Governance and complexity

Abstract

The article is contrasting and extending governance theory by new developments in complexity theory. Complexity is focusing on the emergence and evolution of social order. This theoretical problem strongly overlaps with core questions of governance. The broadest meaning of governance is the production of social and political order by purposeful political and social intervention – either by deliberate political decisions (hierarchical governance) or by the establishment of self-governing institutional mechanism such as networks or regulatory regimes. Governance structures range from hierarchical decision-making to a variety of decentralized forms of coordination including norms and institutions. The article argues that various streams of complexity theory offer a broader and deeper theoretical foundation for theories of governance and regulation than existing approaches. Complexity theory was initially developed in the physical and biological sciences. However, social scientists rapidly recognized its potential in formulating dynamic theories of the evolution of social systems. Whereas the various approaches differ in detail, they share common elements. These include the explicit modeling of multiple positive and negative feedbacks among the agents in a system, the introduction of learning and adaptation at the level of purposive agents, and the recognition of the multi-layer nature of social systems, in which phenomena at higher levels emerge from (but are not necessarily fully determined by) interactions at lower levels, thus creating a variety of equilibria and orders.