Different Modes Of Governance Research Articles

Is it enough to enable freight? Modes of governance for urban logistics in Norway

ABSTRACT Urban freight transport is central to urban societies, and yet urban authorities have traditionally left it to private actors to resolve freight challenges. Urban authorities rely on different governance strategies to address freight that result in fragmented freight governance, as many solutions are fixed in time, sector, or place. Drawing on Bulkeley and Kern’s typology of four modes of governance – self-governing, governing through enabling, governing by provision, and governing by authority – this paper asks: in what ways do urban authorities use different modes of governance in the case of urban logistics? Empirically, the paper looks at the modes of freight governance through an explorative workshop, document analysis, and interviews from Norway’s four largest cities – Bergen, Stavanger, Oslo and Trondheim. It finds that these cities are limiting themselves to ‘less confrontational’ modes based on accommodating freight activities, which hinders institutionalisation of knowledge and prevents public governance from serving as a coordinating factor for urban logistics.

A configurational perspective for the generalisation of healthcare innovations: The case of a new screening programme

This paper analyses the process of generalisation of an innovative government-led public practice in the healthcare sector. The scaling and embedding involved in this generalisation process are assumed to be dependent on the multiple implementation processes (consecutive or simultaneous) that lead to a routine use of the innovation in different adopters. This paper, therefore, proposes the use of a configurational theory approach to conceptualise each implementation of the innovation during the generalisation process and shed light on the generalisation's scaling and embedding efforts. It suggests a set of recommendations and practices for generalisation managers, most notably: i) they should regard generalisations as organic processes where their main role is to create space for experimentation, learning and negotiation, and ii) they should adopt different modes of governance to identify adequate mechanisms and strategies and guide their actions. This configurational perspective allows them to monitor and manage the evolution of implementations, informs the valuable learning processes that take place in a generalisation and has been found to be a useful tool to support the crucial collaboration among the actors involved in a generalisation.

Serial adapters? Local government chief officers and the navigation of space and time

This article analyses the everyday practices of ‘doing’ socio-spatial relations, drawing upon a series of in-depth interviews with local authority chief officers from across the UK. It argues that for chief officers ‘thinking spatially’ is played out in and through the practice of leadership on the move as they navigate the multiple spaces and temporalities that constitute the landscape of local government. Such leadership on the move resonates in part with predominant explanations of boundary spanning in studies of public governance. But importantly, boundary spanning suffers, our evidence suggests, from a temporal deficit, a ‘thin’ account of time which fails to address the constitutive function of boundaries and the complex politics of fluidity and fixity that follow. Articulating a ‘thicker’ approach to time, we argue that chief officers experience everyday socio-spatial relations less as boundary spanners and more as serial adaptors, who persistently reproduce sedimented boundaries and perform different modes of governance as they move from one arena to another. Serial adaptation, we conclude, challenges the potential managerialist bias of boundary spanning, in which the quest for harmonisation and unity masks over the irreducible complex reality of fragmentation and political conflict within which chief officers move.

Legal Traditions as Economic Borders

This article makes two main claims: A state’s legal tradition is embedded into its domestic institution in each issue area and a state that has a common/civil law-type domestic institution in a certain issue area (not necessarily a state that has common/civil law tradition) prefers common/civil law-type international agreements in the same issue area. The consequence of these two claims is that states’ legal tradition is often one of the primary sources of international cooperation, especially issue-specific cooperation. This in turn means that the difference in legal traditions is often a potential factor that would induce economic disintegration. By conducting theoretical and empirical investigations of three issue areas covered by free trade agreements (i.e., trade in goods, trade in services, and investment), this article demonstrates that different modes of governance are preferred by civil and common law states domestically and internationally, and that the difference in domestic systems partially explains participation and non-participation in international agreements.

Smart Circular Cities: Governing the Relationality, Spatiality, and Digitality in the Promotion of Circular Economy in an Urban Region

This article discusses the governance of a smart-green transition in an urban region. The focus is on how the modes of public governance relate to relationality, spatiality, and digitality, which are of vital importance in determining the success of the transition in question. The empirical inquiry is based on observations of the case of the Tampere urban region in Finland, which exemplifies such governance efforts in the Nordic welfare society context. The discussion shows that the relationality in the given context is fragmentary, dominated by persuasive network governance and soft means of exerting pressure. Municipalities assume many roles in CE governance, which matches their urge to utilize different institutional logics from hierarchies to markets and networks. Rather than a genuine authority, municipalities emerge as facilitators and enablers. Spatiality is highlighted in the formation of designated areas that serve circularity and also provide brand benefits, as shown by the eco-industrial park in the city of Nokia. Digitalization is an underdeveloped area in the circular economy agenda vis-à-vis its assumed potential. Its relevance has been identified by institutional players in the urban-regional governance field, but its realization seems to require both nationally coordinated actions and local solutions that compensate for the lack of a critical mass of developers and users in the circular economy ecosystem. Lastly, regarding urban governance, the parallel utilization of different modes of governance forms a complex setting, in which increasingly sophisticated forms of hybrid governance are emerging. Most notably, in the case of the Tampere urban region, the promotion of a circular economy by intermediaries is supplemented by novel dynamic assemblages that utilize different institutional logics within loosely governed processes that aim at integrating a circular economy into business models and urban development.

Koronapandemian hallinta Suomessa 2020–2022: Hallintapyrkimykset, hallintatavat ja hallintotapojen käyttö

The governance of the COVID-19 pandemic in Finland in 2020-2022: Aims and modes of governance and their uses Governance related to the COVID-19 pandemic in Finland revolved around the actions of the government and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. This article examines this governance by focusing on holistic (whole-of-government; network governance and participation) and reductionistic (coping and taming) modes of governance inspired by literature on the governance of wicked problems. Each mode includes a specific understanding of the problem at hand and the actions introduced to resolve it. In addition, securitization is viewed as a reductionistic mode of governance, but also as a way of justifying the usage of different modes of governance. The results highlight the centrality of the sectoral ministries and pre-existing governance structures. In addition, the results pinpoint how securitization may have been involved in the enactment of various policies, and not only drastic measures.

Self-Governance via Intermediaries: Credibility in Three Different Modes of Governance

This article analyzes the emergence of new forms of regulatory intermediation in three different modes of governance. It compares the emergence of the European data protection and Facebook’s content moderation regimes and raises three questions: How did self-regulation in the European data protection and Facebook’s content moderation regimes evolve over time? What are the similarities and differences in the design of these regimes? And what are the strengths and weaknesses of these regimes in promoting credible self-regulation? To answer these questions, the article process-traces the development of the two regimes and shows how intermediaries and intermediation are used in order to systematically and progressively increase credible governance via market, network, and hierarchical modes of governance. By analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of these three modes of governance, it is concluded that they can be used as blueprints for designing hybrid modes of enhanced self-regulation. In this way, the article introduces ways to capture and study new technologies of regulation that facilitate, manage, and improve the credibility of self-regulation in complex polycentric governance regimes, and well beyond.

How Do Different Modes of Governance Support Ecosystem Services/Disservices in Small-Scale Urban Green Infrastructure? A Systematic Review

As cities are facing environmental and societal challenges, including climate change, rapid urbanization, and the COVID-19 pandemic, scholars and policymakers have recognized the potential of small-scale urban green infrastructures (UGI), such as rain gardens and street trees, to support important ecosystem services (ES) during periods of crisis and change. While there has been considerable research on the design, planning, engineering, and ecology of small-scale UGI, the governance modes of such spaces to support ES and manage ecosystem disservices (EDS) have received significantly less research attention. In this article, we provide a systematic review to evaluate how different modes of governance support different ES in small-scale green infrastructure. We evaluated governance in six types of small-scale green infrastructure: small parks, community gardens, vacant lands, rain gardens, green roofs, and street trees. Our review examines the different characteristics of four new governance approaches, including adaptive, network, mosaic, and transformative to understand their bottom-up nature and applicability in governing ES/disservices of small-scale UGI. Each governance mode can be effective for managing the ES of certain small-scale UGI, given their associations with principles such as resilience thinking, connectivity, and active citizenship. Our synthesis highlights knowledge gaps at the intersection between governance arrangements and ES in small-scale UGI. We conclude with a call for further research on the environmental and contextual factors that moderate the linkages between governance modes and ES/EDS in different types of UGI.

R&D Offshoring and its Effects on the Patenting Activity of Chinese Firms

Involvement in R&D offshoring can result in loss in the ability of the offshoring firms to innovate. To prevent this, firms can design strategies to foster technology transfer by enhancing possibilities to re-adapt and re-invent the foreign-developed technologies. This paper examines the effect of two different modes of governance of R&D offshoring –market and hierarchies - on the patenting activity of indigenous firms, as well as how strategies for enhancing re-adaptation, innovation around and re-invention moderates those effects. We examine this issue empirically using data from 2011 to 2014 for a sample of 312 firms, classified as 'high and new-tech enterprises' located in the Hebei Province of China. Results suggest that governing R&D offshoring through market influence positively firms’ patenting activity, while vertically integrating R&D offshoring though the establishment of R&D labs in industrialized countries has a negative effect. Collaboration with domestic universities and public research organizations seem to stimulate the reinvention of foreign-developed technologies, accessed either through market or hierarchies, and in this way it enhances the effect of R&D offshoring on firms’ patenting activity. On the contrary, employment of foreign staff seems to substitute the effect of R&D offshoring, especially of the vertical integration mode, suggesting that foreign staff may foster knowledge transfer and adaptation but not necessarily re-invention or innovation around the foreign-developed technologies. Our study extends the debate of R&D offshoring to domestic independent firms and suggests boundary conditions for reaping the benefits from R&D offshoring.

Rethinking the potential of collaboration for urban climate governance: The case of Hong Kong

AbstractCollaboration is strongly promoted as an effective means for cities to respond to climate change. While collaboration is perceived to offer opportunities to progress climate action in cities, little is known about how collaboration can enable low‐carbon transformation in practice. Furthermore, while collaboration is largely framed as a positive endeavour, there is a need to more carefully explore the challenges and barriers that may arise. This paper explores the aims, processes, and outcomes of collaboration within urban climate governance. Drawing on a policy review and semi‐structured interviews, we present empirical findings from the case study of Hong Kong. This paper identifies three types of collaboration that are structured by regulations, oriented to policy goals, and emerge as everyday practices within the governance of climate change and the energy system. The forms of collaboration challenge the assumptions that collaboration always brings positive outcomes in mobilising action for climate change. While collaboration opens up different modes of governance within cities, the paper highlights significant barriers in terms of the diverse roles of actors, ongoing power imbalances, and shifting governance spaces for intervention. Given the prevailing interest in working together, it is critical to review carefully how collaboration facilitates cities to achieve their climate goals and create momentum for action.

COVID-19 Responses of South Korea as Hybrids of Governance Modes.

The countries worldwide have adapted diverse governance approaches to the pandemic to suit their contexts. While the diversity of the country-specific governance responses has been widely discussed, the hybrids nature of those governance practices has been explored less. This study analyses the responses toward COVID-19 in South Korea as responsive dialogues of different modes of governance, i.e., consensus-based hierarchy, state-sponsored market, and principle-based network. This study aims to remind us that pandemic governance needs to enable organic and responsive processes for all actors in society. This conceptual discussion of the governance modes illustrates that the pandemic allowed the emergence of the hybrids of governance modes to cope better with the complex realities of the diverse sectors and actors in South Korea. The characteristic of the responses diverges from the conventional governance classification of or market-based. It is a responsive and evolving dialogue of different modes of governance. It would be productive to think beyond the oversimplified understandings of governance modes and embrace flexible and different hybrids of governance modes to be more responsive, effective, efficient, and equitable.

Varieties Within a Collective Skill Formation System: How VET Governance in Switzerland is Shaped by Associations

Context: International scholarship and policy tend to depict national structures governing Vocational Education and Training (VET) as uniform and devoid of internal differences. This macro perspective neglects the numerous processes at the meso and micro level that shape the structure and content of VET. This article focusses on professional associations (meso level) in Switzerland to examine the heterogeneity of governance of individual VET programmes that can exist within one country or one collective skill formation system. Approach: Drawing on insights from historical institutionalism and research on corporatism, we argue that these differences are the product of the characteristics, traditional practices and styles of reasoning of the various associations involved in VET governance. Our analysis is based on expert interviews and governance documents in two vocational areas: Electrotechnology and food services. Findings: We identify and decode an array of cooperative practices and show that collective skill formation has a different meaning for different associations and, correspondingly, different occupations. Collaboration with state actors, unions, VET schools and single firms, as well as voting procedures, differ considerably between associations. Furthermore, we find that these different modes of governance are determined by associational characteristics such as size, level of professionalization, location and established cooperative practices, as well as traditional styles of reasonings. Conclusion: The findings indicate that the decisions taken are not always the product of current day training requirements but of historically grown associational characteristics. Thus, path dependencies are to be considered not only at a macro level but also at the meso level. There is a multifaceted variety of governance approaches beneath the classification "collective skill formation system". Associations are key in defining VET content, working life structures and collectivity.

Sonic Governance: Culturalization and Criminalization of Funk Carioca in Rio de Janeiro

Music and sound have long served as symbols of Brazil, and contests over public sound amplify contests over space, governance, and biopolitics. In anticipation of hosting the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, sound became an important and contested arena of politics in Rio de Janeiro. I discuss how aurality becomes a political force through the emergence of two distinct forms of sonic politics around local popular music, funk carioca: criminalization and, what I call, culturalization. While criminalization mutes and controls sound through police repression, culturalization creates a purified sound and appeals to law to claim legitimacy as “culture.” Funk carioca’s criminalization in favelas and culturalization in the formal city reveals how different modes of governance are spatialized within the city. The paradox of criminalization and culturalization of funk suggests coexistence of authoritarian and liberal democratic modes of governance in the city.

Governance within European Space Policy

The purpose of the article is to analyze ESP in the context of different modes of governance. Assuming that ESP is a unique and multidimensional product of dynamic political, technological, and social processes and ideas coordinated by the EU, its member states as well as non-member ones and implemented in an international environment, there are some research questions to be answered. First, is there any particular mode of governance that should be applied to the analysis of ESP implementation? Second, in what way the EU introduced space policy and space assets to the European agenda? Third, how ESP can be framed within the overall process of European integration? A qualitative research approach has been applied as well as theoretic apparatus embedded in European integration studies and political science. The main finding of the article is that the most promising way of governance within ESP is experimentalist governance. The originality of the article results from the application of the newly established experimentalist governance theory to an analysis of the increasingly important segment of EU activity.

Modelling End-User Behavior and Behavioral Change in Smart Grids. An Application of the Model of Frame Selection

This paper presents an agent-based model (ABM) for residential end-users, which is part of a larger, interdisciplinary co-simulation framework that helps to investigate the performance of future power distribution grids (i.e., smart grid scenarios). Different modes of governance (strong, soft and self-organization) as well as end-users’ heterogeneous behavior represent key influential factors. Feedback was implemented as a measure to foster grid-beneficial behavior, which encompasses a range of monetary and non-monetary incentives (e.g., via social comparison). The model of frame selection (MFS) serves as theoretical background for modelling end-users’ decision-making. Additionally, we conducted an online survey to ground the end-user sub-model on empirical data. Despite these empirical and theoretical foundations, the model presented should be viewed as a conceptual framework, which requires further data collection. Using an example scenario, representing a lowly populated residential area (167 households) with a high share of photovoltaic systems (30%), different modes of governance were compared with regard to their suitability for improving system stability (measured in cumulated load). Both soft and strong control were able to decrease overall fluctuations as well as the mean cumulated load (by approx. 10%, based on weekly observation). However, we argue that soft control could be sufficient and more societally desirable.

Introducing Change in Public Service Organizations under Austerity: The Complex Case of the Governance of the Defence in the United Kingdom

Introducing, managing, and sustaining change in public service organizations is challenging for policy makers to implement and for scholars to theorize. In 2010, the U.K. Government introduced policy changes to help bring down the national deficit. The executive's planned reforms aimed to deliver a so‐called battle‐winning military force, a smaller and more professional Ministry of Defence, and an affordable overall defence organization. The article borrows from theories of management and public policy to help enlighten our understanding of change under New Public Management and governance approaches. The article's central claim is that the U.K. Government sought to correct cost‐efficiency processes in public service organizations trying to reshape organizational and managerial structures dependent on many internal and external pressures. The article examines the executive's purpose in developing a need for change and the ways to implement it. I question whether the U.K. Government's prescriptive and hierarchical approach to organizational change in public administration is sustainable in the long term.Related ArticlesAriely, Gal. 2011. “Why People (Dis)Like the Public Service: Citizen Perception of the Public Service and the NPM Doctrine.” Politics & Policy 39 (6): 997‐1019. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2011.00329.xBurau, Viola, and Carole Clavier. 2018. “Understanding Gaps in the Coexistence between Different Modes of Governance: A Case Study of Public Health in Schools in a Multilevel System.” Politics & Policy 46 (4): 604‐629. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12269Monza, Sabina, and Eva Anduiza. 2016. “The Visibility of the EU in the National Public Spheres in Times of Crisis and Austerity.” Politics & Policy 44 (3): 499‐524. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12163

Explaining Factors Leading to Community Acceptance of Wind Energy. Results of an Expert Assessment

The present article deals with two key drivers of social acceptance of wind energy: procedural justice and distributional justice. It is based on a comparative expert assessment carried out in the frame of the Horizon 2020 project WinWind covering six European countries. The focus of the paper is on procedural and financial participation of citizens and local stakeholders in wind energy projects. The first part covers institutional arrangements for public engagement in two areas of the decision-making process—wind turbine zoning/siting in spatial plans and authorization procedures. Here, three levels of public involvement—information, consultation and participation—were analyzed. The second part examines active and financial participation of citizens and local stakeholders. Here, we distinguish between two different modes of governance: institutionalized forms of public governance and voluntary forms of corporate governance. The outcomes suggest that concrete paths to the social acceptance of wind energy are fostered via appropriate institutional spaces for public engagement. Furthermore, missing opportunities for active and passive financial participation can have strong negative consequences for community acceptance

Advancing ‘Environmental Subjectivity’ in the realm of neoliberal forest governance: Conservation subject creation in the Lokkere Reserve Forest, India

State-based governance mechanisms, such as the ‘fortress model’ and ‘regulatory community’, have proven to be ineffective to overcome forest degradation. Neoliberal interventions adopted by NGOs that provide economic incentives for communities to govern forests are presented as an alternative approach. This article suggests that different neoliberal interventions produce different modes of governance and may involve multiple environmentalities. The work of the NGO ‘Junglescapes’ in the Lokkere Reserve Forest was examined through its community engagement in, (a) lantana craft making in the village and, (b) restoration in the forest. Interviews, focus group discussion, and shadowing research took place during ten field-visits between June 2017 and June 2019. Within the neoliberal governance domain, communities engaged in village occupations were provided with economic incentives through a top-down ‘neoliberal NGO apparatus’. ‘Environmental subjects’ resulted, by which individuals regulate their actions by reducing their dependence on the forest but not necessarily inculcating environmental norms or values. In contrast, actors employed in the forest exhibited independence, effected their own strategies, incorporated local knowledge, and achieved improved ecosystem conditions. This occurred due to the facilitation of local social interaction and leadership through a non-hierarchical ‘conservation network’. An advanced form of environmental subjects emerged and are proposed as ‘conservation subjects’. The latter argued as actors that are produced within a neoliberal conservation model, and are empowered and self-mobilised to act independently to conserve the ecosystem, thereby achieving more-sustainable conservation. Research results have the potential for replication across similar ecosystems, particularly within severely-degraded landscapes in India and globally.

From Centralized Energy Generation and Distribution to Clean Energy Communities: Exploring New Modes of Governance for the Energy Sector

Community management is swiftly developing into a central research field in management literature. A growing body of conceptual and empirical studies is concerned with different aspects of communities, their initiation, management, and termination. One sector that offers a particularly exciting research topic in this respect is the energy sector. We elaborate on the radical transition of the energy industry from large, centralized power-generation facilities to a much more decentralized, community-based production of energy. We scrutinize the theoretical perspectives on managing communities and distinguish between different modes of governance for the production of energy. We also consider recent European Union initiatives that will have a noteworthy effect on the transition process. Our typology shows that the necessary management tasks vary across different types of coordination. Eventually, the establishment of clean energy communities might challenge the very identities of established utility providers.

Governing the Governors: The Global Metagovernance of Fair Trade and Sustainable Forestry Production

To promote environmentally sustainable corporate behavior, a complex system of global private governance operates where civil society groups play dominant roles. We argue that the concept of “metagovernance” developed in the public administration literature helps scholars and practitioners make sense of the constellation of actors, structures, and processes that have emerged in the field of global private governance. This article advances the metagovernance research agenda by providing a comparative application of the concept to two global private governance schemes: the fair trade and sustainable forest product certification systems. We examine the key organizations, arrangements, and relationships that constitute these systems to demonstrate that metagovernance in this sphere is produced heterarchically: multiple organizations within global private governance schemes are mutually responsible for their own coordination. We argue that employing metagovernance as an analytical tool enables the identification and appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses of complex systems for “the governance of governance” from a holistic perspective. Related Articles Alejo, Antonio. 2019. “Contemporary Diplomacy, Global Politics, and Nongovernmental Actors: Dilemmas of the Multistakeholder Mechanism of Participation in Mexico.” Politics & Policy 47 (1): 105‐126. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12284Bance, Philippe, and Angelique Chassy. 2017. “The Rollout of the Multilevel Governance System: A Source of Reworking the Contingent Valuation Method?” Politics & Policy 45 (6): 1080‐1107. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12236Burau, Viola, and Carole Clavier. 2018. “Understanding Gaps in the Coexistence between Different Modes of Governance: A Case Study of Public Health in Schools in a Multilevel System.” Politics & Policy 46: 604‐629. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12269 Related Media FLOCERT. N.d. “How it Works.” https://www.flocert.net/solutions/fairtrade-resources/how-it-works/Forest Stewardship Council. N.d. “Who We Are.” https://ca.fsc.org/en-ca/about-usfsc‐watch.com. 2016. “Jari Certificate Suspension: Why Was it Ever Certified in the First Place?” https://fsc-watch.com/2015/12/22/jari-certificate-suspension-why-was-it-ever-certified-in-the-first-place/