Improvement in government is often rooted in decentralised layers of government. In this article the authors discuss the recent history of innovations in sub-national government in Europe. They focus on two general trends and developments. Cases of interesting practices and developments...

I Introduction -- 1. Autopoiesis, configuration and steering: impossibility theorem or dynamic steering theory -- 2. Introduction to configuration approach: a process theory for societal steering -- 3. Introduction to autopoiesis theory and autopoietic steering -- II Configuration Theory -- 4....