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 of governance

• government
• administration
• rule
• regime

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

In 2026, the governance vacuum will deepen—the Indus Waters Treaty suspended, Ethiopia’s Nile dam operational with no binding agreement, China building the world’s largest dam with no downstream treaty. —Ian Bremmer, Time, 6 Jan. 2026

Le Guin examines unchecked power, eugenics, and the ethics of governance in this inventive and consistently surprising novel, which explores the limits of trying to manifest a better world. —Erin Somers, The Atlantic, 6 Jan. 2026

In the private sector, however, health care stands out for weaknesses in controls and AI governance. —Sheryl Estrada, Fortune, 6 Jan. 2026

Launching a military operation and then assuming responsibility for governance shifts Washington toward a closed, coercive model of power – one that relies on force to establish authority and is prohibitively costly to sustain over time. —Monica Duffy Toft, The Conversation, 5 Jan. 2026

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