ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the unpredictability of effects of governance as an integral part of an assemblage. In this sense, unexpected effects are not considered as problems anymore, instead they define what an agri-environmental governance assemblage actually does. Assemblage thinking shifts away from the classical narratives of the success or failure of a governance programme. The chapter uses notions like unintended effects, multiple outcomes, and socio-technical devices to discuss the complex process of emergence. What emerges from governance practices goes far beyond their explicit goals, as well as beyond the question of achievement. The unexpected, the unintended, and the unwanted also matter. The three empirical cases illustrate how the multiple effects of an assemblage may help in bringing a new and emergent set of relations. When we look through the lens of assemblage, we argue for anticipating unexpected effects, paying attention to their multiplicity, and being more adaptive to the ephemerality of a governance assemblage.
