Governance

Governance comprises the processes and systems by which an organization or a society operates. Frequently, people establish a government to administer these processes and systems. English-speakers sometimes erroneously confuse the term governance with the term government.

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One should distinguish the concept of governance from its associated concept, politics. Politics involves processes by which a group of people with initially divergent opinions or interests reach collective decisions generally regarded as binding on the group, and enforced as common policy. Governance, on the other hand, conveys the administrative and process-oriented elements of governing rather than its antagonistic ones.

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Corporate organizations often use the word governance to describe the manner in which boards or their like direct a corporation, and laws and customs applying to that direction.

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The term governance also occurs in industry - especially in the information technology (IT) sector -- to describe the processes to follow in a successful department, team or project.

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A fair governance implies that these mechanisms function in a way that allows the executives (the "agents") to respect the rights and interests of the stakeholders (the "principals"), in a spirit of democracy.

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Global governance refers to a system-wide structure that both allows and constrains the behavior of actors in interdependent relationships in the absence of an overarching political authority. The global international system offers the best example of this.

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Politics: :This article is about Politics as social phenomenon, for all other uses see Politics (disambiguation)...

Administrative: redirect Administration (business)...

Industry: :For other uses of this term, see Industry (disambiguation)...