Governance and Metagovernance: On Reflexivity, Requisite Variety, and Requisite Irony

There has been growing interest in the past twenty years or so in the potential contribution of new forms of governance to solving coordination problems in and across a wide range of specialized social systems (such as the economy, the legal system, the political system, and the health system) and in the lifeworld (or, broadly understood, civil society). This interest is reflected in growing ambiguities about the meaning of governance. For the purposes of this contribution, however, I adopt a relatively narrow definition of governance. Thus governance is defined as the reflexive self-organization of independent actors involved in complex relations of reciprocal interdependence, with such self-organization being based on continuing dialogue and resource-sharing to develop mutually beneficial joint projects and to manage the contradictions and dilemmas inevitably involved in such situations. Governance organized on this basis need not entail a complete symmetry in power relations or complete equality in the distribution of benefits: indeed, it is highly unlikely to do so almost regardless of the object of governance or the 'stakeholders' who actually participate in the governance process. All that is involved in this preliminary definition is the commitment on the part of those involved to reflexive self-organization in the face of complex reciprocal interdependence.