Governance in complexity

Society has become increasingly complex on three levels: the level of society itself, of the problems facing our society and of dealing with these problems (governance). Trends such as internationalization, informatisation, integration and individualization have led to the emergence of the network-society (Castells, 1996) and an increasing societal complexity. This development has led to the emergence of a new type of problems at the societal level that cannot be solved with simple, short-term solutions. These problems are defined as persistent problems: they are unstructured (Hisschemöller, 1993, Hisschemöller and Hoppe, 1996) and highly complex because they are rooted in different of societal domains, occur on different levels and involve different actors with different perspectives, norms and values. Solutions to such problems are not given and purely analytical approaches will not suffice.