Second, governance through hierarchies is the benchmark against which we should assess emerging forms of governance and we therefore need to examine the nature of hierarchical governance in some detail. In parts of the current literature on governance there is a tendency to equate traditional modes of governance with a sterile view on political institutions and their exchanges with the surrounding society, and reserve the concept of governance for the new or emerging forms of such exchange. We believe this to be an unfortunate way to think about governance. Governance, strictly defined, is as old as government. What is novel – and what is the overarching theme of this book – is recent changes in governance. For these reasons, hierarchies should be thought of as one of several different modes of governance. It is not likely to disappear in the foreseeable future although it is increasingly being accompanied by other forms of governance