Democratic Governance: A Genealogy

Abstract

This chapter provides a genealogy of governance, arguing that: governance rose and spread as a consequence of new modernist theories and the public sector reforms that were inspired by these theories. Modernist social science rejected the historicism of the nineteenth century. It relied instead on formal explanations based on economic models or sociological correlations, classifications, and ideal types. This modernism informed the main narratives of the crisis of the administrative and welfare state in the 1970s and so the main reforms introduced in response to this crisis. The first wave of reform occurred as economic modernism inspired marketization and the new public management. The second wave of reform occurred as sociological modernism inspired joined-up governance and networks. Together these reforms involved attempts to move from government to a governance based on markets and networks.