governance

noun

gov·​er·​nance ˈgə-vər-nən(t)s 

plural governances

: the act or process of governing or overseeing the control and direction of something (such as a country or an organization) : government

a centralized system of governance

the challenges of national governance

… the governance of amateur sport in America …

—P. S. Wood

… three years before he died, [Lionel] Trilling pressed the point that the way a nation thinks determines in the end the quality of its governance.

—Benjamin DeMott

Enron, and the corporate disasters that followed, forced many companies to get serious about governance.

—Louis Lavelle

Theirs was the perennial problem of quick-witted subjects under the governance of dull-witted administrators.

—Declan Kiberd

Michael Dukakis, at the 1988 Democratic convention, said governance was about competence, not ideology. He got it half right: Competence is important to governance, but ideology is critical …

—U.S. News & World Report

Synonyms

• administration
• authority
• government
• jurisdiction
• regime
• régime
• regimen
• rule

Examples of governance in a Sentence

They have very different approaches to the governance of the city.

after World War II, the four Allied nations shared the governance of the territory of postwar Germany under the Allied Control Council

Recent Examples on the Web

As highlighted in a 2024 Deloitte survey, 58% of organizations still lack a strategic governance structure for workforce management. —Majeed Hosseiney, Forbes, 5 Mar. 2025

After the 1995 Dayton accords ended the Bosnian war and established a new governance structure, international and national entities set out to bring war criminals to justice. —Patrick Vinck, Foreign Affairs, 4 Mar. 2025

Father-son spat The elder Kwek has alleged that his son and other members of the board breached corporate governance rules by hastily appointing two new directors outside of the typical nomination process. —Jason Ma, Fortune Asia, 3 Mar. 2025

In the spring of last year, eighteen professors met to discuss university governance and alighted on the idea of creating a faculty senate—something that Stanford, Chicago, Johns Hopkins, and many other schools already have. —Nathan Heller, The New Yorker, 3 Mar. 2025

Word History

Etymology

see govern

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined above

Phrases Containing governance

• self-governance

Kids Definition

governance

noun

gov·​er·​nance ˈgəv-ər-nən(t)s 

: the exercise of control : government