The living institutions of the EU: Analysing governance as performance

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Abstract
How to analyse the dynamics of informal governance that takes place in networks that are multi-party, polycentric, trans-national and – almost by necessity – inter-cultural? This paper portrays informal governance in the EU as a complex game of negotiation. Actors not only negotiate outcomes but also the rules according to which the negotiation is to take place. This process creates ‘living institutions’ in which participants agree upon rules and credibility and authority for its joint decisions gets established. The argument of the paper is that this implies a crucial role for the dramaturgy of negotiation that co-determines if a negotiation is successful or not. The paper suggests governance should be approached as a sequence of staged performances.