A Radically Democratic Response to Global Governance Dystopian Utopias Transnational Law and Governance Series

This book presents a critique of dominant governance theories grounded in an understanding of existence as a static, discrete, mechanistic process, while also identifying the failures of theories that assume dynamic alternatives of either a radically collectivist or individualist nature. Relationships between ontology and governance practices are established, drawing upon a wide range of social, political, and administrative theory. Employing the ideal-type method and dialectical analysis to establish meanings, the authors develop a typology of four dominant approaches to governance.

The authors then provide a systematic analysis of each governance approach, thoroughly unpacking and critiquing each one and exploring the relationships and movements among them that engender reform and revolution as well as retrenchment and obfuscation of power dynamics. After demonstrating that each governance approach has fatal flaws within a diverse global context, the authors propose an alternative they call Integrative Governance. As a synthesis of the ideal-types, Integrative Governance is neither individualist nor collectivist, while still maintaining the dynamic character required to accommodate responsiveness to cultural contexts.

Foreword- Paolo Davide Farah

Part I Barriers to Global Governance 1. Introduction 2. Why Now? 3. Grounding Governance in Ontology 4. Crafting and Using a Governance Typology Part II Primary Governance Theories 5. Hierarchical Governance 6. Atomistic Governance 7. Holographic Governance 8. Fragmented Governance Part III Dystopian Utopias 9. Analysis of the Primary Governance Approaches 10. The Arc of Reform 11. The Arc of Reification Part IV Affirmation of a Radically Democratic Approach to Governance 12. Why Integrative Governance? 13. Pursuing Integrative Governance

Margaret Stout is an Associate Professor of Public Administration at West Virginia University in Morgantown, USA.

Jeannine M. Love is an Associate Professor of Public Administration at Roosevelt University in Chicago, USA.