Nevertheless the aspect that, more than others, is likely to contribute to an
efficient process of institutional reform is the setting up of a clear debate
across al the subjects involved and the participation on the part of citizens in a
view to improving public actions. Now, on the basis of this opportune premise,
the use of the term governance, today so widely used within the scientific
debate, seems to raise some perplexities both on the theoretical and
methodological levels. In fact, if intended as “new modes of planning”,
governance turns out to be a mode of coordinating economic and social
dynamics which is based on the involvement and participation of the civil
society in the decisionmaking process.
In this sense the role and the modalities of action of the public subject call for
a re-definition of the notion of governance as the challenges encountered by a
single subject in defining and implementing public policies addressed to more
and more complex and fragmented societies are becoming more ad more
evident. The experience of the World Bank testifies the fact that a government
action intended to enhance the economic and social resources of a Country
must give a say to and allow for access and participation of all in
decisionmaking processes.
But the situation becomes even more complex when, in addition to the
required participation of citizens, what is at stake is the issue of “group”
control on the part of local governments which, unavoidably, calls for the
definition of organizational and management models intended to favor
transparency of business choices and appropriate monitoring of business
performance.
Intended in this way, governance becomes a tool whereby local governments
participate in strategic decisionmaking in terms of both management and
control of public utilities. More specifically, a line of research that tries to
interpret the debate on governance focuses on the theory of regulation and
tries and detects connections between regulation and governance as conceived
in the field of political economy with reference to local practices and resource
management.
The collection of assays edited by Hay and Jessop (1995) accounts for one of
the most important contributions to the debate on governance which puts
forward a British interpretation of the theory of regulation intended as a