Reflexivity

Reflexivity evokes the explicit acknowledgement of personal sources of bias when describing and acting upon reality. It highlights the fact that in any interaction with the external world, we are simultaneously disclosing something about ourselves. Being reflexive denotes a critical stance that challenges both the traditional scientific ideal of objective inquiry and the modern ideal of a clear-cut separation between individuals and impersonal institutions.

Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck, Scott Lash, and others identify reflexivity as an organizing systemic principle in late modernity. Reflexive modernization refers to a recursive turning of modernity upon itself, which is of significant relevance to the concept of governance. According to this thesis, linearity and the following of rules, in consonance with a set of pre-established roles, characterized the functioning of prereflexive modern institutions (e.g., family, ethnic group, and the state). These institutions are now in crisis, and functions that were once taking place at the interface of institution and role are now taking place much closer to the subject. Rigid rules and roles are progressively being denormalized in light of nonlinear reflexivity. Yet the outcome is neither chaos nor irrationality. Instead, the outcome is a reorganization in which the subject relates to institutions by being reflexive, rather than by the strict following of rules and roles.

In late modernity, reflexivity transforms governance by opening institutions toward culture and tying them to the political attributes and capacities of self-reflexive individuals. In this context, cultural governance arises as a political practice of promoting citizens' empowerment and self-discipline. This new governance requires a willingness to learn, to be self-reflexive and question oneself, to seek wisdom, to be accepting of other perspectives and consider what one can learn from them, and to trust others in this process of mutual reexamination. Political and administrative research must reformulate the concepts of government and state them in order to include the various perspectives about how to do politics and govern themselves. Effective governance relies increasingly on the ability to empower lay people and to affect their identities in such a way that they act effectively and self-responsibly for the sake of coherence and integration of the socioecological system to which they belong.

Reflexive governance implies moving to more network-oriented forms of strategic communication. Reflexivity can enhance the dialogue and collaboration among different institutions. It can also help create a process of self-reflection within institutions in which people ask why they do the things they do and how things could be done differently. This kind of reflexive exercise is fundamental not only to understanding and contrasting different versions of reality and situating different perspectives within a wider argumentative context, but also to discussing the alternative courses of action in order to deal with the new risks and opportunities posed by modernity and globalization.