Governance on a bumpy road from enfant terrible to mature paradigm

The governance paradigm has been travelling a bumpy road from an enfant terrible that challenged conventional ideas about how think of the way that society and the economy is governed to a relatively mature paradigm with distinctive theories and methods and empirical studies of scope conditions and causal impact of interactive forms of governance. This article reconsiders and seeks to clarify the conceptual confusion about how to define the concept of governance. It also highlights some of the recent achievements of governance research and points to new and emerging developments that aims to further consolidate the governance paradigm. The new items on the research agenda are briefly illustrated with an empirical example.