The American Review of Public Administration

Emerging Theoretical 41(4) 375­–394

© The Author(s) 2011
Reprints and permission: http://www.
Understanding of sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0275074010378159

Pluricentric Coordination http://arp.sagepub.com

in Public Governance

Anne Reff Pedersen1, Karina Sehested2,

and Eva Sørensen3

Abstract
Currently, we are witnessing a comprehensive change in the theoretical understandings of how
coordination is provided in the pursuit of public governance. Traditional strands of theory took
their departure from the presumption that coordination is the outcome of processes within
coherent institutionally or functionally demarcated units that follows a specific pregiven rational
logic of consequentiality.This view is apparent in public administration theory, organization theory,
and planning theory. In recent years, this unitary, rationalist understanding of coordination
has been challenged by a more pluricentric understanding of coordination in public governance.
Coordination is viewed as a messy and floating process that revolves around interactive arenas
that promote communication between a plurality of interpretive logics and situated practises.
Although the traditional theories of coordination tended to view vertical and horizontal forms of
coordination as radically different modes of coordination, the new theories question the analytical
value of this distinction by pointing to the relational, interpretive, interdependent, and interactive
aspects of all coordination processes including processes in which public authorities seek to govern
their subjects. In the new theories, one of the main questions is how to get a better hold of
this new understanding of coordination in processes of public governance. The article aims to
do so by bringing together insights from three theoretical strands: public administration theory,
organizational theory, and planning theory to show how each of them are currently contributing to
the development of what we define as a theory of pluricentric coordination in public governance.

Keywords
public administration, generally, governance, organization theory, institutional theory, public
administration/administrative theory

1
Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark
2
University of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg, Denmark
3
Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark

Corresponding Author:
Karina Sehested, Forest and Landscape Denmark, University of Copenhagen,
Rolighedsvej 23, 1958 Frederiksberg C, Denmark
Email: kar@life.ku.dk
376 The American Review of Public Administration 41(4)

The many different strands of theory that offer understandings of how public governance is pro-
vided share an interest in the question of how coordination takes place. Traditionally, the ability
to provide public governance has been viewed as depending on the presence of a coherent insti-
tutional or functional model of coordination that follows a specific pregiven rational logic of
consequentiality and provides a combination of vertical and horizontal forms of coordination.
The purpose of this article is to point out how this traditional theoretical understanding of coor-
dination is gradually being pushed aside by a wave of new strands of theory that view coordina-
tion as the outcome of a messy pluricentric process that involves a plurality of endogenously
constructed interpretive logics of action that are linked through loosely coupled interactive are-
nas. According to this view, coordination is taking place in a terrain characterized by competing
situated logics that are shaped and reshaped in and through network-like coordination processes
that promotes the construction of shared meaning and story work.
The article sets out to illuminate how this gradual reconceptualization of the theoretical under-
standing of coordination has taken place within some of the strands of theory that have contributed
considerably to our understanding of coordination in public governance and to take the first steps
in developing a theory of pluricentric coordination. First, the article gives an overview of the main
theoretical understandings of the relationship between the concepts of coordination and gover-
nance. Then, we describe the gradual emergence of a pluricentric understanding of coordination
in public administration theory, organization theory, and planning theory. For the matter of clarity,
each of the three descriptions offers a somewhat simplified three-phase narrative consisting of an
outline of the traditional approach to coordination, an intermediate phase of theorizing, and the
recent theoretical developments. Next, we bring together the insights from the three narratives and
draw the first contours of a pluricentric theory of coordination. Finally, we point to some of the
questions that remain to be answered in order to develop this theory further.

The Conceptual Relationship Between

Coordination and Governance
As pointed out above, the concept of coordination is and has always been central to theoretical
considerations about how public governance is produced. The concepts of governance and
coordination are typically closely related in these theories and are sometimes used interchange-
ably. There is, however, a general tendency to use coordination when emphasizing how collec-
tive action is produced through the adjustment of the actions of some actors to the actions of
others whereas the concept of governance is used to emphasize the guidance of these actions in
a certain direction.
The traditional literature on governance has among other things, analyzed coordination by
means of two sets of distinctions (Orton & Weick, 1990). First, a line has been drawn between
vertical and horizontal forms of coordination, the former taking place through one-directional
hierarchical adjustments and the latter through mutual adjustments. Second, a distinction has
been drawn between different degrees of coordination placed on a continuum going from less
ambitious efforts to ensure that a plurality of actions are performed in such a way that they do not
undermine each other to more ambitious forms of coordination, where the form and content of
individual actions are changed in order for them to contribute to the realization of shared goals.
Hence, it is recognized that the forms and degrees of coordination taking place in processes of
public governance vary considerably.
But what drivers do traditional theoretical approaches to coordination view as central for the
provision of coordination in public governance? Different social science theories identify differ-
ent drivers among which the most prominent are organizations, functional systems, leadership,
and institutions. Although there is a permanent theoretical dispute about which of these drivers
Pedersen et al. 377

can best explain how coordination in public governance is produced, it is possible to identify
periods in which each of them have dominated. Up until the 1930s, coordination in public gov-
ernance was primarily seen as an outcome of well-designed formal organizational setups, that is,
hierarchical bureaucratic structures that provided a detailed vertical top-down coordination of
the different acts of governance within a given organization (Weber, 1920/1971; Wilson, 1887).
From the 1940s to the 1960s, when behavioralism dominated the social sciences, a systems theo-
retical approach to the social sciences proliferated that viewed coordination as an everlasting
striving for equilibrium driven by functional necessities. Coordination was viewed as being driven
by some sort of horizontal coordination that sought to neutralize imbalances between inputs and
outputs through mutual adjustments (Easton, 1953; Parsons, 1953). Whereas formal institutions
were believed to advance coordination through the regulation of actions performed by rational,
rule-following actors, the coordination of functional systems was seen as a result of some kind
of invisible hand driven by a universal constitutive necessity related to the governing of all soci-
eties at all times. In the 1960s, a new strand of theory “contingency theory” emerged that put dis-
tance to this functionalist, universalistic, and horizontal approach to coordination. Contingency
theory (Mintzberg, 1992; Thompson, 1967) emphasizes the need to tailor-make the production
of coordination through the design of specific standards and procedures that take the specific
context into consideration and the need for leaders capable of designing the standards and struc-
tures that promote coordination in the light of the particular circumstances.
The leadership-centered approach to coordination advocated by the contingency theorists was
overturned in the 1980s and 1990s with the neo-institutionalist turn that brought institutions back
in as the main explanatory factor in social science research. The public choice version of neo-
institutionalism claimed that coordination should be seen as an outcome of institutionalized game
structures that establish particular incentive structures that make it particularly relevant for ratio-
nal actors to act in ways that promote different degrees of coordination ranging from negative
coordination that reduces externalities to positive coordination that serves the promotion of col-
lective goals (Scharpf, 1994; Scott, 1987). In contrast to this rationalist instrumental approach to
coordination, the constructivist version of neo-institutionalism argued that coordination should
be seen as the outcome of particular institutionalized norms, rules, and logics of appropriateness
(March & Olsen, 1989; Orton & Weick, 1990).
Constructivist neo-institutionalism is significant in this context because it deviates from the
previous understandings of coordination in three crucial ways. First of all, it puts distance to the
idea that there is a pregiven rationale that drives coordination processes—be it pregiven interests
or pregiven functional necessities. The rationality that drives coordination processes is increas-
ingly seen as an endogenously produced norm, which is constructed in and through the coordina-
tion process. Second, constructivist neo-institutionalism gives up the idea that it is possible to
provide coordination by means of coherent principles and driving forces. It highlights that the
institutional logics that provide coordination are loosely coupled, ambiguous, incomplete, and
prone to situated interpretations. Third, it emphasizes that the provision of coordination in pro-
cesses of public governance is not facing the need for strong coordination within stable and well
defined institutional or functional units. Public governance (and more so today than ever before)
depends in the ability to provide coordination across all sorts of boundaries, be they organiza-
tional, systemic, or institutional. Finally, by underlining the interactive and interpretive character
of coordination processes, constructivist neo-institutionalism tends to challenge the two basic
aforementioned distinctions drawn in traditional theories of coordination. With regard to the
distinction between vertical and horizontal forms of coordination, it indicates that there is no
such thing as pure vertical coordination as coordination always involves a modification of the
other and that counts for high as well as for low. This recognition does not lead to the conclusion
that all coordination is horizontal. Hence, modification processes are per definition ridden by all
378 The American Review of Public Administration 41(4)

sorts of asymmetrical power relations between the involved actors. Accordingly, vertical and
horizontal aspects of coordination processes should be viewed as inseparable and indistinguish-
able. Furthermore, as coordination processes always involve modifications of the positions,
views, and meaning horizons of the involved actors, it is difficult to distinguish between negative
and positive coordination, that is coordination in which actors seek not to get in each others’ way
and coordination that moderates actions in the pursuit of collective goals. Following from the
endogenous character of the logics that guide the actions stipulated by the constructivist neo-
institutionalist theorizing indicates that coordination processes always lead to more than nega-
tive coordination as the logics, strategies, and interests of the involved actors are always shaped
by the coordination process. In addition, positive coordination is always distorted by the fact that
images of the common good are always ambiguous and prone to particular and sometimes com-
peting interpretations.
Constructivist neo-institutionalism can be seen as the first step toward the consolidation of a
new pluricentric perception of coordination, which, after the turn of the century, has been further
developed within public administration theory, organization theory, and planning theory in ways
that draw heavily on poststructural theory, interpretive theory, and pragmatism.

Public Administration Theory

Public administration research is built around descriptive and prescriptive questions concerning
the coordination of governance activities relevant for the implementation of public policy. Tradi-
tional public administration theory is inseparably linked to the idea that public governance is
exercised by a sovereign ruler that controls the governance process by means of a formal institu-
tional setup that places the decision-making power in the hands of a government and the imple-
mentation of these policies in the hands of an administration organized as a bureaucracy (Weber,
1920/1971; Wilson, 1887). This institutional model of coordination relies heavily on vertical
coordination that takes the form of a detailed hierarchical system of rule and command that pre-
cisely regulates how each actor is to act any given situation.
The traditional top-down understanding of how coordination is produced in processes of pub-
lic governance provides a narrow field of study for public administration researchers. First of all,
the traditional theories assume that it is possible to divide the governance process into stages in
a rational decision chain of which some has to do with policy making whereas others have to do
with implementation (Simon, 1950). This presumed possibility of distinguishing specific phases
of the governance process as either political or administrative aspects narrows down the focus of
attention of public administration theory to the question of how policies are implemented through
different forms of bureaucratic administrative practices and procedures. Considerations about
the interplay between politics and administration have, with a few exceptions (Waldo, 1952),
been reduced to a question of finding a suitable way of formally dividing the powers, tasks, and
competences between political and administrative leaders (Weber, 1920/1971; Wilson, 1887).
Moreover, the state-centric view in traditional public administration theory has directed the focus
of attention away from the interplay between the public administration and the relevant and
affected citizens and stakeholders. The latter are perceived as passive spectators without any
active role to play in the governance processes. As such, traditional public administration theories
focus exclusively on the implementation phase and on enhancing coordination in the governance
process through a fine tuning of vertical forms of administrative coordination institutionalized
through a formal bureaucratic system of command and rule that neither involves politicians nor
nonstate actors.
From the 1950s and onward, the strong belief in the advantages of bureaucratic forms of
administrative coordination was met by critical voices arguing that bureaucratic forms of rule
Pedersen et al. 379

tended to produce implementation resistance, silo thinking, and unintended consequences (Hjern
& Hull, 1984; Kaufmann, Majone, & Ostrom, 1986; Lindblom, 1958, 1959; Peters, 2006; Pressman
& Wildawsky, 1973Simon, 1950;). The New Public Management (NPM) reforms of the 1980s
and 1990s aimed to remedy these shortcomings by introducing new forms of hierarchical rule
that sought to enhance the vertical coordination capacity in public governance processes through
the development of an incentives-based system of outcome measurement follow the line of thought
in public choice neo-institutionalism. Furthermore, this line of thought emphasized the possible
gains of introducing horizontal forms of coordination, such as those provided by a market-based
competition system into the public sector (Hood, 1991). Although the new vertical forms of coor-
dination maintained and even highlighted the view that governance processes can be divided into
a political and an administrative phase, the introduction of market-based forms of horizontal
coordination undermined the image of stakeholders and citizens as passive spectators in the gov-
ernance process. The sphere of interest for public administration researchers began to widen.
However, experiences made in the wake of the many NPM reforms that were carried out at the
end of the century revealed that these new coordination mechanisms produced other kinds of
coordination problems: vertical coordination between different levels was weakened by decou-
plings between public authorities and public and private service providers and information asym-
metry, and horizontal coordination was undermined by all sorts of market failures (Dunleavy,
Margetts, Bastow, & Tinkler, 2005).
In the 1990s, a new body of public administration theory, the so-called governance theories,
saw the light of the day. They criticized the assumption shared by the traditional theories of
public administration and NPM thinking that coordinated governance can be obtained without a
persistent interaction and communication between involved and affected parties in the decision
chain. The governance theorists argue that the level of complexity, diversity, and dynamism of
the problems and issues that confront public governors has highlighted the need for a theoretical
reframing of public administration research (Kickert, Klijn, & Koppenjan, 1997; Kooiman,
1993; Rhodes, 1997). Public administration, they argue, should not be viewed as a clearly demar-
cated step in a rational decision chain that can be studied and theorized as an isolated phenome-
non. Rather, it should be viewed and studied as a disordered and complex process in which a
plurality of public and private actors including politicians and public administrators interact in
more or less formalized negotiation processes that lead to the authorization and implementation
of political decisions and implementation. These forms of interactive collaboration, and in par-
ticular governance networks, are celebrated as a forceful, predominantly coordination mecha-
nism of crucial importance for the provision of public governance in today’s pluricentric political
systems (Agranoff, 2007; O’Toole, 2007; Van Kersbergen & Van Waarden, 2004).
The main problem in relation to harvesting the coordination benefits of governance networks
is that their ability to produce negotiated coordination is dependent on a high level of autonomy.
Because this kind of autonomy is incompatible with traditional forms of ensuring vertical coor-
dination, governance theorists claim that interactive forms of network governance call for a new
form of hierarchical coordination that allows for negotiated self-governance. The term metagov-
ernance is used to categorize this particular form of hierarchical coordination that is realized
through the governance of self-governance (Jessop, 2002; Klijn & Koppenjan, 2004; Kooiman,
2003; Sørensen & Torfing, 2007). Metagovernance points to the various mechanisms that public
authority and other resourceful actors can use to initiate and stimulate negotiated self-governance
among relevant stakeholders and/or to guide them in a certain direction. The challenge for meta-
governors who aim to exercise this kind of meta-coordination consists in striking the right bal-
ance between under- and overregulation of the self-governing actors. Whereas underregulation
might cause fragmentation, overregulation threatens to undermine the capacity and willingness
to self-govern among the involved actors.
380 The American Review of Public Administration 41(4)

A review of the theoretical literature on metagovernance produces the following list of meta-
governance tool kits: management by objectives, incentives steering, production and dissemina-
tion of storylines, and facilitation of and participation in self-governance (Sørensen & Torfing,
2007). Although some of these forms of metagovernance, that is, management by objectives and
incentives steering, can be carried out top-down and at a distance, most of them involve direct
interaction with the self-governing actors. The NPM reform program advocated for a one-sided
use of hands-off metagovernance. The result has been a low level of vertical coordination
(Christensen & Lægreid, 1999; Dunleavy et al., 2005; Meier, O’Toole, Boyne, & Walker, 2008;
Sørensen, 2007). In contrast, governance theorists argue that effective metagovernance calls for
a combination of hands-off and hands-on forms of metagovernance (Klijn & Koppenjan, 2004;
Sørensen, 2006). A precondition for exercising metagovernance, however, is the institutionaliza-
tion of an ongoing interaction between metagovernors and the self-governing actors at different
levels and stages in the governance process.
The interest in governance networks and metagovernance has turned around the whole debate
on how coordination is provided within the public administration research field. Among other
things, this debate has blurred the well-established analytical distinction between horizontal and
vertical forms of coordination. Although governance networks could be seen as producers of
horizontal coordination and metagovernance as a producer of vertical coordination, the situation
is more complicated than that. Governance networks are often directly involved in acts of meta-
governance, and this involvement means that metagovernance is moderated through interaction
with the self-governing actors. It appears, therefore, of limited value to analyze these processes
in terms of vertical and horizontal coordination. The complexity of pluricentric governance pro-
cesses is testified in numerous empirical studies (Bogason & Zølner, 2007; Hajer, 1995; Hajer &
Wagenaar, 2003; Sørensen, 2007; Torfing, 2007).
In sum, governance theory provides important insights and a conceptual framework that can
inspire efforts to develop a new pluricentric approach to coordination. First, it provides important
empirical knowledge about the complexity of the processes leading to coordinated governance
and points out how a plurality of public and private actors is involved in this coordination pro-
cess. Second, by introducing the terms governance networks and metagovernance, it provides an
analytical framework for studying this kind of complex interactive coordination processes in
which hierarchy and self-governance intermingle in the production of coordinated governance.

Organization Theory
Although the objects of study in public administration theory are the institutions and processes
through which public authorities govern, organization theory focus on organizations. What
constitutes them and how do they function? Seen through the lenses of this strand of theory,
organizations—private as well as public, banks as well as hospitals—represent the backbone of
society as they structure or frame the way we act in the world.
In early studies of organizations the focus was on single organizations, which could be opti-
mized by studies of work conditions, management rules, and workforce conditions. The scien-
tific management studies were done partly by managers, partly by researchers investigating the
machinery of organizations (Taylor, 1911/1949). They experimented with the coordination of
work through different patterns of work divisions, standardization, and direct supervision. These
studies lay the ground for the so-called organizational design studies.
The design studies, which exclusively focused on intraorganizational coordination, viewed
planning as the best way of providing this kind of coordination (Fayol, 1949). In this theoreti-
cal context, planning was defined as programmed strictly regulated distribution of tasks fol-
lowing specific rules (Perrow, 1967). Van De Ven, Delbecq, and Koenig (1976) explain how
Pedersen et al. 381

coordination through planning is established by preestablished plans, schedules, formalized

rules, policies, procedures, and standardized information that serve as a blueprint for action
(p. 323). Thompson (1967) describes how these kinds of strictly regulated and programmed
actions are formally prescribed in impersonal standards and how these standards need a mini-
mum of verbal communication because they are implemented as mechanism of coordination that
are codified between task and performers. The design studies paid much attention to the presence
of vertical as well as horizontal patterns of coordination because both were viewed as crucial for
ensuring a high level of communization within the organization. The role of ensuring vertical
communication was in general placed on the shoulders of line mangers and unit supervisors
(Thompson, 1967).
The traditional design approach to organizational coordination was refined with the emer-
gence of Lindblom’s (1959) new model of how to understand decisions. Beforehand decisions
were seen as a rational model. Lindblom’s work was based on an understanding of decisions
made by muddling through. Thereby, Lindblom was pointing out the irrational and process view
on decisions and coordination that became the base for the later institutional theory.
But in the period in-between the emergence of contingency theory was a new period with influ-
ence on the understanding of coordination represented by the seminal works of Henry Mintzberg.
His contribution to this traditional literature set a new stage in organization theory and proved
to be influential far beyond this particular strand of theory. He refined the design debate by
pointing out that different kind of tasks calls for different types of organizational forms charac-
terized by their particular coordination mechanisms of which particular patterns of standardiza-
tion play a central role. Of the five distinct ideal typical organizational forms he formulated, one
is the professional organizations that rely on standardization and another is the machine organi-
zation that relies on standardization of work (Mintzberg, 1983). Mintzberg claimed that organi-
zations can be coordinated by means of the following mechanisms: mutual adjustment, direct
supervision, and standardization of work, outputs, skills, and norms (Mintzberg, 1992). Whereas
the first can be characterized as a horizontal form of coordination, the others can be seen as
vertical forms of coordination. He argued that only small organizations can rely on horizontal
coordination while large organizations must rely heavily on vertical forms of coordination.
Mintzberg is still very influential in the theoretical debate on how to organize public as well as
private organizations.
Around the late 1980s, the design tradition in organization theory was challenged by the
emergence of neo-institutionalism that had a profound impact on organization theory. It gave up
the view that organizations can be studied as isolated islands and put emphasis on the study of
organizational fields and interorganizational relations as core elements in understanding how
coordination is produced, and it directed the focus of attention toward the role of meaning in
coordinating collective action within as well as between organizations (March & Olsen, 1989;
Meyer & Rowan, 1977; Scott, 1987). In other words, the neo-institutionalists moved the focus of
attention from coordination through planning, top-down leadership, and standards to how par-
ticular institutionalized logics of appropriateness guide behavior recognizing that the coordina-
tion capacity of these informal logics of appropriateness and the rules and norms they provided
represented the most effective coordination mechanism of all. As these logics are endogenously
produced in and through the coordination process itself, each organization develops its particular
institutionalized rationalities that serve as mental coordination universes. Consequently, it is a
waste of time to seek to develop one or more universal ideal typical organizational coordination
structures. Coordination is produced in different ways in different situations that are driven by
particular logics and meanings.
Curiously enough, the neo-institutionalist wave resulted in an abundance of macro-level analy-
ses, investigating the dominating institutional logics of contemporary organizations (Borum, 2004).
382 The American Review of Public Administration 41(4)

One of the effects of these studies was an increased recognition of the loosely coupled nature of
organizations—a term that was developed by Orton and Weick (1990). They define loose cou-
plings in dialectical terms as an act of balancing the oppositional forces of connectivity and auton-
omy and argue that too much concern has been directed toward the dangers of structural
disconnectedness and thereby overlooking the fact that loose couplings can in fact be of crucial
value in the pursuit of coordination within as well as between organizations.
The neo-institutionalists chose many different paths. One such path has led to theories of
sense making that direct its full attention toward the production of meaning in governance pro-
cesses and how this production of meaning produces rational accounts of what is going on that
help to structure the relationship between the involved actors and give direction to future actions
(Weick, 1993, p. 635). Weick suggests that respectful interaction depends on the presence of
intersubjectivity that (a) provides an exchange and synthesis of meaning between two or more
communicative selves and (b) transforms the self in the interactive process in a way that adds to
the development of a shared subjectivity (Weick, 1993, p. 642). The focus on the development of
joint sense making placed ongoing interaction and communication at the heart of the coordina-
tion process. As such, this line of theorizing has turned the view in organization theory on how
coordination is provided upside down: good-bye to standardized and instrumentalized top-down
coordination and hallo to loosely coupled moments of situated sense making.
In the late 1990s, scholars began to examine the question of how interactive communication
processes accommodate coordination (Boden, 1994; Fairhurst & Putnam, 1999; Quinn & Dutton,
2005). A lead position in this line of research was taken by narrative theory that views narrative as
a particularly forceful form of communication that illustrate how interaction and meaning are
emerging through the telling of stories (Czarniawska, 1998, 1999; Polkinghorne, 1988). Stories,
Gabriel (2000) argues, construct specific relations between characters, events, and plots, and
meaning is a product of the relationship that the stories create between the events and the plot.
This relationship is called a storyline. The production of storylines represents an important tool
kit in the exercise of strategic management. Gabriel (2000) stresses, however, that although
these managed storylines do have an impact, they are incapable of monopolizing the construc-
tion of meaning.

The unmanaged spaces of the organization do not generally challenge organizational con-
trol, but allow individuals and groups through their stories to affirm themselves as agents,
heroes, survivors and object of love rather than identifying with the script that organiza-
tions put in their mouths. (p. 129)

Seen from this point of view, the story work that takes place within organizations does not
produce a coherent and consistent universe of meaning. Rather, it is a complex plurality of loosely
coupled stories that on the one hand makes it possible to communicate and act together and
at the same time makes it possible to develop individual stories that give meaning to our daily
experiences in organizations through processes that are not far from the informal horizontal
exchanges of information that Mintzberg called mutual adjustments taking place in the day-to-
day interactions of the organization.
David Boje (1991) focuses on how individual stories become a part of the collective mental
landscape of the organization through ongoing interactive processes within the organization. In
these interactive processes, stories meet and change in the permanent act of storytelling that is
written by power games in which competing stories seek to obtain hegemony. Boje has investi-
gated these kinds of processes and developed the concept of multiple voices that signals the
plurality of stories that contribute to telling incomplete and fragmented stories about an organiza-
tion: “People are only tracing story fragments, inventing bits and pieces to glue it all together, but
Pedersen et al. 383

never able to visit all the stages and see the whole” (Boje, 2000, p. 5). The concept of story work
seeks to capture these complex processes of gluing individual stories together (Gabriel, 2000).
Story work can be defined as an ongoing performative process of producing and relating stories.
Story work connotes hard work and storytelling capabilities. In a narrative view, coordination
emerges in story work, where the participants construct shared stories that give meaning to their
everyday life. Thus, story work aims to construct a relational polyphony of stories (Boje, 2000).
It is in and through this fragile relational process that coordination is produced.
Narrative theory also reinterprets the way time and space is perceived in coordination pro-
cesses. All stories relate to time and space conditions. In the early organization, study time was
often understood as chronological time, the ticking of the clock and a focus on hours, dates,
months, and years. In relation to sense making, chronological time, however, is not very helpful,
because it divides time into small units, where one follows the other. Thereby, meaning can only
be created in short sequences of times. Narrative time is open time, which means that time must be
defined. It is left to the storyteller or the listener to define time (Pedersen, 2009). Ricoeur is one
of the most famous contributors to thoughts on the relationship between time and narration.
Ricoeur (1988) defines historical time in terms of two time concepts: cosmic time (the time of
the world) and lived time (the time of our lives). In his book Time and Narrative he combines
time and narration arguing that cosmic time can become lived time to the extent that it is articu-
lated in a narrative mode, and narrative attains its full significance when it becomes a condition
of temporal existence (Ricoeur, 1988). Thereby, time is not only one concept but entails several
understandings and consequences. Seen from this perspective, coordination is always linked to a
space and a time dimension, and one of the serious shortcomings of the concepts of vertical and
horizontal forms of coordination is that they do not contain any time dimension.
In conclusion, this three-stage narrative of the development in organizational theory identifies
a development from a focus on control and coherence to a focus on meaning and loose couplings
in a complex unstable landscape. What hold this fragmented landscape together are intensive
processes of story work within and between organizations. Coordination depends on this kind of
story work that takes place through situated interaction.

Planning Theory
In the traditional rational view on urban planning, it is a project of making overall plans to direct
futures for cities. The city is perceived as a territorial entity with spatial patterns and physical
objects that can be organized around a set of general principles to establish the necessary condi-
tions for human activity. The connectivity between elements and activities is decided by physical
proximity. Planning is meant to provide steering of these activities and not least to ensure the
necessary level of coordination of functions between sectors in order to create comprehensive
and coherent urban development (Friedmann, 1987). Planning was perceived to be most effec-
tive when the plans are multifunctional and multisectoral and integrates economic, social, environ-
mental, and physical aspects. The idea is to grasp the city in a comprehensive way and synthesize
its complex sociospatial dynamics and produce an integrated holistic plan for the future. Dys-
functional elements in social and physical environment must be identified and “fixed” through
the use of scientific knowledge, integrated conceptions, and fine-tuned development models
(Davidoff & Reiner, 1962). Planning based on scientific knowledge can make political decisions
more rational by formulating clear goals and visions, by identifying the relevant means, and
finally by ensuring effective implementation mechanisms (Allmendinger, 2002). Coordination is
first and foremost viewed as an outcome of vertical forms of coordination that facilitates the
implementation of the grand plan, supplemented with procedures that secure some level of hori-
zontal coordination between different functional units and sectors.
384 The American Review of Public Administration 41(4)

In the 1970s, a manifest breakaway from this traditional planning perspective took place
among the planning researchers. Marxists and other critical planning researchers opposed the
image of planning as an objective process and attacked the state and its planning praxis as being
partial to capitalist interests in that it sought to provide a unity and cohesion that in fact sanc-
tioned class domination (Allmendinger, 2002, p. 72). Hence, these early critics brought the question
of power and factors related to time and space into the theoretical planning landscape in that the
planning process of that time was interpreted as an act of oppression carried out by a state that
served a capitalist society. Other critics attacked the rationalism of the traditional theories and the
view that vertical forms of coordination were capable of effectively providing coordination of
urban planning initiatives. Insights form implementation theory and not least the works of Charles
Lindblom (1958, 1959) led them to suggest that effective coordination was better achieved by
means of incremental planning ideals than by the construction of grand plans on the basis of
expert knowledge. Planning is about steering and coordinating what is possible within the given
circumstances and with the available tools (Sager, 1994).
More radical challenges to the rational planning ideal saw the light of day in the 1980s. On the
empirical scene, the challenge consisted in the explosion of new ways of doing planning. The
traditional hierarchical planning procedures were pushed aside or decoupled by a new form of
project planning. All sorts of ad hoc projects were initiated by citizens, interest organizations, or
private firms and carried out in close collaboration with public authorities. As these projects did
not take their departure from any overall pregiven plan; planning became a fragmented outcome
of decoupled bottom-up processes (Hall, 2000, pp. 26-29; Sandercock, 1998, p. 30).
On the theoretical scene, pluralism took over. Over was the time where the research field was
dominated by one planning paradigm. The research field developed into a cluttered landscape of
theories, counting among others a neoliberal (New Right) antistate planning approach and a post-
structuralist approach that viewed planning processes as a battleground between different com-
peting contingent rationalities and discourses (Allmendinger, 2002). Despite the considerable
differences between these new theoretical approaches to planning, they shared the critique of the
formerly so strong idea that it is possible to develop cities on the basis of a comprehensive rational
plan and through a linear process of vertical coordination headed by experts. It was broadly agreed
that hierarchical regulation, top-down control, and big comprehensive plans had tended to create
problems for the development of cities on the grounds that they have blocked the capacity for
dynamic and flexible urban development. The postmodern planning perspective (re)introduced
the discussion of “the hidden world” or “the darker side” of power in planning processes by stress-
ing that this kind of planning processes tended to systematically oppress and disregard the inter-
ests of particular groups (Flyvbjerg, 1991; Sandercock, 1998). A relatively strong (neo-)pragmatic
strand of planning theory contended these criticisms and argued for the development of a practical
approach to planning that focused on practises more than on plans. Getting things done in a way
that works best in a concrete situation became the issue of planning (Healey, 2006; Hoch, 1996).
At the turn of the century, the aggregated outcome of the empirical development in urban
planning processes and the theoretical turn toward a more bottom-up and praxis-oriented plan-
ning ideal has materialized itself in the shape of a new understanding of urban planning, which
is of special interest in this context as it visualizes the slow but steady theoretical movement toward
a pluricentric understanding of coordination. This new relational approach to planning highlights
the need to contextualize planning, to take into account how planning processes are conditioned
by and produce power relations, and to exploit the potential benefits of bottom-up forms of plan-
ning through praxis forms that accommodate situated interaction between public authorities and
stakeholders. The new approach reconceptualizes the object of planning to be urban place and
space and introduces a new understanding of coordination (Albrechts, 2006; Friedman, 2004;
Healey, 2004, 2007).
Pedersen et al. 385

In contrast to the traditional approach to planning that stressed the physical aspects of a given
geography, the relational planning ideal introduces a new understanding of geography that
focuses on space and place as a relational phenomenon that describes the city as a “complex
layering of multiple social relations each with its own space–time dynamics and scalar reach”
(Healey, 2007, p. 224) and with unstable and blurred boundaries (Amin, 2004; Healey 2005).
Emphasis is put on “the potential multiple scales (from global to local) at any site of interaction”
(Healey, 2007, p. 49) and on how moments and sites are positioned in relational webs and net-
works (Amin, 2004). Space and place are not viewed as “out there” to grasp but as actively
produced through experiences and meaning in daily life (Massey, 2004, p. 5). According to this
pragmatist line of thinking, situated practises represent the main driver of planning processes,
and the situated linkages (or connections) that are formed as a part in these practises are concep-
tualized in terms of connectivity and interconnectivity between flows of ever-changing rela-
tionships. Seen from this perspective, order and coherence that were traditionally viewed as
preconditions for good planning are now being pushed aside by an increasing celebration of the
floating and the fragmented. As phrased by Thomas Sievert (2007), urban planning strategies
have given up the search for the possible order while at the same time they have given up the
pessimistic idea of the impossible order—that is the idea that we cannot plan if there is disorder.
What is emerging is a new optimistic idea that it is possible to plan regardless of disorder. Plan-
ning is about the construction of possible disorders.
Relational geography has a major impact on the understanding of what coordination is and
how it is provided within contemporary planning theories. Coordination is increasingly per-
ceived as a matter, not of structuring relations within an orderly and coherent city, but as a matter
of encouraging the establishment of a messy plurality of situated moments of network-based
interaction. The coordination or planning task consists in shaping and accommodating this con-
nectivity and in seeking to handle and moderate the possible tensions that grow out of the acts of
connectivity that take place “in a multitude of relational spaces” (Amin, 2004, p. 42). As argued
by Jean Healey (1997, pp. 310-311), this kind of collaborative planning is carried out though
link-making work that is “through cultivating the capacity for collaborative, multicultural com-
munication and learning” about shared spaces. She stresses the predominantly horizontal charac-
ter of this kind of coordination, which consists in bringing together a plurality of actors with
relevant resources and interests in a way that promotes collaboration between them. At the same
time, however, she stresses the importance of strategic planning that aims to give some kind of
direction and coordinate activities on a broader scale through the framing of meaning. This kind
of strategic planning, that represents what could be defined as a soft or subtle form of vertical
coordination that does not rest on any strict hierarchical forms of regulation but gain impact
through the rhetorical act of promoting a specific image of what the city is, where it comes from,
and what its future might be (Healey, 2007). The ability to shape such images and make sure that
they are internalized by as many actors as possible becomes a core element in the coordination
of relational planning processes Hiller (2007) conceptualizes the presence of this kind of imagi-
native stabilizers as multiple orders that are, at one and the same time, stabilizing relationships
and keeping them open to change. The shared images help coordinate action while at the same
time keeping the relationships open to the unpredictable and unknown and the potentials that it
might hold. Healey (2007) on her side introduces the notion of contemporary resting to describe
the same kind of contingent fixation of certain relations. This call for a stabilization of relation-
ships, and patterns of interaction does to some extent recognize the need coherence and common
direction in urban relations, but at a much more moderate level. This kind of coordination does
not stipulate the existence of a pregiven unit and end goal. The nature of the unit that is to be
coordinated and the goals that are to be targeted are produced in and through the coordination
process. In other words, coordinated planning is seen as a floating process that takes multiple
386 The American Review of Public Administration 41(4)

and shifting directions and enables actors to “travel across significant institutional sites”
(Hillier, 2007, p. 90).
Seen from this perspective, coordination is about making explicit the differences and diversity
in the use of place, opening up for agonistic representations of the place and creating possibilities
for choosing among alternatives. Sandercock (1998, p. 218) refers to this kind of coordinated
planning as some kind of transformative politics of difference that springs from everyday strug-
gles about the use and future of places and sites as juxtapositions where difference can flourish.
Healey (2007, p. 239) develops a model of strategic sense making, which she views as a highly
political process that consists in filtering ideas and information about urban development, in focus-
ing and framing notions of potentialities and trajectories in the urban development, and in mobi-
lizing support for the resultant strategic ideas. Coordination becomes a matter of selectivity that
directs attention toward critical juxtapositions and connectivity and its consequences for inclu-
sion and exclusion of other images and uses of urban space and place (Healey, 2007, p. 230).
Coordination is always a matter of partial integration that consists in the disintegration of some
relations and the integration of others. This notion of coordination is as much about process,
institutional design, and mobilization as it is about making coordinated plans and strategies
(Albrechts, 2004, p. 63).
In sum, coordination in relational planning theory is viewed as a matter of selecting, facili-
tating, and creating (a) interrelations and shared meaning based on communicative dialogues,
(b) transformative dynamics and the politics of difference, (c) multiple orders and contemporary
fixation of relations and trajectories in urban space. Seen from this theoretical perspective, the
distinction between vertical and horizontal forms of coordination does not make very much
sense. Although the process of selecting, facilitating, and creating planning could be seen as a
form of vertical coordination, it depends heavily on negotiated interaction with multiple actors.
There are no clear hierarchies but only complex and floating processes of mutual adjustments in
which those who select, facilitate, and create are just as transformed by the process as those who
they seek to govern and guide.

Summarizing the Three Stages of Theory Development

The three narratives presented above describe the considerable changes that have taken place in
the theoretical understanding of what coordination is and how it is being produced. The character
and general direction of these changes has been illustrated by the developments within public
administration theory, organization theory, and planning theory, which have played and still play a
central role in the theoretical and conceptual framing of the scientific debate on coordination in
public governance. Although there are important differences between the theoretical develop-
ments within the three strands of theory, they describe a general transformation of the theoretical
understanding of coordination that (somewhat simplified) can be said to have happened in three
stages, which are summarized in Figure 1.
The first stage is represented by the old institutional and functional theories of coordination
that proposed a universal approach to coordination. These theories shared the view that coordina-
tion is an outcome of a regulation of the actions of individual and/or collective actors and pro-
cesses that are driven by a universal logic of consequentiality, and that this regulation is carried
out through a combination of vertical and horizontal forms of regulation. In public administra-
tion theory, this theoretical approach saw sovereign bureaucratic legal rule as the main provider
of coordination. In organization theory, this kind of coordination was viewed as an outcome of
optimal institutional designs and detailed standardization, and in planning theory it was viewed
as a result of the formulation and implementation of an elaborate rational plan.
Pedersen et al. 387

Coordination Old-institutional Neo-Institutional Relational

or functional
Conditions Universal Institutionally and Situated by space
inter-institutionally and time
situated

Mechanism Vertical and Loose couplings Interaction and

horizontal communication

Rationality Universal logic of Institutionalized logics Interpretive

consequences of appropriateness

Connections Rules and Institutionalized Networks and

standards norms and values metagovernance

Figure 1. Three stages of theory development

At the second stage of theory development, critiques were raised against the idea that it is
possible to develop a universal model of coordination and emphasis was put on the need to take
into account contextual factors such as institutionalized norms, rules, and practices that were
believed to have a profound impact on coordination processes. In addition, these theories high-
lighted the loosely coupled and ambiguous character of hierarchies and the norms and rules on
which they depend that unravel the stipulative character of claims of coherence and unity. The
rationalism of the traditional theories was moderated by pointing out that the rationalities that
drive human action are not pregiven but produced in and through the coordination process itself,
and that these institutionalized rationalities condition the formation of the norms and values that
produce coordination. In public administration theory, this stage in theory development is repre-
sented by the implementation theories that point out how bureaucratic forms of coordination tend
to be dismantled or disturbed by all sorts of contextual factors and rationalities—not least those
driving the individual bureaucrats. Organization theory began to focus on the loosely coupled
relationship between different parts of an organization and the many internal decouplings and
external factors that disintegrate the organization and undermine its boundaries. Planning theory
pointed out how planning processes were neither following rational nor universal logics but were
part of a political battle for power in which different forces seek domination. Most notably, it sets
the stage for an ongoing battle between top-down planning ambitions and bottom-up planning
ambitions in the shape of situated, problem-driven project-based planning initiated by local actors.
The outcome is a messy outcome of this battle for power.
At the third stage in the theory development, coordination is increasingly perceived as con-
sisting of a patchwork of overlapping temporal orders or restings that are interacting in a decen-
tered process in which different actors seek to give some sort of direction to smaller or larger
parts of a network-like structure of interactions. What is highlighted here is the floating, interac-
tive, and relational form of coordination and the way in which it relies on the promotion of
388 The American Review of Public Administration 41(4)

shared interpretations and the adjustment of situated practices. This kind of coordination depends
on the existence of a plurality of interactive arenas that promote communication between a plu-
rality of interpretive logics and situated practices. In public administration theory, this stage of
theory development offers the concepts of metagovernance and governance networks that seek
to spell out how effective hierarchical forms of coordination depend on subtle and interactive
forms of regulation that rely on an ongoing situated communication and negotiation between pub-
lic authorities and all sorts of relevant stakeholders. Organization theory points out how the frag-
mented reality of organizational and interorganizational coordination is promoted by intensive
processes of storytelling and story work within and between organizations. Finally, planning the-
ory underlines how coordination is provided through a strategic selection, facilitation, and
creation of communicative dialogues that link together top-down and bottom-up coordination in
the pursuit of temporally defined and constantly changing planning strategies.

Toward a Pluricentric Theory of Coordination

The theoretical development that is summarized in Figure 1 points in the direction of what we
denote as a pluricentric approach to coordination that draws on a combination of some of the
state of the art conceptualizations and theoretical understandings within governance theory, nar-
rative theory, and collaborative planning theory. This pluricentric approach takes its departure
from the assumption that coordination efforts take place in a basically unstable, undecidable ter-
rain ridden by battles for power and fragmentation. In this context, the coordination ambition is
defined modestly as an effort to establish moments of relative fixation that make it possible to
act collectively. This conclusion does not lead to pessimism because of the fact that fixation and
stabilization are no longer viewed as an undisputable benefit for the coordination capacity. Hence,
the pluricentric theory of coordination brings into full view the already well-established fact that
the continuous capacity to adapt to changing circumstances is crucial for the ability to coordi-
nate. Seen from this point of view, coordination is about striking the right balance between fixa-
tion and flexibility, between control and autonomy, between unity and diversity, and between
simplicity and complexity. The need to drop the image of coordination as the act of stabilizing,
controlling action through the identification of a model of coordination is not only caused by its
proven lack of effectiveness. It is also caused by a theoretical recognition of the valuable contri-
butions of flexibility, autonomy, diversity, and complexity for coordination practices.
But what are the main ingredients in a pluricentric theory of coordination? Figure 2 maps out
the first contours of such a theory that draws on some of the core concepts presented earlier.
Each circle condenses one particular aspect of coordination and the overlaps between the
circles show/suggest how they relate to one another. Circle 1 highlights how governance is pro-
vided through relational coordination in multiple interactive networked processes of connec-
tivity and interconnectivity. These relations provide some level of coordination in processes
characterized by strong transformative dynamics and a high level of fragmentation, difference,
ambiguity, and tension. Circle 2 emphasizes how the production and exchange of stories help to
provide coordination through the construction of temporal moments of shared meaning. Circle 3
highlights how institutional arenas and acts of metagovernance condition coordination processes
by stimulating, facilitating, guiding, and strategically framing the formation and stabilization of
self-coordination within governance networks. The three aspects of coordination are heavily
influenced by the others. This does, among other things, mean that the institutional setup as well
as the metagovernance strategies are themselves shaped and reshaped as a part of networked
connectivity and storytelling at the same time as these activities are institutionally and strategi-
cally framed and guided. This interrelatedness between the three aspects of coordination is illus-
trated by the overlaps. The overlap between Circles 1 and 2 (Figure 2) represents communication
Pedersen et al. 389

Communication

1. Network
2. Meanings and based relations
story telling and connectivity

Framing of story 3. Institutions and Framing of contemporary

work metagovernance restings

Figure 2. Drawing the contours of a pluricentric approach to coordination

as network-based relations and connectivity provide an arena for storytelling that adds to the
construction of shared meaning. The overlap between circle 1 and 2 on the one side and circle 3
on the other side represents framing because coordination by means of story work and contem-
porary restings of practices is conditioned by the institutional framework and depends on strate-
gic acts of metagovernance.
These three heavily interdependent aspects of coordination are brought to life through gov-
ernance processes that provide dynamic, decentred, interactive, situated, and overlapping link-
ages that promote communication between otherwise disconnected stories and practices. The
linkages must be dynamic because coordination always takes place within a context of change.
This is particularly true today where change is not only regarded as an unavoidable condition
but also an ambition that manifests itself through a constant call for reform, growth, and inno-
vation in public governance. Accordingly, it makes less sense than ever to institutionalize stable
coordination mechanisms. What is called for in order to coordinate governance in a dynamic
environment is an ongoing adjustment and reorganization of the way coordination is brought
about.
However, the coordination linkages must also be decentered to leave a considerable space for
maneuvering and self-governance for the many actors involved at different levels and in different
corners of the coordination process. Self-governance is regarded as crucial because it is seen as
necessary for reducing implementation resistance and for motivating and empowering the rele-
vant actors to take an active part in bringing about the desired amount and quality of governance.
Besides, it has to be loosely coupled in order to promote transformative dynamics and make way
for unpredictable and unknown potentials in the governing processes.
Next, the coordination linkages must be interactive to ensure a valuable exchange of under-
standings, viewpoints, knowledge, and resources among relevant actors at different levels and in
different institutions and sectors. One-way processes of communication weaken this kind of
exchange considerably. It should be noted that this kind of interactive communication is by no
means a smooth process. It is ridden by power games and conflict over what goes as knowledge,
resources, the true story, and appropriate action. The interactive character of these processes does
not only highlight the horizontal aspects of vertical forms of coordination but also emphasizes
the vertical aspects of horizontal coordination caused by the fact that some are always more
powerful than others.
390 The American Review of Public Administration 41(4)

The pluricentric approach to coordination furthermore calls for situated modes of coordina-
tion. The complex character of many “wicked” public governance tasks calls for complex solu-
tions designed for the situation. The traditional search for universal solutions to standardized
categories of problems has given way to a search for tailor-made solutions.
Finally, the pluricentric approach calls for overlapping coordination linkages. The fact that
coordination does not take place according to any overarching rationality or unitary pattern of
action means that the best way to go in ensuring some level of overall coordination is to establish
overlapping zones between different logics and practices in which story work and interconnec-
tivity can take place.
How, then, are all these dynamic, decentered, interactive, situated, and overlapping coordina-
tion linkages established? Although these processes of coordination are to a considerable extent
emerging bottom-up when need for coordination emerges, there is little doubt that public author-
ities and who have the necessary resources and competences necessary to influence the forma-
tion of institutions and to perform strategic metagovernance can do a lot to frame pluricentric
coordination processes in a way that is crucial for their success. A pluricentric theory of coordi-
nation suggests that to promote coordination in processes of public governance, all those who are
involved in shaping public sector institutions or metagovern processes of public governance in
other ways should (a) aim to establish a plurality of interactive linkages between different levels
and different institutions (b) that are adjusted to context (time, space, and problematic) (c) in a
way that promotes the construction of shared meaning through the exchange of storylines and
story work and (d) facilitate the mutual adjustment of situated practices.

Conclusion
In this article, we have argued that it is time to take the full step away from a traditional percep-
tion of coordination as an outcome of coherent institutionally or functionally demarcated units
that follow a specific pregiven rational logic of consequentiality. The theoretical journey away
from this understanding of coordination has been long, so we are by no means claiming original-
ity. As shown in the three narratives, many have contributed crucial insights and conceptual-
izations that provide a promising starting point for developing a new pluricentric theory of
coordination. The significance of these theoretical developments, we claim, is that they move in
the same direction although they focus on different objects of study and relate to different con-
ceptual worlds. The shared direction in the theoretical approach to coordination illuminate that a
general change in perspective has taken place within the social sciences that needs to be addressed
more head-on. We have aimed to push this agenda forward by bringing these insights together in
a first effort to develop a pluricentric theory of coordination that gives up the longing for coher-
ence, unity, and universal rationality. Instead, it celebrates the value of the floating and messy
character of coordination. These are not factors to overcome but to exploit in the pursuit of public
governance. It furthermore gives up the idea that there is an overall rationality that drives human
action and which can guide efforts to regulate behavior. Instead, it highlights the important value
of interpretive and relational forms of coordination that evolve around specific situated efforts to
govern. Finally, the pluricentric approach challenges the view of coordination as a rational pro-
cess of instrumental regulations and/or mutual adjustments by pointing out that these processes
are involving power and conflict.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this
article.
Pedersen et al. 391

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.

References
Agranoff, R. (2007). Managing within networks: Adding value to public organizations. Washington, DC:
Georgetown University Press.
Albrechts, L. (2004). Strategic (spatial) planning reexamined. Environment and Planning B: Planning and
Design, 31, 743-758.
Albrechts, L. (2006). Bridge the gap: From spatial planning to strategic projects. European Planning Stud-
ies, 14, 1487-1500.
Allmendinger, P. (2002). Planning theory. London, England: Palgrave.
Amin, A. (2004). Regions unbound: Towards a new politics of place. Geografiska Annaler, 86B, 33-44.
Boden, D. (1994). The business of talk: Organizations in action. Cambridge, England: Polity Press.
Bogason, P., & Zølner, M. (Eds.). (2007). Methods in democratic network governance. Basingstoke, England:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Boje, D. M. (1991). The storytelling organization: A study of story performance in an office-supply firm.
Administrative Science Quarterly, 36, 106-126.
Boje, D. M. (2000). Narrative methods for organizational & communication research. London, England:
Sage.
Borum, F. (2004). Means-end frames and the politics and myths of organizational fields. Organization
Studies, 25, 897.
Christensen, T., & Lægreid, P. (1999). New public management: Design, resistance or transformation?
Public Productivity & Management Review, 23, 169-193.
Czarniawska, J. B. (1998). A narrative approach to organization studies. London, England: Sage.
Czarniawska, J. B. (1999). Writing management: Organization theory as a literary genre. Oxford, England:
Oxford University Press.
Davidoff, P., & Reiner, T. A. (1962). A choice theory of planning. Journal of the American Institute of Plan-
ners, 28, 11-39.
Dunleavy, P., Margetts, H., Bastow, S., & Tinkler, J. (2005). New public management is dead: Long live
digital-era governance. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 16, 467-494.
Easton, D. (1953). The political system. An inquiry into the state of political science. New York, NY: Alfred
A. Knopf.
Fairhurst, G. T., & Putnam L. L. (1999). Reflections on the organization-communication equivalency ques-
tion: The contributions of James Taylor and his colleagues. Communication Review, 3, 1-19.
Fayol, H. (1949). General and industrial management. London, England: Pitman.
Flyvbjerg, B. (1991). Rationality and planning. Science of the concrete (Vol. 1). Copenhagen, Denmark:
Akademisk Forlag.
Friedmann, J. (1987). Planning in the public domain: From knowledge to action. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Friedman, J. (2004): Hong Kong, Vancouver and Beyond: Strategic Planning and the Longer Range. Plan-
ning Theory and Practice, 5 (1), 50-56.
Gabriel, Y. (2000). Storytelling in organizations: Facts, fictions and fantasies. Oxford, England: Oxford
University Press.
Hajer, M. (1995). The politics of environmental discourse: Ecological modernization and the policy pro-
cess. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.
Hajer, M., & Wagenaar, H. (2003). Deliberative policy analysis: Understanding governance in the network
society. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Hall, P. (2000). The centenary of modern planning. In R. Freestone (Ed.), Urban planning in a changing
world (pp. 20-36). London, England: E & FN Spon.
392 The American Review of Public Administration 41(4)

Healey, P. (1997). Collaborative planning. Shaping places in fragmented societies. London, England:
Macmillan.
Healey, P. (2004). The treatment of space and place in the new strategic spatial planning in Europe. Inter-
national Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 28, 45-67.
Healey, P. (2006). Relational complexity and the imaginative power of strategic spatial planning. European
Planning Studies, 14, 525-546.
Healey, P. (2007). Urban complexity and spatial strategies. Towards a relational planning for our time.
London, England: Routledge.
Hillier, J. (2007). Stretching beyond the horizon. A multiplanar theory of spatial planning and governance.
Aldershot, England: Ashgate.
Hjern, B., & Hull, C. (1984). Going inter-organizational: Weber meets Durkheim. Scandinavian Political
Studies, 7, 197-212.
Hood, C. (1991). A new public management for all seasons. Public Administration, 69, 1-19.
Jessop, B. (2002). The future of the capitalist state. London, England: Polity Press.
Kaufmann, F., Majone, G., & Ostrom, V. (Eds.). (1986). Guidance, control and evaluation in the public
sector. Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter.
Kickert, W., Klijn, E-H., & Koppenjan, J. (1997). Managing complex networks. London, England: Sage.
Klijn, E.-H., & Koppenjan, J. (2004). Managing uncertainties in networks. London, England: Routledge.
Kooiman, J. (Ed.). (1993). Modern governance. London, England: Sage.
Kooiman, J. (2003). Governing as governance. London, England: Sage.
Lindblom, C. E. (1958). Policy analysis. American Economic Review, 48, 298-312.
Lindblom, C. E. (1959). The science of “muddling through”. Public Administration Review, 19, 79-88.
March, J. G., & Olsen, J. P. (1989). Rediscovering institutions: The organizational basis of politics. New York,
NY: Free Press.
Massey, D. (2004). The political challenge of relational space: Introduction to the Vega Symposium. Geograf-
iska Annaler, 86B, 3-18.
Meyer, J. W., & Rowan B. (1977). Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony.
American Journal of Sociology, 83, 340.
Mintzberg, H. (1983). Structure in fives: Designing effective organisations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice
Hall.
Mintzberg, H. (1992). Cycles of organisational change. Strategic Management Journal, 13, 39-59.
Orton, J. D., & Weick, K. E. (1990). Loosely coupled systems: A reconceptualization. Academy of Manage-
ment Review, 15, 203-223.
O’Toole, L. (2007). Governing outputs and outcomes of governance networks. In E. Sørensen & J. Torfing
(Eds.), Theories of democratic network governance (pp. 215-230). Basingstoke, England: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Meier, K. J., O’Toole, L. J., Boyne, G., & Walker, R. (2007). Strategic management and the performance of
public organizations: Testing venerable ideas against recent theories. Journal of Public Administration
Research and Theory, 17, 357-377.
Parsons, T. (1953). The social system. New York, NY: Free Press.
Pedersen, Anne Reff (2009): Moving away from Chronological time: Introducucing the shadows of Time
and Chronotopes as New Understandings of Narrative time. Organization. 16(3), 389-406
Perrow, C. (1967). A framework for the comparative analysis of organizations. American Sociological
Review, 32, 194-208.
Peters, B. G. (2006). Concepts and theories of horizontal policy management. In B. G. Peters & J. Pierre
(Eds.), Handbook of public policy (pp. 115-138). London, England: Sage.
Polkinghorne, D. E. (1988). Narrative knowing and the human sciences. Albany: State University of New
York Press.
Pedersen et al. 393

Pressman, J., & Wildawsky, A. (1973). Implementation. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Quinn, R. W., & Dutton J. E. (2005). Coordination as energy-in-conversation. Academy of Management
Review, 30, 36-57.
Ricoeur, P. (1988). Time and narrative. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Rhodes, R. A. W. (1997). Understanding governance. Policy networks, governance, reflexivity and account-
ability. Buckingham, England: Open University Press.
Sager, T. (1994). Communicative planning theory. Aldershot, England: Avebury.
Sandercock, L. (1998). Towards cosmopolis. New York, NY: John Wiley.
Scharpf, F. (1994). Games real actors could play: Positive and negative coordination in embedded negotia-
tions. Journal of Theoretical Politics, 6, 27-53.
Scott, W. R. (1987). Organizations: Rational, natural, and open systems. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice
Hall.
Sievert, T. (2007). From an impossible order to a possible disorder in design of urban landscape (Working
Paper). Aarhus, Denmark: Arkitektskolen Aarhus.
Simon, H. (1950). Administrative behaviour. Australian Journal of Public Administration, 9, 241-245.
Sørensen, E. (2006). Metagovernance: The changing role of politicians in processes of democratic gover-
nance. American Review of Public Administration, 36, 79-97.
Sørensen, E. (2007). Public administration as metagovernance. In G. Gjelstrup & E. Sørensen (Eds.), Pub-
lic administration in transition (pp. 107-123). Copenhagen, Denmark: DJØF.
Sørensen, E., & Torfing, T. (2007). Theoretical approaches to metagovernance. In E. Sørensen & J. Torfing
(Eds.), Theories of democratic network governance (pp. 169-182). Basingstoke, England: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Taylor, F. W. (1949). The principles of scientific management. New York, NY: Adamant Media Corporation.
(Original work published 1911)
Thompson, J. D. (1967). Organizations in action: Social science bases of administrative theory. New York,
NY: McGraw-Hill College.
Torfing, J. (2007). Discursive governance networks. In M. Markussen & J. Torfing (Eds.), Democratic
network governance in Europe (pp. 111-129). Basingstoke, England: Palgrave Macmillan.
Van de Ven, A. H., Delbecq, A. L., & Koenig, R., Jr. (1976). Determinants of coordination modes within
organizations. American Sociological Review, 41, 322-338.
Van Kersbergen, K., & Van Waarden, F. (2004). Governance as a bridge between disciplines: Cross-
disciplinary inspiration regarding shifts in governance and problems of governability, accountability
and legitimacy. European Journal of Political Research, 43, 143-171.
Waldo, D. (1952). Development of theory of democratic administration. American Political Science
Review, XLVI, 81-103.
Weber, M. (1971). Makt og Byråkrati. Oslo, Norway: Gyldendals Norsk Forlag [Power and Bureaucracy].
(Original work published 1920)
Weick, K. E. (1993). The collapse of sense making in organizations: The Mann Gulch disaster. Administra-
tive Science Quarterly, 38.
Wilson, W. (1887). The study of administration. Political Science Quarterly, 2, 197-222.

Bios
Associate professor Anne Reff Pedersen is employed at the Copenhagen Business School (CBS), Depart-
ment of Organization and is doing research in organization theory. She has a special interest for health care
research and narrative studies. She is also research director of Centre of Health Management (CHM) at
CBS.

Associate professor Karina Sehested is employed at Copenhagen University, Forest and Landscape and
is doing research in new trends in urban and regional planning. She is project manager of several applied
394 The American Review of Public Administration 41(4)

research projects on Danish strategic planning and co-director of a large research project on Innovation in
the Public Sector.

Professor Eva Sørensen is employed at Roskilde University and her research area is network governance
and democracy in the public sector. She is a director of several large research projects on democratic net-
work governance and innovation in the public sector.