Polycentrism – How Governing Works Today

How does governing work today? How does society (mis)handle pressing challenges such as armed violence, cultural difference, ecological degradation, economic restructuring, geopolitical shifts, global pandemics, migration flows, and technological change in ways that are (not) democratic, effective, fair, peaceful and sustainable? This book addresses this key question around the theme of 'polycentrism': i.e. the idea that contemporary governing is dispersed, fluctuating, messy, elusive, and headless. Chapters develop this notion of polycentrism from a broad spectrum of academic disciplines and theoretical approaches. Readers thereby obtain a full coverage of exciting new thinking about how today’s world is (mis)ruled. The book distinguishes four paradigms of knowledge about polycentric governing – organizational, legal, relational, structural – and pursues conversations across the divides that normally keep these approaches in separate research communities. These exceptional inter-paradigm exchanges focus especially on issues of techniques (how governing is done), power (what forces drive governing), and legitimacy (whether governing is rightful). Comparisons between the multiple perspectives on polycentric governing highlight, and help to clarify, the distinctive emphases, potentials and limitations of each approach. In addition, combinations across the diverse theories generate promising novel avenues of thought about polycentrism. Through their engagement with the book, readers can develop their own understandings of governing today and thereby become more empowered political subjects.
 

Keywords: governance, governing, interdisciplinarity, legitimacy, methodology, polycentrism, power, techniques
 

'This book is born of a frustration coupled with an inspiration. The frustration is that smart people are not talking with each other. The inspiration is to nurture such a conversation. Many scholars of our time are saying many clever things about governing in contemporary society. Across widely dispersed disciplinary and theoretical positions, insights about how governing works abound in untold amounts and depths. We today face a staggering menu: arguably ingredients for a quantum leap in knowledge.

Yet current research on governing generally proceeds in discrete paradigmatic camps. What this book characterizes as organizationalists, jurists, relationists, and structuralists work apart, with little contact, limited communication, still less exchange, and only rare hesitant steps towards combination.

Dialogues of difference are, of course, among the greatest challenges of human being, including for academicians. While fights within a school of thought may be heated, they transpire with the contextual reassurance of familiar and shared ground. Far more testing is to venture beyond the comfort zone and encounter the intellectual other. In this borderland, effective dialogue demands to relativize position, relinquish power, deeply listen,openly learn, and mutually change.

We editors thank our fellow authors for embracing this experiment to meet, engage with, write for, and be transformed by each other. The long and often demanding journey to this publication has required no small courage, patience, and generosity from all contributors. Together we have sown modest seeds of inter-paradigm deliberation—in both substance and method—that future work can hopefully take forward'.