How to govern ungovernable objects? Governance, governability and governmentality

Jahn Petter Johnsen Norwegian College of Science, UiT, The Arctic University of Overview

• What is governance? • Governance vs management • The wicked challenge • Governance system components • Governability • Construction of the governable organisation • The creationists • A system of institutions • Governmentality What is governance?

• “The whole of public as well as private interactions taken to solve societal problems and create societal opportunities. It includes the formulation and application of principles guiding those interactions and care for institutions that enable them.” (Kooiman et al. 2005:17)

• Governance is about governing human behaviour, not about regulating

• Governance is about regulating and controlling human impacts and consequences

• A variety of governance arrangements exists, no universal solution

• What they have in common is that they all produce governable objects Governance vs management? • Management is: • A certain set of technical solutions to specific problems • Specific organisation • Defined goals and objectives • Defined rules, decision-making and regulatory procedures • Specific measures aimed to achieve goals and objectives • Mainly technical • Management is a tool that produces governable objects and that contributes to making nature and society governable • Governance encompasses management Marine Resources Governance – a wicked challenge? Wicked problem (WP) (Rittel and Webber 1973) • WPs are often poorly understood before solutions are developed • WP do not have one solution • Solutions become parts of new problems • WP are normal in complex settings • WPs rely upon elusive political judgment for resolution. • Continuous and incremental adaptation is necessary to cope with WPs problems Governance system components

Policy- making Governing system

Management and administration Regulatory decisions Natural Regulation science and control feedback Consultation

Natural Social System-to-be-governed system system

Governability

• Governability is the governing systems capacity to reach the goals that we expect from the system-to-be-governed • Governability is about how well a system of representation (for example stock assessments or ecosystem models) and an system of interventions (fisheries regulations) produce expected outcomes • These outcomes can be partly scientific, partly political • Governability is not a system-property, but is produced • Governability is a product of the institutionalisation of the management instruments and procedures From ungovernable to governable fishing organisations Great creationists behind the creation of the manageable fish stock

Beverton & Holt, Here Sydney Holt, Fish population dynamics (Photo from Sidney Milner Baily Schaefer 1912-70, fishery Holt on Research gate) dynamics (Wikimedia Commons) Johan Hjort 1869-1948 Year Classes (a condition for VPA) (Wikimedia Commons) An institution for creating nature as a an governable object A system of institutions

Policy- making Governing system

Management and administration Regulatory decisions Natural Regulation science and control feedback Consultation

Natural Fisheries Social System-to-be-governed system system

An institutional condition: Governmentality • Governmentality includes mentalities, rationalities and techniques for governing • Governmentality is the belief in an ability to govern and a willingness to be governed • Governmentality develops in concert with professional organisation, legal development, technology and science • Governmentality develops when a collective of people shares t