Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice 5: 101–105, 2003c© 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Manufactured in The Netherlands.

Introduction to the Symposium: ComparativeSociopolitical Governance

JOHN DIXONDepartment of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Plymouth

ALEXANDER KOUZMINCranfield Business School, Cranfield University

DAVID GOODWINFaculty of Human Sciences, University of Plymouth

Used routinely for several centuries, generally when referring to the exercise ofauthority within a given sphere, the term governance in its contemporary senseis essentially about creating the “conditions for ordered rule and collective ac-tion’’ (Stoker, 1998, p. 17). In its simplest form, governance is the exercise ofpolitical, economic, and administrative authority to manage a society’s affairs.Kooiman (1999, p. 70) defines sociopolitical governance more precisely as “Allthose interactive arrangements in which public as well as private actors par-ticipate aimed at solving societal problems, or creating societal opportunities,and attending to the institutions within which these governing activities takeplace.’’ Governing thus involves the design and implementation of governancestructures and processes, and regulatory regimes.

Sociopolitical governance has achieved a contemporary policy relevance be-cause, throughout the world, there is a growing and contested trend away frompublic provision of services, in the face of the perceived inefficiency of the state(Weimer and Vining, 1999; Kooiman, 1993; Hult and Walcott, 1990). This shift hasoccurred in a context characterized by perceived fiscal policy constraints andthe perceived constraints on state autonomy and legitimacy engendered by theglobalization forces of economic, financial, technological, and ecological inter-dependency (Hirst and Thompson, 1996; Hulsink, 1996; Zecchini, 1996), all ofwhich have contributed to a political and ideological environment that allowed,if not facilitated, a frontal assault on the Keynesian Welfare State, although itmust be noted that, despite the state retrenchment rhetoric, “government in-tervention in the social sphere has increased rather than diminished’’ (Merrien,1998, p. 60).

There can certainly be little doubt that the socioeconomic, political, cultural,and natural environments that now prevail in most advanced liberal democraciesare much changed from any that have existed before. As these societies havebecome more diverse, dynamic, and complex, so the role of governments has

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changed, particularly as governments seek to respond to the perceived inca-pacity of traditional governing structures, processes, and instruments to re-spond to the challenges of this new world order. The response has been agradual transition away from traditional modes of governing towards new pat-terns of state–society interactions, which in turn has stimulated much debateconcerning the management of these interactions and the meaning and pur-pose of government and its public agencies and how they can be judged andheld accountable for their actions and performance. It has been argued that oneconsequence of the new sociopolitical environment, in some advanced coun-tries, has been the creation of a state too big for small problems, yet too small forbig problems (Kazancigil, 1998). When one considers the increased plurality ofagents of government and civil society participating in the policy process, andthe growing complexity of issues to be decided upon, it is perhaps not surpris-ing that some contributors to this debate question whether modern societiesare in fact governable—e.g., “the crisis of governability’’ (Crozier, Huntingtonand Watanuki, 1975; Dror, 1994; Foucault, 1991; Maynetz, 1993; Offe, 1984;Willke, 1990) and the “exhaustion of the traditional forms of state intervention’’(Merrrien, 1998, p. 57).

Confronted with these new challenges, governments now find it more diffi-cult to perform effectively, efficiently, and legitimately (Kooiman and Van Vliet,1995), and consequently the state has been compelled to redefine its role.Governing in a modern society has become more a process of coordination,steering, influencing, and balancing pluralist interactions (Wright, 1994; seealso Lamour, 1997), with the state (civil service) increasingly expected to actas trustee of the public interest (Ott and Goodman, 1998). What this means forthe achievement of policy goals is the necessity of administering public policyin a way that places service delivery on a continuum rather than a public–private dichotomy; engenders public trust, and fosters coordination and co-operation; understands participation as a precondition for human action andinteraction (Doyal and Gough, 1991; Drover and Kerans, 1993); and providesa measure of social justice (Rees, Rodley and Stilwell, 1993). More specifi-cally, the governance challenges confronting governments are to determine thefollowing:

• What is the best way of creating an enabling environment that will allow alter-native service delivery modes to replace or augment central public provision?

• What multilevel political and administrative structures and processes areneeded to protect the public interest (including the rights of individuals andorganizations) in a decentralized policy environment?

• What are the governance and regulatory structures, culture, processes, andrequirements needed to achieve articulated public policy goals in a decen-tralized policy environment?

• How should suboptimal provision (for desired public policy outcomes) bedealt with in a decentralized policy environment?

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• What accountability structures, instruments, and processes are needed toensure that service providers in a decentralized policy environment areaccountable for the degree to which they achieve the public policy goalsexpected of them?

These issues all beg the obvious question: what constitutes the “public in-terest” and how does it differs (if indeed it does) from the aggregation “privateinterests”? This distinction may well be problematic, as public choice theoristshave argued (Olson, 1965), which goes a long way towards explaining why themarketplace has become the dominant ideology and the centerpiece of publicpolicy. That liberal democracies are in the midst of a crisis of government legit-imacy, however, is because there is little belief in the “common good.” As com-munitarians (Sandel, 1982; Walzer, 1983) and idealists (Wolff, 1973; Williams,1985) insist, however, the public interest is grounded in a notion of the col-lectivity, or the common good. The public interest is thus constitutive of theindividual, not the other way around, partly because the common good reflectsshared values and language, and partly because it creates a social bond andidentity (Plant, 1991; Elster, 1991). What, then, is in the public interest is a matterof public policy.

Faced with such a crisis of legitimacy, there is a need to restore the fiduciaryprinciple of the public interest, which holds that the state has a duty to serveand enhance the well-being of all its citizens: citizenship rights and obligationsmust be expounded clearly; social assets must be conserved and enhanced; thevulnerable must be protected; and diversity must be recognized and acknowl-edged (Brown, 1994). Determining the public interest, however, involves a deli-cate balancing act: on one side is self-interested autonomy (promoting positivefreedom), and on the other side is public-interest control (constraining positivefreedom to promote negative freedom) (see Goodin, 1982). In this balancingact, Rouseau (1974) predicted, more than two centuries ago, that self-interestsregularly prevail over public interests. And his long-standing dilemmatic gover-nance challenge still remains:

[How] to devise a form of association which will defend and protect the personand possessions of each associate with all the collective strength, and inwhich each is united with all, yet obeys only himself and remains as free asbefore.

Protecting the public interest can only be achieved by regulatory compliancewithin the context of a sociopolitical governance mechanism (Kooiman, 1999;see also Kooiman, 1993; Rhodes, 1997; Wilks, 1996). There have, however, longbeen debates about whether any governance mechanism can even be, andremain, focused on the public interest (Edelman, 1964; Lowi, 1969; Peltzman,1976; Schubert, 1960), and about the causes of regulatory failure (Donohue,1989; Gormley, 1994; Kettle, 1993).

This symposium explores some central issues in sociopolitical governancein comparative perspective.

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John Dixon is Professor of International Social Policy at the University of Plymouth in the UnitedKingdom, where he is the Director of the Governance of State-Society Interactions Research Centre.He has published extensively in the filed of public and social policy administration and management.His latest book is Responses to Governance: Governing Corporations, Societies and the World(Praeger 2002).

Alexander Kouzmin is Professor of Organizational Behaviour at the Cranfield School of Manage-ment in the United Kingdom.

David Goodwin is a Research Scholar in the Department of Social Policy and Social Work at theUniversity of Plymouth in the United Kingdom.