RE-ENGINEERING THE CONCEPT OF 'GOVERNANCE': SOME CRITERIA FOR THEORIZING AND PRACTICE

摘要

Governance is increasingly becoming a buzzword that frequents many widescale engineering initiatives. Each, however, draw on diverse interpretations of the same word. Despite the conceptual ambiguity, the very idea of governance is still considered very useful and valuable. This paper discusses some of the promising explanatory and normative conceptual notions of "governance" and argues for a set of criteria by which these various accounts can be evaluated. The argued criteria set is based on higher level philosophical, axiomatic, axiological and methodological considerations and narrowed down into ontological, theoretical, and pragmatic broad criteria categories. Each of these broad categories is presented after which they will be used as a basis to constructively evaluate existing governance theories, models and frameworks. Finally, the paper hints on a systemically developed "governance" paradigm that is internally aligned with the earlier mentioned criteria aimed to assist in developing a wider and more consistent "governance" research agenda.