Summary
Contents
Subject index
The concept of `governance' has become a central catchword across the social and political sciences. In Governing and Governance, Jan Kooiman revisits and develops his seminal work in the field to map and demonstrate the utility of a sociopolitical perspective to our understanding of contemporary forms of governing, governance and governability. A central underlying theme of the book is the notion of governance as a process of interaction between different societal and political actors and the growing interdependencies between the two as modern societies become ever more complex, dynamic and diverse. Drawing upon a wide range of interdisciplinary insights, the book advances a comprehensive conceptual framework that seeks to capture the different elements, modes and orders of governing and governance. A series of useful distinctions are employed, for example, between self, `co', and hierarchical modes, and between first, second, or meta orders to illustrate the many different structures and levels of modern governance today. Theoretically rich and illuminating, Governing and Governance will be essential reading for all students and academics across the social and political sciences, public management and public administration.
Problems and Opportunities (First-Order Governance)
Problems and Opportunities (First-Order Governance)
In first-order governance, governing actors try to tackle problems or create opportunities on a day-to-day basis. In this chapter, I aim to deal with these two governing activities, keeping their basic diversity, complexity and dynamics in mind.1 In modern societies the responsibility of finding solutions to societal problems and creating opportunities belongs to the collective realm. The ‘classical’ distinction of turning to the government for problem solving, and to the private sector for creating opportunities, is an outdated idea. Problem solving and opportunity creation in complex, dynamic and diverse societies is a public as well as a private challenge. At one time one party takes the lead, in another situation it is another, and there seem ...
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