Designs on governance : development of policy instruments and dynamics in governance

The thesis analyses the role of policy instruments for dynamics of governance, using case studies on ‘emissisons trading’ and ‘network access regulation in the utilities’. It opens by observing a paradox: Policy instruments are criticised for misrepresenting the complex and contested reality of public policy-making by portraying it as technical problem-solving, yet, policy instruments play an increasingly central role in policy analysis, design and public debate. \ud The first part of the thesis develops a conception of policy instruments as ‘designs on governance’. This implies a double life: as models of governance and as configurations that work in real world governance contexts. Understanding the role of policy instruments requires to study the development of trajectories in governance patterns that result from the interaction of models and configurations. Concepts from innovation studies are mobilised and the notion of an ‘innovation journey’ is adopted as a heuristic framework. \ud The second part of the thesis presents two case studies examplifying different innovation patterns: design push (case of emissions trading) and dynamics pull (case of network access regulation). For each pattern typical phases and transitions as well as ironies that undermine the instrumentality of designs on governance are discussed. Conclusions of the thesis address the co-evolution of policy instruments with broader governance dynamics and specify conditions under which momentum of instruments may dominate over dynamics of problem formulation and political authority, or vice versa. Key insights are formulated with respect to the division of design labour between local and global in the context of emerging cosmopolitan governance regimes, the social life of policy instruments and the ambivalent role of technical models of governance for effectiveness as well as democratic legimitacy of public policy

Policy instruments as innovation in governance: the case of emissions trading

governance, emissions trading, policy technology

Reflexively engaging with technologies of participation: constructive assessment for public participation methods

The chapter provides a view of the ongoing innovation of ‘citizen panels’ as a method public participation. It shows how recourse to technoscientific modes of political ordering is met by reflexive engagements. Critical academic discourse, direct protest actions, and dedicated assessment exercises work together as a form of informal technology assessment. They counter the emergence of a transnational technocracy of political procedure. A closer look at an assessment exercise on the future development of ‘citizen panels’, carried out April 2014, reveals the potential and irony of reflexive engagements with technologies of participation. The conclusion extends this to other areas of social innovation.BMBF, 01UU0906, Innovation in Governanc

sustainability foresight : methods for reflexive governance in the transformation of utility systems

Utility systems for the provision of electricity, gas, water or telecommunication are at the interface of society and nature. They interconnect broader production and consumption patterns and are thus of central importance for sustainable development. Yet, they are particularly difficult to shape. Large technical systems are intertwined with patterns of market organization, administrative institutions, user routines and policy networks. Transformation is not a matter of planning and control but of co-evolution across such heterogeneous domains. The transformation of utility systems therefore, exemplifies the limits of conventional steering approaches to achieve sustainable development. Reflexive governance forms are needed which take into account the embedding of steering activities in dynamic system contexts, and which take up uncertainty, ambivalence and distributed influence as basic features for shaping sustainable development. Sustainability Foresight represents a methodical approach to make reflexive governance operational. It is currently being probed in German utility systems

Innovation of governance : The case of emissions trading

First published by Edward Elgar: Voß, Jan Peter: Innovation of governance : the case of emissions trading. - In: Arentsen, Maarten J.; van Rossum, Wouter; Stenge, Albert E.: Governance of innovation : firms, clusters and institutions in a changing setting. Cheltenham : Edward Elgar, 2010. - ISBN: 978-1-84720-738-8. - pp. 125–148

Öffnung der Medienordnung? - Das Kartellrecht allein ist kein ausreichendes Instrument zur Kontrolle des Rundfunks

--

Performative policy studies: realizing "transition management"

The paper analyses the relations between policy studies and public policy. It traces how they are constitutively entangled. Conceptually, this builds on a notion of performativity that has been developed in science studies. The performativity of policy studies is explored in a case study of the innovation journey of “transition management” as a model for governing sociotechnical change. The paper shows how practices of knowledge production and policy-making take shape in interaction with the model and how a specialized research field coevolves with political alliances and policy programs. They interact in the process of realizing transition management, both by establishing the model as collective knowledge and by materially enacting it. In this interweaving with public policy, policy studies contribute to creating the reality that they describe. The conclusions discuss “realizing” as a mode of governance.BMBF, 01UU0906, Innovation in Governanc

Innovating public participation methods: technoscientization and reflexive engagement

We reconstruct the innovation journey of ‘citizen panels’, as a family of participation methods, over four decades and across different sites of development and application. A process of aggregation leads from local practices of designing participatory procedures like the citizens jury, planning cell, or consensus conference in the 1970s and 1980s, to the disembedding and proliferation of procedural formats in the 1990s, and into the trans-local consolidation of participatory practices through laboratory-based expertise since about 2000. Our account highlights a central irony: anti-technocratic engagements with governance gave birth to efforts at establishing technoscientific control over questions of political procedure. But such efforts have been met with various forms of reflexive engagement that draw out implications and turn design questions back into matters of concern. An emerging informal assessment regime for technologies of participation as yet prevents closure on one dominant global design for democracy beyond the state.BMBF, 01UU0906, Innovation in Governanc

Sustainability and reflexive governance : Introduction

First published by Edward Elgar publishing house http://www.e-elgar.co.uk/: Voß, Jan-Peter ; Kemp, René: Sustainability and reflexive governance : introduction. - In: Voß, Jan-Peter ; Bauknecht, Dierk and Kemp, René: Reflexive governance for sustainable development. - Cheltenham : Edward Elgar, 2006. - ISBN: 978-1-84542-582-1. - pp. 3–30