From Government to Governance: A Symbolic Mutation and its Repercussions for Democracy

Abstract

This article develops an assessment of the shift from government to governance from the perspective of the concept of democratic representation developed by the French political theorist Claude Lefort. It is argued that this shift does not primarily entail a change of actors, norms or decision-making processes, but that it should rather be understood more fundamentally as a symbolic mutation. In governance regimes, a novel representation of power and society comes into being which transforms the basic symbolic configuration of society. Focusing especially on forms of global governance, the article investigates how this mutation provides society with a new image of itself, and how it affects the democratic nature of current society.