Are Social Movements Prefiguring Integrative Governance?

Abstract

Public administration has struggled to develop effective practices for fostering just and sustainable responses to social, economic, and environmental crises. In this chapter, we argue that radically democratic social movements demonstrate the potential the ideal-type of Integrative Governance holds for achieving the collaborative advantage that has remained elusive to those who study and utilize traditional governance networks. Drawing from myriad studies of social movements, we demonstrate how particular social movements prefigure the philosophy and practices of this approach. Herein we focus on movements’ ethical stance of Stewardship, politics of Radical Democracy, epistemological use of Integral Knowing, and administrative practice of Facilitative Coordination, emphasizing how they use information communication technology and one-to-one organizing tactics. These practices enable social movements to integrate across the domains of sustainability and translate radically democratic modes of association from micro- to macro-scale. Thus, they shift attention from network structures, the main focus of the governance literature, to power dynamics. These movements constitute an interconnected global phenomenon, fostering solidarity across difference and prefiguring a transformation of the global political economy. Therefore, they are nascent exemplars of Integrative Governance, a more just and effective approach to global governance.

Citation

Love, J.M. and Stout, M. (2018), "Are Social Movements Prefiguring Integrative Governance?", From Austerity to Abundance? (Critical Perspectives on International Public Sector Management, Vol. 6), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 7-34. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2045-794420180000006001