Good Governance

Governance of ecosystem services (ES) and natural capital (NC) is one of the four major challenges addressed by OpenNESS. The term governance indicates a mode of steering that differs from state-centred top-down command-and-control approaches, as it is marked by the inclusion of a variety of actors or stakeholders beyond the state, but does not necessarily exclude any involvement of actors representing the state. Beyond this basic definition there is no consensus in the literature about the exact meaning and operationalization of the governance concept across different (sub-)disciplines and different conceptual approaches within these disciplines (e.g., Jessop, 2002; Hajer and Wagenaar, 2003; Pierre and Peters, 2000; Rhodes, 2007). What is particularly contested is whether the term itself has a normative connotation, i.e. whether the shift from government to governance is favourable per se, or just a matter of fact.