THE SOCIAL REPRESENTATION OF THE GOVERNANCE SYSTEM THROUGH KEY DESCRIPTORS: MUTE ZONE?

Abstract

This article seeks to describe the social representations of Brazilians about the term Governance System (GS). The data were collected through online questionnaires answered by 665 social actors from Brazil. The data analysis used the Social Representation Theory (SRT), operationalized by the techniques of free evocation of words and the Four Houses Framework of Verges, followed by lexical and content analysis. It was identified that in the center of the table there are words highly shared by the social actors about the Governance System: Accountability, Administration, Compliance, Control, Management, Organization, Planning, Processes, Transparency, and Ethics. It is concluded that Accountability is conceived as a structuring element for the effectiveness of the GS. The data suggest the existence of a mute zone in the social representation, since there was a scarcity of words that brought negative expressions about the GS and that deserve future investigations.

Keywords

• governance system
• social representation theory
• word evocation
• value perception
• content analysis