As previous chapters have demonstrated, ‘the state’ is an elusive and contested concept.

Understanding its nature, trajectory and role has not been helped by the fact that the conceptual lenses that have historically been employed to study the state have employed a fairly narrow institutional focus.

The modern state could not function without delegation. The growth in the responsibilities of the modern state have a demanded a structural capacity than can only be fulfilled through widespread delegation. The delegation of responsibilities to quasi-autonomous ‘para-statal’ actors operating on the boundaries of the state arguably empowers governments to address a wide range of social issues simultaneously without having to be involved with the minutiae of day-to-day socio-political interactions. Historically as embryonic state bureaucracies developed in the nineteenth century it was common to delegate tasks to independent boards or commissions or enter into contracts with private sector companies for the provision of certain services.

In recent decades, however, the scale and extent of delegated governance has increased markedly to an unprecedented level as part of a global trend towards the creation of agencies, arm’s-length bodies and 3Ps (the latter defined as long-term purchase of service contracts between the state and for-profit private sector bodies). The centrifugal pressures of new public management have led to a rapid increase in the number of these ‘hybrid’ bodies and a concomitant blur­ring of the public-private distinction in a great number of countries (see Pollitt and Talbot 2004; Ghobadian etal. 2004; Hodge and Greve 2005). Although variations in the pace of reform or in relation to the specific form of delegated governance employed will be found when comparing different countries the trends, issues and themes highlighted below will, to a greater or lesser extent, be found in the United States, mainland Europe, Australasia and in an increasing number of developing countries, like in Jamaica (Osei 2004; Talbot 2004), and ‘transitional’ states, like Latvia (see Pollitt 2004).

An historical perspective usefully exposes the inter-relationship between responsibilities, capacity, delegation and the boundaries of the state in the context of previous attempts to either retreat or advance its role (for a discussion see Gill 2003). Neo-liberal attempts to ‘rollback’ the boundaries of the state in a number of advanced liberal democracies in response to a perceived crisis during the 1970s have arguably led not to a reduction in the role, budget or powers of the state but to a redefinition, transformation or change in the structure of the state. There has been a change in governing frameworks from hierarchical bureaucracies to complex networks and markets: a shift from government to governance in which the extent of delegated responsibilities and the role of private contractors has increased.

This growth in delegated governance has not always been welcomed. For much of the twentieth century research and literature on the topic of delegated governance - ‘fringe bodies, quangos and all that’ (Chester 1979) - was permeated with an implicit and frequently explicit normative bias against the role and use of these bodies. Since the mid-1990s a more balanced strand of literature has evolved in the UK, mainland Europe and the United States that has sought to encourage a more reflective analysis, which recognizes the problems associated with traditional forms of government in addition to the challenges raised by quasi-autonomous public bodies and 3Ps. This includes the work of Flinders and Smith (1998), van Thiel (2001), OECD (2002), Koppell (2003), Flinders (2004) and Pollitt and Talbot (2004). In different ways each of these books has sought to unravel simplistic assump­tions about the structure and nature of the state while also generating new ideas and perspectives through theoretically informed research.

The aim of this chapter is to introduce the reader to the sphere of delegated governance (arm’s-length public bodies and public-private partnerships) and highlight a number of related themes and issues, the intention being to shed light on the innate complexity of modern governance and encourage an expansive and sophisticated approach to how ‘the state’ is empirically and conceptually understood. For example, the increasing blurring of the boundaries of the state raises questions about the capacity of core executives and the steering of complex networks. From a conceptual point of view the increasing institutional hybridity poses questions about the legitimacy and accountability of the state, particularly in light of the fact that traditional understandings and procedures in relation to these concepts have histori­cally been wedded to a state structure that to some extent no longer exists.

The focus of this chapter is therefore on the outer fringes or boundaries of the state, (the ‘grey zone’ as it is known in Denmark), where the public­private distinction becomes opaque and the established frameworks for ensuring legitimacy, accountability and control become less clear. This chapter is divided into three sections. The first section seeks to dissect and tease apart the institutional structure of the contemporary state in order to demonstrate the great organizational heterogeneity that exists. The second section explores three themes (accountability, complexity and depoliticiza­tion) at both the conceptual and empirical level surrounding the existence of this dense tier of delegated governance. The final section seeks to provoke further interest in the study of delegated governance through the elaboration of a number of critical issues for the future. The next section reviews the topography and scale of delegated governance.