GOVERNANCE AND GOVERNMENT

As time passes by, changes in our surrounding are very visible and evident, such as our technology is
precisely to become more advance and so with the human thought and behavior and so as to our
government. With such changes, the use of governance terminology in an increasing number of
countries worldwide was aggressively witnessed by the 21 st century. This is because the meaning of
governance has shifted in the last couple of decades. In the current times, the term governance does not
treat as a synonym word for government. Rather, governance signifies a change in which it refers to a
new process of governing, a changed condition of the ordered rule or a new method by which the
society is governed.

The concept of governance has come to be widely used. However, it is not always clear to what the term
really means. Although, the term “governance” has been used to refer mostly to “government,” when it
is correctly used, “governance” really goes beyond government. Ultimately, governance is concerned
with creating conditions for ordered rule and collective actions. According to Stoker (1198), governance
refers to “development of governing styles in which boundaries between and within public and private
sectors have become blurred”. Stoker posited that the essence of governance focuses on governing
mechanisms which do not rest on recourse to the authority and sanctions of government. Aside from
that, it is an interaction of a multiplicity of governing and other influencing actors. Furthermore, The
World Bank, which was the first to give prominence to the role of governance, describes it as the
manner in which authority is exercised in the management of country’s economic and social resources
for development (World Bank, 1992:1). Lastly, the narrowest definition is: the science about government
and its performance (Dethier 1999:5). By those definitions as mentioned, we can say that governance
entails a larger scope and has a wider meaning.

On the other hand, government is an institution or also refers to as a system made of group of people
that manages a state. There can be various forms of government such as democracy, monarchy,
aristocracy and etc. It is said to be the steering mechanism for a given society because it forms the
policies that keep a particular society heading in the right decision. To ensure that the welfare and
demands of the state are met is the main purpose of the government. In order for the government to
make good decisions, they must listen to what the people need and want. With such, the people also
have a responsibility to inform and to make their point of view known by the government. The
government is an extension of the people, put in power or who have taken power over tis general
public. In such away that, it solidifies a group of people into a society.

In conclusion, governance and government doesn’t have the same meaning but they are related to each
other. To sum it with their differences in the simplest form, the government rules the organization or
country or the state while governance is the way adopted by the government to achieve goals set by
them for the purpose of achieving the proper function. However, both are necessary and significant for
the sustainability of the state.