Abstract

For the purpose of this paper, governance constitutes a welcome opportunity to take a step back from learned ways of understanding legal regulation, "intervention" and institutional power. "Governance" emerges as the new guest at the table, changing the conversation, prompting everyone to revisit and question seating order, choice and arrangement of silverware, and also, to grow aware, in the process, of the trajectories and ends of their conversation. In the course of the night the guest will be questioned as to her/his particular contribution, status and politics, given the ubiquitous use of governance which promises change, reform, flexibility and adaptation on the background of a radically transformed relation between "State" and "Society" in a post-welfarestate and globalization context. In this landscape, governance captures a paradigm shift both within interested disciplines - ranging from legal studies, sociology, political science, anthropology, political philosophy, history, economics and geography - while in a connecting, intersecting manner, it suggests a more comprehensive, multidisciplinary theory of order. Seen in this light, governance gives an answer to the semantic challenge posed by a functionally differentiated (world) society.