Western societies are becoming increasingly complex and challenging to govern, yet the modern state continues to play a central role in governance. This book presents a detailed analysis of the challenges confronting the contemporary state and the processes through which the state addresses those challenges. The notion of 'governing without government' is critiqued; instead, Pierre and Peters argue that what is happening a more a matter of state transformation than state decline.
The term 'governance' has become one of the most widely used in debates in Political Science, Public Policy and International Relations - often to mean very different things. Written by two leading political scientists, Governance, Politics and the State is the first systematic introduction to its nature, meaning and significance. Its central concern is with how societies are being, and can be, steered in an increasingly complex world where states must increasingly interact with and influence other actors and institutions to achieve results.
Nowadays, politics is only one voice among many in the concert of social self-organization. Its function is to articulate the differentiated systems of our societies: it encourages their self-restraint, while at the same time restraining itself. Such a conception obviously threatens the primacy of the nation-state. While it is not necessarily disappearing, it must nevertheless cease to be thought of as a dominant principle of organization, and must assume its place in a system of regulation that proceeds on several levels. Distant from the anarchist or Marxist theories that herald the end of the state as it is from libertarian theories of the minimal state, the book illustrates that it is possible in the contemporary period to go beyond the alternatives of dirigisme and neoliberal spontaneity. However, such a transformation can only prove effective through two conditions: we must first reject the enduring opposition between Right and Left, and second, we must invent an anti-state social democracy that is able in its own right to glean the most it can out of the liberal legacy. This book combines philosophical technicality, clarity and elegance of writing in an attempt to provide politics with meaning again, particularly in an era where discourse about its powerlessness abounds.
An exploration of the need for innovative mechanisms of governance in an era when human actions are major drivers of environmental change. The onset of the Anthropocene, an era in which human actions have become major drivers of change on a planetary scale, has increased the complexity of socioecological systems. Complex systems pose novel challenges for governance because of their high levels of connectivity, nonlinear dynamics, directional patterns of change, and emergent properties. Meeting these challenges will require the development of new intellectual capital. In this book, Oran Young argues that to achieve sustainable outcomes in a world of complex systems, we will need governance systems that are simultaneously durable enough to be effective in guiding behavior and agile enough to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances. While some insights from past research on governance remain valid in this setting, Young argues that we need new social capital to supplement mainstream regulatory approaches that feature rule making with an emphasis on compliance and enforcement. He explores the uses of goal setting as a governance strategy, the idea of principled governance, and the role of what is often called good governance in meeting the challenges of the Anthropocene. Drawing on his long experience operating on the science/policy frontier, Young calls for more effective collaboration between analysts and practitioners in creating and implementing governance systems capable of producing sustainable outcomes in a world of complex systems.
Dr Tainter describes nearly two dozen cases of collapse and reviews more than 2000 years of explanations. He then develops a new and far-reaching theory.
"The book is about explaining and understanding the twin processes of cohesion and fragmentation in contemporary societies and the challenges to both governance and identity posed by these antinomic processes. It does this by demonstrating that a new way of thinking and a new set of concepts drawn the realms of cybernetics and communication can build a more effective sociological theory than has been possible up to now. It sets out to explain why this is so and what must happen to change it for the better. To this end it also constructs a narrative about human society as the ongoing outcome of control attempts by people at varying levels of social complexity, attempts which produce a recursive hierarchy of nested levels of social organisation, from the individual up through social networks, groups and organisations through to the nation state and beyond. The key themes of the book are: identity, governance, identity, communication & control in complex societies and the future of human society."--Back cover.
Too many laws, too many lawyers--that's the necessary consequence of a complex society, or so conventional wisdom has it. Countless pundits insist that any call for legal simplification smacks of nostalgia, sentimentality, or naivete. But the conventional view, the noted legal scholar Richard Epstein tells us, has it exactly backward. The richer texture of modern society allows for more individual freedom and choice. And it allows us to organize a comprehensive legal order capable of meeting the technological and social challenges of today on the basis of just six core principles. In this book, Epstein demonstrates how. The first four rules, which regulate human interactions in ordinary social life, concern the autonomy of the individual, property, contract, and tort. Taken together these rules establish and protect consistent entitlements over all resources, both human and natural. These rules are backstopped by two more rules that permit forced exchanges on payment of just compensation when private or public necessity so dictates. Epstein then uses these six building blocks to clarify many intractable problems in the modern legal landscape. His discussion of employment contracts explains the hidden virtues of contracts at will and exposes the crippling weaknesses of laws regarding collective bargaining, unjust dismissal, employer discrimination, and comparable worth. And his analysis shows how laws governing liability for products and professional services, corporate transactions, and environmental protection have generated unnecessary social strife and economic dislocation by violating these basic principles. Simple Rules for a Complex World offers a sophisticated agenda for comprehensive social reform that undoes much of the mischief of the modern regulatory state. At a time when most Americans have come to distrust and fear government at all levels, Epstein shows how a consistent application of economic and political theory allows us to steer a middle path between too much and too little.
The term 'governance' has become on of the most widely used in debates in Political Science - and one of the most misunderstood and contested. This leading and defining text has been updated throughout and extended to cover netweork, global and multi-level governance, on meta-governance and complexity, measurement and building empirical models.
Governing Complexity in the 21st Century surveys the ways in which social systems are becoming more complex. It shows how this complexity impacts every aspect of life for individuals, governments and societies in most social systems at individual, regional, national and global scales and explores how embracing ‘complexity thinking’ can greatly improve the art of governance in all policy areas. The book clearly explains the ideas and methods of complexity science—widely accepted in both the natural and social sciences—then demonstrates how ‘complexity thinking’ can be applied to improve our understanding of governance and policy actions. Providing a deep analysis of many governance challenges, including economic development and technological innovation, environment management, climate change and development in the Middle East, the book also compares national responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Clear and jargon-free, this book is accessible to undergraduates and scholars alike. It is essential reading for policymakers everywhere, showcasing methods for governing effectively and efficiently in our increasingly complex world. It brings together the broad range of social and environmental science fields and will be useful for those studying or working in policy, politics and international relations, environmental issues, business management, philosophy, history and sociology.
