Regional Governance: Begriffe, Wirkungszusammenhänge und Evaluationsansätze

Abstract

The term governance describes structures and processes for the intentional steering of collective societal matters, typically addressed in concurrence by actors of state, economy and civil society. In the German-speaking community, the term 'regional governance', which corresponds to 'local governance' in the English language, is well-established in the spatial sciences. The purpose of this work is to display and newly systematize the state of knowledge about regional governance. Therefore, possibilities for empirical research as well as restrictions for impact analyses are elaborated. Up to now, there is no common and generally acknowledged definition of governance. To enable a clear use of the term, an overview of critical estimations surrounding the term governance will be given. This involves methodological problems as well as blind spots in theoretical approaches. Against this background, a separate definition of regional governance is established. The examination of impact interdependencies within regional governance shows that for a comprehensive impact model, a kind of a meta theory would be needed. However, such a model is not possible due to its high degree of complexity. In fact, there is a double-sided complexity as it is necessary to regard the impact interdependencies of the governance arrangements themselves as well as of regional development as a whole. In addition, characteristic phases of governance processes must be taken into an account. Possible explanations of impact relations are derived from success factors. As a synthesis of so far used approaches and the insights of this report, proposals are developed for categorizations and indicators for the analysis of regional governance, whereby the actor-centered institutionalism plays an important role. Finally, open questions for further research are addressed.