GOVERNANCE
AND DEMOCRACY
–
KATARIS PROJECT
53
The increasing importance of civil society, partnership-based governance, and the expansion
of democracy have prompted a review of the fundamental stakes involved in the problematics
of governance. These stakes are intrinsically linked and feed on each other to some extent, as
the expansion of democracy is essential to a solidarity-based governance that includes all of
the actors. This also implies broadening the understanding of democracy. While representative
democracy can sufficiently maintain government-market relations on a social level, the same
cannot be said of participative democracy, which is dominated by a new actor, specifically,
civil society. The latter demands new means of expression (public-hearing offices,
consultation forums, etc.). Thus, while mobilisation suffices to implement an inclusive and
solidarity-based governance project, participative democracy is required to put it into
operation.
3.5.5.
The Transformation of Governance in Businesses
Although this paper focuses on modes of governance that concern the general interest,
governance in businesses also merits attention. We point out here that the renewed interest for
governance is inherent to a new attitude towards business management, in which shareholders
delegate power to decision-makers who have special interests. In this sense, businesses have
often made their CEOs into shareholders in order to align their own interest with those of the
other shareholders.
When owners (an increasingly dispersed set of shareholders) mandate managers to ensure the
direction and management of a company, the modes of organisational governance must be
restructured. In large firms, shareholders mandate agents (managers) to make decisions, all the
while knowing that the latter can act on the basis of their own interests (in line with the notion
of a Homo Economicus). The concept of “stakeholders” indicates that the shareholders are not
the only interested parties. The latter include contractual stakeholders (workers, suppliers,
clients) and miscellaneous stakeholders (those affected by positive and negative externalities,
such as the local collectivities and civil society).
Applying the “stakeholder” theory to a company can serve a purpose when the modes of
exercising power show their limits and are challenged, and when the actors, dissatisfied with
the decisions made on their behalf, reclaim a part in the decision-making process.
CAHIERS DU CRISES
–
COLLECTION ÉTUDES THÉORIQUES
–
NO
ET0908
54
3.5.6.
Governance and Social Inclusion at the Local and Regional Levels
Governance is the fruit of the social, economic, and territorial arrangement of actors.
Capitalism is not “disorganised”, as was claimed in the 1980s, but rather, is in a process of
reorganisation, which is different. Within that reorganisation, democratic, state-centred
institutions that were built in the spirit of the so-called “nation states” of developed Western
countries are brought into question. The social arrangements are refocusing on diverse issues
at various levels, each of which has a different territorial scope. This structures multi-scalar
governance at many levels. The territorial dimension of those arrangements corresponds to the
scale at which coalitions and alliances take shape, at times corporate (urban regimes), at times
solidarity-based (community development), as a result of the actions initiated by local
identities.
This process has positive and negative sides. On the positive side, it calls on the participation
of actors that are otherwise excluded from the exercise of power, according to formulas and
modes that vary according to each case. In this context, often as a result of the struggle of
collectivities for their viability, social innovations emerge from certain localities, minor
experiences, and local initiatives before being distributed by recognized networks. The former
very often emerge from cooperative movements or unions, municipalities, school networks, or
the health-services network. These experiments leave a lot of room for the actors, their
competencies, their available resources, and their capacity to form alliances and networks. On
the negative side, the actors' focus on local interests, even in the context of participative
governance, can give rise to intense interterritorial competition to attract or maintain
investments. This erodes solidarity at the supra-local (regional, national, and international)
scales.
3.5.7.
The Case of Quebec
As mentioned in our introductory thesis statement, Quebec has demonstrated that a type of
governance characterised by the participation of a plurality of actors and by the hybridisation
of the diverse forms of governance is possible in the context of current-day capitalism. In
Quebec, three forms of governance (public, partnership-based, and neoliberal) have taken
place successively throughout the past forty years. However, two main forms predominated
initially, namely, hierarchical and public governance (1960–1980) and partnership-based
governance (1981–2003). The rise to power of the “Parti libéral du Québec” (PLQ) in 2003
and its more neoliberal agenda then favoured a more competitive mode of governance for