1

Civil Society and the Disciplines, Concepts, and Practices of Governance

by

Petri Koikkalainen Academy of Finland Research Fellow, University of Lapland, Finland

petri.koikkalainen@ulapland.fi

2

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between the expert discourses and practices of

governance. First of all, it shows how the number of expert discourses on politics has

increased during the last decades. This is closely related to notions such as ‘globalisation’ and

‘governance’, which, at least to a degree, have replaced such concepts as ‘state’ and

‘government’ as the focal points of governance discourse. This has implications on the

division of labour between various academic disciplines, their capabilities to interpret

political phenomena, and to influence public policy. All this relates to the main concern of

the article: how the change of discourse affects representative democracy, its institutions and

normative expectations. For this purpose, the concept of civil society will be at the centre of

attention during its latter half. Civil society has played a key role in traditional theories of

representative government as, for example, the chief source of ‘democratic’ inputs to

government, the controller of the legitimacy of government, and the part of the polity where

individuals and communities autonomously pursue their goals. In the newer discourses of

governance, civil society may be perceived differently, for example as the ‘third sector’ that

is networked with the public and private sectors. By influencing our institutional thinking and

conceptions of the constitution of the political community, these perceptions affect also the

working of representative democracy. However, this situation may open up a fruitful critical

point of departure for those who wish to claim that contemporary governance often attempts

to solve political problems by means that would be better suited for the solution of

managerial and administrative problems.

3

The Disciplinary Pluralism of Political Studies

As pointed out by Philippe C. Schmitter, the ‘sciences of politics’ have not been one but

many, including “law, social psychology, functionalist anthropology and, most recently and

aggressively, neo-liberal economics”.1 Before them, philosophy, history, and constitutional

theory each left their mark on how polities and power-relations have come to be interpreted.

Whether state- or market-oriented, governance is conditioned by theoretical concepts and

doctrines that relate to various expert discourses or ‘disciplines’ – here as elsewhere in this

article understood as internally rather coherent sets of theories or doctrines, which often take

also the shape of an academic subject – that are studied, taught and developed at universities

but also in think tanks, consultant firms, ministries and other expert organisations, and

applied in decisions and plans that are made by politicians and administrators.

Arguably, the market- and network-orientations of governance have led to the growing

influence of concepts and doctrines familiar from such disciplines as business management,

administrative science and organisational sociology. Arguably, the same developments have

led to the at least relative weakening of such ‘traditional’ politics disciplines as political

theory, constitutional law or the history of ideas, but also their more ‘modernist’ successors

such as political sociology or social policy, in the core of actual political reform. To put it in

another way, what is desired in the recent overhauls of government is often not articulated in

the traditional terms of political philosophy or constitutional law as demands for, for

example, better ‘constitution’, ‘separation of powers’ or ‘self-government’, but neither do

such reforms correspond with the vocabularies of the ‘modernist’ empirical social sciences of

1 Schmitter, Philip C., ‘Micro-Foundations for the Sciene(s) of Politics’, revised 2009 Skytte Prize lecture (Uppsala), Chapter 4 (page 2), in Schmitter, Conceptual Analysis and Research Design for Politologists, European University Institute and Central European University, no date.

4

the 1960s and 70s, which saw the nation-state as a holistic ‘social system’, and which often

promoted the extension of state-controlled policies across new substance fields, geographical

areas, or segments of population within the boundaries of that particular nation-state.

The changes in the theoretical and disciplinary background of governance have been

accompanied by the decreasing importance of a particular historical political community,

such as polis or the modern nation-state, as a natural reference point for governance concepts.

Such concepts as ‘globalisation’ or ‘governance’ almost by definition imply the reorganising,

decentring and in some cases dismantling of national government, previously defined by

national borders and legislations, which coexisted with national bureaucratic hierarchies and

expert organisations, and ‘traditional’ definitions of, for example, the borderline between

public vs. private, or citizenship vs. consumership.

In order to better understand the roots of these developments, we may briefly turn back to the

1950s and 60s, when social scientists began to employ such generic notions as ‘system’,

‘process’, ‘structure’ and ‘rational choice’ that did not conceptually presuppose a particular

kind of political community. Nevertheless, at this stage they usually continued to use the

nation-state and liberal democratic institutions as their empirical points of reference. This

applied also to philosophers such as John Rawls, the most celebrated political philosopher of

his generation and the saviour of the tradition of according to many, who despite his

sophisticated use of contemporaneous analytic philosophy and social-choice theory took the

legislative and distributive mechanisms of the nation-state as an indispensable device for the

effective implementation of his two principles of justice. Indeed, he took the existence of a

broadly defined liberal democratic state, with its “origins in the Wars of Religion following

the Reformation and the development of the principle of toleration, and in the growth of

5

constitutional government and the institutions of the large market economies”, to be a

precondition for a successful implementation of his “justice as fairness”, and hence a

historically determined limit to the universalism of his Theory of Justice.2

But several other developments appear to have contributed to the gradual displacement of the

national political community as the self-evident conceptual point of departure for the studies

of politics, and to the reorganisation of the general disciplinary setting. First, we may note the

gradual emergence during the post-WWII decades of various ‘general’ theories of interaction,

such as game theory,3 social-choice theory,4 cybernetics and general systems theory,5 and

symbolic interaction theory,6 which soon found application in the social sciences, and which

often concentrated on decisions and interactions of the individual or micro level, in any case

independently of the particularities of any identifiable historical polity. The effect of these

theories, applied in various disciplines and probably innumerable empirical cases, was

sometimes slow and in any case dependent on country and discipline, but in cumulative

terms, there was a big overall change. If we look at actual research that was done in political

science in any European or American university first during the 1940s–50s, and then in the

same university during the 1970s, we would in all probability encounter two very different

conceptual landscapes.

2 Rawls, John, ‘Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 14 (1985), 225; Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971; see also Rorty, Richard, ‘The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy’, in Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989, 257–282. 3 Neumann, John von & Oskar Morgenstern, Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944; Nash, John, ‘Equilibrium points in n-person games’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 36:1 (1950), 48–49. 4 Arrow, Kenneth J., Social Choice and Individual Values, Second Edition, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1963 [1951]; Buchanan, James M. & Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1965 [1962]. 5 Wiener, Norbert, Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, Paris: Technology Press, 1948; Bertalanffy, Ludwig von, General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications, New York: George Braziller, 1968. 6 Goffman, Erving, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959.

6

Second, the base of research broadened and became increasingly specialised, which led to the

increasing social scientific recognition of institutions other than the nation-state. These

included industrial relations,7 entrepreneurship, innovation and the corporate firm,8 family,

marriage and sexuality,9 prisons, mental institutions and the military,10 informal social ties

and social networks based on trust,11 and non-financial, e.g., symbolic and social forms of

capital.12 This flourishing of new (sub)disciplines and new approaches within old disciplines

made even more old-fashioned the old Aristotelian dictum according to which the science of

politics would be the master science under the conceptual framework of which other human

relations and associations such as family, economy, war, and rhetoric ought to be studied.13

At first, the new specialised disciplines such as industrial sociology or business

administration did not significantly alter the prevalent academic interpretations of the

political community, but over time that situation would change, too. If the polis had been the

paradigm of all communities for Aristotle and generations of his followers, then by the end of

the 20th century, it had become rather commonplace that other institutions, for example the

7 Dahrendorf, Ralf, Industrie- und Betriebssosiologie, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1956; Schelsky, Helmut, Die sozialen Folgen der Automatisierung, Düsseldorf: Diederichs, 1957. 8 Schumpeter, Joseph, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, New York: Harper & Row, 1942; Penrose, Edith, The Theory of the Growth of the Firm, New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1959. 9 Mead, Margaret, Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilization, New York: William Morrow & Co., 1928; Schelsky, Helmut, Wandlungen der deutschen Familie in der Gegenwart, Stuttgart: Enke, 1953; Foucault, Michel, Histoire de la sexualité, Vol. 1, Paris: Gallimard, 1976. 10 Sykes, Gresham, The Society of Captives: A Study of a Maximum Security Prison, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958, Goffman, Erving, Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1961, Foucault, Michel, Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la Prison, Paris: Gallimard, 1975. 11 Granovetter, Mark S., ‘The Strength of Weak Ties’, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 78:6 (1973), 1360–1380; Powell, Walter W., ‘Neither Market nor Hierarchy: Network Forms of Organization’, Research in Organizational Behavior, Vol. 12 (1990), 295–336. 12 Bourdieu, Pierre, La Distinction. Critique sociale du jugement, Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1979; Putnam, Robert D. & Robert Leonardi, Raffaella Y. Nanetti, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. 13 Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, Roger Crisp (trans., ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, 1094b.

7

business corporation, were set as models for the modern nation-states to follow. This

argument is frequently encountered in the new public management literature in particular.

According to one recently influential source, “[m]any big corporations have already adopted

new organizational arrangements that are better adjusted to the new operating context”, with

the authors’ obvious conclusion that governments and the public sector should follow.14 The

same authors claim also that historically, it has been often the private sector that has given the

decisive inputs for the public sector rather than the other way around, for example, when

“[t]he governments of industrialized societies adopted the hierarchical and divisionally-

structured governance model of large business conglomerates after the Second World War”,

or when the mass production system developed by large industrial corporations in the late

19th century “became a standard organizational arrangement in the production of public

welfare services” also after the Second World War.15

A third factor, originated from economics but not limited to it, was the decreasing popularity

of Keynesianism during the 1970s after the oil crisis and the consequent combination of

stagnation and inflation, which according to the then prevailing versions of the theory should

have been mutually exclusive. Keynesianism proposed a capable and active state with

sufficient resources to stabilise the economy throughout the business cycle, and to fight

unemployment by direct government interventions. The competing monetarist and Austrian

theories gave much less room for government, and once they increased their popularity after

the mid-1970s, the focus of this politically influential science was now on such issues as price

stability and the quantity of the money supply. Their regulation was the chief economic

14 Hämäläinen, Timo & Mikko Kosonen, Yves L. Doz, Strategic Agility in Public Management, INSEAD Working Paper 2011/110/ST (2011), 3. The criteria set in the management doctrine of “strategic agility” as presented by Doz and Kosonen first in their book Fast Strategy (Harlow et al.: Wharton School Publishing, 2008) are currently applied in, e.g., the country assessments and policy recommendations made by the OECD. 15 Hämäläinen, Kosonen and Doz, Strategic Agility, 6, 10.

8

responsibility of government according to the monetarists, and this view substantially

differed from the Keynesian idea of government interventions by, for example, creating jobs

in the public sector. The new economic thinking in part led also to the de-regulation of

foreign exchange markets and the promotion of international trade, which together with

political and economic integration contributed to the processes later called ‘globalisation’.

Anyway, once the transnational financial and political dependencies were in place, and state

sovereignty had become an even more elusive notion, there was a natural demand for new

concepts and models that could explain the situation. This, in turn, made the ‘traditional’

politics disciplines and their chiefly state-centred definitions look again slightly more

obsolete.

The Difference between the Political and the Managerial Points of Departure

The proliferation of disciplines and sub-disciplines was soon reflected in the everyday

vocabularies related to politics and governance. Consider, for example, the words placed in

the three adjacent columns below:

The State Trust Network

Citizenship Accountability Social capital

Constitution Autonomy Mission, Vision, Strategy

Sovereignty Contract Stakeholder

Monarchy, Aristocracy,

Democracy

Civil Society Effectiveness, Efficiency,

Economy (the 3 E’s)

Parliamentarianism Competition Partnership

9

The left column contains words that are associated with the traditional vocabulary of practical

politics, as well as academic disciplines and sub-disciplines such as political science, political

theory, political philosophy, and public law. The right column represents the emergence of

some new governance keywords, such as network, social capital or stakeholder, which have a

rather readily identifiable background in organisational sociology and the administrative and

managerial sciences.16 Some other governance keywords, such as vision, mission and

strategy, are even more direct applications of corporate strategic planning doctrines17 into

public policy and management.

As represented by the middle column, there are also ‘old’ concepts, such as trust or

accountability, which have established meanings in political theory (such as parliamentary

trust as a condition of a legitimate political authority), but which can take significantly

different meanings in other contexts. For example, the forms of social trust that are required

in simple market exchanges between a buyer and a seller, or in the emergence of long-lasting

social networks between professionals, are likely to differ from the specifically

parliamentarian concept of trust.18 In cases like this, the same word can refer to two different

sets of social relationships: the ‘political’ concept of trust refers to the emergence of a

legitimate authority ‘above’ individuals, whereas the ‘business’ concept refers to the

conditions of reliable exchange ‘between’ individuals. A similar notion applies to the term

‘contract’: we can differentiate between a ‘market contract’ between a buyer and a seller, and

a ‘social contract’ that creates a political community, as theorised by political writers such as 16 See, e.g., Granovetter, ‘The Strenght of Weak Ties’; Granovetter, ‘Economic Action and Social Structure’, The American Journal of Sociology, 91:3 (1985), pp. 481–510; Powell, ‘Neither Market Nor Hierarchy’; Putnam, Robert D., Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000. 17 For a representative example of these doctrines, see e.g., Haines, Stephen G., The Systems Thinking Approach to Strategic Planning and Management, Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press LLC, 2000. 18 On the historical origins of the ‘political’ and parliamentarian notion, see Laslett, Peter, ‘Introduction’ to John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 113–117; on the others, see Powell, ‘Neither Market Nor Hierarchy’.

10

Hobbes, Rousseau and Rawls. Accordingly, the concept of autonomy in management and

planning literature usually refers to “managers’ abilities to make independent decisions” in

order to best promote the goals set by their employer,19 which is again very different from the

‘political’ readings of autonomy that emphasise self-government as a condition of political

freedom – as perhaps most famously stated by Kant, for whom only such states or persons

could be free (autonomous), who are bound by their own will and not by the will of another,

and who therefore set their own laws.20

The ambiguities of this kind affect still other concepts, such as citizen or civil society.

Although having retained their chiefly social-political connotations, there is much debate

concerning their essence in the pressures created by individualisation, marketisation and

consumerism. We may, for example, ask whether the rights and duties implied by a

traditional state-centred conception of citizenship can still be valid in a world where networks

and consumership appear as paradigm cases of social relationships. Comparably, the

mainstream liberal textbook narrative of civil society as a counter-balance and critic of the

state is complicated and sometimes challenged by ideas such as public–private partnership, or

the conceptualisation of civil society as the ‘third sector’ which provides assistance to the

state and the market in government-led policy initiatives.

19 Andersen, Torben Juul,’Strategic Planning, Autonomous Action and Corporate Performance’, Long Range Planning 33 (2000), 188. 20 Johnson, Robert, ’Kant’s Moral Philosophy’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2012 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta. Contrast this against the limits of autonomy in a corporate setting as elaborated by Harrell, Thomas and Bernard Alpert (’The Need for Autonomy Among Managers’, Academy of Management Review, 4:2 [1979], 259): ”Of course, in a business organization a manager is never completely free from the control of others. There are limits to the area of freedom that is experienced even by the chief executive officer who usually reports to a board of directors. The CEO has to meet the demands of customers, government regulations and regulators, labor contracts, pressure groups, or maybe the views of family and friends. Despite these limits on the area of freedom, it is still the remaining freedom of autonomy that is prized and needed by some.”

11

Obviously, any modern understanding of a concept of the magnitude of ‘civil society’ has

been challenged before. For example, the mainstream liberal interpretation was criticised

during the late 19th and early 20th century already from various Hegelian, organicist,

functionalist or corporatist points of view, and each of them was been loaded with their

characteristic ideological choices and assumptions regarding the proper roles of the

government vis-à-vis civil society.21 The point is that even today, ‘civil society’ remains an

excellent locus for examining the contradictory forces behind actual policy, which we will

attempt in the last section of this article. By studying the various meanings ascribed to the

concept, we may find important differences regarding the views held on government,

markets, associations and citizens, and we may also be able to shed light on the sometimes

unwritten assumptions regarding who should take initiative and leadership in societies, and

who should be the controllers and who the controlled.

In order to start making sense of all this, we may start with the rather obvious notion that the

various discourses and disciplines hold different types of organisations as their paradigmatic

conceptual points of departure. For the political theories, the obvious reference is to some

kind of a polity, in modern times usually a representative democracy with its characteristic

institutions. The business or network-oriented theories usually refer to the market where

parties engage in free exchange with each other, or the institutional hierarchical structures of

a firm or a business corporation, or the looser ‘social networks’ that enable the evolution of

technology, art or culture. Quite obviously, the debate around such theories also concerns

their applicability in contexts distinct from their origins, such as the applicability of business

management doctrines in public management. The desirability of such transfers is something

21 On the differences between the Anglo-American and Continental notions of the state–society relation, see Laborde, Cécile, ‘The Concept of the State in British and French Political Thought’, Political Studies, vol. 48 (2000): 540–557.

12

that the proponents of the New Public Management, for example, are usually quite open

about. According to Dunleavy and Hood, the term NPM is “a summary description of

reorganizing public sector bodies to bring their management, reporting and accounting

approaches closer to (a particular perception of) business methods”. As a result of the

reorganizing of institutions and practices, the public sector will be made “less distinctive as a

unit from the private sector (in personnel, reward structure, methods of doing business).”22

However, actual governance is not likely to be determined by the interpretation of single

concepts only, but it must also depend on more comprehensive beliefs regarding social

relations, norms, hierarchies, and institutions. An attempt to grasp this complexity is the

notion of ‘web of beliefs’ as recently applied by Bevir. According to Bevir, beliefs are

constantly modified in response to dilemmas that “arise all the time” (belief can here be

understood as an umbrella term for theories, doctrines, norms, social expectations and more

simple factual assumptions).23 As beliefs overlap and influence each other, and the validity of

an individual belief depends on other beliefs, the adoption of a new or substantially changed

belief creates the need to adjust the entire web so as to “accommodate the newcomer”.24

Because of this constant work of change and accommodation, webs of belief are dynamic;

and because people’s actions are based on their beliefs, the change of beliefs is determined to

influence what we might otherwise call ‘institutions’ or ‘social structures’. Hence a web of

belief is both an epistemic resource and a form of social authority.

22 Dunleavy, Patrick and Christopher Hood, ‘From Old Public Administration to New Public Management’, Public Money & Management, 13:3 (1994), 9. 23 Bevir, Mark, The Logic of the History of Ideas, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, 229. The term ‘web of belief’ was coined by Quine and has been used by post-analytic and neo-pragmatist philosophers such as Davidson and Rorty.. 24 Bevir, The Logic of the History of Ideas, 29.

13

The changes in the theoretical or doctrinal base of governance thus permeate a vast array of

institutions and practices – such as the more mundane tasks of personnel management,

reporting, accounting, and reward structures, as Dunleavy and Hood recounted the effects of

NPM. The same applies also the more ‘traditional’ forms of governing – such as absolute

monarchy or representative democracy – which entail a large number of beliefs and concepts

with meanings particular to those forms of rule. Representative democracy would probably

not be sustained by just official definitions of a few of its central concepts or institutions –

such as the government, the parliament and the judiciary – because the behaviour and

attitudes associated with the form of rule depend on a much larger number of beliefs and

expectations. For example, the present European forms of parliamentarianism would

transform into some other forms of rule in the complete absence of the parliamentarian

conception of trust with all its accompanying beliefs and practices, such as the presupposed

resignation of a government or a minister if a motion of no confidence has been passed in the

parliament. Obviously there exist other conceptions of trust, such as that required between a

buyer and a seller, but market exchange is still not an example of parliamentarianism or

politics.

Given the multiplicity of expert discourses related to governance, it should probably not

come as a surprise that there is no consensus on the proper terms of description regarding the

transformation of institutions and practices during the last few decades. In governance

studies, the most common narrative tells about the transition ‘from government to

governance’, where – in the words of Jessop – the traditional ‘hierarchical ideal type’ of

bureaucratic government is being replaced by the recently more fashionable ‘market’ and

14

‘network ideal type’.25 Others, however, have argued that when it comes to political decision-

making, the transition has in fact led to increased hierarchy, exemplified by a general

centralisation of power and the increasingly strong position of the state’s core executives with

respect to both substantial content of policy and the control of political processes, such as

legislation.26 What follows is a brief attempt to examine the nature of these processes based

on the division to ‘political’ and ‘managerial/administrative’ as proposed in the beginning of

this chapter. This takes place through two themes central to modern political theory, namely

authority and conflict.

Relationship to authority. Classical political theories of democracy and representative

government – take Aristotle, Locke, Max Weber or Robert A. Dahl – did not speak of

legislators, magistrates, parliament, or the executive without explicating in detail from where

these bodies derive their powers, and how their use can be legitimated not only in individual

decision-making situations, but in principle and generally. Perhaps even more importantly,

representative political theories argue for the legitimacy of centralised or ‘sovereign’

legislative and executive powers in ways that assume the existence of complementing powers

and rights, which have been argued in terms of, for example, natural or human rights, or the

power of the people to overthrow a corrupt government, or the irreducible plurality of

modern societies. As is evident from the ‘bottom–up’ way that concepts such as consent,

trust, and accountability are linked to authority in most modern political theories, the

legitimacy of centralised power or sovereignty is intimately connected to the existence of

25 Jessop, Bob, ’Metagovernance’, in The SAGE Handbook of Governance, ed. Mark Bevir, London: Sage, 2010, 107. 26 This claim, too, has been made by scholars representing very different theoretical backgrounds; see, e.g., Agamben, Giorgio, The State of Exception (trans. Kevin Attell), Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 2005; Skinner, Quentin, ‘States and the freedom of citizens’, in States and Citizens, eds Bo Stråth and Quentin Skinner, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, 11–27; Goetz, Klaus H., ’Governance as a Path to Government’, in European Politics: Pasts, presents, futures, eds Klaus H Goetz, Peter Mair and Gordon Smith, London: Routledge, 2009, pp. 258–279.

15

these complementing rights and powers. Thus it should be underlined that in what some

scholars call the hierarchical or bureaucratic ideal type of governance,27 the said hierarchy is

usually strongly preconditioned by explicit theorisations concerning its democratic or

representative legitimacy.

The ‘non-political’ management and network theories, in contrast, characteristically start with

the assumption that the fundamental questions relating to democratic or representative

legitimacy are solved already. Shareholders, acting managements or elected politicians have

the right to set the goals of their organisations; hence the focus of organisational theorising is

not on the legitimacy of the existing power or goals, but on developing optimal forms of

organisation and incentives in order to realise the goals in the best possible way. In public

administration studies especially, the mere existence of representative democracy with its

institutions and procedures, such as periodic elections, is usually enough to externalise

questions that relate to the democratic legitimacy of actual policy. As Considine has

remarked (with reference to the sociologist Martin Albrow), “research questions in

organization theory are posed largely from the perspective of administrators, particularly the

most senior”, and its standard works describe concepts such as accountability in top–down

terms, “that agencies obey those in the line of authority above them”.28

Network theories, obviously, avoid precisely this sort of ‘traditional’ hierarchy, but this often

happens at the cost of a wholesale avoidance of questions that address horizontal authority

and legitimacy. Network theories, as opposed to the new public management, derive from

27 Cf. Powell, ‘Neither Market Nor Hierarchy’; Jessop, ‘Metagovernance’. 28 Considine, Mark, ‘The End of the Line? Accountable Governance in the Age of Networks, Partnerships, and Joined-Up Services’, Governance, 15:1 (2002), 21. Considine also makes the following conclusion: ”Reformers have always been concerned with ways to make leaders more accountable. In so doing, they appear to have mostly succeeded in making senior managers even more powerful, and certainly a good deal richer.”

16

organisational sociology, and many of their key insights come from business networks, which

are perceived as hotbeds of organisational and product-related innovation. Their definitions

of key concepts, such as interpersonal trust and social capital, usually reflect the conditions in

which such networks have been particularly productive.29 This is all understandable as long

as such issues as economic productivity or individual creativity are the privileged criteria for

assessing organisations, and as long as we discuss such well-known examples as small

business networks, media and culture networks, regional economics and industrial districts,

or strategic alliances between firms.30 Problems, however, may arise when the network or the

firm or the bureaucracy are understood as metaphors of entire polities or other autonomous

entities (such as self-governing municipalities, co-operatives or universities). The firm, the

bureaucracy or the network cannot be fully functioning analogies of political self-

government, because discussion of goals and assessing the current state of legitimacy must

remain among its key functions as long as the entity can be properly called self-governing.

Relationship to the opposition of views and conflict. Finally, there are significant differences

in ways theories of governance relate to conflict and dissenting views. A central example is

opposition, which is a very different matter if looked at from the managerial and

administrative positions or from those of democratic political theory. While the former

theories characteristically start with an attempt to prevent organizational splits by creating a

consensus on goals, often articulated as vision, mission or strategy, political theories more

often than not perceive organised, functioning opposition as a condition of working

representative democracy. In addition to their political control functions, oppositions and

29 See, e.g. Granovetter, ‘Economic Action and Social Structure’; Pollit, Christopher, ‘Joined-up Government: A Survey’, Political Studies Review, 2003:1, 34–49. 30 These examples are from Powell’s widely quoted article ‘Neither Market Nor Hierarchy’, 305–316.

17

conflicts of views are also seen to represent the diversity of polity and its different ‘interests’,

‘classes’, ‘cleavages’ or ‘cultures’, depending on our choice of theoretical vocabulary.

Theories of management do not usually make comparable assumptions of an inherent and

irreversible diversity or of the existence of many different ‘cultures’ or ‘classes’ under the

same administration. For political writers of many different persuasions it has been simply

fundamental: consider Aristotle and Marx, or Dahrendorf, Rawls and Mouffe. Political

writers have also established reasons for adopting an approach that emphasises diversity and

even conflict when discussing entire political communities. People as citizens do not enjoy

the right of exit from their political communities nearly to the same extent as professionals

can choose between jobs or careers in favour of better alternatives. Valid reasons may exist

for them not to consider their present government legitimate.31 Furthermore, we may ask

whether the cohesion of goals characteristic of a firm or a public administration, enforced by

authority structures and the salaried positions of those responsible for the implementation,

can ever work as a fully suitable analogy of a political community and its citizens. A key

reason for this seems to be that the sociology of organizations, as well as much administrative

and managerial science, mostly refers to organizations where employment instead of

citizenship is the main source of membership in that organization, as well as of the

consequent rights and duties. While a dissenting professional can exit her organisation and

seek new duties elsewhere, she is usually not tolerated to organise factions within her

workplace with the declared goal of overthrowing the acting management.

31 For a classical treatment of these problems, see Hirschman, Albert O., Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and State, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970.

18

On the same occasion we can also note that the familiar institutional arrangements that spring

from political thought, such as the separation of powers, independent judiciary, constitutional

checks and balances, periodic elections, term-limits and parliamentary trust, are designed to

reduce the powers of individuals and institutions by balancing them against each other, thus

preventing the emergence of a single uncontrollable power. In contrast, if we adopt the

managerial stress on implementation and performance, we are more likely to design

institutions and incentives so that the administration’s centralized capabilities for action are

enhanced.32 A similar contrast can be found with regard to ‘networks’: the traditional

discourses of political theory or public law perceived close interaction between civil servants

and business leaders as a potential source of corruption, while the economist and network

doctrines may define extensive public–private partnerships as a sign of good governance.

The European Union and ‘European Civil Society’

This last section moves from the analyses of the previous two sections towards political

practice through the case example of civil society in the contemporary public policy of the

European Union. The analysis will take place through two main dimensions: first, we will

examine the textual traces of the various expert or disciplinary discourses in the political

documents prepared by the organs of the European Union. Second, we will try to approach,

even at the risk of remaining on a slightly superficial level, how the various ‘webs of belief’

beyond the textual or conceptual surface can transform existing institutional thinking and

political practices. This would concern the perceptions of ‘European civil society’ by EU

decision-makers; the degree of recognition given to its constituent parts; the political

32 On this trend in politics, see, e.g., Goetz, ’Governance as a Path to Government’; Papadopoulos, Yannis, ’Accountability and Multi-level Governance: More Accountability, Less Democracy?’ West European Politics. 35:3 (2010), 1030–1049.

19

processes taking place between central political power and ‘civil society’; and ultimately the

structure of the European polity with its ‘democratic’ inputs and outputs and divisions of

power.

However, it should be stressed that the documents examined, produced chiefly by the

European Commission and the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), can by no

means provide an account of the activities actually going on in the real ‘European civil

society’, or perhaps better put, the civil societies of the various European countries. The

examples reflect a rather limited and mainly top–down look on the theme of civil society, and

they may be examples of some current trends and pressures rather than of any widely existing

civil society phenomena. Nevertheless, policy programmes initiated by the Commission and

EESC – such as the promotion of civil society in EU enlargement, or the processes known as

‘social dialogue and ‘civil dialogue’ between the EU political organs and ‘European civil

society’ – are examples of actually existing governance practices, even if their impact has

been limited. To some extent, the following analysis can also be read as an attempt to explain

the problems encountered in the contemporary attempts of the European Union to

reinvigorate ‘its’ civil society. It utilises the distinction between ‘managerial-administrative’

and ‘political’ discourses and argues that the former gain more visibility over historical time

from 1990s to 2000s, and as our attention moves from general or declaratory texts towards

texts describing concrete policy.

Let us start our analysis from the rather detailed conceptual discussion on civil society in the

1999 Opinion of the EESC “on the role and contribution of civil society in the building of

Europe”, with the declared purpose of “using scientific theories, to provide a definition of the

20

concept [of civil society] that actually reflects political reality”.33 While the document clearly

recognises the existence of “differing interpretations” of civil society, it also stresses the need

to “transcend these now by providing an all-embracing definition”.34 After discussing the

Aristotelian and Roman models, 18th and 19th century writers such as Ferguson, Hegel and

Marx, and the inadequacies of the liberal and socialist positions of the 19th century, the

Committee arrives at a “new interpretation of civil society, inspired by Tocqueville,

Durkheim and Weber”. This synthesis drafted by the Committee and expressed in four

principles is followed in the latter definitions of the Opinion. It contains recognisable

influences from at least liberalism,19th–20th century pluralism, and functionalist sociology. In

a slightly abbreviated form, the definition goes as follows:

(i) Civil society is typified by more or less formalised institutions … an autonomous

social sphere distinct from both the state and from family;

(ii) Individuals are free to choose whether to belong to civil society institutions;

(iii) The framework of civil society is the rule of law;

(iv) Civil society is the place where collective goals are set and citizens are represented.

In addition to these four principles derived from “scientific theories”, civil society

“introduces the dimension of subsidiarity, a concept derived from Christian doctrine, which

opens up the possibility of establishing levels of authority which are independent of the state

but recognised by it”.35

33 EESC, Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on: The role and contribution of civil society organisations in the building of Europe, CES 851/99 D/GW, 1999, paragraph 2.5. 34 EESC, ‘Opinion’, 3.1. 35 EESC, ‘Opinion’, 3.7.

21

A similar definition, in broad terms compatible with many 19th century liberal and early 20th

century pluralist understandings of civil society as the autonomous (i.e. self-governing) realm

of self-organisation, spontaneity, and social and commercial innovation, which however had

to accept for its own protection the necessarily coercive state, is frequently found in the

introductions and preambles to the EU documents. The self-governing nature of civil society

is emphasised in also the Opinion’s ultimate definition of civil society: “a collective term for

all types of social action, by individuals or groups, that do not emanate from the state and are

not run by it.”36 The same applies to a later and more important document, the Lisbon Treaty

(Treaty on European Union), which in its preambles and opening paragraphs in particular

utilises classical liberal vocabularies celebrating civil society as the locus of individual and

collective liberties and as the vital source of social, economic and artistic innovation and

growth.37 This vocabulary is rather closely connected to its pluralist arguments that view civil

society as the guarantor of a necessary multiplicity of associations and cultural diversity.38

However, as we move towards more practical and detailed issue areas, the liberal and

pluralist notions are increasingly replaced by functionalist and corporatist definitions. This

can be detected in the 1999 Opinion already. When discussing the relations between state,

market and civil society in more detail, the EESC replaces without further explanation the

traditional state–society dichotomy of the early paragraphs with a dichotomy between “the

two poles of ‘state’ and ‘market’”. Hence, the concept of civil society is no longer seen as a

counter-concept to the state, but as “the third component of the state system” alongside

36 EESC, ‘Opinion’, 5.1; cf, the components of the concept of civil society as listed in the next article: Pluralism, Autonomy, Solidarity, Public awareness, Participation, Education, Responsibility, and Subsidiarity. 37 Treaty on European Union (TEU), Preamble, p. 15 in Consolidated Treaties: “DRAWING INSPIRATION from the cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe, from which have developed the universal values of the inviolable and inalienable rights of the human person, freedom, democracy, equality and the rule of law”. 38 TEU, Article 2, p. 17: “These values are common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail.”

22

government and market. If state and market are the limiting poles, then “the citizen as a

member of civil society (homo civicus)” is someone who “mediates between the two [state

and market], by embodying all three aspects (homo politicus, homo economicus and homo

civicus)”.39 Now, the autonomous role of civil society as the fundamental source of social and

political inputs is replaced or at least complemented by its functional role as an intermediary

between government and the private sector of economy. But in addition to the mediation

between state and market, the Opinion soon states how civil society organisations “also act

as mediators between the public authorities and citizens”. The effectiveness of the authority–

citizen mediation provided by civil society organisations, in turn, “is crucially dependent on

the extent to which their players are prepared to help achieve consensus through public and

democratic debate and to accept the outcome of a democratic policy-making process.”40 This

functional requirement has come quite far from the earlier quoted liberal-pluralist definition

of civil society as “the place where collective goals are set”41; now it appears that civil

society is the place which accepts and then communicates to individuals a collective

consensus that originates from places that can just as well be outside of civil society.

Similar ideas are expressed in treaties that form the current constitutional basis of the EU.

The functionalist and corporatist definitions typically view civil society as consisting of

organised socio-economic interests, represented by for example employers’ unions and trade

unions, which form a “bridge” between people and the political decision-makers. In this light,

civil society channels valuable information to the decision-makers42 and is vital in organising

39 EESC, ‘Opinion’, 6.2. 40 EESC, ‘Opinion’, 7.1. 41 EESC, ‘Opinion’, 3.7. 42 TEU, Article 11, p. 21: “1. The institutions [European Parliament, the Council (of ministers), the European Council, the European Commission and other central Union institutions] shall, by appropriate means, give citizens and representative associations the opportunity to make known and publicly exchange their views in all areas of Union action.

23

interests and mediating conflicts, thus guaranteeing negotiations between the ‘social partners’

and producing social cohesion and stability.43 Finally, the functionalist-corporatist definitions

speak of a civil society as an immediate social and economic resource; one that contributes

“directly and indirectly to improving competitiveness and increasing growth” by providing

“assistance” to the public and private sector in, for example, tasks that are well suited to

NGOs and charitable organizations, such as improving the conditions of socially excluded or

disadvantaged people.44 In the functionalist discourse civil society is perceived as consisting

of ‘partners’ and ‘stakeholders’, who operate within a goal-oriented framework defined

chiefly by the politically responsible institutions of the European Union.

The corporatist and functionalist definitions are most fully expressed by organs that are also

constitutionally responsible for mediating the relationship between the Union and the civil

society, most notably the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), according to

the subtitle of their webpage “a bridge between Europe and organised civil society”,45 but

also the European Commission. To start with the EESC, its threefold mission statement reads

as follows:

Committed to European integration, the EESC contributes to strengthening the

democratic legitimacy and effectiveness of the European Union by enabling civil society

organisations from the Member States to express their views at European level. This

Committee fulfils three key missions: 2. The institutions shall maintain an open, transparent and regular dialogue with representative associations and civil society.” 43 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), Article 302, p. 178: “The Council shall act after consulting the Commission. It may obtain the opinion of European bodies which are representative of the various economic and social sectors and of civil society to which the Union’s activities are of concern.” 44 EESC, ‘A resounding success: the First Convention of civil society organised at European level held at the initiative of the European ESC.’ Press Release No. 95/99, Brussels, 19 October 1999, emphasis in original. 45 EESC, home page, http://www.eesc.europa.eu/?i=portal.en.home (read 13 June, 2013).

24

helping to ensure that European policies and legislation tie in better with economic,

social and civic circumstances on the ground, by assisting the European Parliament,

Council and European Commission, making use of EESC members' experience and

representativeness, dialogue and efforts to secure consensus serving the general

interest;

promoting the development of a more participatory European Union which is more in

touch with popular opinion, by acting as an institutional forum representing,

informing, expressing the views of and securing dialogue with organised civil society;

promoting the values on which European integration is founded and advancing, in

Europe and across the world, the cause of democracy and participatory democracy, as

well as the role of civil society organisations.46

Again, familiar liberal and democratic themes, such as “participatory democracy” and “civil

society organisations”, are promoted hand in hand with corporatist-functionalist themes, such

as “securing consensus serving the general interest” and “effectiveness of the European

Union”. The text presents also a notion of democratic legitimacy based on corporate interest

representation that differs from the standard representative democratic definitions where

legitimacy is based on such ideas as periodic general elections, parliamentary trust and the

freedom of speech. However, it is the notion of organised civil society that goes most directly

to the heart of the matter if we want to understand how the institutional core of the European

Union looks outwards in the direction of citizens and non-governmental associations.

46 EESC, ‘About the Committee’. http://www.eesc.europa.eu/?i=portal.en.about-the-committee (read 13 June 2013). The members of the committee, i.e. the representatives of ‘civil society’, are appointed by the Council of the European Union following nominations made by the governments of each member state.

25

First of all, one of course needs to ask what it means for civil society to be ‘organised’ and

what it takes for someone to be qualified as its representative. In contrast to the classical

liberal or Hegelian views, the EU definition of ‘organised civil society’ does not include

some very central non-state actors such as business enterprises, political parties or the media.

The exclusion of political parties from civil society in all relevant EU documents (including

those published by the Commission) reflects the Union’s two-tier theory of representation.

According to this model, ‘representative democracy’ – the Union’s selected form of political

rule – is simply the representation of citizens by elected parties and politicians, at the Union

level in the European Parliament and in the Council. The other representative element, “the

involvement of economic and social interest groups”47, or ‘social dialogue’, is the one that

concerns ‘organised civil society’, which consists of labour market players in the leading

role, but also other NGOs (for EU’s ‘civil dialogue’ as distinct from ‘social dialogue’, see the

discussion on Commission below). Consequently, ‘organised civil society’ resembles at least

to an extent the functions that labour market players have had in the corporatist and neo-

corporatist politics of various Continental European countries. As stated in an EESC

definition:

What is organised civil society?

Organisations representing producers, farmers, carriers, workers, dealers,

craftsmen, professional occupations, consumers and the general interest;

Organised civil society’s role is to act as an intermediary between the public

authorities and citizens.

47 EESC, ‘About the Committee’. The 344 members represent three groups: Employers, Workers, and Various Interests. Each of the groups is of approximately the same size, giving the labour market organisations a two-thirds majority.

26

The functional role of civil society becomes clear if we examine the nature of benefits that

are said to emerge from the co-operation between the decision-makers and the civil society.

In addition to securing labour market consensus – which is traditionally the main reason for

starting a dialogue between the ‘social partners’ – the partnerships between the public sector

and civil society are considered beneficial also in ways explained by the following:

Organised civil society can contribute directly and indirectly to improving

competitiveness and increasing growth by means, in particular, of:

- training, especially of excluded individuals, and continuous training;

- assistance with the delivery of public services such as education, health and social

services;

- assistance with local economic development;

- the regeneration of depressed areas and the integration of socially and

economically excluded individuals and groups, and

- the provision of proximity services.

The emergence of a more inclusive and participatory model of society would undoubtedly

provide added value for Europe through the greater collective engagement of citizens in

issues of general societal interest transcending national frontiers.48

In this quote, we may detect the influence of new institutionalist political thinking, which

promotes networks and partnerships, and often replaces the term ‘civil society’ with the ‘third

sector’, especially when the text is not referring to the big pressure groups such as labour

market organisations. Indeed, if we for a moment set the labour markets aside, the most

significant components of civil society appear to be voluntary and charitable organisations,

48 EESC, ‘A resounding success’, emphasis in original.

27

churches, and others who work as governments’ partners as service-providers. The networks

thus created are beneficial in terms of competitiveness and growth, as well as of social

inclusion, participation and “the greater collective engagement of citizens”. From these

assumptions also goes a straight line to the notion of ‘social capital’, another theoretical

concept favoured by the EU documents, the growth of which is said to increase social

stability, prevent crime and corruption, provide supplementary social services, and increase

the citizens’ attachment to their political community and the European Union. In this role,

civil society is perceived as an entity that provides specific functional services that benefit the

political community as a whole. But civil society is also functional in that it is understood to

build the political legitimacy of the whole Union.

The Commission, in addition to the EESC, is another EU organ officially committed to the

promotion of civil society. Whereas the EESC defines itself as the ‘bridge between Europe

and organised civil society’ defined largely in terms of labour market representation, the

Commission seeks to invigorate civil dialogue and participatory democracy within the Union

and internationally, especially in the context of the EU enlargement. In operational terms the

Commission’s definition of civil society, however, comes close to that of the EESC. In the

particular interest of the Commission, however, are NGOs that are voluntary, non-profit and

permanently organised, “independent, in particular of government and other public and

authorities and of political parties or commercial organisations”. Although trade unions and

business and professional organisations could be considered to be NGOs “in a broader

sense”, they are not in the main focus of the Commission policies, obviously because the

EESC already deals with them “under a specific framework (e.g. Social Dialogue)”. Hence,

the Commission’s operational definition of civil society is tantamount to “organisations

28

active in the so-called ‘Third Sector’, i.e. in the nongovernmental and non-economic field”.49

As the Commission’s White Paper on Governance states:

Civil society plays an important role in giving voice to the concerns of citizens

and delivering services that meet people’s needs. Churches and religious

communities have a particular contribution to make. The organisations which

make up civil society mobilise people and support, for instance, those suffering

from exclusion and discrimination.50

In this Commission operational definition of civil society, the tasks reserved for its chief

actors – the NGOs – fall outside of what is generally considered as political or interest

representation. As stated by the Commission, “Belonging to an association provides an

opportunity for citizens to participate actively in new ways other than or in addition to

involvement in political parties or trade unions.”51 The Commission perceives a ‘political’

role for the NGOs in maintaining the legitimacy, cohesion and identity of the European

Union, which naturally are key goals of the Commission itself, but otherwise the NGOs are

described in mostly corporatist or functionalist terms; as mediators of special interests, as

supporting experts in policy implementation and project management, and as contributors to

the emergence of a ‘European public opinion’.52 According to both the EESC and the

Commission, this ‘civil’ dialogue is distinct from the ‘political’ and ‘social’ dialogues, where

the respective key institutions and actors are the European Parliament, the EESC, political

parties, and labour market organisations. To sum up, these role-descriptions are quite far 49 European Commission, ‘The Commission and Non-Governmental Organisations: Building a Stronger Partnership’, presented by President Prodi and Vice-President Kinnock, Commission Discussion Paper COM 2000/11, 2000, http://ec.europa.eu/transparency/civil_society/ngo/docs/communication_en.pdf, p. 3–4. 50 European Commission, European Governance: a White Paper, COM 2001/428, 2001, 14. 51 European Commission, ‘The Commission and Non-Governmental Organisations, 4. 52 Ibid, 4–5.

29

distanced from the roles that ‘government’ and ‘civil society’ had in (traditional) liberal,

republican or social democratic theories, where the civil society was seen as an engine for

social and political reform, and even as a realm of civic liberty as opposed to the coercive

power of the state. Instead, the current policies often seek to define civil society as

‘stakeholders’ or ‘network partners’ to projects the goals of which are ultimately determined

by the EU’s top decision-making bodies.

The taken-for-granted nature of the vocabulary of everyday governance often hides the

politically consequential nature of its definitions, for example, the European Union’s view of

civil society as the third sector. The nowadays common idea of political communities

consisting of three sectors – the institutionalised division of the political community to

political institutions, market actors, and the ‘social’ and ‘civil’ interests – would appear to

reflect, on the one hand, the rise and autonomy of business corporations and other big market

players. To conceptually distinguish the ‘business’ or ‘private sector’ from ‘civil society’ is to

admit that its power and logic of operation, based on economic utility, can no longer be

compared with mere civil society. On the other hand, the tripartite division reflects the

privileged institutional status of some organisations, political parties and labour market

organisations in particular, that previously belonged to ‘civil society’, but which have since

then consolidated their positions so much that they can no longer be compared with

‘ordinary’ civil associations, now relegated to the ‘third sector’. Political parties are now

effectively incorporated with ‘government’ or ‘public sector’, and labour market

organisations mediate the relation between the market and the government with privileged

points of consultative access through channels such as the EESC.

30

Discussion

This article started out as an examination of the growing number of intellectual disciplines

that claim to be ‘about’ politics. In addition to their growing number, the section paid

attention to the replacement of the political community (e.g., polis, the state) as the

conceptual point of departure and the natural empirical reference of political studies by

competing descriptions, for example, system, contract, or network. The second section was a

more detailed analysis of the differences between the ‘political’ and ‘managerial-

administrative’ definitions of concepts and the disciplinary logics behind them. One of the

chief purposes of the section was to demonstrate that the managerial and administrative

disciplinary logics are not well equipped to deal with political divisions, cleavages, and

conflict.

The third and final section was an analysis of the current definitions of ‘civil society’ by

some organs of the European Union. The analysis showed that while their discourse on civil

society contains liberal and pluralist definitions familiar from, for example, classical theories

of representative democracy, it slides towards corporatist and functionalist definitions when

the definitions become more concrete and involve actual policies rather than declarations. If

we compare this understanding of the nature of political community with, for example,

classical liberal or Hegelian views (where there was no such thing as the third sector), we

encounter a much more differentiated view of the polity than in the 19th century theories,

where ‘civil society’ contained broadly every form of association that did not belong to the

formal institutions of the state; for example, private enterprises, political associations such as

parties, the press, literary circles, and arts.

31

While the present vision is much more differentiated and specific in describing the functions

of the various actors, it also lacks at least some of the fundamental state–society opposition

which allowed the ‘political’ treatment of contradictory forces and conflicts; and by

portraying civil society as the ‘third sector’ networked with political authorities and

businesses, it lacks also some of the ‘democratic’ ethos of the classical theories of

representative democracy, where the supposed direction of democratic inputs was by

definition, if not always in practice, bottom–up. In the particular case of the European Union,

at least in its official definitions, we also confront a situation in which some players

traditionally conceived of as civil society actors – corporations, political parties and labour

market organisations – have secured for themselves positions and privileged points of access

to political decision-making that categorically separate them from ‘mere’ civil society, that is,

voluntary and charitable organisations now known as the ‘third sector’.

32

Bibliography

Agamben, Giorgio, The State of Exception (trans. Kevin Attell), Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 2005.

Andersen, Torben Juul,’Strategic Planning, Autonomous Action and Corporate Performance’, Long Range Planning 33 (2000), 184–200.

Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, Roger Crisp (trans., ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Arrow, Kenneth J., Social Choice and Individual Values, Second Edition, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1963 [1951].

Bertalanffy, Ludwig von, General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications, New York: George Braziller, 1968.

Bevir, Mark, The Logic of the History of Ideas, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Bourdieu, Pierre, La Distinction. Critique sociale du jugement, Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1979.

Buchanan, James M. & Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1965 [1962].

Considine, Mark, ‘The End of the Line? Accountable Governance in the Age of Networks, Partnerships, and Joined-Up Services’, Governance, 15:1 (2002), 21–40.

Dahrendorf, Ralf, Industrie- und Betriebssosiologie, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1956.

Doz, Yves and Mikko Kosonen, Fast Strategy: How Strategic Agility Will Help You Stay Ahead of the Game, Harlow et al: Wharton School Publishing, 2008.

Dunleavy, Patrick and Christopher Hood, ‘From Old Public Administration to New Public Management’, Public Money & Management, 13:3 (1994), 9–16.

EESC, Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on: The role and contribution of civil society organisations in the building of Europe, CES 851/99 D/GW, 1999.

EESC, ‘A resounding success: the First Convention of civil society organised at European level held at the initiative of the European ESC.’ Press Release No. 95/99, Brussels, 19 October 1999.

EESC, home page, http://www.eesc.europa.eu/?i=portal.en.home (read 13 June, 2013).

EESC, ‘About the Committee’. http://www.eesc.europa.eu/?i=portal.en.about-the-committee (read 13 June 2013).

European Commission, ‘The Commission and Non-Governmental Organisations: Building a Stronger Partnership’, presented by President Prodi and Vice-President Kinnock,

33

Commission Discussion Paper COM 2000/11, 2000, http://ec.europa.eu/transparency/civil_society/ngo/docs/communication_en.pdf

European Commission, European Governance: a White Paper, COM 2001/428, 2001, 14.

Foucault, Michel, Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la Prison, Paris: Gallimard, 1975.

Foucault, Michel, Histoire de la sexualité, Vol. 1, Paris: Gallimard, 1976.

Goffman, Erving, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959.

Goffman, Erving, Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1961.

Goetz, Klaus H., ’Governance as a Path to Government’, in European Politics: Pasts, presents, futures, eds Klaus H Goetz, Peter Mair and Gordon Smith, London: Routledge, 2009, pp. 258–279.

Granovetter, Mark S., “The Strength of Weak Ties”, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 78:6 (1973), 1360–1380.

Haines, Stephen G., The Systems Thinking Approach to Strategic Planning and Management, Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press LLC, 2000.

Hämäläinen, Timo & Mikko Kosonen, Yves L. Doz, Strategic Agility in Public Management, INSEAD Working Paper 2011/110/ST (2011).

Harrell, Thomas and Bernard Alpert, ’The Need for Autonomy Among Managers’, Academy of Management Review, 4:2 (1979), 259–267.

Hirschman, Albert O., Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and State, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970.

Jessop, Bob, ’Metagovernance’, in The SAGE Handbook of Governance, ed. Mark Bevir, London: Sage, 2010, 106–123.

Johnson, Robert, ’Kant’s Moral Philosophy’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2012 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2012/entries/kant-moral/

Laborde, Cécile, ‘The Concept of the State in British and French Political Thought’, Political Studies, vol. 48 (2000): 540–557.

Laslett, Peter, ‘Introduction’ to John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 3–120.

Mead, Margaret, Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilization, New York: William Morrow & Co., 1928.

Nash, John, “Equilibrium points in n-person games”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 36:1 (1950), 48–49.

34

Neumann, John von & Oskar Morgenstern, Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944.

Papadopoulos, Yannis, ’Accountability and Multi-level Governance: More Accountability, Less Democracy?’ West European Politics. 35:3 (2010), 1030–1049.

Penrose, Edith, The Theory of the Growth of the Firm, New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1959.

Pollit, Christopher, ‘Joined-up Government: A Survey’, Political Studies Review, 2003:1, pp. 34–49.

Powell, Walter W., ‘Neither Market nor Hierarchy: Network Forms of Organization’, Research in Organizational Behavior, Vol. 12 (1990), 295–336.

Putnam, Robert D. & Robert Leonardi, Raffaella Y. Nanetti, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993.

Putnam, Robert D., Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.

Rawls, John, “Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical”, Philosophy and Public Affairs 14 (1985), 223–251.

Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971.

Rorty, Richard, ‘The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy’, in Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989, 257–282.

Schelsky, Helmut, Wandlungen der deutschen Familie in der Gegenwart, Stuttgart: Enke, 1953.

Schelsky, Helmut, Die sozialen Folgen der Automatisierung, Düsseldorf: Diederichs, 1957.

Schmitter, Philip C., ‘Micro-Foundations for the Sciene(s) of Politics’, revised 2009 Skytte Prize lecture (Uppsala), Chapter 4, in Schmitter, Conceptual Analysis and Research Design for Politologists, European University Institute and Central European University, no date, available at: http://www.eui.eu/Documents/DepartmentsCentres/SPS/Publications/SchmitterPublications/PhilippeCSchmitterConceptualAnalysisandResearchDesignforPolitologists.pdf.

Schumpeter, Joseph, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, New York: Harper & Row, 1942.

Skinner, Quentin, ‘States and the freedom of citizens’, in States and Citizens, eds Bo Stråth and Quentin Skinner, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, 11–27.

Sykes, Gresham, The Society of Captives: A Study of a Maximum Security Prison, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958.

Wiener, Norbert, Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, Paris: Technology Press, 1948.