Governance, patterns of rule or practices of governing.
Some patterns of rule appear in civil society.
It unpacks social facts, institutions, and patterns of rule entirely by analyses of individuals acting.
In this view, patterns of rule arise because of the contingent triumph of a web of meanings.
Radicals, socialists, and anarchists have long advocated patterns of rule that do not require the capitalist state.
Likewise, theories of governance generally suggest that patterns of rule arise as contingent products of diverse actions and political struggles informed by the varied beliefs of situated agents.
They adopted the concept of governance to refer to norms and patterns of rule that arise and persist even in the absence of an enforcing agent.
Whether one focuses on the new governance, weak states, or patterns of rule in general, the concept of governance raises issues about public policy and democracy.
Likewise, the term corporate governance refers to patterns of rule within businesses that is, to the systems, institutions, and norms by which corporations are directed and controlled.
The question raised by most Saudi commentators has been how willing the Al-Sauds might be to alter long established patterns of rule in a way that would let them face the most violent challenge yet.
More generally still, governance can be used to refer to all patterns of rule, including the kind of hierarchic state that is often thought to have existed before the public-sector reforms of the 1980s and '90s.
