What Does Good Governance Mean

What Does Good Governance Mean?
Rachel M. Gisselquist
Reference: https://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/what-does-goodgovernance-mean
United nation University-UNU-Wider
Almost all major development institutions today say that promoting
good governance is an important part of their agendas. The outcome
document of the recent 2011 Busan High-Level Forum on Aid
Effectiveness further reflects these commitments. In a well-cited quote,
former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan noted that good governance
is perhaps the single most important factor in eradicating poverty and
promoting development.
Despite this consensus, good governance is an extremely elusive
objective. It means different things to different organizations, not to
mention to different actors within these organizations (to make matters
even more confusing, governance experts also routinely focus on other
types of governanceglobal governance, corporate governance, IT
governance, participatory governance, and so onwhich may be
related only peripherally to the good governance agenda vis--vis
domestic politics and administration which is our focus here.)
Good governance as a concept
In general, work by the World Bank and other multilateral development

banks on good governance addresses economic institutions and public
sector management, including transparency and accountability,
regulatory reform, and public sector skills and leadership. Other
organizations, like the United Nations, European Commission, and
OECD, are more likely to highlight democratic governance and human
rights, aspects of political governance avoided by the Bank. Some of
the many issues that are treated under the governance programmes of
various donors include election monitoring, political party support,
combating corruption, building independent judiciaries, security sector
reform, improved service delivery, transparency of government
accounts, decentralization, civil and political rights, government
responsiveness and forward vision, and the stability of the regulatory
environment for private sector activities (including price systems,

exchange regimes, and banking systems).
In short, working uses of the term good governance include a variety
of generally good things. But these good things do not necessarily fit
together in any meaningful way. Indeed, good governance would be a
great example of a poorly specified concept for an introductory course
in social science methodology. What makes a concept good? In a 1999
article, political scientist John Gerring spelled out eight criteria of
conceptual goodness that provide a useful framework. Four of these
criteria are especially relevant here:
First, good governance lacks parsimony. Unlike good concepts,

good governance has endless definitions, and we always need the
details of each to understand if we are talking about the same thing.
Second, good governance lacks differentiation. Well-governed

countries often sound a lot like functioning liberal democracies, for
instance, and it is not clear how they differ.
Third, good governance lacks coherence. Its many possible

characteristicsfrom respect for human rights to efficient banking
regulationsdo not clearly belong together.
Fourth, and most important, good governance lacks theoretical

utility. It confuses, rather than aids, in the formulation of theory and
the related project of hypothesis testing, not least because the concept
is so fluid that analysts can easily define it in the way that best fits
their data.
Methodological discussions are often esoteric and best kept within
scholarly circles, but this one has real world relevance to development
policy. Donor agencies regularly measure and assess the quality of
governance, and may condition assistance on these measurements.
The Millennium Challenge Corporation of course is one of the most
explicit in doing so, but it is in good company. Donors also purport to
design and implement evidence-based policies on governance reform.
They further justify this focus on good governance partly on the basis
of evidence that better governance promotes economic development.
Difficulties
The weakness of the good governance concept, however, calls into

question each of these projects. Without stronger concepts, donor
agencies have no clear basis upon which to argue the merits of one
measurement versus another or to evaluate the relative importance of
various components of governance in any classification. Without better
measures, donor agencies cannot, in a rigorous manner, empirically
test hypotheses about how political and economic institutions change,
much less develop evidence-based strategies about how to positively
influence this change. Nor can they be very convincing about the rigor
of quantitative findings suggesting a causal relationship between
(weakly-conceptualized) measures of governance and development
outcomes.
Rwanda provides just one illustration of some of these issues. As many
observers note, Rwanda has made clear progress in terms of economic
growth, public sector management, and regulatory reform since the
genocide in 1994. As many other observers note, its record with
respect to democracy and respect for civil and political rights has been
extremely problematic. Should Rwanda be considered well governed
because of its economic progress, or poorly governed because of its
democratic deficits? The UKs Department for International
Development (DFID), for instance, has been the largest bilateral donor
in Rwanda, effectively arguing the former. Human Rights Watch,
among others, sharply criticized DFID policy last year, effectively
arguing the latter.
The question of how to improve governance? is of course the most
pressing from a policy perspective. However, this question cannot be
rigorously answered without better addressing the concept of good
governance: how to improve what exactly?. These points are
discussed in greater depth in my forthcoming working paper, Good
Governance as a Concept, and Why This Matters for Development
Policy. The paper provides a review of donor approaches to
governance, discusses conceptual issues in greater depth, and argues
that one promising way forward is to disaggregate the concept of good
governance and to refocus our attention and analysis on its various
disaggregated components (e.g., democracy, civil and political rights,
public sector management). In short, the term good governance has
become a catchy shorthand way to describe a variety of political and
economic institutions and outcomes and is thus likely to remain in
common public usage, but, as is, it is not a useful concept for

development analysts and policy makers.
Rachel M. Gisselquist is a Research Fellow with UNU-WIDER. Research
on the ReCom Aid, Governance, and Fragility theme can be found
at: ReCom: Governance, and Fragility.
http://recom.wider.unu.edu/.
WIDER Angle newsletter
January 2012
ISSN 1238-9544

What Does Good Governance Mean

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What Does Good Governance Mean?

In general, work by the World Bank and other multilateral development

environment for private sector activities (including price systems,

First, good governance lacks parsimony. Unlike good concepts,

Second, good governance lacks differentiation. Well-governed

Third, good governance lacks coherence. Its many possible

Fourth, and most important, good governance lacks theoretical

The weakness of the good governance concept, however, calls into

common public usage, but, as is, it is not a useful concept for

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