ABSTRACT
As we saw in Chapter 1, in coming to terms with the challenges of globalization and the increasing networkization of society many scholars have argued that governments have developed a renewed interest in a particular set of policy tools appropriate to market or network modes of governance. Because of this purported shift in governance contexts – the presence of more flexible economic and political circumstances than have existed in the past (Lenihan and Alcock 2000) – contemporary policy designs in many advanced countries, it has been argued, have changed. Specifically, unlike in past epochs, they are argued to have become more indirect and subtle, and often much less visible than was previously the case (Rhodes 1997).
