230 9: Th eories of Governance
Kettl argues that there are various reasons for the timing and motivations of
the grand governance debate at the heart of the public management movement.
Th ese include the economic stagnation faced by many democracies in the 1970s
and early 1980s and its association with overregulation by government; the ero-
sion of trust in government in many democratic polities during the same period;
and the end of the cold war, democracies in the West being forced to seriously re-
think their models of governance for the fi rst time in fi ft y years, as they observed
some countries’ building public administration infrastructures around newly
formed democratic polities.
All these elements combined to create a global push to reshape the formal and
informal connections between government and society. Th e net result of the gov-
ernance debate was the emergence of NPM.
Despite the variations, it is the underlying similarities that make the NPM
movement a debate about governance. As Kettl puts it, in both the private and
public sectors administration is centered on the need for social coordination:
“It is how leaders pull together widely disparate resources—money, people, ex-
pertise, and technology—to get things done” (2000, 31). Th e “intricate dance”
of implementing public policy and programs represents the connection between
government and society, and governance is a term that describes that connection.
Because NPM represents a serious eff ort to describe, rethink, and improve upon
that link, it therefore represents a coherent model of governance.
Equating governance with NPM avoids the key criticism of the Lynn et al.
approach by putting clear boundaries on the concept and focusing it on a rea-
sonably well-defi ned model of public management. Some, however, argue that,
although the overlap between NPM and governance is undeniable, there are fun-
damental diff erences between the two. Among the scholars who have given the
most serious eff orts to intellectually unpack NPM and governance as two separate
concepts are B. Guy Peters and John Pierre (1998, 2000). Peters and Pierre begin
by accepting the reality that government’s role as the central public policy actor
and the major infl uence on the economy fundamentally altered during the last
twenty years of the twentieth century. Th is change has precipitated a fundamental
shift in the relationship between the public and private sectors and their relative
roles and responsibilities in providing public service. Th is relationship is at the
core of the debate on governance.
Peters and Pierre (1998) argue that four basic elements characterize discus-
sions of governance. (1) Th e dominance of networks: Instead of formal policy-
making institutions, governance is dominated by an amorphous collection of
actors having infl uence over what and how public goods and services are to be
produced. (2) Th e state’s declining capacity for direct control: Although govern-
ments no longer exercise centralized control over public policy, they still have the
power to infl uence it. Th e power of the state is now tied to its ability to negotiate
and bargain with actors in policy networks. Th e members of these networks are