PERSUASION AS GOVERNANCE: A STATE-CENTRIC RELATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

Debates about governance and the relationship between governance and government have focused upon markets, hierarchies and networks as principal modes of governance. In this paper we argue that persuasion constitutes a further and distinctive mode of governance, albeit one which interpenetrates other modes of governance. In order to assess the nature, limitations and scope of persuasion and the complex relationships between markets, hierarchies, networks on the one hand and persuasion on the other, we interpret persuasion through the prism of two theoretical perspectives on governance. We argue that the society-centred perspective usefully draws our attention to the role played by non-state actors in the exercise of governance through persuasion but that a state-centric relational account can help us to better understand important facets of persuasion as a mode of governance.