Debate: Community governance as a response to economic crisis

The article highlights some contemporary challenges local governments are facing. In particular, it argues that local governments should redirect public intervention toward “less hard public, more soft public”. It shows how public management should play a key role in addressing the question of “more soft public”, for example in terms of handling social mediation, governing interdependencies and public networks, and building relations and social capital. The article concludes with the idea that is the time for opening up a new conceptual and operational sphere of local public management and the role it should play.