Public Management and the Metagovernance of Hierarchies, Networks and Markets: The feasibility of designing and managing governance style combinations

Abstract

What is modern governance? Is it the battle against "oldfashioned" hierarchy, or is it the restoration of key hierarchical values? Is it optimizing network management, or maximizing the benefits of market thinking in the publicsector? This book argues that it is the combination of all this. The next question is: In practice, how do successful public managers design and manage combinations of hierarchical, network and market governance? In other words: what is their rationale to apply metagovernance? Five case-studies show that metagovernance is a public management requisite: it amplifies the variation of actions public managers can take, and it prevents the three idealtypical governance styles from undermining each other. Similar cases of strategic environmental policy-making in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany and the European Commission and one case of community policing in the Netherlands illustrate that successful public-sector managers are dealing with similar metagovernance challenges in different socio-politico-administrative cultures