Global Futures Initiative

The concept of governance is widely contested. It is not systematically operationalized across institutions, and is inconsistently applied. Definitional ambiguity is common across development institutions and temporally within institutions. Proponents cite the need for “good governance” in order to ensure “desirable” developmental outcomes; opponents, on the other hand, including some aid recipients, argue that the positivist approach followed by developmental institutions in conjunction with their liberal bias compromises said developmental outcomes in ways that are not well understood.

Rachel Gisselquist, in a UNU-WIDER 2012 working paper, examines definitions used by the UN,  multilateral development banks, the European Commission, the IMF, and the OECD, and finds seven core components that are part of the overall working definitions of governance as conceptualized by said institutions: (1) democracy and representation, (2) human rights, (3) the rule of law, (4) effective and efficient public management, (5) transparency and accountability, (6) developmentalist objectives, and (7) a varying range of particular political and economic policies, programs, and institutions (e.g., elections, a legislature, a free press, secure property rights). [1]

Although Gisselquist argues that the major focus for development institutions should be these disaggregated components individually, some of these concepts are themselves contested, democracy being one example. Although popular metrics are available to measure some of these concepts – for example, Freedom House Score and Polity IV Score for measuring democracy – critics of such metrics have rightly argued that they do not, at times, convey much more than the score itself. This comprises part of the overall critique of the positivist bias made by certain development-related constituencies, including scholars and civil society, against the technique of operationalization, measurement, and impact evaluation followed by development institutions in general.

Some scholars and development professionals within major development organizations have sought a more ethnographic approach towards evaluating outcomes of development projects. [2] Such studies enable us to explore the nuances behind the numbers, and provide an insight into the dynamic ecosystem of the multiplicity of factors at play that have an impact on project outcomes. Such an approach is, by no means, perfect, but it’s a start to understanding the complicated functional areas and related dependencies that are characteristic of the development world.

Arunjana Das is pursuing her PhD in international relations at American University. She previously worked as a junior professional associate in operations policy and country services at the World Bank.

[1] See Rachel M. Gisselquist, “Good Governance as a Concept, and Why This Matters for Development Policy”, UNU-WIDER Working Paper No. 2012/30, March 2012
[2] For an example, see Ananthpur, Kripa, Kabir Malik, and Vijayendra Rao. “Anatomy of Failure: An Ethnography of a Randomized Trial to Deepen Democracy in Rural India.” World Bank Policy Research 6958, 2014.