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In response to the growing discrepancy between the steadily rising steering ambitions and the increasing fragmentation of social and political life, governance networks are mushrooming. Governance through the formation of networks composed of public and private actors might help solve wicked problems and enhance democratic participation in public policy-making, but it may also create conflicts and deadlocks and make public governance less transparent and accountable. In order to ensure that governance networks contribute to an effective and democratic governing of society, careful metagovernance by politicians, public managers and other relevant actors is necessary. In this paper, we discuss how to assess the effective performance and democratic quality of governance networks. We also describe how different metagovernance tools can be used in the pursuit of effective and democratic network governance. Finally, we argue that public metagovernors must develop their strategic and collaborative competences in order to become able to metagovern governance networks. Adapted from the source document.

Governance networks are often praised for their contribution to making public governance and spatial planning more effective. However, the democratic performance of governance networks is heavily disputed. In order to make a more precise assessment of the democratic quality of governance networks, we need to develop normative criteria that permit us to measure the democratic quality of governance networks on different dimensions. Such criteria are developed and brought together in our model for the democratic anchorage of governance networks. This article aims to improve the democratic anchorage model in two different ways: by offering operational definitions of the basic dimensions of the model and by demonstrating how the assessment criteria can be applied in an empirical case study of a long-lasting, multilevel governance network involved in the recent decision to build a bridge between Denmark and Germany. The democratic anchorage model helps to assess the democratic performance of specific governance networks and to gain knowledge about the critical factors determining their degree of democratic anchorage. Such knowledge is crucial for developing pro-active strategies for enhancing the democratic performance of specific governance networks.