Page 38 - Governing Congo Basin Forests in a Changing Climate • Olufunso Somorin

Chapter 1
framework in political sciences, especially in the study of policy fields in which political co-ordination problems arise (Böcher et al., 2008). Across the fields of political sciences, public administration, international relations and development studies, several authors have provided different perceptions and interpretations of governance (Kooiman, 1993; Rhodes, 1997; Pierre, 2000; Pierre and Peters, 2000; Rosenau, 2000; Kjaer, 2004; Kooiman et al., 2005). In much of the public and political debate, governance refers to sustaining coordination and coherence, and solving problems among a wide variety of actors with different purposes and objectives, such as political actors and organizations, corporate interests, civil society, and transnational organizations (Pierre, 2000). Some have argued that the emergence, and perhaps stability, of the concept of governance implies that societal and economic actors have become increasingly influential over policy (Peters and Pierre, 1998).
Even though the concept of governance has become extremely popular nowadays, no clear definition exists (Pierre and Peters, 2000). Rather, it functions more as a container concept to allow scholars and practitioners to discuss: (i) the increasingly important role of non-state actors in public policy making; (ii) the increasing complexity and changes in the composition of society as a whole; and (iii) the new norms and techniques with regard to how society should be governed (Offe 2009; Behagel, 2012). Despite the multiple meanings and interpretations of governance, authors have argued that three key elements are consistent with most definitions. These key elements include: (i) the increased involvement of non-state actors in public policy making; (ii) the decentralization of decision- making authority to lower administrative tiers, and (iii) the emergence of new modes of steering by central authorities (Rhodes, 1997; Arts, 1998; Glasbergen, 1998; Bulkeley and Mol, 2003; Behagel, 2012; Ayana, 2014).
To some extent, governance is still a loose set of theories ranging from global to local dimensions, and from analytical to normative perspectives rather than one clearly shaped body of theory (Schiller, 2008). Understandably, the plethora of definitions of governance has led to different theoretical approaches for analyzing and understanding governance. A few approaches are particularly actor-based – focusing on the contribution of state and non-state actors to solving societal problems (Scharpf, 1997; Arts, 1998; Betsill and Corell, 2001; Gupta 2003 & 2005; Andonova et al., 2009; Avant et al., 2010; Dellas et al., 2011; Schroeder and Lovell,
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