Making sense of governance

Abstract Governance is a term which is widely, but not always precisely, used, and this article seeks to clarify what the term is being used to mean. In particular, it is concerned with whether it denotes a particular mode of government, or whether is a broad category encompassing all modes of government. It focuses on the arguments about political practice on which the original claims about governance were based, and the evidence that there has been a change is political practice which demands a new label. It concludes with a discussion of the way that accounts of government are used in the practice of governing, and the incentives that this gives both participants and observers to adopt the warm but fuzzy term ‘governance’.