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This article provides an introduction to discussions and empirical studies of the decentered state. The first section traces the historical origins of the concept of the decentered state. Group theory and interorganizational theory drew attention to the role of diverse actors in policymaking. The study of policy networks explored these actors and their relationships. The concept of the hollow state arose to describe a state made up of proliferating networks. Finally, postfoundationalists amended these earlier ideas by insisting that the state should not be reified. There are, then, at least three different versions of the decentered state—the pluralist state, the hollow state, and the stateless state. The second section shows how the postfoundationalism of decentered theory transforms the earlier debates about network governance and pluralist democracy. The final section suggests that decentered theory privileges empirical studies of the stateless state and in particular of narratives, rationalities, and resistance.

This article responds to Stephen Turner's discussion of my article, "Historicism and Critique." I emphasize that radical historicism consists of substantive philosophical commitments. One commitment is to a historicized epistemology that presents objective knowledge as a product of a comparison between rival webs of belief. Another commitment is to a historical ontology that presents aggregate concepts in the social sciences as inherently pragmatic. These substantive commitments provide a plausible basis for various forms of critique. They lead to analyses of genealogical and ideological critique that differ from appeals to genealogy as a kind of groundless skepticism toward, and problematization of, all substantive commitments.

This paper argues that historicism can provide substantive philosophical grounds for critical theory and various modes of critique. Unlike the developmental historicism that dominated the nineteenth century, we start from a radical historicism tied to nominalism, contingency, and contestability. This radical historicism is compatible with a commitment to truth claims, including the truth of historicism and the truth of particular genealogies and other accounts of the world. Genealogy can be viewed as radical historicism in its critical guise, denaturalizing the ideas it targets. In addition, however, radical historicism provides possible grounds for both historical ontology and a revised version of ideology critique. Ideology is conceived here in relation to failures in consciousness itself rather than the alleged conflicts of a material base.

Cet article présente l'approche interprétative de la gouvernance, une approche inspirée par la philosophie herméneutique, qui met l'accent sur l'intentionnalité, l'historicité et la réflexivité et qui propose de repenser la gouvernance. Cette approche a été développée pour répondre aux défis posés par les théories du choix rationnel et leurs remises en cause des premières études sur la gouvernance qui, pour comprendre les réformes néolibérales, s'appuyaient sur un positivisme tempéré et sur la littérature des réseaux de politiques publiques. En considérant la gouvernance comme le produit d'un travail de mise en sens et en s'appuyant sur une conception non essentialiste de l'État, cette approche répond ainsi à l'idée de méta-gouvernance défendue par les tenants du choix rationnel. Cet article présente cette approche en insistant sur l'intentionnalité et l'historicité, en l'illustrant par des exemples d'histoires de gouvernance, et en proposant en conclusion les implications d'une telle approche pour l'analyse des politiques publiques. La théorie interprétative encourage une approche plus éclectique des données, suggère la méfiance vis-à-vis de tout modèle ou cadre formel, et accorde un rôle renforcé donné au storytelling .

This article discusses the interpretive approach to governance. The interpretive approach comes from a hermeneutic philosophy, emphasizing intentionality, historicism, and reflexivity. These philosophical ideas decentre governance. The first wave of governance studies relied on a lukewarm positivism, extending the literature on policy networks to cover neoliberal reforms. This account of governance faced challenges from rational choice theory and from the idea of metagovernance. The interpretive approach responds to these challenges. The interpretive approach to governance responds to rational choice by decentring governance; patterns of governance arise as the products of meaning in action. The interpretive approach responds to metagovernance by decentring the state; the state is stateless. The article illustrates this interpretive approach, with its emphasis on intentionality and historicism, using stories of network governance. It then concludes by discussing the implications of the interpretive approach to governance for policy analysis. Interpretive theory encourages: a more eclectic approach to data, a suspicion of formal models and frameworks, and a greater role for storytelling. Adapted from the source document.

This paper explores synergies between governance and governmentality, especially on neoliberalism. Governance and governmentality diffuse power and ruling. Scholars of governance offer a compelling account of changes in the state, but they might learn from governmentality to pay more attention to interpretation and discourses. Scholars of governmentality provide insights into modern power, but they might learn from governance to pay more attention to agency and heterogeneity. Scholars of governance might recognise the role of technologies of power in neoliberalism. Scholars of governmentality might grasp the way neoliberal marketisation has given way to networks and service integration.

I'll tell you a storyAbout Jack a Nory,And now my story's begun;I'll tell you anotherOf Jack and his brother,And now my story is done.[Anon]

A great writer of fiction both creates a new, unique, individual world – through acts of imagination, through language that feels inevitable, through commanding forms – and responds to a world, the world the writer shares with other people but that is unknown or miss‐known by still more people, confined in their worlds. Call that history, society, what you will. The writers who matter most to us are those who enlarge our consciences and our sympathies and our knowledge.[Susan Sontag]
This paper elucidates the interpretive approach to public administration that Professor Rhodes and I have developed over the last ten years. It defends the importance of storytelling in governance. The early studies of governance often drew on modernist empiricism and policy network theory to argue that public sector reforms had created a differentiated polity. While this governance literature offered a compelling account of contemporary public administration, it rested on a modernist empiricism that proved vulnerable to questions such as those raised by rational choice theorists about its micro foundations. Professor Rhodes and I thus rejected modernist empiricism in favour of an emphasis on meanings and storytelling. Our interpretive approach rests on 'meaning holism'. It replaces naÏve empiricism with an anthropological epistemology based on comparing rival accounts. It rejects reified ontologies for recognition of the constructed nature of social reality. It moves away from formal explanations towards historicism. It provides a defence of public administration as storytelling.