Governing Towards Sustainability—Conceptualizing Modes of Governance

Abstract

There is a growing scientific debate regarding the suitability of certain modes of governance for promoting sustainable development (SD). However, thus far there is neither agreement on ways to meaningfully distinguish and understand governance modes nor a foundation of the aspects to be chosen for this endeavour. In order to overcome this conceptual vagueness, this paper presents a meta-framework for a sound conceptualization of governance modes. Founded on a reinterpretation of the discourse ‘from government to governance’, we argue that only a multi-dimensional approach giving consideration to political processes (politics), institutional structures (polity) and policy content (policy) adequately captures the complexity of governance phenomena. We furthermore highlight possible key features for exploring these dimensions and compare three recently published frameworks for modes of governance. By offering a sound conceptual clarification of governance modes, we facilitate both their meaningful differentiation and a more systematic understanding of their inherent complexity. In so doing, we inform both theoretical and empirical research on governance for SD. We pave the way not only for making more differentiated theoretical statements on the relationship between governance modes and SD but also for empirically exploring this relationship on a profound basis.

Keywords:

• Governance of sustainable development
• modes of governance
• dimensions of governance

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to David Schreiner for improving this paper. We also would like to thank three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. Acknowledgement is also given to the following for permission to reproduce copyright material: Table 1 from Arnouts et al. (2012), reproduced by permission of Elsevier; Table 2 from Hysing (2009), reproduced by permission of John Wiley and Sons; Table 3 from Driessen et al. (2012), reproduced by permission of John Wiley and Sons.

Notes

Like governance literature in general, literature on sustainability governance can be distinguished according to whether it is oriented towards normative or empirical-analytical contributions.

This is in line with Jordan (2008), who argued that it would be mutually beneficial if the broader governance literature and SD governance literature engaged in a deeper manner.

In terms of the predominant institutional level and the interaction patterns among actors, there is a certain interference with the politics dimension. Depending on the point of view, these features thus could be assigned to this dimension as well.

Frameworks that perceive governance modes at a general societal level or elaborate modes within the dimensions of politics, polity and policy separately (Treib et al., 2007) are not taken into account.