Abstract
This chapter offers a theoretical critique of existing approaches to the new governance for their neglect of culture and agency. In doing so, it proposes that we conceive of the new governance as the social construct of situated agents. The chapter begins by examining what still remain the leading accounts of the new governance — the neoliberal account, often inspired by rational choice theory, of the rise of markets, and the institutionalist account (associated with the Anglo-governance school) of the rise of networks. Both these accounts rely tacitly on positivist assumptions about the appropriateness of our reading-off people’s beliefs from objective social facts about them. Hence they neglect meanings and culture. Next the chapter goes on to examine the prospects for a post-positivist or social constructivist approach to the new governance. It challenges the popular idea that all constructivists are anti-realists. It suggests, to the contrary, that constructivists share a concern with exploring social practices through bottom-up studies of meanings that emphasize contingency. Yet, social constructivists remain ambiguous or confused about the question of agency. Sometimes they even imply that individuals are the passive bearers of discourses, which, in turn, are defined by the relations among semiotic units.
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Notes
D. Osborne and T. Baebler, Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector(Reading, MA, 1992).
Also see the discussions in C. Hood, ‘A Public Management for all Seasons’, Public Administration, 69(1) (1991), pp. 3–19; and
L. Terry, ‘Administrative Leadership, Neo-managerialism, and the Public Management Movement’, Public Administration Review, 58(3) (1998), pp. 194–200.
General expositions of rational choice theory include G. Becker, The Economic Approach to Human Behaviour(Chicago, 1976);
J. Elster (ed.) Rational Choice(New York, 1986); and
K. Monroe (ed.) The Economic Approach to Politics(New York, 1991).
For a classic statement of the general problem of governance from within neoclassical theory see O. Williamson, ‘Transaction-cost Economics: The Governance of Contractural Relations’, Journal of Law and Economics, 22(2) (1979), pp. 233–61.
See D. Richards and M. Smith, Governance and Public Policy in the UK(Oxford, 2002);
R. Rhodes, Understanding Governance(Buckingham, 1997);
G. Stoker, Transforming Local Governance(Basingstoke, 2004), the references in fn. 4, and for critical discussions
M. Bevir and R. Rhodes, Interpreting British Governance(London, 2003), pp. 45–78; and
M. Marinetto, ‘Governing Beyond The Centre: A Critique Of The Anglo-Governance School’, Political Studies, 51(3) (2003), pp. 592–608.
For the outcomes of these major research Programmes see G. Stoker (ed.) The New Management of British Local Governance(London, 1999);
G. Stoker (ed.) The New Politics of British Local Governance(London, 2000); and
R. Rhodes (ed.) Trans forming British Government, 2 vols (London, 2000).
The main criticism of positivism of relevance to what follows is a semantic holism that implies our beliefs encounter the world only as a whole so theory plays an ineluctable role in perception. See W. Quine, ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’, in From a Logical Point of View(Cambridge, MA, 1961), pp. 20–46.
J. March and J. Olsen, The New Institutionalism: Organisational Factors in Political LUV, American Political Science Review, 78(3) (1984), p. 738.
Also see J. March and J. Olsen, Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics(New York, 1989).
Early exponents of rational choice theory sometimes privileged self-interest in this way. See A. Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy(New York, 1957), pp. 27–8.
W. Mitchell, ‘The Shape of Public Choice to Come: Some Predictions and Advice’, Public Choice, 77(1) (1993), pp. 133–44; and
C. Vicchaeri, Rationality and Co-ordination(Cambridge, 1993), particularly pp. 221–4.
Examples include H. Kass and B. Catron, Images and Identities in Public Administration(London, 1990);
D. Farmer, The Language of Public Administration: Bureaucracy, Modernity, and Postmodernity(Tuscaloosa, AL, 1995); and
C. Stivers, Bureau Men, Settlement Women: Constructing Public Administration in the Progressive Era(St Lawrence, KS, 2002).
N. Parton, Governing the Family: Child Care, Child Protection, and the State(London, 1991); and
P. Armstrong, ‘The Influence of Michel Foucault on Accounting Research’, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 5(1) (1994), pp. 25–55.
The Anglo-Focauldian approach to governmentality or governance is usefully showcased by two collections of essays. See G. Burchell, C. Gordon and P. Miller (eds) The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality(London, 1991); and
A. Barry, T. Osborne and N. Rose (eds) Foucault and Political Reason(London, 1996). On the legacy of structuralist tropes in post-structuralism see
R. Harland, Superstructuralism: The Philosophy of Structuralism and Post-structuralism(London, 1988); and
G. Gutting, Michel Foucault’s Archaeology of Scientific Reasoning(Cambridge, 1989).
M. Dean, ‘Culture Governance and Individualisation’, in H. Bang (ed.) Governance as Social and Political Communication(Manchester, 2003), p. 123.
C. Gordon, ‘Governmental Rationality: An Introduction’, in G. Burchell, C. Gordon and P. Miller (eds) The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality(London, 1991), p. 5.
P. Thompson, ‘Postmodernism: Fatal Distraction’, in J. Hassard and M. Parker (eds) Postmodernism and Organizations(London, 1993).
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© 2007 Mark Bevir
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Bevir, M. (2007). The Construction of Governance. In: Bevir, M., Trentmann, F. (eds) Governance, Consumers and Citizens. Consumption and Public Life. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230591363_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230591363_2
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