AFRICA NAZARENE UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF PEAECE AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION

GOV: 640 THEORIES OF GOVERNANCE
LECTURE: DR EMILY OKUTO
CONTACT: 0721766802 emilyaokuto@yahoo.com
Course Description:
What is governance? How should we explain its emergence? What are its implications for
public policy and democracy? In line with a pluralistic understanding of governance, this
course applies a variety of theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches to the
study of governance. The course departs from the shift from government to governance in the
creation of public policy. This course focuses on those theories in the social sciences that
arose and prospered in the twentieth century, transforming our understanding of society and
politics. Many of these theories challenged the older idea of the state as a natural and unified
expression of a nation based on common ethnic, cultural, and linguistic ties and possessing a
common good. Many of them made people more aware of the role of pressure groups, self-
interest, and social networks in the policy process. Later, toward the end of the twentieth
century, some of these theories then inspired attempts to reform the public sector and develop
new policy instruments. Certainly, the new public management owed a debt to rational choice
and especially principalagent theory, while joined-up governance drew on developments in
organizational and institutional theory. There is an ongoing development from state-centered
and hierarchical steering systems towards new forms of governance systems, in which a
multitude of public and private actors, on different levels, participate. This trend is described
and analyzed. A central part of the course deals with how values like democracy,
effectiveness and legitimacy are sustained, and accounted for, in these new systems of
governance. It thus promotes an awareness of the way questions about contemporary
governance are inextricably linked to theoretical approaches

After the course the learner should be able to:
Describe the concept of governing and discuss different ways to conceptualize it in the
public policy process
Describe and categorize different connotations of governance and its applications in the
fields of political science and public administration
Describe and compare the characterizing features of different governance models, such as
new public management, network governance, multi-level governance and collaborative
management
Provide examples of, and analyze, the shift from government to governance in the context
of different countries discuss how different models of governance account for central values,
e.g. democracy, effectiveness and legitimacy

Course Content
PART ONE
Week 1.Introduction/ Governance models
Week 2. Theoretical perspectives
.
Policy network theory, Rational choice theory, social Interpretive theory,
Week 3. Theoretical perspectives
Argumentative theories, Systems theory of governance, Cultural institutional theory,
Week 4. Theoretical perspectives
Democratic and legal theories, Gender theory in political science, Political economy theory,
Organization Theory, Institutional Theory,
Week 5. Theoretical perspectives
Meta-Governance, State-Society Relations, Development Theory

PART TWO
Week 6 -7 The changing practices of governance
Public sector reforms have transformed practices of governance across diverse levels and in
diverse territories.
Partnerships- in Governance
Multijurisdictional Regulation
Local Governance-
Non-Governmental Organizations
Transgovernmental Network
Global Governance
Democratic governance

Week 8-9 Dilemmas of Governance
Legitimacy, Collaborative Governance, Participation Leadership Network Management
Social Inclusion Capacity-Building Decentralization Governing the Commons Regulation in
Governance Sustainable Development

Week 10 New Governance
Towards policy reforms

REFERENCES
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Braithwaite, John, Cary Coglianese, and David LeviFaur. "Can regulation and governance
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Chhotray, Vasudha and Gerry Stoker (2009) Governance Theory and Practice. a cross-
disciplinary approach - Michael Moran publishers
Palgrave Macmillan, Hampshire, UK Empter, Stefan; Janning, Josef (2009). "Sustainable
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Evans, J. Environmental Governance. Routledge 2012. p40.
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Earle, Lucy and Zo Scott (2010) Assessing the Evidence of the Impact of Governance on
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http://www.gsdrc.org/docs/open/EIRS9.pd
James N. Rosenau, "Toward an Ontology for Global Governance", in Martin Hewson and
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"World Governance Index 2009 Report". World Governance. Retrieved 3 February 2013.