On the Reflexive Relations Between Knowledge, Governance, and Space

Governance is both a contested concept and an increasingly empirical concern. On the one hand, it has become an almost universal and all-encompassing concept, which has attracted scholarly interest from many disciplines and over many decades to tackle the dilemmas of collective action and to facilitate effective coordination of interests and resources toward commonly accepted goals. On the other hand, conceptions of governance vary considerably, and their meanings depend on disciplinary perspectives, theoretical traditions, and empirical focus. Although it is easy to agree what governance is not, it is more challenging to create broad consensus on what it is and how it works effectively. Most capaciously, governance denotes the coordination of collective action. These actions take place in institutionally or physically organized spaces of interaction, where knowledge is needed to shape governance appropriately. Organized spaces and knowledge are both conditions as well as consequences of the governance process.