Regieren in "räumen begrenzter staatlichkeit": Zur reisefähigkeit des governance-konzeptes

Abstract

It is a major problem of the scholarly discourse on governance that the respective social science concepts have been formulated against the background of modern and highly industrialized democratic nation-states. This leads to conceptual problems with regard to the applicability to historical and contemporary areas of limited statehood. These areas are mostly located outside the OECD world and differ structurally from modern Western nation-states with regard to cultural and religious aspects as well as concerning configurations of actors and modes of action. The article discusses the extent to which the governance concept "travels" in different world regions and cultural contexts. To what extent are Western concepts transferable, and which problems arise? And what can we learn from the experiences in areas of limited statehood for the debate on governance in the social sciences?