dynamic, instable, and conflict-raising process, and on the theory of regulation
intended as practice. The most interesting interpretation of regulation
contained in this collection is the one that contends that regulation must be
intended not really as an a priori established, fixed model of action, but rather
as a “trend” process that evolves according to the needs of the context of
reference. Nevertheless also in this case a distinction has to be made, since
these modalities of action do not result in positive results in whatever situation
and whenever implemented, even if, in spite of this, they turn out to be more
efficient than other less flexible ones.
The perspective that has informed the present work calls for a reflection on
that set of conditions and practices that give rise to, while being affected by,
social and political institutions (Painter and Goodwin, 1995). In this
perspective, the relationship between regulation-régulation-and governance is
characterized by processes that occur in an unexpected manner, whereas
governance contains in itself activities intended to pursue specific strategic
objectives.
In all these processes there is a strong reference to two notions crucial to the
economic-enterprise sector and to the sector of public utilities: corporate
governance and new public management.
The first of the two notions, i.e. corporate governance, makes reference to the
modalities of management and control of the organizations that operate in both
the public and the private sector.
More specifically, the term governance is used to refer to the efficiency-of-
organization models based on information exchange, on individual
empowerment, and on an on explicit distribution of tasks and functions
(Rhodes, 1997).
This has aroused the interest of the European Union that, in its “White Paper
on European Governance”, has defined the possible applications of this action
model within the EU context (Cce, 2001), detecting rules, processes and
behaviours susceptible to influence European governments with a special
focus on openness, participation, accountability, efficiency and consistency of
decisionmaking processes.
Hence, European governance promotes new forms of collective action, new
mechanisms and new structures meant to work out and implement policies