The Inconvenient Truth: Not everything called governance is the same thing

Governance has become one of those fashionable words that appears almost everywhere, rather like a favourite spice added to every dish whether or not the recipe called for it. Governments promise it, companies advertise it, and boards claim to practise it, while traditional authorities embody forms of it that predate the modern state itself. Yet beneath this impressive vocabulary sits an inconvenient truth. Political governance, corporate governance, boardroom governance, and traditional…