What we talk about when we talk about governance
By Joel | May 28, 2008 | 1 Comment »
The word “governance” was made up by the donors. In most countries I have worked in there is no satisfactory translation for the word governance. Indonesians sometimes use the expression “tata pemerintahan yang baik” but that’s such a mouthful that most people, regardless of how little English they actually know, end up just sprinkling the English word governance into their Indonesian sentences. I can’t tell you how many times in governance seminars, governance workshops and governance conferences in all of the countries I have worked in, someone invariably stands up, takes a self-satisfied sigh and says, “And what exactly do you mean by the word governance?” Before I came to the World Bank, I taught political science for years at Columbia and Harvard and yet I never came across the word governance in any serious academic literature (and to this day, you will rarely find the term in any major political science journals). And yet here I am in Jakarta as a “Governance Adviser.”
What has become quite clear to me working in the field is that governance is a donor word to talk about a lot of concepts and realities that are quite familiar to everyone — politics, power, the state, influence — but which donors are not supposed to get involved in. Governance is, therefore, a politically neutral way to refer to politics. For what is “the manner by which authority is obtained, transferred and exercised” (a common definition of governance) but simply another way of saying politics. Is there such a thing as governance divorced from politics? Is there a technocratic science of governance that is somehow not a function of the political process? Conceptually, it doesn’t make sense. And I can tell you that in practice, governance reform is all about politics and power. (Of course, economic reform is all about politics and power too, but that could be the subject of a whole other blog).
By referring to governance, we are holding out the hope that there is indeed some politically neutral characteristics of the manner by which authority is obtained, transfered and exercised and that this can be influenced by donors. Fat chance. Sure, there are principles of transparency and accountability that can be applied to many different situations and contexts. But the act of governance reform is inevitably a political act, contingent on the political process with implications for the dynamics of power and influence across individuals, groups and institutions.
Okay, so what harm does it do to make up a concept like governance and pretend that it is somehow not a placeholder for politics and power? Well, it misleads those working in the field to believe that governance reform is all about a set of technocratic best practices and monitorable indicators that can be applied in just about any context to produce concrete outcomes in terms of transparency and accountability. Anyone working in the field knows how best practices when adopted can be manipulated by underlying power dynamics to produce distorted outcomes. Anyone working in the field knows that most governance indicators conceal massive measurement errors (about which precious few are explicit in defining). Anyone working in the field knows that governance reforms are rarely, if ever, technocratic reforms, but are used by clever (and sometimes, not so clever) politicians as a way of winning support, building or breaking coalitions and reshaping the dynamics of political influence. Therefore, all governance reforms have political motives and are shaped by political boundaries. By talking about governance as opposed to politics, power, and influence, we talk around the very dynamics that will drive (or thwart) change. This is the donors’ dilemma.
Does this mean that donors must get involved in politics to affect governance reform? Of course not. There are very few countries in the world, even the heavily indebted countries, where donors have that much clout. Again, anyone working in the field knows that those days are long gone. Politicians and powerholders will engage in governance reform in response to their own political interests, not because of the influence of donors. But our assistance on governance reform must be based on a sophisticated understanding of these political dynamics. And that means a very different way of working on technical assistance than donors have done in the past.
I hope this blog can be a forum to discuss some concrete experiences of governance reform and the political dynamics that drive them, so we can better understand the realities of governance reform. In this blog, I’d like to confront about this dilemma by talking about actual experiences of governance reform and encourage others to do the same.
Topics: Aid Effectiveness | 1 Comment
Introducing first guest blogger: Joel Hellman
By Kaufmann | May 28, 2008 | No Comments »
I have asked a few select guest bloggers to join me on this blog. They will no doubt enrich it by bringing in their own various perspectives and experiences from different horizons.
Today I am pleased to introduce Joel Hellman as the first guest blogger on this blog. Joel is a longtime colleague and is currently the Manager for the Governance and Public Sector Group in the South Asia Regional Vice-Presidendy of the World Bank. Before this, he was as Governance Adviser for the Indonesia Country Team of the World Bank, based in Jakarta, where he has spearheaded efforts to integrate governance and public sector reform issues into the Bank’s entire country program. Joel is regarded as a leading expert in public sector reform and political economy within and outside the World Bank.
Topics: Corruption | Read and Submit Comments
‘Governance Matters’: A new blog on governance at the World Bank
By Kaufmann | May 26, 2008 | No Comments »
With the just launched ‘Governance Matters’ blog, the World Bank has now fully joined the governance blogosphere. The idea was afoot for many months. There was initial pushback by a few higher ups. But support from many quarters and persistence prevailed, helped by the growing recognition of the importance of blogging in today’s world. And this personal blog I have hosted for a few short months in this space also helped in getting the Bank blog finally going. You, the reader and blogger, also get some credit. The new blog’s name ’Governance Matters’ was suggested by a blog expert at the Bank, perhaps influenced by the series of empirically-based reports with that title we started a decade ago.
I was asked to host this new ‘Governance Matters’ blog at the World Bank. But it will be a collective endeavour, with guest bloggers and many contributors. Not only there will be blog entries from various bloggers in the institutional Bank blog, but there will also be more focus on materials drawn from governance work at the World Bank itself (and other donor agencies) than in this personal blog space of mine (even if some of my own blog entries may be cross-posted or cross-linked).
In this ongoing personal blog I will also continue to have entries of a more personal naature, including some on music and art (or on governance fun, or entries like Obama vs. Clinton story, as well as others on governance), which will not be in the Bank’s institutional blog.
The World Bank is running a feature web story on this, which can be seen here. It is generating quite a bit of internal debate and commentary in the internal Bank website. The aim is to try to continue a tradition of ’straight talk’ and make that work in the institutional World Bank blog, as in this one. Let us see.
All are welcome to join the Governance Matters space as well.
Topics: Aid Effectiveness, Corruption, Measurement Frontiers, Public Financial Management, Public-Private Linkages, Rule of Law, Transparency, Voice and Human Rights | Read and Submit Comments
Human Rights, Aid Effectiveness, and Development: a few findings for debate today, and tomorrow…
By Kaufmann | May 15, 2008 | No Comments »
Today, May 15th, an initiative called Bloggers Unite for Human Rights, was launched. The international NGO on Human Rights, Amnesty International, is partnering with BlogCatalog.com, the bloggers’ social network, so to raise global social awareness on this important issue. Bloggers around the world are being asked to post about human rights. Hundreds of postings on this issue entered the blogosphere over the past 24 hours alone.
Let me contribute modestly to this day’s initiative, based on some research we have carried out on the link between Human Rights and Development. Let me keep some perspective, though, and not focus just on research today: first I should highlight the concrete priority of saving countless lives in places like Burma (Myanmar), where assistance to the desperately needy is being hampered by an unresponsive regime there, and by the timid response so far by other governments in the (ASEAN) region. Such human tragedy, unravelling right now, in real time, offers a poignant illustration of the extent to which respect for Human Rights does matter. About the last thing the Burmese people need right now is a presentation on ‘research findings’.
More generally, for initiatives in many other less extreme situations, a global analysis based on data may spur further debate within both the international development and human rights communities — insofar as these findings have implications for development aid effectiveness. For too long, the question of human rights in development has been inadequately dealt with. For starters: a decade ago we published research codifying the extent to which aid-financed investment projects in developing countries are more likely to succeed where civil liberties are present (link here). The implications of that finding are quite obvious, yet there has been reticence to discuss, let alone to act on, them.
More recently we looked at the broader links between civil liberties and political rights, on the one hand, and socio-economic developmental rights and outcomes, on the other. Let me highlight here 4 implications from that work (link here to the background materials):…
Topics: Aid Effectiveness, Corruption, Measurement Frontiers, Rule of Law, Transparency, Voice and Human Rights | Read and Submit Comments
Obama vs. Clinton: distraction from world reality?
By Kaufmann | May 13, 2008 | 2 Comments »
I don’t get it. Late in the evening I watch CNN news. For the past week it has been saturated with interminable reporting on the Obama-Clinton democratic candidate contest. Many pundits have been paraded and asked for opinions on trivia. Obscure (until now) ’superdelegates’ have been interviewed, even if it is to say that hey still ’sit on the fence’.
One could argue that this constant reporting is right now very important to many Americans (which I am not) during this crucial election year. If only it would matter: unless my math is flawed, the contest for the democratic nomination has been effectively over for a week already, ever since the North Carolina and Indiana primaries. Yet the cameras keep rolling, obsessed with campaign trivia, on ocassion interspeded by a report on the weird Texas cult.
It could also be argued that there are weeks where there is little else of importance to report. But consider this list:
—Well over 50,000 Burmese citizens are believed dead following last week’s cyclone there, compounded by their own government’s callous unwillingness to let urgent help in. Now more than a million people face famine and disease unless the government fully relents, letting urgently required aid reaching the afflicted, and other countries step up their aid.
—On Monday there was a devastating earthquake in the southwestern province of Sichuan in China, exacting a terrible toll in human lives, which is rapidly climbing to 20,000, many of them children trapped in schools that collapsed. It is the worst earthquake in China in 30 years.
—Earlier in the day there was major terrorism in the tourist center of the city of Jaipur in India, where a set of seven coordinated bombs exploded within a short period of time in the old city, killing over 60 people and injuring many scores more…
Topics: Transparency, Voice and Human Rights | 2 Comments
Threat to sports: corruption or politics?
By Kaufmann | May 12, 2008 | No Comments »
Corruption in sports has often been big news. Whether related to match-fixing in soccer, involving referees, goalies or other players — be them in Italy, Germany, Kenya, Brazil, China, or elsewhere —, or in cricket, or in other sports. Or buying the votes of some members of the International Olympics Committee (IOC), so to give the award to the the briber’s city. Or judges making backroom deals in figure skating.
While such cases of corruption have taken place, it is not clear that it is a systemic scourge in most sports. It is misleading to generalize and taint all in sports by association. There are many institutions, athletes, soccer and other sports clubs that operate with integrity, promoting positive societal values and providing good role models to the younger generation. At the same time, we need to be mindful of the reply by a famous bank robber, who answered the question of why he robs banks by stating simply ’that is where the money is’. Some professional sports entities are also a huge commercial enterprise. Likewise with some college sports programs in the US, where financial considerations rule. In these lucrative sports settings, the rate of temptation is high.
Thus, some instititutions and individuals in sports are bound to be vulnerable to corruption, and therefore vigilance is in order, with emphasis on integrity in leadership in the main sports institutions, as well as emphasis in deterrence and detection sytems, including the watchful eye of the media. Some movies may also help in raising awareness and instilling good values. However contrived its plot, this weekend’s movie debut of the special effects remake of the old animated Speed Racer may be an example, since in the words of a blogger, ‘corruption is pretty good as a driver for action movies’...
But it is important to look beyond the sensationalistic…
Topics: Corruption, Transparency, Voice and Human Rights | Read and Submit Comments
Gobernabilidad o Gobernanza?: ‘Governance’ en español, en breve
By Kaufmann | May 8, 2008 | 1 Comment »
[I will continue to regularly blog in english. But I take the liberty of having a brief entry in spanish, acknowledging my roots and the many bloggers and readers of this blog who originate from spanish-speaking countries and their websites. And of course anybody is welcomed to use the web-based translator (down on the right), even if far from accurate…]
Hasta ahora solamente he escrito en inglés en este blog que comencé recientemente. A pesar de eso, ya me ha quedado claro que muchos de los lectores del blog provienen de paises de habla hispana. Agradecido estoy. Y como soy chileno, aunque residiendo en EEUU, de vez en cuando escribiré algo en español. Y comentarios en castellano de bloggers y lectores también son bienvenidos en este blog.
Es interesante que de un punto de vista conceptual estamos mas avanzados en la terminología de ‘Governance’ que en inglés: en castellano hay dos conceptos relevantes, y no solo uno como en inglés, y por lo tanto podemos distinguir mejor entre una definicion ‘angosta’, enfocada en el gobierno y su gestion publica, por un lado, y una interpretación que abarca mas, por el otro. Una interpretación mas amplia de ‘governance’ en castellano no es capturada adecuadamente por el concepto tradicional de ‘gobernabilidad’, sino por el de ‘gobernanza’…
Topics: Transparency | 1 Comment
Rule of Law Matters: is it that shocking?
By Kaufmann | May 6, 2008 | 1 Comment »
The National Townhall meeting on Rule of Law, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Law Day, did take place a few days ago. I was the only non-legal expert in the panel. Apparently that drew some curiosity, as I gather from the American Bar Association (ABA) story here. They write that it takes an economist to point out that Rule of Law matters…
Conversely, the ABA story also mentions that I made an admission (made half in jest; it did get a chuckle from the large audience): that some years back economists did come to the realization that not all economic outcomes resulted from economic determinants. Non-economic factors, such as rule of law, also matter for growth and other economic development results… Oh well, all this has been around for quite a while, and it was also a central issue in the Economist article recently and in the blog commentary.
One issue debated during the Townhall panel was whether one should subscribe to the ‘thin’ or ‘thick’ definition of rule of law (also in the Economist). Some legal scholars in the panel opted for a thinner interpretation, while I warned against the dangers of ‘unjust’ law when subscribing to an ’anorexic’ approach which narrowly interprets rule of law as ‘law and order’. Instead, I argued for a broader interpretation – yet falling short of a definition which would be so ‘fat’ that it becomes a tautological ‘catch all’, and hence useless…
Topics: Measurement Frontiers, Rule of Law, Voice and Human Rights | 1 Comment
World Press Freedom Day (and a few long nights…?)
By Kaufmann | May 3, 2008 | No Comments »
Today is World Press Freedom Day. Timely. Because the goal of having a free press around the world remains elusive. About two-thirds of the countries in the world (and almost three-quarter of developing countries) do not have a free press, according to Freedom House. And there is no evidence that on average there has been a significant improvement over the past decade or so. The number of countries formally classified as democracies has been growing for a couple of decades. But too often the transition towards formal elections, or to allowing more than one official political party, have not been translated into a freer press.
At the World Bank and its Institute (the WBI, where I head the Governance group during working hours…), this year we are marking World Press Freedom Day by launching a new book on broadcast media, ‘Broadcasting, Voice and Accountability’ (link here). It emphasizes the importance of broadcast media media for making governments accountable and giving voice to the world’s poor, including those who cannot read. The book is being launched at the UNESCO conference on Freedom of Expression taking place right now in Maputo, Mozambique, marking the ‘Day‘. The book reflects a 5-year collective effort by authors from the World Association of Community Broadcasters, ARTICLE 19, Global Campaign for Free Expression, Campaign for Communication Rights in the Information Society, U. Penn’s Annenberg School of Communication, McGill Univ., and WBI…
Topics: Aid Effectiveness, Transparency, Voice and Human Rights | Read and Submit Comments
Blogging responsibly for Good Governance: does the market work?
By Kaufmann | May 2, 2008 | No Comments »
Last couple of blog entries where on blogging and good governance, the first focused on IFIs, the second on countries and governments, providing recent illustrations from Africa.
In fact the Christian Science Monitor (CSM) recently had an interesting article which called blogging the ‘Africans’ newest form of dissent’. Like in my previous blog entry, this article also referred to the role played by blogging during the vote count in Zimbabwe. Further, it contains a full story about blogging in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Yet towards the end of the CSM article, caution is thrown to the wind: ‘Africa expert Leonard Vincent, with the Paris-based journalism watchdog group Reporters Without Borders (RSF), says that while expanding freedom of speech in Africa is important, some opposition and rebel blogs are taking it too far. “You have the personal bloggers and the political bloggers: Political parties publish whatever they want – full of libel, defamation, violence, sometimes very graphic images,” Mr. Vincent says. “I have the feeling that the ones who are blogging in an individual way are more conscious of their responsibility and are more likely to be measured and moderate in the publication than those who use the Internet and their Web sites as war tools or propaganda tools.” ‘ …..
Topics: Aid Effectiveness, Corruption, Transparency, Voice and Human Rights | Read and Submit Comments
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