In addition to competing conceptions of
governance, the formation of a consensus faces
the challenge that the term does not fare well
in translation. No suitable translation of
governance exists in Spanish and Portuguese
(Ziccardi, 1995). The closest approximation,
“governability,” is concerned with the exercise
of public power in governmental action but
incorporates various conditions necessary for
efficient action. These conditions include the
legitimacy of government and society’s support
of it. In democratic regimes, legitimacy is
fundamentally dependent on fair, free, and
contested elections but elections, however, are
not sufficient for creating legitimacy of
governmental action.1