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action rather than being concentrated in just one apparatus or institutional ensemble. This is indicated by common use of the definite article for the state but not for governance. While the state is often treated as if it were a (fictive) subject or single actor or, alternatively, reified as a thing (an instrument, machine or cybernetic device), governance lacks such a fixed, albeit often illusory, reference point. In another context, of course, as critical governance studies has argued, one might question the validity of general state theory. Sticking with general state theory, however, one implication of this contrast is that, to paraphrase Marx, just as there is neither production in general nor general production, there is no governance in general nor general governance. Rather, there is only particular governance and the totality of governance (cf Marx, 1973b [1857]: 99; Jessop, 1990a: 186). There are only definite objects of governance that are shaped in and through definite modes of governance. It is important to note that this excludes any general theory that would apply to all forms of governance, whether outside or inside the state. This explains why governance often figures in debates on the state in terms of qualities or properties of the state, such as the planning state, network state, liberal market state, cooperative state, therapeutic state, and so on.

      It follows that one should focus instead on the many and varied struggles over the constitution of governance objects, competing strategies and techniques of governance in these and other regards, and the contingently necessary incompleteness or failure of efforts to govern them. It is the failure fully to govern (and so stabilize or at least, modulate) potential objects of governance that creates, in turn, space for competing governance strategies and ensures that the future remains pregnant with a surplus of possibilities around how social relations are defined as objects of governance (or not) and how their governance is approached (or not).

      These complexities and the surplus of possibilities lead to conceptual fuzziness, especially where governance practices are decentred, dispersed or lack clear borders. This is reflected in the many typologies of governance developed for different purposes and in significant (often unspoken) disagreement about what is included, and excluded, from the concept. Indeed, Claus Offe (2009) questioned its value, describing it as polysemic, as having a multitude of possible meanings, as an irredeemably overstretched concept, as a ritualized or fetishized linguistic sign, as a bridge concept, and as an empty signifier. The main problem, it seems, is that ‘governance’ is both equivocal, because it has different but stable meanings in different contexts, and ambiguous, as its meanings vary even in similar contexts. These issues matter because there is no direct equivalent to governance in many European languages, let alone beyond Europe (witness the broad contrast between the governance, gouvernance, gobernia family of words in romance languages and that of steering, Steuerung, styring and so forth in North European languages). Similar problems occur outside Europe for the concept of state, which reveals the Eurocentric nature of much work addressing the state and state power. This is why governance is often proposed as an alternative, less Eurocentric, approach to studying government.

      Even after some 30 to 40 years of widespread deployment, social scientific usages of governance are often ‘pre-theoretical’ and eclectic. Lay usages are just as diverse and contrary. Indeed, governance theory tends to remain at the pre-theoretical stage of critique and theorists of governance operate within several, often disparate and fragmented, problematics. It is generally much clearer what the notion of governance is against than what it is for. In theoretical terms, governance, then, comprises the ‘other’ modality (or set of modalities) for a wide range of dominant concepts or paradigms in the social sciences. This is reflected in a proliferation of typologies of governance mechanisms constructed for different purposes and a large measure of (often unspoken) disagreement about what is included, what is excluded, from the overall concept (vivid examples of different typologies can be found in Campbell et al, 1991; Kitschelt, 1991; Thompson et al, 1991; Grabher, 1993; Kooiman, 1993b).

      Nonetheless, in general terms, two closely related, but nested, meanings can be identified in the literature over the last 40 to 50 years. First, governance can refer to any mode of coordination of interdependent activities. Among these modes, four ideal-typical forms are relevant here: the anarchy of exchange; organizational hierarchy; self-organizing and self-reflexive ‘heterarchy’;³ and solidarity rooted in unconditional commitments. Some governance theorists have correlated these types of governance to different sets of social relations, respectively: exchange with markets; hierarchy with the world of states and interstate relations; self-reflexive heterarchy with networks and civil society; and solidarity with real or imagined communities. They also link them to different kinds of social logic. Thus, market exchange involves ex post coordination based on the formally rational pursuit of self-interest by individual agents; hierarchical command corresponds to various forms of ex ante imperative coordination concerned with the pursuit of substantive goals established from above and imposed on organizational members; self-organizing networks are suited for systems (non-political as well as political) that are resistant to top-down internal management and/or direct external control and that coevolve with other (complex) sets of social relations with which their various decisions, operations and aims are reciprocally interdependent; and solidarity is especially well-suited as the primary mode of governance for sustainable social cooperation (for example, in the social economy or for community empowerment, cultural emancipation, and so on). In each case, successful coordination depends on the performance of complementary activities and operations by other actors, whose pursuit of their activities and operations depends in turn on such activities and operations being performed elsewhere in the relevant social ensemble.

      The second, more restricted, meaning is heterarchy (or self-organizing networks), and this is often the main reference in the revival of the governance paradigm, whether in theoretical or policy guise. Interest in this specific mode of governance developed because it is alleged to integrate complexity more explicitly, reflexively, and, it is hoped, effectively than reliance on markets or command and, to the extent that it is ever considered, solidarity. Indeed, far from just responding to demands from social forces dissatisfied with both state and market failure, state managers themselves have actively promoted these new forms of governance as adjuncts to and/or substitutes for more traditional forms of top-down government. They have done so in the expectation and/or hope that policy-making and implementation will thereby be improved in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and transparency and also made more accountable to relevant stakeholders and/or moral standards, thereby leading to ‘good governance’. This is reflected in growing concern with the role of various forms of political coordination that not only span the conventional public–private divide but also involve ‘tangled hierarchies’, parallel power networks or other forms of complex interdependence across different tiers of government and/or different functional domains. More generally, new forms of partnership, negotiation and networking have been introduced or extended by state managers as they seek to cope with the declining legitimacy and/or effectiveness of other approaches to policy-making and implementation. Such innovations also redraw the public–private divide, engender new forms of interpenetration between the political system and other functional systems and modify relations between these systems and the lifeworld as the latter impacts on the nature and exercise of state power. Where solidarity is involved, we also find arguments that the broader networks, especially coordinated through the state, can provide a means of community empowerment, prevent the isolation of local initiatives and generalize feelings of solidarity to a wider (imagined) community.

       Etymology, genealogy and discourse

      It is important to distinguish words from concepts. This applies especially to governance. It has a long and chequered past, dating back to medieval Latin and earlier. Its recent revival suggestively highlights a major paradigm shift in political (and economic) analysis as it provides a narrative and/or analytical framework in the contemporary world. The anglophone term ‘governance’ can be traced to the classical Latin and ancient Greek words for the ‘steering’ of boats. It originally referred mainly to the action or manner of governing, guiding or steering conduct, and as such, it overlapped with ‘government’. The first recorded uses of ‘governance’ occur in the 14th century and refer mainly to the action or manner of governing, guiding or steering conduct. It is only in the last 40 to 50 years that there has been a sustained revival in explicit theoretical and practical concern

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