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New approach to governance
- A treatise on how the idea of governance has changed in the modern world
MAY 21 -
There has been a plethora of writing on “governance” over the years. Hailed as the main mantra to speed up development, strengthen democracy and empower people, at some point, it appeared that the concept itself was simply rediscovered by donors whose major clients were countries of the South. The discussion on governance stole more limelight when majority of the newly-democratised states suffered the brunt of “intra-state conflicts” that ultimately led to the erosion of the traditional power of the state as polices adopted in the name of governance often failed to produce an accountable public authority.
It failed to bring polity nearer to the people and as a result, majority of the states fell apart, owing, apparently, to bad governance. But to our dismay, scholars and policymakers failed to identify what exactly is good or bad governance. In contrast, they provided ritualistic theoretical advice. They tried to replicate the same set of policies for all states. They thought what was good for the West would be good for the rest and what was good in theory would be good in practice as well.
This generates some fundamental questions about governance. The concept of governance itself is not new. In fact, it is as old as human civilisation. In fact we can find discussion about “governance”, in one form or the other, in all major religious literature. For example, it has been discussed broadly in Bhagavad Geeta; the Islamic Sharia provides comprehensive governance rules; and Christianity gives prime importance to the teachings of Christ’s management style. Governance has also been broadly discussed in Kautilaya’s Arthasashtra and cited by Plato. Likewise, Adam Smith argues that political state had to build institutions that can ensure justice, security and political and civic culture that value ethical standards. By and large, the idea of governance is to create democratic and just society based on the interest and priorities of the people. Mick Moore, Professor of Governance at IDS, Sussex, defines governance process through which states acquire and uses its power. For him, better governance comes from strengthening the responsiveness of states to the needs of their citizens, their accountability to citizens through rules-based mechanism, and through which they can be rewarded or sanctioned; and state capability — both political capability to determine needs and manage competing interests, and bureaucratic capability to design and implement policy, and enforce authority.
If governance, theoretically, is all about empowerment of people through responsive states why has it failed to deliver in the global South? Perhaps the time has come to reflect on where and how we failed. IDS tries to provide some answers through its recent publication An Upside Down View of Governance. The book is the product of five-year long research carried out by the Centre for the Future State at the different parts of the world (from Sao Paulo to New Delhi).
The book asks policymakers to think out of the box, discard their mental models of development, and look at what is actually happening in societies. It also suggests that the time has come for the donors to change. They should stop recycling policies and people as it does not bring change in society. The book offers new ‘drawing skills’ and explores how elements of public authority are being created through complex processes of bargaining between state and societal actors, and the interaction of formal and informal institutions.
The central argument of the book is that instead of prioritising reform of formal institutions, one should look at the structures, relationships, interests and incentives that underpin them. It suggests that informal and traditional institutions and personalised relationships not be seen as governance problem but as a part of solution. It argues that traditional Weberian ideas of the state capacity look out of date. Having said this, the process of state-building alone is not enough to address our problem brought about by the post-state challenges. The authors argue that instead of ‘state building’ and ‘state capacity’ we ought to be thinking about ‘public authority’. For them, ‘state building’ tends to evoke the historical experience of Western countries, notably France and Germany, in the 18th and 19th centuries and thus may not be suitable in other contexts. The authors recommend a shift in focus on creating ‘public authority’ — formal and informal institutions — that can undertake core governance functions. It goes on to argue that states are not the only sources of public authority. Governments today have to negotiate with a much greater diversity of actors, including an expanded private sector with transitional links. Also, in most poor countries the boundaries between ‘state’ and ‘society’ is unclear and the task of organising collective action to create public goods may be shared between state and non-state actors. Taken together, it underlines the need to create accountable and transparent public authority by taking all actors into the manifold.
The book further argues that merely strengthening civil society, as done in the past, will not benefit poor people primarily because civil societies are found to have been strengthened merely to serve the interests of certain networks of actors and power centres. And in many cases elites and, to some extent, donors are also promoting their own civil society merely to siphon off funds. What would be more important, against this backdrop, is to strike a balance between formal and informal institutions for the purpose of collective action.
Its not only weak institutions and high level of corruption, the book points out, that leads to creation of fragile states. Equally responsible are lack of elite incentives to create effective public authority and to accept change. The book argues that weak governance and ongoing conflict has provided more opportunities and benefits to the elites. Perhaps, this could be the reason, among others, why elites do not push for the timely resolution of the conflict in Nepal as well.
The book certainly could be a handy tool for both policymakers and scholars with its many new perspectives on governance. However, some of its arguments are problematic. For example, it does not prioritise the agenda of state building, instead devoting most of its focus on creating public authority. But the fact is that in a fragile state like Nepal public authority cannot be created in the absence of a functional state. Neither can public authority can be drawn through private sector nor through informal approaches. This will only generate broader security deficit for the citizens, albeit elites can protect themselves by hiring private security forces who will not feel the need to organise for the cause of security of citizenry at large. This certainly is the reason why Nepali citizens have failed to realise the change in real sense of term despite a number of successful regime changes over the years.
The author is affiliated with Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.
Posted on: 2010-05-22 10:23
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