Network Governance im Big Data- und Cyber-Zeitalter

The digital domain, technological innovations, and Big Data analytics increasingly shape the lives of millions of individuals, groups, organisation, and societies. This cyber age calls for effective governance to protect the basic interests and needs of individuals and groups. Simultaneously, the very nature of governance is changing. Increasingly policy-making moves away from top-down governance by the state towards more horizontal modes of governance. This paper argues that network in the term network governance needs to be taken seriously in order to reconceptualize power and responsibily in networked societies. Therefore, we combine the literature on governance with social network theory to conceptualise governance in the Cyber Age. It will be argued that dominant modes of governance are inadequate to govern the Cyber domain. Therefore, a novel networked mode of governance is proposed based on the regulation of new power relationships between Cyber actors and civil society.