From institutional economics, Oliver Williamson's work on markets and hierarchies looks for the conditions in which the hierarchical arrangements within a firm may be more efficient than 'contracting out' . Karl Polanyi's account of The Great Transformation saw pre-market economies organised by reciprocity as well hierarchy and exchange. Writing in international relations looks for the conditions of 'global governance' in which interstate order is sustained without an overarching world government. Writing on public sector management analyses 'quasi markets' and 'purchaser provider splits' in which a 'hollowed out' state use competing public, private and voluntary organisations to deliver public services. State claims to sovereignty sidestepped or ignored.
Governance is the resultant or effect of an interaction between official and unofficial actors.
It is thus a continuously reproduced achievement, vulnerable to poor coordination, and dependent on the action of others. Thus ideas about good governance might be used as a tests to evaluate claims about, for example, rule by states, compared to rule by chiefs or big men, colonial rule, or the kinds of order existing or proposed in revolutionary or secessionist situations. Much of the existing discussion about Melanesia makes comparisons, favourable or unfavourable, with the colonial and precolonial past. Writers using Migdal's idea of a weak state, like Standish and Dinnen conceive it in organisational terms. The state is also conceptualised functional terms, less in its own right than in terms of the job it is supposed to be doing.