Introduction

‘Complexity’, ‘Dynamics’, and ‘Diversity’ are omnipresent in today’s discourse on governance. They refer to the fact that social conditions in modern societies are perceived as multi-layered and complicated. Social issues are being addressed by multiple actors; governments are not necessarily playing a primary role anymore. A multiplicity of actors is involved, expressing individual interests yet having unequal capacities to exert influence. Resolutions for governing issues are the result of various interacting factors that are rarely wholly known. Knowledge, experiences, and interests are dispersed over many actors constantly changing their roles and relationships. Actor dependencies and constellations increasingly differ from global to local and from sector to sector. Diversity cumulates as these processes gain speed as well as intensity. There have always been competing interests, e.g. countryside versus city, sacred versus secular, merchants versus manufacturers, employers versus workers, etc. However, there was, in earlier times, considerable cohesion within those groups as a consequence of their strong tribal and nationalistic frames. Today, the actors involved struggle hard to realise legitimate and effective governing but can rarely keep pace with changing trends and shifting roles.² It is difficult to have a truly representative government when actor and group identities are fragmented and pluralistic, while political parties are either ‘big tents’ with multiple, sometimes even conflicting, constituencies, or ‘small tents’ representing a variety of regional interests, or even small single issue parties.³