Governance: A soft revolution with hard political and legal effects

Abstract

sult of research activities held at the Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza (Università degli Studi di Cagliari) and at Scuola Nazionale dell'Amministrazione, Roma. AbstractThe basic assumption of this article is that governance marks a departure from the two pillars of the project of modernity: representative democracy and legislative institutions. Governance, as a complex institutional phenomenon that goes far beyond participation, has significantly deconstructed the two main points of reference of modern democracy, that is, people and territory. Furthermore, its inclusive and open nature has not prevented the emergence of a dark side, made of exclusive modes: a theater without publicity. From the perspective of transformations, this article highlights the emergence of a changing and fluid normativity, one capable of adapting to the specificity and the variability of situations and processes, inevitably eclipsing the primacy of the legislation itself. KeywordsGovernance, representative democracy, legal globalization, inclusiveness ResumenEl supuesto básico de este artículo es que la gobernanza señala un alejamiento de los dos pilares del proyecto moderno: la democracia representativa y las instituciones legislativas. La gobernanza, como fenómeno institucional complejo, que va mucho mas 36 Soft Power  Volumen 1, número 1, enero-junio, 2014 allá de la participación, ha desestructurado sensiblemente los dos principales puntos de referencia de la democracia moderna: pueblo y territorio. Su trato inclusivo y abierto no ha impedido el surgimiento de un lado oscuro, hecho de modos exclusivos: un teatro sin publicidad. Desde la perspectiva de las transformaciones este artículo pone en evidencia la emergencia de una normatividad cambiante y fluida, capaz de adaptarse a las especificidad y a la variabilidad de situaciones y procesos, ofuscando inevitablemente la misma primacía de la legislación. Palabras claveGobernanza, democracia representativa, globalización juridica, inclusividad Governance as a Soft RevolutionWhen we think of governance we usually tend to think of devices shared between the public and the private. We also think of less codified and more flexible modes of producing rules of conduct on the local, national, international and global planes. The vast literature on this topic has brought into focus the main characteristics of governance, usually comparing and contrasting it to the notion of 'government' . 1 Moreover, it has brought attention to the different issues relating to it, above all that of the 'democratic deficit' . Yet by focusing on 'governance' , understood through its idealtypical characteristics as well as its actual phenomenology, the impact of its emergence on the nature of the modern institutional scene is generally overlooked. In the following pages a specific angle will be adopted in order to seek a path towards reform, a reform that is actually intrinsic to and implied by governance itself. As it will be argued, the latter notion does not adhere to a carefully and rationally designed mode...

Derecho transnacional o la necesidad de superar el monismo y el dualismo en la teoría jurídica

“…El concepto puede cumplir una función en el análisis del derecho transnacional contemporáneo. Sin embargo, no debe dejarse de lado el riesgo de que la aceptación de ciertas categorías de análisis acabe suponiendo rebajar en exceso las garantías de la legalidad y produciendo lo que se ha calificado como una «revolución blanda», con graves consecuencias políticas y jurídicas (Ferrarese, 2014).…”

Inside and outside legality: A pluralistic and social construction of law

“…It is unquestionable that the term "pluralism" is used in many contexts which are deeply different from each other, and that it covers a multifaceted semantic area, so that is susceptible to many possible variations. In the same way, it is unquestionable that the answer to the question about what the law is absorbed ontologically the whole theoretical reflection, and that today, within an extremely non homogeneous and fragmented scenario, it appears incredibly complex as it reveals the asymmetry and ambivalence of what has been defined the Soft Revolution 6 of the global governance.…”