Governance as a Unifying Framework for Public Administration? 239
conjunction. Empirically, studies supporting the theory of administration con-
junction are, at least so far, largely limited to urban areas. Conjunction’s ability
to usefully explain and help us understand government-society relationships at
higher levels, such as the state or nation, has yet to be fully explored.
Regime Th eory of Governance
Despite the work of Lynn et al. (2001), a general theory of governance is still lack-
ing. For Frederickson, governance is more of a unique and emerging subfi eld
within public administration than a distinct stand-alone discipline. To encour-
age growth of governance as a theory, Frederickson (2005) suggests that scholars
would be wise to look to international relations, specifi cally regime theory.
Th eoretical developments regarding the emergence, structure, stability, and
legitimacy of regimes have direct application to governance theory where the
unit of analysis is organizations (of all types) and how they collaborate to pro-
duce a desirable public good. Regime theory is the study of how entities (in this
case, states) adapt to changes in the environment and relations with other entities
(states). Changing “states” to “agencies” shift s the focus to how agencies (across
multiple sectors) adapt and form relationships with each other. As such, Fred-
erickson uses regime theory from international relations to develop a three-part
theory of governance:
- “inter-jurisdictional governance,” defi ned as “vertical and horizontal
inter-jurisdictional and inter-organizational cooperation” - “third-party governance,” or the “extension of the state or jurisdiction
by contracts or grants to third parties, including subgovernments” - “public nongovernmental governance,” including “forms of public
non-jurisdictional or nongovernmental policy making and implemen-
tation” (2005, 294–295)
Th e purpose of this three-part theory is not only to provide scholars with a
working defi nition of governance, but also to aptly couch governance within the
fi eld of public administration. “It is suggested that there be a fundamental distinc-
tion between public administration as the internal day-to-day management of an
agency or organization on one hand, and public administration as governance,
the management of the extended state, on the other” (Frederickson 2005, 300).
As such, the three parts of Frederickson’s theory can be thought of as follows:
First, inter-jurisdictional governance is policy-area specifi c formalized or volun-
tary patterns of interorganizational or interjurisdictional cooperation. Second,
third-party governance extends the function of the state by exporting them by
contract to policy-area specifi c nonprofi t, for-profi t, or sub-governmental third
parties. Th ird, public nongovernmental governance accounts for those activities