Adaptive Governance for a Resilient Digital Society

Governments are confronted with all kinds of changes in their digital environment, such as pandemics, fake news, and security breaches. These changes come with many uncertainties and are hard to predict, whereas decisions need to be made quickly to avoid a negative impact. Adaptive governance embraces uncertainty and complexity by enabling continuous learning, involving a wide range of diverse actors, and being able to react within a short time frame. Adaptive governance can be viewed as a governance philosophy based on a range of instruments to create adaptability. The conflicting values of stability and adaptability can be balanced in different ways by governments. The variety in the environment and the variety of instrument to adapt to the environment needs to be in concert. Adaptive governance instruments can be combined to increase their effectiveness and to create a resilient society. Further research in governance instruments, their usage, and their effectiveness is needed