La gobernanza como modo emergente de gobierno y gestión pública

This article reviews some of the topics, ideas and basic concepts about governance as an emergent way of understanding relations between state and society and also Public administration and management. It clarifies the main features of governance in relation to two books published by INAP in Spanish language in this year. First and second section approaches the typical features of governance notion and the reasons of governance appearance on research agenda. The third one presents the principal areas of application of the governance approach, and the fourth one indicates some of the requirements of democratic governance. Social capital and public leadership are cited here as specific determinants of the success of democratic governance. The fifth section reviews the specific notion of governance as management of networks comprising a multiplicity of public and private actors that interact in a complex way. The last section attends to discussion about positive and negative aspects of governance, and especially about tensions that affect governance systems.