O que se diz e o que se cala: a governança entre a fuga do direito e a busca pelo controle

Abstract

Conceptual changes, suggests Quentin Skinner, are simultaneously indexes and inducers of political change. Our everyday discourse operates choices, exclusions and displacements which both testify to and promote changes in the way we apprehend and signify life. This paper argues that the recent rise in prestige of the word governance as a central concept in legal discourse, especially in International Law, cannot be fully understood without taking into account the set of value changes it manifests. The first section analyses instances of re-signification of the word governance, above all when used in Law. The second suggests that this new semantics bespeaks a movement of moving away from traditional forms of legal-political organization. The third examines the hypothesis that this moving away is an attempt to respond to the complexity globalization and technological changes have brought to international relations. The fourth offers an analysis of the impact that this new perception of governance has on the idea of regulation and the fifth concludes with a discussion on the difficulties to control the legitimacy and the quality of governance.