Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho

GOVERNANCE THROUGH THE
LENS OF REPRESENTATION
A CONFRONTATION OF GOVERNANCE AND GOVERNMENT
Femmy Thewissen
KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN
WE ARE WITNESSING TODAY A GRADUAL SHIFT TOWARDS GOVERNANCE-DECI-
SION-MAKING., ‘Governance’ is seen as an answer to the complexities
of contemporary decision-making. Its consensual, cooperative and
horizontal style, characteristic of public-private co-operations, differs
from ‘government’ which we can associate with hierarchy and with
top-down and centralized decision-making. Not only do we see that the
term is increasingly used in policy-making, from the local to the interand
transnational level, but also that the use of the term governance is
proliferating in the academic literature of the social sciences.
Since the emergence of the concept scholarly attention has broadened
from a narrow focus on effectiveness to the broader question of
legitimacy. The answers to the legitimacy question have been plural and
diverse. By focusing on representation, as that which is presupposed
by legitimacy, I try to take a different approach that is inspired by contemporary
philosophical research on the value of representation. In its
traditional use representation is connected with elections. But it can be
used in non-electoral contexts, such as governance decision-making, as
well. I will look into what characterizes representation in general and
what differentiates electoral and non-electoral representation.
The article will be structured as follows. First, I will give a brief
outline of the theorizing about governance. This will offer us a definition
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GOVERNANCE
THROUGH THE LENS OF
REPRESENTATION
Femmy Thewissen