Hybrid Governance: Buzzword or Paradigm Shift? Kate Meagher, Tom De Herdt, Kristof Titeca Published on African Arguments, 25 April 2014 Oǀer the past fiǀe years, the terŵ hyďrid goǀerŶaŶĐe has become an increasingly trendy concept in research on state-building and local order in fragile regions of the world. It has been embraced by aid agencies and promoted by funders, but many academics remain sceptical. Some have observed that the core contribution of the hybrid governance perspective – that there are forms of order beyond the state – is nothing new. Hybrid arrangements incorporating non-state institutions into formal governance arrangements have been well documented in Africa since the colonial era of indirect rule. What is new is the interest of academics and policy makers in looking beyond state-centred notions of post-colonial governance to new strategies of working with local non-state forms of order. But what does hybrid governance actually mean, and why has it risen to prominence so quickly? Does it represent a novel approach to state building or just another development ďuzzǁord? The ďuzz arouŶd this term is undeniable. A swarm of related concepts have coalesced arouŶd the ŶotioŶ of hyďrid goǀerŶaŶĐe, iŶĐludiŶg hyďrid politiĐal orders, real goǀerŶaŶĐe, tǁilight iŶstitutioŶs aŶd Ŷegotiated statehood, drawing attention to the failures of conventional debates about weak and fragile states, and stimulating new kinds of discussions about governance in Africa. Pinpointing what exactly hybrid governance refers to is complicated by the fact that it is less a thing than a process. Rather than looking at state-building as something that focuses on the state one is seeking to build, hybrid governance focuses on the process through which state and non-state institutions coalesce around stable forms of order and authority. Instead of focusing on fixing failed states from above, development practitioners and academics are asking new questions about whether more appropriate forms of order are ďeiŶg ĐoŶstruĐted ďy ǁorkiŶg ǁith the graiŶ of loĐal iŶstitutioŶs operatiŶg on the ground in weak state contexts. While conventional approaches to state building have been a spectacular failure in places like Somalia and the DR Congo, neither country has descended into complete anarchy. Despite more than two decades without a functioning state, Somalia has maintained some basic services, an impressively efficient remittance system and a comparatively stable currency. Similarly, the implosion of the Congolese state has not prevented a continued provision of public services, involving a range of non-state actors to fill gaps in provisioning structures. Even the war-ravaged eastern DR Congo has pockets of stability and even incipient processes of local service provision and taxation. Could it be that local non-state institutions provide a more appropriate mechanism for building effective governance systems from below than costly and increasingly problematic good goǀerŶaŶĐe reforŵs? Does hyďrid goǀerŶaŶĐe proǀide a useful ĐoŶĐeptual tool for understanding and even facilitating these more grounded and potentially sustainable governance processes? What are its implications for state capacity, political legitimacy and