ABSTRACT
The previous chapter introduced the governance mode of Mapping as a framework of intervention that sought to understand the internal relations of the object of governance rather than basing policy-making on the power, knowledge-capacities or ethical values of the governing or intervening agency. This framing opened up systems or societies being intervened in to external regulatory regimes but posed the problem of ontological depth and complexity: the problem of external or governing knowledge of these contingent relations and interactions. This chapter continues the analysis to focus on the use of technological aids to ‘drill down’ deeper to attempt to acquire the knowledge necessary and the perceived limits to this exercise in the sphere of international policy intervention. It draws upon contemporary discussion of the problems confronting practices of international policy intervention to highlight how the shift from direct ‘top-down’ to indirect ‘bottom-up’ interventions has facilitated the movement from external perspectives or ‘subject-centred’ methodologies to more speculative or ‘object-oriented’ frameworks. It seems that the inner logic of Mapping as a mode of governance reveals the paradox of seeking to maintain the capacity for designing governing interventions for adaptation towards desired goals at the same time as working within an immanent ontology of emergence.
