What is governance theory in the western context

Social systems theory is the main theoretical foundation of Western governance studies. The social systems school of governance studies is concerned with institutions, processes and mechanisms. Governance theories such as the complex jungle, if the United States preference for rational choice and its derivation of neo-institutionalism, governance research based on systems theory is mostly concentrated in Europe.

Interactive Governance Theory

Modern Governance, edited by Jan Kooiman in 1993, was an early representative of governance theory. In that book, he described the basic attributes of governance in terms of three systemic characteristics: plurality, complexity, and dynamism. The task of governance can be reduced to what Niklas Luhmann called "the basic problem of all social systems is to reduce complexity".

In order to further explain why governance has the above characteristics, Kooijman in 2003 built a socio-political governance theory of interactive governance based on analyzing and summarizing the elements, modes, orders and capacities of governance, using mutual action as a starting point. This includes two important aspects. On the one hand, interaction is intentional and structural. Intentionality is manifested in pictures, tools and actions, and there are three types of cross-references, mutual games and mutual interferences. Accordingly, the interaction has three modes of self-governance, cooperative governance and hierarchical governance, which determines that governance is pluralistic, dynamic and complex. On the other hand, interactions with intentionality and structure form three orders of socio-political governance. The first order is the day-to-day governance activities that solve problems and create opportunities, the second order is the institutions, and the third order is the meta-governance of norms and principles that underlie the entire governance. While there are many noteworthy statements in Kooijman's theory of interactive governance that are helpful in understanding the difference between governance and management, they are still not sufficiently perspicacious.

Functional-Structuralism

Kuyman's problem is only a typical representative, and does not fundamentally address the relationship between autonomy and cooperation, which is a ****ual problem of governance research based on the theory of social systems theory. In contrast, Talcott Parsons' social systems theory is known as structural-functionalism. By functional, it means that the social system must adapt to the needs of a system one level higher than it, i.e., the impact (function) of the various behavioral effects of the system depends on the previous level. In Haines' words, Parsons' function is "the social system, not its (own) social parts or institutions". Luhmann sublimated Parsons's theory of action into a theory of communication, thus inverting his structure-function theory to form functional-structuralism. The idea is that systems are first and foremost functionally self-contained, and that they distinguish themselves from their environment through structural processes of program-like processes that make the system a system in its own right.

Luhmann's conclusion of system differentiation from self-reference and self-replication is insightful. However, he lacked an understanding of the intrinsic connection between self-reference and self-production and homeostasis within a system, and was confused by the "extreme complexity" of the functioning of each function within a system, and was ambiguous about the stability of the system, failing to recognize the commensurability and integrability of the systems. Luhmann's functional-structuralism, with its emphasis on the independent status of behavioral functions and subsystems, directly feeds into the self-organizing perspective of governance theory, a logic that has led to an increasingly differentiated, pluralistic and complex society. Luhmann's view of the world is one of a chaotic world of interlocking systems of multiple qualities, polycentricity, and different sizes, where the discrete systems appear to operate in a self-regulating manner, but this self-organizing game inevitably encounters risk and a high degree of uncertainty.

Control Mechanisms, Class Procedures, and Social Mechanisms

Parsons takes as his starting point the actions of autonomous human beings, but he rejects as ultimate explanatory causes the purely biological, physiological "objective influences produced by the conditions of action that have nothing to do with norms." In his view, the action organism is linked to a cultural system of norms, values, beliefs and other concepts linked to action. Action is the process of changing the various components in a direction consistent with the norms, which play a dominant role in shaping the social order through social action, and control mechanisms are particularly important. In Parsons' view, while normativity is certainly an element in the formation of social order, it is not the only element. A bias in favor of control mechanisms inevitably leads to coercive governance, which runs counter to Western social thinking after the 1960s and departs from Parsons' own early conception of human action as autonomous.

Luhmann's program-like approach stems from the interlocking actions of two actors, each of whom constructs programs to deal with the complexity of the other within their own systems, distinguishing their self-systems through this constant process of choice-making and programmatic contractualization. Then, the elements in the system appropriately adjust the order and network structure in the system, choose a time structure that conforms to the ordering of the various events in the system, and through this simplified procedure make provisions for the structure of the system. In turn, the system can achieve self-regulation and self-reference, the factors within the system reach functional homogenization, and the system as a whole operates in an integrated manner. With the help of the notion of class procedure, Luhmann builds a necessary and initially stable dynamic structure from chance, starting from the function itself and the original state. However, he did not agree with the internal steady state, one-sidedly emphasized the role of contingent consciousness in the process, and did not probe y into the actual property of the class procedure, i.e., mechanism.

Rudolf Traub-Merz, who had worked with Luhmann in 1973, was a recognized authority on governance regulation and was also interested in mechanism studies. Merz analyzes the reasons for the insufficient explanatory power of relational correlation, argues for the necessity of causal reconstruction and mechanism research, and then points out that the definition of mechanism terminology is ambiguous, which leads to a downward trend in the quality and quantity of mechanism research. Based on the ontological, epistemological, and essentialist explanations of mechanisms by Tilly and others, Metz emphasizes that mechanisms as causal connections are first and foremost "generative mechanisms". At the same time, he pointed out that the "macro-micro-macro model", which centers on the concept of individual action and its mechanism, pays attention to the environmental and cognitive mechanisms, but ignores the "relational mechanism". ". Finally, Metz concludes that mechanisms are the study of connectivity theory, which is a causal explanation of the recurring processes that produce an outcome and their internal relationships; there are many explanatory models of collective behavioral mechanisms, but there is a lack of "systematization" of the generative mechanisms that are key to institutional and structural configurations.

Metz's analysis of social mechanisms, based on the "actor-mechanism-model" framework of social systems theory, is noteworthy. In the cognitive mechanism of the actors, there are both contingent consciousness and real laws, and its generation and process have natural attributes; in the environmental mechanism, there are external factors such as culture, but there is no lack of natural mechanisms. What Metz calls the repetitiveness of the mechanism is precisely the most important characteristic of the intrinsic mechanism emphasized by the governance of complementary systems. Its assertion about the constancy of mechanisms is particularly important as the key to the separation of natural human eigenmechanisms from volition, which has a random character. By failing to introduce the two key concepts of system homeostasis and functional complementarity to analyze outcomes and their relation to action, Metz does not explain why mechanisms have constancy, and fails to distinguish between subjective and objective factors in actors' perceptions. This also ultimately leads to his failure to y discern the relationship between environmental mechanisms and actor cognition.

In summary, if we want to take a step forward to the ideal of "systematic discourse" on mechanisms, we need to gain a clearer insight into the nature of governance through the analysis of mechanisms, and we also need to jump out from Luhmann's social system theory, which emphasizes self-differentiation, and re-examine the concepts of mechanisms implicit in the concepts of governance from Parsons to Luhmann to Metz, through the perspective of a new and complementary system of governance. The relationship between the actual and the contingent implied in the concept of mechanism is re-examined from Parsons to Luhmann to Metz in a new and complementary systemic governance perspective that establishes the basic principles of mechanism-procedure interaction.