Beyond the Regulatory State Orthodoxy: Reconceptualising Metagovernance Frameworks in the Era of Polycentric Institutional Fragmentation

Abstract

Contemporary governance theory has long privileged the regulatory state model as the principal analytical lens for interpreting public authority distribution across multi-level institutional architectures. This article critically interrogates the foundational premises of that orthodoxy by examining how polycentric institutional fragmentation—accelerated by post-pandemic administrative restructuring and the proliferation of transnational regulatory networks—has rendered traditional metagovernance typologies empirically insufficient. Drawing on a comparative mixed-methods design encompassing structured elite interviews (n=84) and longitudinal policy-trace analysis across twelve OECD jurisdictions (2018–2024), we demonstrate that the classic hierarchy-market-network tripartite schema systematically obscures hybrid authority configurations that now constitute the modal governance form. We propose a revised Stratified Metagovernance Matrix as an analytically superior framework, offering testable propositions for future cross-national policy research.