Mark Considine The Power to Persuade Symposium Melbourne September 5 2012

1. Governance Networks and the Question of Transformation Mark ConsidineThe Power to Persuade SymposiumMelbourneSeptember 5 2012

2. Some Big Questions • How do we design a better system? • Efficient • Inclusive – public, private, civic. • Flexible – individuals & regions • Innovative – capacity to learn • Legitimate – accountable, popular.

3. Institutional development debates • Different perspectives agree that transformational change is hard to explain, difficult to engineer. • Legacy effects, path dependence and lock-ins are common in all systems. • Most accounts emphasize shocks and upheavals as triggers for significant change. • Institutions (mostly) restrain change?

4. Problem Definition • If transformative change cannot be directed by our existing institutions and only by environmental shock, our capacity to respond to big probelms is limited. • EG. Climate change, people movement, food security.

5. Path dependence • Douglass North, 1990. Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, (Cambridge, CUP) • Branching points • Increasing returns • Combined effects • Paul Pierson, 2004. Politics in Time: History, Institutions and social Analysis, (Princeton University Press). • Politics produces ambiguous outcomes • ‘Mental maps’ promote stored solutions • Politicians favour the short term.

6. The Governance solution? • One common response to the grid-lock problem has been to see governance and its improvement, as a way forward. • Governance refers to the relations between institutions and actors and the patterns, opportunities and ‘leverage points’ provided by those relations.

7. Why Governance? • World Bank first used the term governance in 1989 “as a kind of code, for the bank’s charter prevented it from talking about the domestic politics of its members.” • By 1994 a bland and vague definition was focused upon the ‘management of resources’. • Peter Lamour, 2005, Foreign Flowers: Institutional Transfer and Good Governance in the Pacific, University of Hawai’i Press, p.24.

8. Western Governance Perspectives • Kooiman, 1993, Modern Governance: New Society-State Interactions, (Sage, London) • Steering achieved through horizontal means too • Complexity requires co-production • Legitimacy demands engagement • Putnam, 1993, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, (Princeton Uni Press). • Social networks deliver embedded resources • Networks involve reciprocation thus trust • Networks cut transaction costs

9. China and Governance • Yu Jian-xing & Wang Shi-zong, 2011, “The applicability of Governance Theory to China”, (FJHSS, 4:1). • “Heated debate” about applicability of G-theory due to Western notions of civil society, democracy etc • G-theory also linked in positive way to ‘bottom-up’ approach – Kang & Han, 2005. • Zang, 2003, is skeptical because governance presumes mature pluralistic institutions, spirit of democracy & compromise. • Is mature civil society needed first, or comes from?

10. China, continued • Can social institutions function well as ‘interest groups’ or are they too interconnected with state and party (White, 1993) ? • Yu (1999) & Yu & Zhou, (2008) propose that greater independence may grow through participation in governance – not either/or. • Jia & Huang, (2007) also note that the market opens China to new forms of freedom and thus to lifestyle choice etc.

11. Shared Problems • Governance questions rely upon forms of effective independence within deep partnership • But civil society sectors & networks prove hard to link to public institutions • Lagging regions/excluded groups often lack networks • Hard to get beyond small initiatives/policies.

12. Governance Networks: Institutional Types

13. Some data • Neighbourhood Renewal – 19 Vic communities - 87% of indicators showed improvement or reduced rate of deline (DHS:08) • Communities for Children – NGOs in 45 Australian localities – improved outcomes partly because of increased services and better co-ordination. • New Deal, Canada – failure to connect infrastructure with social goals

14. Local Partnership Architecture • Problem identification and information sharing • Shared projects – multilevel • Stakeholder inclusion • Democratic experimentation • Main outcome is ‘improved governance’ (OECD)

15. Transformation Again • If we designed good governance networks, could they manage transformation? • Requirements: (1) some independence from other institutions (2) be inclusive of all key interests (3) have a history of joint work (4) be insulated from typical party-political competition.

16. Layering & ‘Hidden Alternatives’ • The answer to path dependence is found in layered institutions with ‘stored alternatives’ • The possible solution to lock-ins is ‘complementary configurations’ within networks • The alternative to party-competition and short-termism is juridical-bureaucratic mandates for governance networks.