REVISITING TERRITORIAL GOVERNANCE: INSTITUTIONAL DEVICES, INTERMEDIATE NOTIONS AND REGULATORY LEVELS

The word governance is not new. It goes through different periods of history and takes specific meanings in certain times and countries. Currently, the concept of governance can be defined as institutional procedures of power relations and of public or private forms of management, which can be formal as well as informal, that govern political actions of political actors. The purpose of this article is to analyze the explanatory factors of institutionalist theories that approach territorial governance as a necessary condition to establish compromises among actors, seeking an economic, social, and political development of metropolis, cities, and their regional and local territories. One of the main contribution of this paper is to address the gaps in academic debate, and to relate national Brazilian concepts to international literature concerning territorial governance, in particular the French theoretical framework.