Governance in contemporary political discourse :an analytical and comparative study

Abstract

This study examined Mark Bevir’s claim, which says that “governance arose out of a crisis in the modernist state”. In addition, the new governance consists of the interconnected theories and reforms by which people or the homo economic conceived of the crisis of the state and responded to it. The crisis, which existed with the logic of enlightenment and modernity itself, was interpreted by scholars and thinkers in various forms. The purpose of the crisis, according to the scholars’ perspectives, is to create the conditions for the economic and administrative state. Governance is a key concept in the study of the social sciences in general and political science in particular. This study, therefore, specifically relates to the anti-liberalism thought and anti-neoliberalism in both Western and Islamic contexts, which are based on the communitarian theory and interpretive governance. This study also investigated the relationship between the modern State and its relationship to society through the concept of tyranny and corruption and that governance is trying to reduce them in modern societies. This study encompasses an analysis of the profound transformations concerning the nature of the relationships between the state and society. These transformations were studied through the underlying effects of the new vision formed through modernity and enlightenment. The latter concepts framed the relationship between society and the state by building the pillars of their relationships based on the paradigm-breaking, the relationship with heritage (religious or philosophical), and their various referentialities and values. Hence, both enlightenment and modernity have dismantled all forms of worldviews and visions of the past such as religions, traditions, norms and philosophies are concerned. This study dealt with six selected political thinkers, both from Western and Islamic perspectives. These scholars were selected due to their construed treatises regarding the problems of epistemological and ontological defects of modernity and enlightenment and then were brought into postmodernism context, especially the neoliberalism governance. They have found the issue of modernity and enlightenment which have cut their relation with heritage (religions and classical philosophies), and consequently founded a new paradigm of knowledge that is based on self-centric and positivist thought. This self-conscious and materialistic nature of modernity carries implications that dominate and restructure the concerned party’s worldview to suit the worldly life (secularising of life). In essence, achieving the goals of the material life through the re-engineering of nature and society for the fulfilment of the happiness of the material humanity can be considered as the gathering between the hereafter and the earth (Prigogine & Stengers, 1984). This thesis adopted the discourse analysis approach as the method of analysis to understand the texts and to extract the common and mutual understanding among those six scholars. The analysis was also used to track the agreements and disagreements among them. Their theories are relevant because they disclosed an understanding of the modern epistemology and ontology concerning the nature of the problem of the state and its relationship to society. However, their analyses eventually refer to the necessity of reconstructing the heritage and cultures that have been demolished by modernity and enlightenment, as defined by their contexts.