Governance, Innovation and Polycentricity

Victor GalazStockholm Resilience CentreStockholm University

Three forces that are reshaping the

Planet

The AnthopocenePlanetary Boundaries

“The Great Acceleration

Political shifts towards networked forms of governance

Mass-Self Communication

Information Revolution

How should we govern ourselves in

an era of rapid global change?

Resilience

capacity to deal with change, stress and shocks, and continue to develop

Adaptation

”Bounce back”

Innovation

Transformation

Individual Private companyInternational organizationLocal community

Self-organization is key

Why does this matter?

Because governance is becoming increasingly complex, and provides more

space for self-organization!

Global changes in the political landscape

Decentralization

Public Private Partnerships

Non-governmental organizations

International agreements

Centralized decision-making

Central policy-maker (e.g. environmentalministry)

Regional or local state authorities

Local natural resource users

Decision-making

Implementation and monitoring

Behavioral response

Decision-making in complex governance systems

Central policy-maker (e.g. environmental ministry)

Regional or local state authorities

Local natural resource users

Decision-making,implementation,negotiations,partnerships

Implementation, monitoring, negotiations, partnerships

International norms, agreements

Decentralization

Non-state actors

What is governance?

“Steering”

From “command and control” to collaboration, negotiation, “governance without government”

Patterns of collaboration, instruments to guide repeated interactions and steering attempts

Mini-task, 15 mins

Pick a political area of interestTry to identify key actors involved in steering

What is their objective?Could be local, could be global.

Making Sense of Complexity in Governance

All systems don’t look the same!

Two main approachesi) Box typologies

ii) Network typologies

Box typology, example - Urban Governance

Jon Pierre

ParticipantsObjectives

InstrumentsOutcomes

.....

Box typology, example - Urban Governance

1980s, is a Darwinistic perspective on local economic development; cities

that cannot sustain their economic growth should not be artificially supported

by national government. Furthermore, inwelfare states such as the Scandina-

vian countries and theNetherlands, the central state has experienced growing

budget deficits, which has led to cutbacks in local government grants. Sup-

porting declining cities and regions, therefore, is no longer an option.

Table 1 summarizes the fourmodels of urban governance. Patterns of sub-

ordination describe different relationships between urban economic policy

and the market economy. In both positive and negative subordination, urban

policy is responding to, rather than proactively governing, the economy. In

positive subordination, urban policies conform and contribute to the market

economy, whereas negative subordinationmeans that urban economic devel-

opment policy is so constrained by the capitalist economy that it is effectively

unable to make a contribution to the functioning of the economic system.10

Hula (1993, 38) described local government restructuring as a case of posi-

tive subordination; local governments are restructuring in ways “that mobi-

lize types and levels of private resources not normally available to purely

public institutions,” in ways “that shift program goals toward traditional eco-

nomic elites,” and in ways “that may reduce popular control.”

As Table 1 suggests, there are such distinct differences between the four

governance models that conflict within the city administrative apparatus

should only be expected. Cities tend to contain these different institutions by

allowing for a multiorganizational and fragmented structure in which differ-

ent segments of the organization are enabled to develop different models of

governance. It remains clear that the differences in perspective on urban poli-

tics that the models display suggest that urban “ungovernability” is in part

388 URBAN AFFAIRS REVIEW / January 1999

TABLE 1: Models of Urban Governance: Defining Characteristics

Models of Urban Governance

Defining Characteristics Managerial Corporatist Progrowth Welfare

Policy objectives Efficiency Distribution Growth Redistribution

Policy style Pragmatic Ideological Pragmatic Ideological

Nature of political exchange Consensus Conflict Consensus Conflict

Nature of public-private exchange Competitive Concerted Interactive Restrictive

Local state-citizen relationship Exclusive Inclusive Exclusive Inclusive

Primary contingency Professionals Civic leaders Business The state

Key instruments Contracts Deliberations Partnerships Networks

Pattern of subordination Positive Negative Positive Negative

Key evaluative criterion Efficiency Participation Growth Equity

at Stockholms Universitet on November 17, 2010uar.sagepub.comDownloaded from

From Pierre (1999), Urban Affairs Review

ii) Network typologies - polycentric systems

Vincent Ostrom

Polycentric systems - many centers of decision making that are formally independent of each other.

“Many elements are capable of making mutual adjustments for ordering their relationships with one another within a general system of rules where each element acts with independence of other elements.”

ocean acidification

climate changemarine biodiversity

FAOICES

World BankIUCN

UNEP

WorldFish Centre

UNESCOGlobal Forum on Oceans

Coasts and Islands

UN Ocean

PacFaGPA-MarineICRI

FAO WB

World FishUNEP

Other examples

CybersecurityClimate policy

Urban governance

some networks, while in others, the organizational structure is mainly basedon policy co-ordination offices. Furthermore, some project-oriented sub-networks (usually with only a limited number of participating cities), whichare supported by special EU funding, have emerged within most networks.

The second common structural feature of TMNs is that they are headedby (political) boards consisting of a president, various vice-presidents andadditional board members. These bodies are responsible for general decision-making between General Assembly meetings. Board members represent theircity and are directly involved in local politics and policy-making. Boardmembers are usually powerful representatives (for example a mayor or vice-mayor) of the most active cities who push innovative approaches at locallevel. They share a common interest in transnational learning and theexchange of experience across national borders. Furthermore, board membersrepresent the network externally, for example, at international conferences,and may even engage in direct lobbying, such as in the decision-makingprocesses of the European Commission or the European Parliament.

The third feature of TMNs is their member cities. Joining a TMN is seento have advantages for cities, ranging from the exchange of experience toaccess to funding and the development of direct links between the local and

Figure 1: Structure of Transnational Municipal Networks

Source: Authors’ own data.

CITIES, EUROPEANIZATION AND MULTI-LEVEL GOVERNANCE 315

© 2009 The Author(s)Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

From Kern & Bulkeley (2009), JCMS

1,400 European cities in city networks

From Strong to Weak Polycentricity

Weakest - only communicationSelf-organization

Not necessarily non-hierarchical

From Strong to Weak Polycentricity

Stronger - Self-organization and joint action by

core

Strong - high levels of trust, small groupSelf-organization, joint action, conflict

resolution

From Strong to Weak Polycentricity

Mini-task, 10 min

• Same system as before, think about it as a polycentric system

• Nodes - who? what?

• type of links - collaboration or just communication?

BREAK