Power faces in regional governance☆

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the IPSA Power Conference in Soeterbeeck, 15–18 April 2010.

Abstract

The literature on power displays little interest in the subject of regional governance and the literature on governance tends to neglect issues of power. This article aims to reintroduce power into the governance debate. To this end, we adopt Barnett and Duvall’s broad power perspective that includes four faces of power. With this broad perspective, we analyse a regional governance case study on the implementation of nature policy in the Netherlands. Our main conclusion is that each of the four faces of power reveals different aspects of this case, and that only by taking them together can we fully explain the outcome of the case. We also suggest that such a broad analysis of power in regional governance studies would greatly contribute to understanding governance processes and their outcomes in general.

Keywords:

• power
• power faces
• governance
• regional governance
• nature policy

Notes

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the IPSA Power Conference in Soeterbeeck, 15–18 April 2010.