Much of the environmental literature assert a shift from government to governance, each work using varying definitions of the two concepts that hold large implications for its discussion. Hysing (2009)’s work offers a view that is in tandem with general consensus in the literature, and I will hence use his policy definitions as a basis of comparison to calibrate this shift. In this regard, I postulate that there has been a general shift from government to governance, as seen in the emergence of schemes categorised under new modes of governance such as Voluntary Agreements (VAs) and New Environmental Policy Instruments (NEPIs). However, I will subsequently highlight that the shift from government to governance is not a phenomenon congruous with all empirical cases – it is largely context-dependent. Moreover, the taxonomic difficulty of defining the seemingly binary concepts entails the possibility of governance to be interpreted as an act by government, rendering any discussion of a dichotomy problematic. I nonetheless broadly conclude, whilst acknowledging all these exceptions, that there still has been a general shift from government to governance in many policy areas.
I first formalise government and governance as defined by Sørensen (2006), who outlines government as a hierarchical form of governing by nationally organised political institutions; while governance is a mode of governing in which a multitude of state and non-state actors from various policy levels govern society through soft policy instruments and networks. To pin down whether a shift has occurred, Hysing (2009) methodically compares government and governance along several dimensions: “governing styles and instruments, public-private relationships, and policy levels”. Hysing defines ‘government to governance’ as a continuum with intermediate degrees of both in between, but for simplicity I will only focus on the two extreme ends of the pole, and therefore presented a truncated version of his table:
I will then use empirical cases to analyse changes along these dimensions, but I note that these dimensions are interconnected and do not operate in silo. I nonetheless first examine differences in governing styles and instruments, which as suggested in Jordan et al. (2013), are of highest interest because they present an empirically more nuanced way to differentiate between “state-led governing via the ‘command-and-control’ instrument of regulation (i.e. laws), and governance that relies instead on horizontal forms of societal self-coordination”.
Looking at changes in environmental policy instruments in the US, it is not difficult to notice a shift from government to governance. In 1995, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) pioneered a “regulatory reinvention” (Blackman and Mazurek, 2001), giving rise to Project XL – predicated upon inefficiencies in the existing command-and-control regulatory system which prescribed a standard approach. Instead, Project XL aimed to let individual facilities decide for themselves how best to control pollution (Blackman and Mazurek, 2001). This was executed through applicants, regulators and direct participating stakeholders negotiating a Final Project Agreement (FPA), which was then approved by the EPA. The provocation of this “regulatory reinvention” fits in well with the theme of governance, where doubt is cast over central governments governing society using traditional tools (Hysing and Olsson, 2005). As a governing instrument, Project XL takes on the form of a negotiated voluntary agreement, and was developed based upon communication and consultation multiple actors and less state influence (Jordan et al., 2005; Pierre, 2000). Looking at the relationship between the state and non-state actors, Project XL clearly involved a multiplicity of actors in decision-making and gave facilities the flexibility in meeting their own site-specific performance standards – an act of self-governing. Civil society was also involved as the affected community was involved in the negotiations leading up to the FPA. Using Project XL as a case study, there has been a marked shift from government to governance, as defined by Hysing (2009).
Given that Project XL was not a success and is now moribund, one might think that it was not the best case study to put forth in showing a shift from government to governance. Yet, the initiative, despite its systemic failures, illustrated the radical change in the mindset of governing environmental policy. Project XL was just one of the many voluntary agreements in the US. In 1998, Mazurek noted that 42 national voluntary initiatives had been developed since 1988 by the US EPA and industrial trade organizations. Dowd and Boyd (1998) found over 350 of such agreements in place in OECD member countries. Moreover, VAs are only one of the instruments in the range of NEPIs – there are other NEPIs such as informational measures (eco-labels, environmental management systems) and market-based instruments (eco-taxes, tradable permits) (Jordan et al., 2005, 2013).
As previously mentioned, ‘government to governance’ is not a one-size-fits-all phenomenon occurring at all levels. For instance, Weber et al. (2013) points out that Dutch environmental policy has evolved across the board over the past decades. “Dialogue, networks and social inclusion” now eclipse “coercive policy instruments”. Dutch noise policy, however, is still largely controlled by the dominant central government that retains a rather legislative approach. In another example by Delmas and Terlaak (2002), results in an OECD survey reveal that Germany has implemented NAs to supplant regulations, while France see NAs as a supplement to regulations (OECD, 2000). Interestingly, while the Netherlands has implemented more than 100 NAs to supplant and supplement regulations, the US finds it challenging to do either type. The reasoning that undergirds these trends is in line with Jordan et al. (2013)’s view that the take up rate of NEPIs differ between countries, with NEPIs prevailing in certain sectors and/or countries. Hence, environmental ‘government to governance’ is largely context-dependent, and cannot be perceived as all-encompassing veracity.
While I have argued for the broad shift from government to governance, I acknowledge that notions of government and governance are highly complex and multifaceted. For simplicity, I have discussed government and governance as modes at two extreme ends of a spectrum, but in reality, multiple modes of governing are often combined and straddle in between the continuum. Héritier (2002) labels this a ‘hybrid’ approach, while Eberlein and Kerwer (2004) distills these interactions into four concepts: co-existence, fusion, competition, and replacement. For example, Jordan et al. (2005) found little evidence that NEPIs were supplanting traditional policy instruments; instead co-existence seemed most prevailing in European environmental policy. This finding was corroborated by Holzinger et al. (2009) who analysed all of EU’s relevant instruments and concluded that while the hierarchal government was diminishing, it remained dominant.
This leads to my second point that taxonomic complexities in definition conflates government and governance. This can be seen in the emergence of policies (e.g., tax policies and energy policies) that influence policy areas, thus authorising state governing through the “shadow of hierarchy” (Scharpf, 1997; Héritier and Rhodes, 2011). Hackett (2013) raises the example of how forest certification in Ontario is less a ‘government to governance’ shift but more a “reconfiguration of state power in the face of legitimacy crises”, serving to protect state legitimacy. In Howlett et al. (2009)’s case study, the authors view the emergence of informal network governance as provisional arrangements that are “eventually formalized in subsequent rounds of institutionalization”. Seen along these lines, governance is then merely a manifestation of institutional change or interaction, a concept propounded by Thelen and Streeck (2005), where revisions of existing legislation is still categorically considered government. This casts doubt about whether the “government to governance” hypothesis offers a meaningful discussion on the aggregate processes of policy shifts (Tenbensel, 2005; Hill and Lynn, 2004).
The argument for the evolution of environmental ‘government to governance’ is highly nuanced, and as much as I have used empirical cases to show why this trend is generally happening, I have tried to highlight contextual and definitional problems that challenge the legitimacy of my arguments. Nonetheless, I conclude with the inescapable truth that a general mindset shift has occurred at global levels, and while the pace and extent of shifts differ across sectors and/or countries, at an aggregate level, there is a palpable emergence of governance and a declining hierarchical government.