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Thematics

’Governance’ : conceptions and discourses

The term governance is defined and understood today in a variety of, at times, contradictory ways. The IRG aims to understand how this term has evolved within institutions from the local to the global level, within the institute there is a marked emphasis on the evolution of the notion within international organisations who have pressed for its emergence for the past 20 years. The Institute plans to initiate debate about the use of this term in diverse and even opposed ideological contexts. The IRG also emphasises the conceptualisation, interpretations and cultural misunderstandings that such a term comes up against during its use in cultural traditions as diverse as the Chinese empire, the Arab world, Latin America or sub-Saharan Africa.


Articulating scales of governance, from local to global

Few social, economic, environmental or cultural problems can be dealt with today on one level of governance, or be the remit of only one institution. Going from the particularities of municipal action, through the issue of a form of global governance having passed through intermediary decision-making levels (state, sub-region etc.) the management of the way we ‘live together’ cannot be solved by isolated approaches or by a strict division of remit areas. The IRG proposes to bring together analyses and experiences that deal with dialogue processes and the establishment of links between different scales of government, notably those that are defined by the principle of ‘active subsidiarity’, by which each territory and each level of governance attempts to bring specific responses to issues that must be collectively dealt with. If this concerns the resolution of conflicts, sustainable development, territorial or urban management, we hope to understand how, out of respect for diversity and the potential of each involved actor, the combination of scales can enable greater unity in action.


Institutional make-up, Institutional reforms

At a time in which local and supra-state scales of governance are becoming reinforced, we are witnessing a questioning of the capacity of existing institutions to formulate, implement and create a respect for rule. This reflection clearly demonstrates impasses that are created by current artificial institutional holds and the inertia created by many actors in the public sphere especially when it involves the actioning of reforms and the rethinking of a longer term evolution. The IRG is hoping to survey and highlight examples of ‘Institutional engineering’ elaborated throughout the world by diverse socio-professional, cultural and political universes, and to evaluate the available capacity to deal with contemporary challenges. To this end, it is necessary to emphasise principles that are today advanced for the reform of the state, regional entities and international organisations.


Participation and Power

The notion of participation can be broadly defined as an approach within which various ‘interested parties’ are actively engaged in the formulation of decisions. This concept, today at the very centre of reflection on governance, appears to be very widely used in definitions of public policy or development projects in national and international institutions.

Without portending to resolve the ambiguity of such a notion, the IRG is undertaking to give this term the broadest framework possible and to work with our partners on many areas of further reflection: the question of different types of participation in political power (representative or participative democracy, electoral problematics, formal or real democracy etc.) from a local to a global level. This question initiates the need to question the definition and the redefinition of the social contract and how the paths of various communities are traced in relation to their participation in the system. The problematic of ‘participation’ thus puts into question the existence and the place of non-state actors in the public sphere, as well as their direct or indirect influence on institutions. The issue of the concept of ‘participation’ is thus at issue as to whether it takes into account the emergence of a multi-actor and polycentric governance. The latter issue is in fact at the heart of every individual political culture, the question of the existence of an autonomous ‘society’ vis-à-vis the state but also that of the potential for society’s misuse.


Origins of legitimacy

In Opposition to the notion of legality (conform to a pre-established juridical, constitutional or legislative order) the concept of legitimacy can be put forward as the state of what is generally accepted by a people. This opposition brings up multiple issues: the recognition and the acceptability of different forms of power, the different types of legitimacy that oppose each other within a political order, the methods of the construction of collective adhesion to the state and the construction of a consensus. What are the types of legitimacy that exist within and exterior to the formal framework of the state? How can you conceive of the legitimacy of a democratic system within specific political cultures? In what sense can legitimacy be linked to the question of the ‘accountability’ of political actors in power?


Collective regulation processes

Political and social regulation today is no longer solely based within public institutions. Actors involved in governance now exist in multiple guises; the way in which their partnerships are organised is thus central in areas as vital as sustainable development, water management, the mastering of the information society, systems of international exchange of physical or intellectual products, etc. The linking together of actors, the drawing together of institutional and social zones, debates on the notion of public property, notably on a global level, the processes of consultation between public power and citizens are themes that according to the IRG, are fundamental to this issue. In a world where the entity of the Nation-state is ever present, and where many political decision-makers think that modes of regulation or the resolution of conflicts are the lot of intergovernmental organisations and thus imply no involvement on the part of other actors, these processes today are still far from being automatic on all levels of decision-making. The IRG promotes the importance of bringing together analyses and their related methods and experiences on existing collective processes to put the emphasis on the central importance of the link between the social contract and its position in the development of this process