To Govern Cities and Territories in the Society of the Networks

This work brings together three basic aspects: the pluri-disciplinary analytical challenges raised by the network as a new conceptual reference; the emergence of new readings of the network-territory space; and the political approach to this undertaken from the categories of multi-level and reticulate governance.

Through the Nation-State, the government conducted a process of rationalisation that implied a certain degree of simplification. The conception of the government network allows us to recuperate and come to terms with complexity. A complexity that is accepted and managed without any wish for reduction or for a longing for former times.

This acceptance of complexity is also passed on to forms of government. Complexity cannot be managed from government structures built on the premisses of simplification. It is said that if a citizen of the century XIX could come back to look around, he or she would be astonished at the technological novelties, the economic changes and the social and cultural transformations that have taken place. This very citizen, on the other hand, would be able to understand easily the institutional interconnections of government, since its evolution has been, to say the least, rather slight. Scarcity of adaptation between rates of transformation is currently one of the main problems faced by government. We have a new economy and a new society, yet we have old politics. We continue with more or less the same instruments and concepts that were current in the century XIX, although we have already entered the century XXI. The idea of governance precisely aims at stimulating the transformation of our capacity to govern, inviting us to accept the interaction between levels of government and the presence of a network of various actors -that is, individuals or entities- involved in this. In short, it invites us to incorporate complexity into the tasks of government.

Finally, accepting complexity in the forms of government implies the articulation of diversity and fragmentation with mechanisms of co-ordination or integration. In other words, governing in complex  surroundings involves recognising the multiple actors comprising the network, accepting their participation in the tasks of government and managing the relations established between these actors with a view to fostering integrative actions. Governing complexity accepts the existence of inter-level action, is aware of the inter-dependence between the various actors, accepts that what is important is the content of policy and not the assigning of responsibilities, perceives that problems are multi-faceted and establishes complicities that allow for the joining of resources and strategies for action. That is, governing complexity is not a container of static objects, but rather a continual flow of contacts and relations that facilitate the assimilation of that flexibility and openness that have substituted regularity.