A Decentered Theory Of Governance

Abstract

There are two leading narratives of governance.One is a neoliberal one about markets that is inspired by rational choice.The other is a story about networks associated with institutionalism in political science.This paper argues that both rational choice and institutionalism rely on assumptions about our ability to read-off people's beliefs from objective social facts about them, and yet that these assumptions are untenable given the philosophical critique of positivism.Hence, we need to modify our leading theories and narratives of governance.We need to decenter them.The paper then explores the distinctive answers a decentered theory of governance would give to questions such as: is governance new? is governance a vague metaphor? is governance uniform?how does governance change?and is governance failure inevitable?Finally, the paper explore some of the consequences of decentered theory has for how we might think about policy formation and democracy.

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