"The study of governance may be currently in fashion, but it is also a firmly-established lens through which the complexities of contemporary policy making can be analysed while examining the ways in which a society and its political processes are organized and steered. Governance thus needs to be seen as a general concept within political analysis which offers a necessary heuristic tool for understanding the complexities of political processes, the policies these produce and the outcomes they generate. However, despite a great deal having been written on the subject in recent years, questions remain about many fundamental aspects of governance. This is especially the case when trying to define the modes of governance and their dynamics. Many varieties of governance exist, both cross-nationally and cross-sectorally: Understanding why and how it is important for the future of governance studies is the subject of the cross-national and theoretically-informed case studies presented in this volume"--