Governance has become one of those fashionable words that appears almost everywhere, rather like a favourite spice added to every dish whether or not the recipe called for it. Governments promise it, companies advertise it, and boards claim to practise it, while traditional authorities embody forms of it that predate the modern state itself. Yet beneath this impressive vocabulary sits an inconvenient truth. Political governance, corporate governance, boardroom governance, and traditional governance are related, but they are not technically the same thing. Treating them as interchangeable is rather like assuming a surgeon, a pharmacist and a hospital administrator are doing the same job because they all work in healthcare. Ask the pharmacist to perform heart surgery and the distinction becomes clear rather quickly, usually before the anaesthetic does.
