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Anti-Politics, Depoliticization, and Governance
Anti-Politics, Depoliticization,
and Governance

Edited by
Paul Fawcett, Matthew Flinders,
Colin Hay, and Matthew Wood

1
3
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© Oxford University Press 2017
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First Edition published in 2017
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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to several anonymous referees who contributed

their time to rigorously reviewing chapters for this edited collection, and to
Dominic Byatt at Oxford University Press for his support. Matthew Wood
acknowledges support from the Economic and Social Research Council Future
Leaders Grant Scheme (ES/L010925/1) and Paul Fawcett acknowledges fund-
ing from the Australian Research Council Discovery Project (DP120104155).
Matthew Wood also acknowledges support from the University of Canberra
Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis, which funded a visiting research
fellowship during which the idea for this collection was developed.
Contents

List of Figures and Tables ix

List of Abbreviations xi
List of Contributors xv

Part I. Theoretical Innovations

1. Anti-Politics, Depoliticization, and Governance 3
Paul Fawcett, Matthew Flinders, Colin Hay, and Matthew Wood

2. The Janus Face of Governance Theory: Depoliticizing

or Repoliticizing Public Governance? 28
Eva Sørensen and Jacob Torfing

3. Depoliticization, Repoliticization, and Deliberative Systems 49

Claudia Landwehr

4. Politicization, New Media, and Everyday Deliberation 68

Rousiley C. M. Maia

Part II. Conceptual and Methodological Development

5. Global Governance Depoliticized: Knowledge Networks,
Scientization, and Anti-Policy 91
Diane Stone

6. ASEAN, Anti-Politics, and Human Rights 112

Kelly Gerard

7. Multilevel Governance and Depoliticization 134

Yannis Papadopoulos

Part III. New Empirical Horizons

8. Depoliticization as a Coordination Problem: Functional
Change in a System of Multilevel Economic Governance 169
Holly Snaith
Contents

9. The Meta-Governance of Austerity, Localism, and Practices

of Depoliticization 195
Steven Griggs, David Howarth, and Eleanor MacKillop

10. Depoliticization, Meta-Governance, and Coal Seam Gas

Regulation in New South Wales 217
Paul Fawcett and Matthew Wood

Part IV. Discussion and Debate

11. Towards a Political Economy of Depoliticization Strategies:
Help to Buy, the Office for Budget Responsibility,
and the UK Growth Model 245
Craig Berry and Scott Lavery

12. Embracing the Mixed Nature of Politics 266

Gerry Stoker

13. Conclusion: A Renewed Agenda for Studying Anti-Politics,

Depoliticization, and Governance 283
Paul Fawcett, Matthew Flinders, Colin Hay, and Matthew Wood

Index 299

viii
List of Figures and Tables

Figures

1.1 Principles, tactics, and tools of depoliticization 11

1.2 Politicization and depoliticization processes 11
7.1 Four dimensions of depoliticization 142
10.1 Top twenty issues expressed in public submissions made to the
Independent Review of Coal Seam Gas Activities in NSW 227
12.1 What motivates politicians? 270

Tables

12.1 Properties of fast and slow thinking 273

12.2 Negatives about contemporary politics 275
List of Abbreviations

ACWC ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights

of Women and Children
AICHR ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights
ALTSEAN-Burma Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma
ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations
AsiaDHRRA Asian Partnership for the Development of Human Resources in
Rural Asia
BEPGs Broad Economic Policy Guidelines
BTEX benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene
CAA Comprehensive Area Assessment
CCTV closed-circuit television
CGIAR Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
CPE critical political economy
CSG coal seam gas
DD discursive depoliticization
DPM differentiated polity model
E2Pi Evidence to Policy initiative
EBPDN Evidence-Based Policy and Development Network
EC European Commission
ECB European Central Bank
EDP Excessive Deficit Procedure
EITI Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative
EMI European Monetary Institute
EMU Economic and Monetary Union
EP European Parliament
ERM Exchange Rate Mechanism
ESCB European System of Central Banks
EU European Union
FATF Financial Action Task Force
List of Abbreviations

FORUM-ASIA Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development

GAVI Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization
GD governmental depoliticization
GDP gross domestic product
GFC Global Financial Crisis
GJ gigajoule
GMO genetically modified organism
GNI gross national income
GPPP global public–private partnership
HICP Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices
IC2012 Integrated Commissioning 2012
ICJ International Commission of Jurists
IMF International Monetary Fund
IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
ISIS Institute of Strategic and International Studies
ISO International Standardization Organization
K4D Knowledge for Development
KNETs knowledge networks
KOMNAS HAM Indonesian Human Rights National Commission
LGA Local Government Association
MDGs Millennium Development Goals
MLG multilevel governance
MO mass observation
MPs Members of Parliament
MTO Medium-Term Budgetary Objective
NCB National Central Bank
NGO non-governmental organization
NSW New South Wales
OBR Office for Budget Responsibility
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
OHCHR United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
PJ petajoule
PPP public–private partnership
QMV qualified majority voting
SAPA Solidarity for Asian People’s Advocacy
SD societal depoliticization

xii
 List of Abbreviations

SEACA Southeast Asian Committee for Advocacy

SGP Stability and Growth Pact
SNS social network service
SUHAKAM Malaysian National Human Rights Institution
TEU Maastricht Treaty
TFEU Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
TINA there is no alternative
TSCG Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance
UK United Kingdom
UKFI UK Financial Investments
UN United Nations
US United States
WHO World Health Organization

xiii
List of Contributors

Craig Berry is Deputy Director of the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute,
University of Sheffield.
Paul Fawcett is Associate Professor of Governance at the Institute for Governance and
Policy Analysis, University of Canberra.
Matthew Flinders is Professor of Politics at the University of Sheffield and Director of
the Sir Bernard Crick Centre for the Public Understanding of Politics.
Kelly Gerard is Senior Lecturer at the School of Social Sciences, University of Western
Australia.
Steven Griggs is Professor of Public Policy, De Montford University.
Colin Hay is Professor of Political Science at the Centre d’études européennes,
Sciences Po, Paris.
David Howarth is Professor in the Department of Government, University of Essex.
Claudia Landwehr is Professor of Public Policy at the Department of Political Science,
Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz.
Scott Lavery is Post-doctoral Research Associate at the Sheffield Political Economy
Research Institute, University of Sheffield.
Eleanor MacKillop is Research Associate in Public Health and Policy at the Institute of
Psychology Health and Society, University of Liverpool.
Rousiley C. M. Maia is Professor at the Department of Social Communication, Federal
University of Minas Gerais.
Yannis Papadopoulos is Full Professor at the Laboratory for Analysis of Governance
and Public Policy in Europe, Université de Lausanne.
Holly Snaith is Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science, University of
Copenhagen.
Eva Sørensen is Professor at the Department of Social Sciences and Business, Roskilde
University.
Gerry Stoker is Professor of Governance at the University of Southampton.
Diane Stone is Centenary Professor of Governance at the Institute for Governance and
Policy Analysis, University of Canberra.
Jacob Torfing is Professor at the Department of Social Sciences and Business, Roskilde
University.
Matthew Wood is Lecturer in Politics at the University of Sheffield and Deputy
Director of the Sir Bernard Crick Centre for the Public Understanding of Politics.
Part I
Theoretical Innovations
1

Anti-Politics, Depoliticization,
and Governance
Paul Fawcett, Matthew Flinders, Colin Hay, and Matthew Wood

1.1 Introduction

This book seeks to bridge two distinctive islands of theorizing and research.
The first ‘island’ is relatively small, somewhat esoteric, and focuses on how
contemporary governing strategies contribute to closing down the political
realm in varying ways. In short, this seam of scholarship focuses on the
concept of depoliticization. The second ‘island’ is far larger, less specialized,
and has become the topic of debate and discussion within and beyond
academe. This is the rich vein of scholarship on political disengagement. It
dissects the mounting evidence of a large and widening gap between the
governors, on the one hand, and the governed, on the other. Put simply,
this second area of analysis focuses on the rise of anti-politics (see Stoker 2006).
While there are clearly complexities within and relationships between these
two pools of scholarship, it is possible—at a broad level—to suggest that the
growth of sustained interest in the concept of depoliticization from the turn of
the millennium onwards was, for most of the subsequent decade, undertaken
within the sphere of public policy, public administration, and governance-
theoretic studies. While the negative impact of depoliticization on democracy
was frequently mentioned, it was rarely, if ever, the focus of sustained discus-
sion or analysis. This situation changed in 2007 with the publication of Colin
Hay’s Why We Hate Politics which sought to analyse growing evidence of polit-
ical disengagement and anti-political sentiment by drawing on the existing
body of knowledge on depoliticization. A link between anti-politics and depol-
iticization was therefore hypothesized as part of a conceptual map that disag-
gregated forms of both politicization and depoliticization in a new and fresh
manner. In many ways, the broader relevance and impact of those strategies,
Fawcett, Flinders, Hay, and Wood

tactics, and tools that had been grouped together under the umbrella concept of
depoliticization suddenly became clear and a significant stream of subsequent
analyses followed.
And, yet, very little of this subsequent scholarship has actually focused
specifically on the depoliticization/anti-politics nexus. If anything, the exist-
ing literature base remains fairly broad and diffuse. It is in this context that the
contribution of this book should be situated. Its aim is to refocus attention on
the relationship(s) between depoliticization and anti-politics (and, indeed,
that between repoliticization and a re-engagement with politics). Indeed,
while the literature on depoliticization highlights the existence of a ‘capacity
gap’ between elected politicians and those who actually take decisions about
essential public services, and the literature on anti-politics highlights the
existence of an ever-greater ‘democratic gap’ within advanced liberal democ-
racies, then the focus of this book is on the ‘research gap’ that exists in the
absence of detailed studies that drill down into the links between the (internal)
‘capacity gap’ and the (external) ‘democratic gap’. Closing this ‘research gap’
demands that we bring the concept of depoliticization into a critical dialogue
with the literature on anti-politics and democratic governance in a way that
has not to date been achieved. Important questions that direct this collection
and, in a number of ways, underpin each of the chapters include:
• How can the concept of depoliticization be used by scholars working in
different academic fields?
• What is the relationship between emerging modes of governance and
contemporary forms of anti-politics?
• How can the concept(s) of (de)politicization be used both to categorise
and to better understand the interrelationship between governance and
anti-politics?
• What is the relationship between depoliticization and repoliticization?
• How and why does the relationship between anti-politics and governance
differ within and between countries and across policy sectors?
• What contribution can the concepts of anti-politics and depoliticization
make to the study of governance more generally?

The aim of this opening chapter is to situate such aims within their broader
intellectual context and to tease out some of the ways in which a focus on the
relationship(s) between depoliticization and anti-politics helps shed new light
on the increasing discrepancy that seems to exist between the theory and
practice of democratic politics. To set out how the structure and content of the
collection engage with this issue, this introduction is divided into five inter-
related sections. Section 1.2 acknowledges both the challenges and the oppor-
tunities presented by the contested nature of the concepts of ‘depoliticization’

4
 Anti-Politics, Depoliticization, and Governance

and ‘anti-politics’. Section 1.3 develops this argument by suggesting that the
relationship between these two concepts may well be far more complicated
than is often assumed. The relationship—the nexus—between the phenom-
ena captured beneath these umbrella concepts is therefore likely to be complex,
fluid, and open to a range of interpretations. This is the focus of section
1.4. Section 1.5 develops this emphasis on complexity by highlighting how
the concepts of meta-governance and multilevel governance—by offering
new perspectives on the role of politicians, the scope of the state, and the
nature of citizenship—pose distinctive new questions for the analysis of anti-
politics. This flows into the final section, 1.6, which focuses on the structure
and content of the book. It sets out a thematic framework (cast from the
questions listed above) that provides both a foundational spine and a set of
reference points to which we return in the final chapter, Chapter 13.

1.2 Clarity, Concepts, and Contestation

The argument of this section is that both ‘depoliticization’ and ‘anti-politics’

remain essentially contested concepts. They embrace a range of socio-political
processes and attitudes that have become increasingly visible in recent dec-
ades. Therefore, just as depoliticization has been dissected into its component
strategies, tactics, and tools, the concept of anti-politics also has to be exam-
ined to reveal its component forms. The relationship between depoliticiza-
tion, on the one hand, and anti-politics, on the other, is therefore unlikely to
be unidimensional, static, or simple. The purpose of this book is to analyse
both concepts and the relationship between them.
Increasingly, there is a consensus among scholars that, while contested,
depoliticization can be defined as the set of processes (including varied tactics,
strategies, and tools) that remove or displace the potential for choice, collect-
ive agency, and deliberation around a particular political issue (Hay 2007).
This definition is broadly accepted in this collection. However, the specific
ways in which depoliticization takes place, the venues on which to focus, for
example, or the levels and scales at which it occurs are diverse and contested.
Burnham (2001) placed a broad focus on nation-state reforms that place ‘at
one remove’ responsibility for policy decisions, via delegation. This was devel-
oped by Flinders and Buller’s (2006) ‘tactics and tools’ approach, which
further disaggregated the mechanisms used by politicians to depoliticize
issues—including delegation, but also the creation of binding rules and dis-
cursive ‘preference shaping’. The contributors to this collection continue to
focus on depoliticization as a set of governing ‘tactics and tools’. However,
they broaden the varieties of governance that are examined, and seek to tease
out the intricacies in terms of the creation of new forms of governance and

5
Fawcett, Flinders, Hay, and Wood

their effects. Moreover, the collection interrogates the role of discourse as a

less formal way of ‘governing’, which may have depoliticizing consequences
(Jenkins 2011). It takes account of recent literature suggesting the importance
of mediating factors external to the state that either embed or challenge the
depoliticization process.
Second, and more ambitiously, the collection seeks to draw a link between
depoliticization as a specific set of strategies and their impact on ‘anti-politics’
as a broader set of beliefs and practices that demonstrate disillusionment,
disaffection, and disengagement with institutional politics. Anti-politics is a
very broad concept, referring to how these beliefs and practices pose intercon-
nected challenges to the authority and legitimacy of liberal democratic state
institutions (Allen and Birch 2015; Jennings et al. 2016). Depoliticization—as
the denial of the choice, agency, and deliberation that are necessary in any
democratic society—is closely associated with anti-politics. However, this
book recognizes that anti-politics overlaps with depoliticization in referring
to public disengagement, manifested in declining public participation in
elections and parties, as well as acquiescence to dominant paradigms of public
policy. Anti-politics can refer to insurgent populist politicians claiming they
can push the state to work better through more ‘authentic’ politics (Albertazzi
and Mueller 2013). It can also refer to ‘alternative’ movements that reject the
state as the main site of politics and try to build political communities else-
where, online or on a local scale (Flinders (2015) calls this ‘pro-doing politics
differently’). The potential interrelationships between these forms of anti-
politics—‘anti’ in the sense that they challenge the legitimacy and authority
of parliaments, departments, and the ‘core executive’, traditionally defined—
have yet to be explored systematically. For the purposes of this book, anti-
politics is defined in a relatively narrow way: as public disillusionment and
disengagement, associated with declining turnout at elections, declining
membership of parties and political movements, and public opposition to
paradigmatic policy agendas. As such, the book will seek to address one aspect
of a wide-ranging puzzle about the continued legitimacy and authority of
liberal democratic states. This focuses attention on how acts that deny choice,
agency, and deliberation (depoliticization) impact on public participation and
engagement in politics and the contestation of dominant policy agendas
(anti-politics).

1.3 Paradigms, Risks, and Self-Evident Truths

If section 1.2 focused on the contested nature of the core concepts that
provide the focus of this book, then this section focuses on the nature of the
relationship between these concepts. More specifically, it focuses on the

6
 Anti-Politics, Depoliticization, and Governance

common assumption that depoliticization drives anti-political sentiment by

hollowing out democratic politics. While such an argument appears logical
and certainly contains more than a grain of truth, it also risks assuming a
rather linear or top-down set of relationships. To some extent, this hypothesis
regarding cause and effect risks stepping (or stumbling) straight into Elinor
Ostrom’s (2013: 33) warning about ‘the danger of self-evident truths’:

Self-evident truths are frequently invoked when scholars and policy-makers pro-
pose political reforms. We often hear ‘It is obvious that X is true therefore we need
to do Y’. The implication of this assertion is that common sense dictates our
understanding of the problem and the solution. But is it really the case that X is
true? And is Y really the best response? The fact that something is widely believed
does not make it true.

It would not be overstretching the case to suggest that the existing literature
has—to a greater or lesser extent and with only very rare exceptions—accepted
the self-evident truth that depoliticization is ‘bad’ for democracy and fuels
anti-politics. And, yet, in some circumstances, depoliticization may lead to a
backlash that results in more, not less, political pressure on state institutions.
For example, Flinders and Wood (2015) argue that the global rise of delegated
governance has not diffused political pressures but actually sustains, rein-
forces, and possibly even drives these pressures as politicians continually
need to restate fundamental values in a politically intensive process that
provokes, rather than dissipates, political opposition. Such developments
may, of course, be a good thing. They certainly provide surprising counter-
intuitive evidence that deserves consideration. At the very least, there is a need
for careful conceptual specification and empirical disaggregation.
This book seeks to build on the still relatively small body of literature on
depoliticization by further exploring the link between depoliticization, anti-
politics, and governance, which has so far remained relatively underdevel-
oped both theoretically and empirically. Theoretically, the literature that has
examined these links has often worked with the implicit assumption that
there is a one-way relationship between governance reforms and political
disengagement. This is problematic as the relationship between governance
and participation is clearly a much more dynamic one that involves multiple
interactions between politicians, administrators, and citizens. While anti-
politics has been a concern to those writing about depoliticization, the particu-
lar type of ‘anti-politics’ has not been fully interrogated; rather, anti-politics has
normally been characterized in general terms as a form of apathetic disengage-
ment. The literature in this field has also not really engaged with the more
sophisticated approaches to governance that have emerged over recent times,
such as multilevel governance and meta-governance. Finally, the literature has
generally been less attuned to counter-processes of politicization and the effect

7
Fawcett, Flinders, Hay, and Wood

these may have on the governance–anti-politics relationship. This has led

critics to argue that studies in depoliticization are overly static and deterministic
(Jenkins 2011).
While the recent literature on depoliticization and wider policy fields dem-
onstrates that this is starting to change (Fawcett and Marsh 2014; Jessop 2014;
Bates et al. 2014), this book broadens the horizons of the literature on depol-
iticization even further by seeing what can be learnt through a more system-
atic analysis of the interrelationship between anti-politics, governance, and
depoliticization in a variety of contexts. The chapters in this collection expose
and interrogate the depoliticization thesis with the aim of working towards
developing an expanded and rigorous research agenda for this emerging field
of study. This is achieved by, inter alia, examining the relationship between
anti-politics and emerging forms of governance, connecting the study of anti-
politics with the latest theories in governance, and evaluating these argu-
ments comparatively using new case study material from a range of countries
and policy areas. Put slightly differently, the contributions in this volume
allow us to both dissect and ‘stress test’ depoliticization as a concept—to
explore its essentially contested features and assess the degree to which depol-
iticization, as a concept, can help us explain contemporary political practice
and modern statecraft (Wood and Flinders 2014).

1.4 Linkages, Tensions, and Nexus Politics

If section 1.3 focused on questioning ‘self-evident truths’, then the focus of

this section is on the precise relationship(s) that exist within and between
various forms of depoliticization and anti-politics. Put simply, this section—
and the whole of this book—revolves around what we shall term ‘nexus
politics’. By this we mean the manner in which a range of social processes
and political reforms coalesce and interact with one another. Phrased in this
manner, it might be assumed that ‘the nexus’ between the reform of the state
and political behaviour (i.e. elements of depoliticization) and the evolution of
democracy (i.e. ensnared in apocalyptic narratives of ‘crisis’ and ‘end-ism’) is
dysfunctional to the extent that it perpetuates a self-fulfilling spiral of pessim-
ism and poor performance. And, yet, any understanding of ‘the nexus’ must
comprehend the extent of change.
First, it is crucial to recognize that depoliticization ‘tactics and tools’ occur
within a broader context of dynamic change within political economies across
the globe. Traditional social structures have become destabilized and disorien-
tated and this has led to the emergence of distinctive social, economic, and
political trends towards ‘liquidity’ (Bauman 2007), ‘risk’ (Beck 2009), ‘reflex-
ivity’ (Archer 2012), and ‘complexity’ (Castells 2011). These societal changes

8
 Anti-Politics, Depoliticization, and Governance

set the context within which the shift from ‘government to governance’
(Rhodes 1997) and the emergence of ‘anti-politics’ (Stoker 2006) have
occurred and found purchase in political science and related disciplines. The
shift from ‘government to governance’ refers to a passage or direction of travel
from traditional ‘top-down’ bureaucracy to networks and markets and other
distinctive modes of governing, while ‘anti-politics’ refers to disengagement
from and disenchantment with traditional forms of political organization and
participation. The literature on depoliticization investigates the ‘nexus’
between these trends by seeking to develop a better understanding of how
the political character of decision-making is displaced. The literature on gov-
ernance and political participation contributes to the interest in depoliticiza-
tion by suggesting that trends towards the latter are likely to take on a different
form in recent years given changes in the way governance works and the
different ways citizens participate in that process.
Second, scholars writing on depoliticization have examined the rejection of
or disillusionment with traditional forms of politics and acquiescence to a
neo-liberal ideology (Kettell 2008; Rodgers 2009; Jenkins 2011; Bates et al.
2014; Foster et al. 2014; Jessop 2014; Strange 2014; Sutton 2016). For example,
Burnham (2001) has argued that Tony Blair’s New Labour government in the
UK created a process of ‘depoliticization’ through which otherwise conten-
tious neo-liberal reforms were presented as ‘inevitable’ through delegation to
arm’s-length agencies, leading to apathy, disillusionment, and ultimately
submission among the electorate. Hay (2007) subsequently focused on depol-
iticization as a way of bridging the gap between disengagement and the
permeation of public choice theory into political debate, and Foster et al.
(2014) used the concept to theorize the permeation of neo-liberal ideology
within political action, drawing on Michel Foucault’s work. These studies see
depoliticization as, crucially, a bridging concept operating at the nexus
between micro-trends (the disengagement of individual citizens), meso-level
institutional mechanisms and reforms (modes of governance), and macro-
level ideologies and dominant growth models.
Overall, the literature converges on the very broad argument that trans-
formations during the post-Cold War period have led, in various ways, to a
legitimacy crisis for traditional political institutions (Hay and Stoker 2009).
The sources of this legitimacy crisis are varied but include factors such as
declining levels of participation in the formal political sphere (Norris 2011),
systemically negative attitudes towards politicians and institutional ‘politics’
(Stoker 2006), and the rise of ‘new’ forms of political organization, particularly
through the growth of online technologies (Jensen and Bang 2013; Halupka
2014; Margetts et al. 2016). This focus on transforming political identities and
practices (Jennings, Stoker, and Twyman 2016) is complemented by the gov-
ernance literature with its focus on changing modes of governance. Studies of

9
Fawcett, Flinders, Hay, and Wood

depoliticization—at the intersection between the two—would seem to be well

placed to examine the ‘nexus’ between different forms of governance and how
they produce or promote different forms of anti-politics.

1.5 Governance, Complexity, and Change

Answering these questions will require engagement with foundational

frameworks that have formed the basis of theorizing on depoliticization
since the early 2000s. Specifically, the chapters in this collection build
upon Marks and Hooghe’s (2004) framework of Type 1 and Type 2 multilevel
governance, Flinders and Buller’s (2006) framework of tactics and tools of
depoliticization, and Hay’s (2007) model of politicization and depoliticiza-
tion processes.
Hooghe and Marks (2001, 2003) noticed the emergence of two types of
‘multilevel governance’ (MLG) in the 1990s, dispersed across transnational,
national, and subnational jurisdictions. ‘Type 1’ is familiar, including federal-
style parliamentary and executive-style arrangements. ‘Type 2’, however,
involves non-departmental public bodies, public–private partnerships, and
other ‘quasi-autonomous’ decision-making bodies operating between jurisdic-
tions, undertaking various differentiated tasks with varying levels of auton-
omy. The second type of governance has been the focus of debates about the
extent to which it shields decisions from political and democratic control
(Burnham 2001). Marks and Hooghe’s (2004) framework therefore presents
an important, if indirect, window into debates about changes in governance
and their effects on democracy.
Second, Flinders and Buller (2006) provide a framework for analysing depol-
iticization, linking ‘Type 2’ forms of governance with theoretical work on
power and political economy (see Figure 1.1).
This explicit framework casts depoliticization as a ‘principle’ of policymakers
involving the implementation of particular ‘tactics and tools’. This includes,
but goes beyond, instituting ‘Type 2’ forms of governance. In particular, it
identifies three ‘tactics’: institutional, rule-based, and preference-shaping
depoliticization. The first refers to the creation of delegated agencies to advise
on and make policy decisions, the second involves setting binding rules on
policymakers, and the third includes discursive ‘acts’ aimed at making policy
issues appear non-political. These are linked to Steven Lukes’ seminal ‘three
faces of power’ and connect MLG with studies focused on the power of the state
(Burnham 2001).
Last, Hay (2007) constructs a framework that builds upon Gamble (2000)
and Flinders and Buller’s (2006) work to specify three forms of depoliticization
against three forms of politicization (see Figure 1.2).

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 Principled Commitment to
Depoliticisation?
No Yes
Macro-Political Level

Tactical Choice

Meso-Political
Institutional Rule-Based Preference Level
Shaping

Micro-
Non-ministerial
department
Non-departmental
public body
Independent statutory
body

External e.g.
Exchange Rate
Mechanism

Internal e.g.
Golden Rule

Globalisation

Neo-liberalism

New Public
Management
Political Level

Examples

Figure 1.1. Principles, tactics, and tools of depoliticization.

Source: Flinders and Buller (2006: 299).

Governmental
sphere

Realm of necessity
(‘non-political’) Public sphere

Private sphere

Depoliticization 1
Politicization 3

Depoliticization 2 Politicization 2

Depoliticization 3 Politicization 1

Figure 1.2. Politicization and depoliticization processes.

Source: Hay (2007: 79).
Fawcett, Flinders, Hay, and Wood

This creates a dynamic model showing not only how specific issues come to
be depoliticized, but also how this depoliticization process may be resisted
through politicizing moves. Depoliticization processes (1, 2, and 3) show
issues moving further away from public scrutiny within the state (‘govern-
mental’ sphere) to the periphery of society (‘realm of necessity’) where they
are rarely discussed. Conversely, politicization processes (1, 2, and 3) show
issues moving the other way, with growing public deliberation and the recog-
nition that they are marked by contingency and the need to exercise collective
agency over them. Innovatively, Hay links this model to wider processes of
public disaffection and disengagement from politics; that is to say, anti-
politics. For Hay, processes of depoliticization can lead to public disaffection,
while politicization processes go the other way, leading to renewed engage-
ment with elections, parties, and the institutions of liberal democracy.
These frameworks are brought in throughout this book in eclectic ways, and
while some authors use related frameworks (developed, for example, by Jessop
(2014)), they represent a core set of approaches in established literature from
which this book draws.
In terms of developing or furthering the precision of these frameworks,
however, this collection engages with a sophisticated range of recent litera-
ture on governance (see Bevir 2013; Edelenbos and van Meerkerk 2016;
Kooiman 2003; Koppenjan and Klijn 2004; Levi-Faur 2012; Torfing et al.
2012; Turnbull 2016). While arguments about the shift from ‘government to
governance’ have been well documented in political science for more than
twenty years, the emergence of governance as a distinct field of study has
created a number of more specialized subfields of enquiry (Levi-Faur 2012;
Rhodes 1997). Here, scholars have examined a variety of new, complex forms
of governance, such as experimentalist governance (Sabel and Zeitlin 2010),
regulatory governance (Levi-Faur 2011), polycentric governance (Skelcher
2005), and meta-governance (Jessop 2011; Sørensen and Torfing 2009). These
diverse strands of research have a common theme of seeking to unravel and
tease apart the changing nature of the state and the respective power relations
and resource dependencies between different actors.
Meta-governance is a particularly prominent concept that has developed in
an attempt to better understand the changing relationship between ‘Type 1’
and ‘Type 2’ institutions. The growing literature around meta-governance has
been concerned mainly with the strategic coordination of networked govern-
ance or the ‘governance of governance’ (Daugbjerg and Fawcett 2015; Jessop
2011; Sørensen and Torfing 2009). In other words, meta-governance ‘points to
the mechanisms that public authority and other resourceful actors can use to
initiate and stimulate negotiated self-governance among relevant stake-
holders and/or to guide them in a certain direction’ (Sørensen et al. 2011:
379). As well as looking at the specific mechanisms through which strategic

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