Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho

to keep ‘politics’ out of economic governance is very natural. Whereas
representative democracy used to take place between state and society,
today market actors start infiltrating ‘political’ decision-making. One
of the challenges for further research thus lies in studying the ‘political’
role of decision-making that by its very nature (i.e. the market)
is hesitant towards politics (in the sense of recognizing the creative
and transformative nature of representation). The role of society in
governance-cooperations is often categorized in a more positive light.
It is assumed that in the border zone between state and society the
political aspect (formulating representative claims about one’s identity)
remains prominent. This is the idea that Saward tries to defend
by way of the ‘representative claim’. But Swyngedouw states that not
only ‘economic governance’ but also governance emanating from civil
society seems to be drawn in to the logic of managerialism [10] . Thus
also here we will have to question what the ‘political’ role can be of
decision-making that by its practices (‘managerial civil society’) is
hesitant towards politics.
It is clear that we have no univocal answer yet to how we should
conceive of legitimacy in governance-practices. The ‘legitimacy of what’-
question pointed to the fact that the role of a centre that functions as
an anchor point has always been crucial for politics. As governance
practices are used more and more, the visibility of the political centre
declines. That is why it might be useful when analyzing an act of governance
to at least try to denominate the societal spheres partaking
in the governance cooperation. Denominating decision-makers is a
different way to pursue visibility in politics. Hence, in order to get a
better grasp on the plurality of governance-forms an important role
is waiting for us to conceive appropriate categories for different sorts
of decision-making bodies that match the existing complexities we
are facing in reality.
55
GOVERNANCE
THROUGH THE LENS OF
REPRESENTATION
Femmy Thewissen
10
His statement draws on Foucault’s notion of governmentality and leads him to say
that newly created technologies of government are nicely internalized by citizens, corporations
and NGOs alike. “Ironically, while these technologies are often advocated
[…] by civil organizations speaking for the disempowered […], these actors often fail to
see how these instruments are an integral part of the consolidation of an imposed and
authoritarian neo-liberalism, celebrating the virtues of self-managed risk, prudence and
self-responsibility” (Swyngedouw, 2005, 1998).