‘Meaning just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less’

Abstract

In recent years, governance has become perhaps the dominant heuristic through which the structuring and exercise of political power is made sense of in political science and its subfields. Only rarely, however, do scholars pause to interrogate either the meaning of the term or the epistemological purposes for which it is deployed. In that context, this article reflects on the state of political science research on governance in Aotearoa New Zealand. It reviews the international literature on governance and proposes a framework for categorising the relevant New Zealand scholarship. The characteristics of that literature are assessed, and the article concludes with a critical appraisal of the possibilities and potential pitfalls for research on governance in Aotearoa New Zealand.