Following the European white paper on governance, we can read;

“The term ‘governance’ is a very versatile one. It is used in connection with several contemporary social sciences, especially economics and political science.

It originates from the need of economics (as regards corporate governance) and political science (as regards State governance) for an all-embracing concept capable of conveying diverse meanings not covered by the traditional term “government”.

Referring to the exercise of power overall, the term “governance”, in both corporate and State contexts, embraces action by executive bodies, assemblies (e.g. national parliaments) and judicial bodies (e.g. national courts and tribunals).

The term ‘governance’ corresponds to the so-called post-modern form of economic and political organisations.

According to the political scientist Roderick Rhodes, the concept of governance is currently used in contemporary social sciences with at least six different meanings: the minimal State, corporate governance, new public management, good governance, social-cybernetic systems and self-organised networks.” (2001) [note: and many other distinctions based on the object to which governance is assumed to act upon; ie; urban governance, e-governance, and so on ]

Now, following other readings, we might be able to grasp what governance is about. Before entering into proper distinctions within government-governance, governance-governmentality, lets quote this classical statement written in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland;

“- When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, – it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

- The question is,said Alice, – whether you can make words mean so many different things.

- The question is, said Humpty Dumpty, – which is to be master – - that’s all.” (Carroll, 1865)

With that warning in mind, we are now ready to discuss some of the meanings attributed to the word: governance.

this is the first image google bots are delivering these days for a governance search

Along with the EU white paper, a quick look to wikipedia raises an interesting distinction as to conceive governance as a process. This is, “the use of institutions, structures of authority and even collaboration to allocate resources and coordinate or control activity in society or the economy” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governance)

So, governance (as a process) will be something different than The Government (as a substantive). Being, indeed, the need to leave aside bad prejudices and the lack of trust in government institutions one of the efects of talking about governance. In this sense, intended or not, governance is a useful trend to rethink and perform (again but differently) a non-successful participatory policy carried out years before by “The Government” [apologies for not specifying which Government - you can put yours as a default ]. We are not building crystal castles here. You can tell by the EU white paper;

“the proposals in this White Paper will:

• Structure the EU’s relationship with civil society. A code of conduct for
consultation will identify responsibilities and improve accountability of all
partners. It will enhance dialogue, and contribute to the openness of organised
civil society.

• Make greater use of the skills and practical experience of regional and local
actors. In the first place, this is an issue for national authorities according to their
national constitutional and administrative arrangements. At the same time the
Union should make fuller use of the existing potential for flexibility to improve
the ways European policies are applied on the ground.

• Build public confidence in the way policy makers use expert advice. The EU’s
multi-disciplinary expert system will be opened up to greater public scrutiny and
debate. This is needed to manage the challenges, risks and ethical questions
thrown up by science and technology.

• Support the clearer definition of EU policy objectives and improve the
effectiveness of EU policies by combining formal legislation with non-legislative
and self-regulatory solutions to better achieve those objectives.”

Meaning that the engagement with civil society was not -is not- (by many reasons) working in a “desirable” way. Governance and it’s many applied forms understood as processes of regulation, coordination and control (Rhodes, 1997) might open up some space for considering the government as an actor AMONGST others. Which it is not an easy road because it implies, it builds, on the ground of being able, willing to, let OTHER actors gain, partage, share, manage processes of regulation, coordination and control. If we consider wifi networks, then, it could imply letting people act as ISP as long as the telecomms infrastructures could be freely accessed by corporations AND citizens. Or, else, to have our local government answering the question; ¿where I can connect my computer directly to the Internet? ¿Where do corporations plug and redistribute their bandwidth to act as ISP? Where can the lay citizen connect it’s computer, where is the plug? We understand we have to pay for the last-mile (be it phone-line kilometers or fiberoptics), but, where can I have access if I am ready to come with my computer to the same place corporations are plugging theirs (and, say, put an access point, and from there another, and another, and do what guifi.net is doing (but having to go trough the conventional ISP’s if Internet is to be used (which is not their priority, anyway; being the already and increasing networked computers a proper “inter-net”)? Why I can not access there? Internet, as computerdata-linking, is free. You only need a port to establish a connection, is not that it? -I owe some of these questions to Ramon Roca (guifi.net member)

Now, we have seen how governance can be a useful concept to rethink, re-make, the social (and legal) bind between institutions and civil society (we will see…).

Before governance issues, Foucault term of governmentality, is defined as follows;

“1.The ensemble formed by the institutions, procedures, analyses and reflections, the calculations and tactics that allow the exercise of this very specific albeit complex form of power, which has as its target population, as its principal form of knowledge political economy, and as its essential technical means apparatuses of security. 2. The tendency which, over a long period and throughout the West, has steadily led towards the pre-eminence over all other forms (sovereignty, discipline, etc) of this type of power which may be termed government, resulting, on the one hand, in formation of a whole series of specific governmental apparatuses, and, on the other, in the development of a whole complex of savoirs. 3. The process, or rather the result of the process, through which the state of justice of the Middle Ages, transformed into the administrative state during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, gradually becomes ‘governmentalized’.”(as quoted in; Burchell. (1991). Foucault Effect on p.102)

Which can be similar to but different in the sense that in enables us to have a rather sui-generis approach to governance as long as it “invites us to study how various governmental practices
and techniques produces and constitutes certain types of identities as appropriate and
normal and certain action-orientations as legitimate and efficient.” (Sending and Neumann, 2004) – [I still working on the biblio-references html page; be patient and you will find all quotes there...]

Before ending abruptly , because reviewing literature never ends and this is just a post and It has to end somewhere; ananké stenai, I will then leave mentioning the idea of governance as the condition

“à constituer des cultures intermédiaries d’action collective. Ces conditions sont généralement manquées quand elles sont purement et simplement confondues avec les dispositifs supposés inciter la participation.” (Maesschalck, 2008:190)

RAX!