Good Governance
2021-2022 SM 1
630816-M-6
,Content
Introduction Lecture..........................................................................................................................3
Governance........................................................................................................................................3
Good and bad governance.................................................................................................................3
Some critical reflections on good governance (Grindle, 2016)...........................................................5
Lecture 1 | Transparency & accountability........................................................................................6
What is transparency?.......................................................................................................................6
Does transparency work?...................................................................................................................7
Downsides of transparency (Coglianese, 2009)..................................................................................8
Lecture 2 | Corruption.......................................................................................................................9
Concept of corruption........................................................................................................................9
What is corruption? (Treisman, 2000)................................................................................................9
Countries with high corruption (Svensson, 2005).............................................................................11
Common characteristics (Svensson, 2005).......................................................................................11
Magnitude of corruption..................................................................................................................12
What can reduce corruption? (Svensson, 2005)...............................................................................13
Lecture 3 | Equality & non-discrimination.......................................................................................15
Controversial nature of classifying...................................................................................................17
Lecture 4 | Red tape (efficiency & effectiveness)..............................................................................24
Effectiveness and efficiency..............................................................................................................24
Managing effectiveness & efficiency (Van Thiel & Leeuw, 2002).....................................................24
Red tape and performance (Brewer & Walker, 2009)......................................................................27
Administrative burden and performance (Heinrich, 2016)...............................................................28
Lecture 5 | National culture.............................................................................................................30
Good governance and culture..........................................................................................................30
Linch et al. (2007).............................................................................................................................30
Blunt (1995).....................................................................................................................................32
Noorderhaven and Tidjani (2001)....................................................................................................34
Andrews (2010)................................................................................................................................35
Lecture 6 | Political stability............................................................................................................37
What is political stability?................................................................................................................38
Macro-economic impact (Asiedu, 2006)..........................................................................................38
Governance reforms in failed states (Brinkerhoff & Brinkerhoff, 2002)...........................................39
Political instability in the West (Darrow & Howsman Scholl, 2020).................................................42
,Introduction Lecture
Governance
Governance (Roseneau): encompasses the activities of governments, but it also includes the many
other channels through which commands flow in the form of goals framed, directives issued, and
policies pursued. There are multiple definitions, but commonly denotes:
Direct administration by public sector
Grey zone between public, non-profit and private
From government to governance
Possible to analyse on multiple levels:
Macro-level: coordination and outcomes at country-level, international diffusion process.
Meso-level: constellations of actors such as hospitals, inspectorates, Ministry of Health,
municipalities, private healthcare providers, insurers and courts.
Micro-level: citizen-state interactions
Governance is thus the non-normative component of good governance, describing how a system is
governed by public actors (potentially in tandem with non-public or semi-public actors) Whereas
governance is about how public institutions come into being, good governance is about the
normative value of that policy and those institutions.
Good and bad governance
Interpretations differ and depend on the actors and situations (fields). Trump’s secret police (USA):
governing for himself instead of for his people.
Accountability/transparency: Federal officers were operating on the street in Portland
without any sign that could identify them as federal officers (difficult to hold accountable).
Non-discrimination/equality: they were detaining people without valid and lawful reasons
and since it was on the black lives matter protests, many of the protesters were minorities.
Corruption: He wanted to organise ‘crackdowns’ on cities led by democrats. He is using
federal and public instruments to obtain an individual political goal (form of corruption).
Good governance definition
It is really hard to conceptualise good governance because of the broad nature of the concept.
Good governance ensures that political, social and economic priorities are based on broad
consensus in society and that the voices of the poorest and most vulnerable are heard in
decision-making over the allocation of development resources (United Nations Development
Programme).
Good governance is about the processes for making and implementing decisions. It’s not
about making correct’ decisions, but about the best possible process for making those
decisions (Good Governance Guide Australia).
Good governance encompasses the role of public authorities in establishing the environment
in which economic operators function and in determining the distribution of benefits as well
as the relationship between the ruler and the ruled (OECD).
These definitions are really broad and they focus on different aspects of good governance. These
differences in interpretation reflect the popularity that good governance gained during the last
decades, generating an inflated idea of what public sectors need to be able to demonstrate in order
to be part of the god governance club.
, Include most prevalent understandings (Brinkerhoff & Goldsmith, 2005, p. 201)
Good governance: lawmakers should be answerable for their actions and responsive to the citizens
whom they represent (accountability and responsiveness); those citizens should have opportunities
to express their views to lawmakers (the need to be heard). The resulting laws and regulations should
be applied consistently to calm investors and help businesses better understand their environment
(equal rights). There should be full disclosure of procedures and policies so the affected people can
plan and act accordingly (transparency).
Even this definition of good governance is very broad, and arguably captures every
dimension of a country’s institutional environment. Anything here can be understood as
‘being answerable to their actions’ and ‘opportunities to express views’.
There is as yet hardly a consensus as to its core meaning, and less and less of a common idea
as to how it could be applied more concretely (Doornbos, 2001).
It is not easy to agree on what good governance is, and it is not straightforward to determine
how good governance can be achieved.
Ideal types of governance systems
Good governance Bad governance
Leaders hold onto power by providing collective Leaders should hold onto power by providing
benefits that earn the support of large personal favours that secure the loyalty of key
segments of society. followers.
Policy decisions are taken in the open after Policy decisions are taken in secret without
public discussion and review. public involvement.
Elections are free, fair and open. Elections are marked by intimidation, vote-
buying and fraud.
Administrators are recruited and promoted in Administrators are recruited and promoted as a
competitive processes that judge their merit reward for personal connections with political
and expertise. leaders.
History of good governance
It is helpful the look into the history of the concept: How did good governance as a concept come
into vogue? How did we go from governance to good governance? How does it come that
governance became a normative concept? Used in the context of foreign aid.
1. End of the Cold War
Donor countries gave foreign aid to client countries in order to create alliances with those
countries against the mutual enemy (Soviet Union). The end of the Cold War removed
incentives of the West to provide foreign aid to countries in which authoritarian rule was
prevalent. The mutual enemy was gone, and Western countries were no longer willing to
send foreign aid to Eastern Europe without conditions. Donor countries started with setting
conditions receiving countries needed to fulfil in order to receive foreign aid.
2. Wave of political reforms in former Soviet Bloc and Third World
Both were engulfed by a tidal wave of political reforms during the end of the last century.
Regimes in the Third World and Eastern Europe adopted civilian rule, elections and
multiparty democracy and understood that the form, if not always the spirit and content, of
elections were prerequisites to legitimize their sovereignty and to attract Western Financing.
3. Proliferation of non-state actors
Proliferation of non-state actors changed the political landscape in most countries. NGO’s
(Human Rights Watch, Care), transnational cooperation (Shell, Citibank) and global media
(BNN, CNN) penetrated what had formerly been purely governmental matters. They exerted
a growing influence on what had once been almost exclusively matters of state policy.
Economic and social policy is no longer the exclusive preserve of governments (human rights
advocates, gender activists, developmentalists and groups of indigenous peoples).