Despite several generations of literature on governance and the instruments involved, micro-foundational frameworks remain lacking to describe and model the positive, negative and confused feedback dynamics within any set of governance arrangements. In response, this article addresses the argument common in various historical accounts of a shift from government to governance that governance is a process of deinstitutionalisation. In doing so, governance is revealed not as the simple absence of institutions, but rather as a shift in the nature, composition and diversity of institutions and the instruments adopted by them. This raises important questions about the design and use of instruments and their institutional effects and legitimacy as micro-foundations of governance, and also about the ability of governments to control them given the nature and significance of feedback dynamics.