, let alone systems thinking. Indeed, the widespread rejection of functionalism

and the extension of this rejection to include systems theory in general is the main reason

for a key problem with current governance research: its lack of a comprehensive macro-

sociology (and almost univocal preference for meso-level arguments). Whether caused by

the preoccupation with putting Parsons to rest or not, governance research has reached a

macro-sociological impasse on a number of accounts.

First of all, governance research and good governance has become virtually

indistinguishable with respect to the utilization of functionalist arguments about necessary

adaptation of public policy and organization to external circumstances such as globalization,

fragmentation, competition and technological development. On this point, the work of

Manuel Castells is used more or less explicitly (1996/2000). In Castells view, current society

is defined by the social morphology and transformative capacity of networks based first and

foremost on the potentials of new information technologies:

The network society is not the future that we must reach as the next stage of human

progress by embracing the new technological paradigm. It is our society, in different


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degrees, and under different forms depending on countries and cultures. Any policy, any

strategy, any human project, has to start from this basic fact. It is not our destination, but

our point of departure to wherever we want to go, be it heaven, hell, or just a refurbished

home (Castells, 2006, p. 12).

The network society is new in the sense that networks are no longer relegated to private or

social life but have become a key to economic production as well as public policy making

and implementation. The network society consist of networks operated by information and

communication technologies that generate, process, and distribute information on the basis

of the knowledge accumulated in the nodes of the network. Castells is the first to stress that

all new forms of societal organization are only conditioned, not determined, by technology.

Rather, society shapes technology according to the needs, values, interests and identities of

people who make use of it. In fact, the generation and accumulation of wealth, power, and

knowledge are growing increasingly dependent on the ability of actors and institutions to

perform communicatively and effectively in the emerging network society by reaping the

benefits of the new technology paradigm.

The notion of network society has, not surprisingly, become the crown witness for

governance researchers with respect to the proliferation of networks. Castells identifies

network proliferation as the key aspect of globalization and thus at the heart of the

challenges faced by states and political authoritiesas well as making networks the

necessary response to these challenges. Castells analysis of network society has been used

as evidence for a networked stateas a necessary response to globalization in governance

research and good governance alike. As such, it is perhaps the use of Castells work rather

than the ghost of Parsons that constitutes the main line of functionalist reasoning in current

governance research.

Although Castells has denounced the misuse of his work by journalists and others,

including agents of good governance, the problem with the concept of network society is

perhaps not simply a question of misrepresentation and popularization. The basis for

Castells analysis is still the conventional macro-sociological distinction between state,

economy and civil society. Technology is basically seen by Castells as a motor that changes

constitutive structures and processes in and between the political (most notably states),


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economy and the social (or civil society). Although Castells takes great care to avoid simple

causalities in between these domains, the technological transformation of the economic

domain does take up a central position. Economy and the mode of production may not be

primary, but it is still a distinct and implicitly privileged domain in Castells analysis, and

changes in this domain do seem to put states under pressure, making their survival a

matter of their ability to implement a network paradigm of governance.

On a more fundamental level, Castells analysis is also exemplary in its reliance on the

macro-sociology of state, market and civil society. The notion of network society remains

firmly rooted in this framework. What is never asked is whether (late) modern society is

actually still structured according to this schematica question that certainly does not

become more prominent in governance research. The question is, however, absolutely

crucial since it not only answers the quintessential macro-sociological question about the

basic organizing principle of society, but also the question of how to grasp the political

system and its particular mode of governance in relation to other systems and their modes

of governance. The macro-sociological analysis questioning the relevance of state, market

and civil society most directly is that of Niklas Luhmann.

Luhmanns basic macro-sociological claim is that functional differentiation gradually

constitutes itself as the primary form of differentiation in society throughout the historical

era of modernity. Luhmann initially declares that the onset of functional differentiation is

hard to date, being subject to historical traces reaching back well into the 14th

century and

15th

century, but none the less comes to the conclusion that stratified society has decidedly

given way to a society defined primarily by functional differentiation during the latter third

of the 18th

century (1997, p.734). Stratification and other forms of differentiation such as

territorial segmentation and centre-periphery relations obviously persists in modern society,

but the core of Luhmanns analysis is the proposition that these other forms of

differentiation becomes secondary to functional differentiation throughout the historical

era of modernity. A further implication of the primacy of functional differentiation is that

societies in plural have to be substituted for society in the singular. In the historical era of

modernity, there is only on society: a world society fundamentally decomposed into


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function systems such as the political system, law, economy, science, family, religion, health,

mass media, education, art etc (Luhmann 1997, p. 145).

Although functional differentiation is of course widely acknowledged dynamic, the claim

that functional differentiation should be seen as the primary and constitutiveform of

differentiation in a world society potentially conflicts with conventional assumptions and

claims in social and political science. For one thing, the Marxist notion that society is

primarily a class society, or at least a primarily stratified society, is rejected. In a wider

sense, the assumption that society is basically organised according to the dynamics of

having or exercising power vis--vis being the subject of power, endemic to most theories

on power, is rejected. Similarly, the primacy of exclusive territorial segmentation between

nation-states that still dominate the bulk of political science and law are replaced by the

primacy of functional differentiation. Moreover, the claim about the existence of a

functionally differentiated world society deviates from virtually any another concept of

society in the sense that it rejects the basic schematics of differentiation and integration.

Although internally differentiated, conventional concepts of society presuppose an outer

limit of such differentiation, be it cultural, normative, linguistic etc., guaranteeing the

possibility of integration in spite of differentiation. Luhmann sees no such possibility ofintegration in the functionally differentiated world society.

When seen specifically as a question of the historical emergence and consolidation of

function systems, the process of functional differentiation is defined by two key

developments: the increased territorial inclusiveness and increased communicative

exclusiveness of function systems. On the one hand, each function system becomes

increasingly open to anyone, anytime and anywhere throughout the historical era of

modernity, aided by the development of communication and transportation technologies.

As such, Luhmanns analysis of functional differentiation implies a fairly far-reaching claim

about globalisation, according to which each function system has become a global system of

communication and interaction. At the same time, each function systems has become

increasingly isolated, specialised and homogenous in terms of communicative rationality; a

process described as self-referential closure around a particular symbolically generalised

medium of communication (Luhmann 1997, p.708).


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Essentially, a function system is nothing but the innumerable past and present

communicative events and processes relying on a particular symbolically generalised

medium, aided by other communication structures such technological mediums of diffusion,

specialised discourse and language etc. Symbolically generalised mediums include power in

the case of the political system (2000c, pp.18), the medium of law in the legal system (2004,

pp. 173), money in the economic system (1988, pp. 213), truth in the scientific system

(1990, pp. 308), love in the case of the family (1986, pp.18) etc. As Luhmann states, the

most successful and relevant communication in current society is premised on such

mediums, and consequently the formation of social systems are directed towards the

corresponding functions (1984, p. 222). The combined dynamic of increasing territorial

inclusivity and communicative exclusivity of function systems adds up to a completely

differentiated world society without recourse to any meta-principle capable of ensuring

integration between or beyond the communicative rationality of function systems and their

constitutive mediums.

A political theory of network society

The framework of state, market and civil society is not only integral to governance research

as heuristic conceptualization of organization and modes of governanceit is also endemic

to the political theories deployed by observes critical of good governance. Even the most

ardent critique tends to apply the framework of state, market and civil society as a

sociological underpinning of political theory. Castells himself provides a clear example in this

respect. Castells original analysis pitted the new techno-economic system identified in The

Rise of the Network Society against the salient trend, in terms of social movements and

politics adapting, resisting, counteracting the network society mapped out in The power of

Identity (Castells 2001). End of Millennium, in turn, describes the global outcome of the

struggle between these two opposing forces. Although Castells analysis ascribes a

prominent position to power in this way, it clearly also frames the issue of power within the

conventional dialectic of economy and state (politics), or, in more general terms, within the

conventional macro-sociological schema of state, market and civil society. Castells main

ambition is to map out how the proliferation of networks riding on the back of information


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technology change the game of economy and state, presenting us with the image of

globalizing capital, states under stress and social movements with a technologically

enhanced potential for resistance or outright revolution.

Although we find the sociological analysis of the network society to be comprehensive in

many ways, indispensable to the understanding of the rationality of good governance, we

also see a need for a more focused analysis of the network society in terms of power. On

the most fundamental level, the network society is making the opposition between power

and freedom increasingly untenable. This is not to say that the historical particularity of

network society resides in granting a final victory of power over freedom or vice versa. On

this point, we side with Foucault in asserting that in the final instance, there is no opposition

between power and freedom: the mutual dependence of power and freedom is an

ontological condition, not a historical invention.

In Foucaults terms, power can only be exercised when freedom is present, and that

freedom is only possible within relations of power. On the other hand, the relation of power

and freedom is clearly not invariable. As is well known, Foucault found a number of crucial

historical shifts between various power-knowledge assemblages, most notably

sovereignty, discipline and biopolitics, which can then be supplemented by the fully fledged

notion of control society suggested by Deleuze. But whatever their historical particularity,

none of these dispositifs are structured around an opposition between power and

freedom. The historical particularity of network society, in other words, clearly does not

reside in overcoming an assumed opposition between power and freedom, but rather in a

qualitative shift in the mutual dependence of power and freedom.

Our understanding of this shift follows the simple proposition that the network society is, in

terms of power, a control society (Deleuze, 1995). Control is Deleuzes term for the form of

power rising from crisis of disciplinary institutions in the postwar period. In spite of its

widespread application, the notion of control remains rather illusive. Our initial definition is,

however, rather straightforward : control denotes a form of governance that takes the

active embrace of freedom and nurturing of self-governance as its primary means to

whatever end is being pursued. Or, in other words, control is the form of power exercised

through good governance.


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After all, sovereignty and discipline are in a certain sense cruder in their approach to

freedom and self-governance, maintaining their rule through threats and intimidation and

later through the normalizing standards of discipline and bio-political regulation. The

efficiency of rule, for sovereignty as well as discipline, depends on the ability to pose strict

limits on freedom and self-governance. One might say that freedom is still presupposed by

sovereignty and discipline, but not necessarily appreciated. For control, by contrast, the

efficiency of rule and the capacity for self-governance increase proportionally. Whereas the

disciplinary apparatus sought to incur the self-discipline of subjects, control operates

through self-control.

The difference here is anything but purely terminological and inconsequential: whereas

disciplinary technologies and instruments sought to teach the subject self-discipline in

accordance with rigidly prescribed standards of behavior, thought and physical constitution

and expression, i.e. command of ones body, self-limitation, frugality, rejection of animal

impulses etc., control asks it subjects to transgress limitations, think outside the box and

push the borders of the accepted. This nominally simply, but in practice rather complex,

shift from the normalizing power of discipline to seeing the maximizing of freedom and self-

governance as the key instrument of power leads to a certain conundrum or even paradoxfor conventional theories of power: the efficiency of this form and rule and governance

seems to increase proportionally with the level of freedom it affords its subjects.

Critical governance studies have yet to deal sufficiently with this conundrum. Critiques of

good governance leveled by critical policy researchers and radical democrats still call upon

the democratic and emancipatory resources located in civil society against the encroaching

power of good governance. The main response, as exemplified by the notion of good

governance as system governance, has been simply to reject good governance as anything

but an instance of conventional totalizing power masked in democratic vocabulary. Rather

than good governance itself, the critique has been directed at the claim that power and

freedom is not necessarily in the kind of oppositionin theory or practicepresumed by

critical theory.

Habermas is particularly exemplary in this respect. Habermas focuses on how the modern

state functions as an instrument of the market economy and a moral medium of civil


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society, what makes him conclude that since Foucaults power-knowledge category is not

shaped according to the latter it must obviously deny that democratic politics can be

reduced to a moral and collective issue of how to reach a normative agreement in

interaction and dialogue then his approach to the political must also be modelled after the

instrumental subjects monologuewith itself about how to maximize ones utilities and gain

power over ones rational adversaries.

However, this critique of Foucaults power-knowledge analyses as arbitrary and directed

towards acquiring dominion over others does not follow from what Foucault himself says

but from Habermass own conception of strategic action as modelled after an instrumental

action that turns subjects into objects that can be manipulated and deceived. What is clearly

neglected is that just as Foucaults archaeology is far from arbitrary so his genealogy is not

at all directed towards the single goal of obtaining technical mastery or Herrschaft over

others: Both archaeology and genealogy are put to use for understanding and explaining the

various ways in which policies are authoritatively articulated and performed in history; and

not from the presumption that all political ways of doing so are equally valuable, but

precisely with a critical glance as to whether or not it is done truthfully and for the sake of

improving the ability of laypeople to govern and take care of themselves.

This image of the poststructuralist Foucault has in turn convinced modernists like Habermas

that Foucaults own discursive practice is unable to justify itself both normatively and

empirically and make concessions to a self-sufficient hermeneutics and positivist technical

science in which the claims of counterdiscourses count no more than those of the ruling

discourses and, and thus provides us with nothing but a postmodernist rhetoric of

presentation with distinctly anti-humanitarian undertones. As Habermas puts it (1987: 276),

Foucaults power-knowledge analyses are characterized:

(1) by the involuntarypresentism of a historiography that remains hermeneutical stuck in

its starting situation; (2) by the unavoidable relativismof an analysis related to the present

that can understand itself only as a context-dependent practical enterprise; (3) by the

arbitrarypartisanshipof a criticism that cannot account for its normative foundations.


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This criticism does not spring from what Foucault himself sayshe is doing. Rather, it results

from Habermases reading of his political texts as the product of a postmodern rhetoric

which by not being tailored in its forms of knowledge to possibilities of application other

than those of the deception and outright manipulation of self and others ends up in the very

position of the repressive instrumental power that it is designed to resent.

In many ways we think that Habermas is justified is his critique of postmodernism as leading

to presentism, relativism and an arbitrary partisan stance. But he misses the target when it

comes to Foucault. Although the latters early analyses do revolve around the issue of how

technologies of power govern the formation and development of the subject in and

through the exercise of sovereignty, hierarchy and discipline, this does not ipso factoprove

Habermas right in arguing that Foucaults discourse has no general empirical and normative

anchoring but is biased towards the genealogical investigation into the relationship between

the subject, technological development and the exercise of coercive domination.

In fact, this conclusion only appears, because Habermas does not have a freestanding

political category and takes it for granted that the only choice we have in relation to political

domination is whether it shall be reified, distorted, illegal and illegitimate or transparent,

undistorted, legal and legitimate. This makes him believe that since Foucaults power

analyses are evidently not about the kind of communicative action which is moral in nature

and pursues a common social interest or good, it must be about the type of strategic action

which is instrumental in its origin and based on an individual will to success and power.

This is why we think that the ongoing debates of Habermas vs. Foucault in many ways are

quite beside the point. The discussants all set out from the presumption that because

Foucault is anti-essentialist, analyses political authority as genealogies of power, and

regards social and political critique as depending more on the practical exercise of a critical

attitude than on a universally valid critical discourse, he must also be an opponent of the

search for general categories transcending time and place. Rather he must prioritize context

and the historically located subjects will to power, and conceive of citizenship solely as

resistance against the dominant powers that be.


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However, when Foucault prioritizes genealogy, context, and the construction of subjectivity,

we will argue, it is first of all, because the political as a set of regularized practices for

articulating and delivering acceptable public policies operates in and through a logic of

immediacy which requires that subjects possess the ability to decide and act right here and

now in a risky situation characterized by a plurality of unacknowledged conditions and

unintended consequences. Neither instrumental nor moral reasoning can compensate for

the general type of experience with risk and contingency that enables corporeal subjects to

do immediately what necessarily has to be donein the concrete situation. Both the

archaeology of discourse and genealogy of power is tied to this latent project of figuring out

the is, ought and could be of authoritatively articulating and performing social policy.

When it comes to articulating and performing acceptable policies for a society, Foucault

argues, necessity and not human interest is the general rule.

This is exactly why he from the onset pays special attention to the political construction of

what is to be regarded as normal, and, hence, notnormal, under any given circumstances.

Authorization functions through normalization and is required for making and implementing

acceptable policies for a population. Whether these policies are widely agreed upon or

considered legal and legitimate by this population is an entirely different question. In

political life, acceptance of policy is unavoidable or necessary whether the times be

characterized by conflict or consensus, disagreement or agreement, legality or illegality,

legitimacy or illegitimacy, and so on.

Thus, in our view the ongoing discussions of modernism vs. postmodernism in terms of the

opposition between consensus and conflict, effectively help to conceal the general political

problem of normalization that Foucault is raising to examine, namely how an authoritative

statement about what has to be done is shaped and executed at any given moment in time.

Both parties identify political authority with historical struggles for hegemony and

sovereignty initiated by recurrent conflicts of interest and/or identity that have to be

handled morally and institutionally if society shall not succumb to the war of all against all.

They all agree that raw political power is antagonistic and a struggle on life and death, and

that even the most democratic forms of political power will manifest the sovereigns

coercive power over his subjects, no matter how productive and supported his power may


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be. They only disagree as to whether the omnipotent threat of political power and civil war

can be universally tamed and turned into a consensus by general rational means or

whether it can only be dealt with momentarily and temporally by committing corporeal and

historically situated subjects to resist coercive domination and deconstruct the hegemonic

order for the sake of turning what is inherently an antagonistic political relationship, into an

agonistic, democratic one.

In focusing exclusively on whether raw, coercive political domination can be universally or

only temporally domesticated and made into a reasonable mode of domination, modernists

and postmodernists alike actually converts Foucaults political question of how policies are

authoritatively articulated and performed in time-space into so many studies of whether or

not political authority is legal, enjoy legitimacy, is responsive, produce meaningful social

order and manage to meet the conflicting demands of preference calculating and identity

seeking individuals, on the one hand and socially integrative interest and identity groups on

the other hand. In the end,

The public use of reason, legally institutionalized in the democratic process, provides the

key for guaranteeing equal freedoms (Habermas 2002: 101).

Thus conceived, the problem of political domination presents no special problem to the

population, if it is legally circumscribed and institutionalized to optimize the free and equal

access and recognition of their various interests and identities in the political decision-

making processes. The asymmetries of autonomy and dependence that this sovereign

power creates between political authorities and laypeople inside the political, when it

comes to making a difference to the concrete articulation and performance of social policy

are not considered at all. Hence, political authority is frozen in the modern sovereigns

form of legal and legitimate domination.

Conclusion

The dominant response to this challenge from critical theory in its modern and postmodern

guises has mainly been to reinforce the standards of public reasoning, politics proper,


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critical and active citizenship and derived from deliberative democracy and its

communicative model of popular sovereignty. This is a highly problematic response. For

one, it involves an empirical neglect insofar as critical theory remains too unconcerned with

the fact that that political authority does not operate in the modus of sovereignty within the

paradigm of network governance, but rather in the modus of security and immediate and

necessary action. It also shows a normative neglect in the sense that we need to recognize

the potentials for freedom in such immediate and necessary action rather than simply

disregarding it as an instance of distorted communication. Reinforcing sovereignty against

network governance merely serves to retract politicians the public and the media to

disciplinary power and its corresponding form of thickly legitimised political dominance.

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