The paper discusses late modernity (or post-modernity) and concepts of administrative law and trechtssicherheitt, i.e. 'good governance' based on the principle of 'rule of law'?. In a first section the paper pictures notions of 'rechtssicherheit' in late modern Danish legal theory while it a second section describes general features of late modern or post modern law in Western societies. The two approaches are connected in a third section attempting to encircle displacements within the field of administrative law that can be linked to a shift in focus from government to governance. In a final section, the paper tries to expand the discussion on 'rechtssicherheit' and late modern administrative law through search for adequate metaphors. The aim is to find metaphors that at the same time reject modern polarization between normative and calculative approaches to law and opens up for formulating notions of 'rechtssicherheit' to be employed in an administrative context marked by not only political, social and cultural but also legal pluralism.
