The concept of community governance: a preliminary review

Abstract

An emerging model of governance gaining popularity within the public and community sectors is that of Community Governance. The concept usually refers to community participation, engagement and decision-making in public matters and is related to terms such as local governance, social governance, network governance and participatory governance. This paper provides a review of Australian and international literature related to the concept of community governance to assist understanding of the accumulating and sometimes confusing literature in this field. The paper begins with a workable definition of community governance, provides a discussion of some theoretical and historical aspects of ‘community’ from a community psychology perspective and presents an overview of the distinction between corporate, public and community governance to provide a context to the review. The remainder of the article presents the themes of: models and perspectives, network governance and community and community sector governance. A major conclusion is that community governance, by definition, is about community management and decision making but also implicates the broader aims of addressing community needs and building community capacity and well being.

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