Boundary Spanning in Governance Networks: A study about the role of boundary spanners and their effects on democratic throughput legitimacy and performance of governance networks

Abstract

The policy- and decision-making context has changed significantly in the last decades. In the contemporary age of late modernity, the classical modernistic institutions of policyand decision making are increasingly facing difficulties in realizing legitimate and effective political responses by themselves (Beck et al., 2003; Dryzek, 1990; Hajer, 2003a). A number of transformations in contemporary societies can be identified as important factors in this diagnosis. Without having the ambition to be all-encompassing, one could at least mention two major changes of particular interest for this thesis. One major change concerns the increasing complexity of public issues accompanied by a highly fragmented institutional landscape. The second concerns a changing societal context in which traditional political authority is increasingly questioned and citizens often demand more direct forms of political engagement when their interests are at stake. These changes and their implications for traditional government are further elaborated in the next sections of this introductory chapter.