The Hindu Business Line : Quality of governance

When one talks about national ‘governance’, one is generally aiming at describing the quality of life in a country. In other words, how secure does one feel in terms of law and order, in terms of being able to say what one wants to say in public, in being able to earn a livelihood, in meeting basic health requirements, in being able to live comfortably on one’s earnings… The list is can go on because human requirements are endless.

Bad governance would mean that under a majority of heads, such as those listed above, the citizen would be dissatisfied. In other words, in such areas, the national government concerned could do a lot more to improve conditions, to make its citizens a happier lot, generally speaking. Further, in a situation where good governance also leads to rapid economic development, the government of the day can be described as having done a great job.

But it is also possible to usher in a regime of rapid economic development even when the quality of governance is not all that commendable. Thus, under a dictatorship, the means of earning a livelihood may be ensured fully and one may have at one’s doorstep the best medical facilities available. But, of course, one has to be extremely careful about what one says in public (maybe even in private), which certainly cannot be described as being one of the goals of ‘good governance’.

Multi-Faceted concept

It is, therefore, clear that the concept of ‘governance’ is many-faceted and is totally dependent on the perspective of the beholder. It follows that what is good governance to one person may not be so to another. If this is so, efforts being made today to establish indices of governance must necessarily become complex exercises, the descriptions of ‘good’ and ‘poor’ being determined solely by parameters set by those who conduct the exercises.

It is from this perspective that the Worldwide Governance Indicators 1996-2006 — prepared by the staff of the World Bank — should be seen, the one comforting thought being that since the World Bank is involved, the benchmarks applied to what is good governance and what is not are within the bounds of acceptability to people who believe that Man cannot live by bread alone.

Thus, among other things, the document says that, “Government effectiveness measures the quality of public services, the quality of the civil service and the degree of its independence from political pressures, the quality of policy formulation and implementation, and the credibility of the government’s commitment to those policies.”. The crux of the issue here is “independence from political pressures” because this precisely is what “good governance” all about to a whole lot of people. The problem is that while the attribute concerned is indispensable to the definition of ‘good governance’, it is also extremely difficult to find because of the propensity of human beings to control the levers of power (both political and administrative, sometimes even military).

To the authors of the indices, “governance consists of the traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised. This includes the process by which governments are selected, monitored and replaced; the capacity of the government to effectively formulate and implement sound policies; and the respect of citizens and the state for the institutions that govern economic and social interactions among them.” This is the general canvas.

Six Sectors

In order to facilitate detailed investigations, the report has broken it up into six specific sectors — political stability and absence of violence, voice and accountability, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption.

What precisely are these sectors (apart from ‘government effectiveness’ which has been defined above)? According to the report, ‘voice and accountability’ is the “the extent to which a country’s citizens are able to participate in selecting their government, as well as freedom of expression, freedom of association, and a free media.” ‘Political stability and absence of violence’ comprises “perceptions of the likelihood that the government will be destabilized or overthrown by unconstitutional or violent means, including domestic violence and terrorism.”. ‘Regulatory quality’ is the “the ability of the government to formulate and implement sound policies and regulations that permit and promote private sector development.” ‘Rule of law’ represents “the extent to which agents have confidence in and abide by the rules of society, and in particular the quality of contract enforcement, the police, and the courts, as well as the likelihood of crime and violence.” ‘Control of corruption’ is “the extent to which public power is exercised for private gain, including both petty and grand forms of corruption, as well as ‘capture’ of the state by elites and private interests.”

Pictorial representations of two of the six attributes greet the reader at the very beginning and, at least to this correspondent, it sprang no surprises. Thus, the “best governed” parts of the world as far as “government effectiveness” is concerned in the period covered by the study are, of course, North America, parts of northern and western Europe, and Australia and New Zealand. Countries such as France, Spain, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and South Africa follow. The next group of countries include India, Ghana, China, Brazil, Mexico, Thailand and parts of Europe (including Italy). As for ‘rule of law’, the best governed are the US, northern Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. This group is followed by India, South Africa, eastern Europe, Italy and Ghana, among others. Next come China, Brazil, and Mexico, followed by Russia, the central Asian countries, and others.

Issue of Measuring

The report quotes Lord Kelvin as saying that “if you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it”. Indeed, why only ‘improve’? Things could worsen — and only measurement can tell us by how much. One point the report makes, which could be of interest to us in India, is that it is a fallacy to think that significant progress to improve governance and curb corruption cannot occur in a short time. The findings are cited to indicate that, between 1998 and 2006, “significant changes in at least one of the six governance indicators occurred in roughly one-third of countries, some for the better and some for the worse. And even over shorter periods such as 2002-2006, significant changes in governance have occurred in roughly 1 in 10 countries.”

For those who feel that India will see even greater corruption in the years ahead because of the sheer size of the problem today and the long tentacles it has developed extending into the very entrails of the nation’s body-politic, there is then still hope. If there is adequate effort coupled with effective measurement tools, results can follow — or so runs the argument. As the report tells us, there have been ‘improvements in governance’ even in some African countries ‘although others have seen declines’.