Governance may be a familiar concept for political scientists or economists but is
usually met with mixed feelings by lawyers. In law schools, governance is still
considered as a fashionable buzz-word, used mainly to attract funding that would
have been unavailable for traditional legal doctrinal research. Even those who are
more sympathetic towards governance, tend to regard it as a phenomenon which is
located ‘outside’ the law. Chairs and research centres are usually titled “Law and
Governance”, just like Law and Economics or Law and Literature, titles that reveal
the underlying assumption that this is a phenomenon separated from law proper. I
think that this assumption rests on a misunderstanding and that it would be more
appropriate to see governance as a particular form of law.
Auteur: Pauline Westerman