Man is by nature a political animal

WHAT IS POLITICS?

Andrew HeywoodIn the early stages of academic study students are invariably encouraged to reflect on what the subject itself is about, usually by being asked questions such as 'What is History?', 'What is Economics? or 'What is Astrophysics?'. Such reflections have the virtue of letting students know what they are in for: what they are about to study and what issues or topics are going to be raised. Unfortunately for students of politics, however, the question 'What is Politics?' is more likely to generate confusion rather than bring comfort and reassurance. The problem is that debate, argument and disagreement lie at the very heart of politics, and the definition of 'the political' is no exception.

Defining PoliticsPolitics, in its broadest sense, is the activity through which people make, preserve and amend the general rules under which they live. As such, politics is inextricably linked to the phenomena of conflict and cooperation. On the one hand, the existence of rival opinions, different wants, competing needs or opposing interests guarantees disagreement about the rules under which people live. On the other hand, people recognise that in order to influence these rules or ensure that they are upheld, they must work with others. This is why the heart of the politics is often portrayed as a process of conflict-resolution, in which rival views or competing interests are reconciled with one another. However, politics in this broad sense is better thought of as a search for conflict-resolution than as its achievement, since not all conflicts are - or can be - resolved.

Nevertheless, when examined more closely, this broad definition of politics raises as many questions as it answers. For instance, does 'politics' refer to a particular way in which rules are made, preserved or amended (that is, peacefully, by debate), or to all such processes? Similarly, is politics practised in all social contexts and institutions, or only in certain ones (that is, government and public life)? There are, in other words, a number of more specific definitions of politics; indeed, it sometimes appears that there are as many definitions as there are authorities willing to offer an opinion on the subject. The main definitions nevertheless can be broken down into four categories: politics as the art of government; politics as public affairs; politics as compromise; and politics as power .

Politics as the art of government

'Politics is not a science... but an art', Chancellor Bismarck is reputed to have told the German Reichstag. The art Bismarck had in mind was the art of government, the exercise of control within society through the making and enforcement of collective decisions. This is perhaps the classical definition of politics, having developed from the original meaning of the term in Ancient Greece.

The word 'politics' is derived from polis, literally meaning city-state. Ancient Greek society was divided into a collection of independent city-states, each of which possessed its own system of government. The largest and most influential of these was Athens, often portrayed as the cradle of democratic government. In this light, politics can be understood to refer to the affairs of the polis, in effect, 'what concerns the polis'. The modern form of this definition is therefore: 'what concerns the state'. This view of politics is clearly evident in the everyday use of the term: people are said to be 'in politics' when they hold public office, or to be 'entering politics' when they seek to do so. It is also a definition which academic political science has helped to perpetuate.

In many ways the notion that politics amounts to 'what concerns the state' is the traditional view of the discipline, reflected in the tendency for academic study to focus upon the personnel and machinery of government. To study politics is in essence to study government, or more broadly, to study the exercise of authority. David Easton thus defined politics as the 'authoritative allocation of values'. By this he meant that politics encompasses the various processes through which government responds to pressures from the larger society, in particular by allocating benefits, rewards or penalties. 'Authoritative values' are therefore ones that are widely accepted in society and considered binding by the mass of citizens. In this view, politics is associated with 'policy', with formal or authoritative decisions that establish a plan of action for the community.

However, this definition offers a highly restricted view of politics. Politics is what takes place within a 'polity', a system of social organisation centred upon the machinery of government. Politics can therefore be found in cabinet rooms, legislative chambers, government departments and the like, and it is engaged in by a limited and specific group of people, notably politicians, civil servants and lobbyists. This means that most people, most institutions and most social activities are 'outside' politics. Businesses, schools and other educational institutions, community groups, families and so on, are in this sense 'non-political', because they are not engaged in 'running the country'.

This definition can, however, be narrowed still further. This is evident in the tendency to treat politics as the equivalent of party politics. In other words, the realm of 'the political' is restricted to those state actors who are consciously motivated by ideological beliefs and who seek to advance them through membership of a formal organisation like a political party. This is the sense in which politicians are described as 'political' whereas civil servants are seen as 'non-political', so long as, of course, they act in a neutral and professional fashion. Similarly, judges are taken to be 'non-political' figures while they interpret the law impartially and in accordance with the available evidence, but may be accused of being 'political' if their judgement is influenced by personal preferences or some other form of bias.

Politics as public affairs

The second conception of politics moves it beyond the narrow realm of government to what is thought of as 'public life' or 'public affairs'. In other words, the distinction between 'the political' and 'the non-political' coincides with the division between an essentially public sphere of life and what can be thought of as a private sphere. Such a view of politics is often traced back to the work of the famous Greek philosopher, Aristotle. In Politics, Aristotle declared that 'Man is by nature a political animal', by which he meant that it is only within a political community that human beings can live 'the good life'. Politics is, then, an ethical activity concerned with creating a 'just society'; it is what Aristotle called the 'master science'.

However, where should the line between 'public' life and 'private' life be drawn? The traditional distinction between the public realm and the private realm conforms to the division between the state and civil society. The institutions of the state - the apparatus of government, the courts, the police, the army, the society security system and so forth - can be regarded as 'public' in the sense that they are responsible for the collective organisation of community life. Moreover, they are funded at the public's expense, out of taxation. By contrast, civil society consists of institutions like the family and kinship groups, private businesses, trade unions, clubs, community groups and so on, that are 'private' in the sense that they are set up and funded by individual citizens to satisfy their own interests, rather than those of the larger society. On the basis of this 'public/private' division, politics is restricted to the activities of the state itself and the responsibilities which are properly exercised by public bodies. Those areas of life in which individuals can and do manage for themselves - economic, social, domestic, personal, cultural, artistic and so on - are therefore clearly 'non-political'.

An alternative 'public/private' divide is sometimes expressed in a further and more subtle distinction, namely between 'the political' and 'the personal'. Although civil society can be distinguished from the state, it nevertheless contains a range of institutions that are thought of as 'public' in the wider sense that they are open institutions, operating in public and to which the public has access. It is therefore possible to argue that politics takes place in workplace. Nevertheless, although this view regards institutions like businesses, community groups, clubs and trade unions as 'public', it remains a restricted view of politics. According to this perspective, politics does not, and should not, infringe upon 'personal' affairs and institutions. Feminist thinkers in particular have pointed out that this implies that politics effectively stops at the front door; it does not take place in the family, in domestic life or in personal relationships. Politicians, for example, tend to classify their own sexual behaviour or financial affairs as 'personal' matters, thereby denying that they have political significance in the sense that they do not touch on their conduct of public affairs.

Politics as compromise and consensusThe third conception of politics refers not so much to the arena within which politics is conducted as to the way in which decisions are made. Specifically, politics is seen as a particular means of resolving conflict, namely by compromise, conciliation and negotiation, rather than through a resort to force and naked power. This is what is implied when politics is portrayed as 'the art of the possible'. Such a definition is evident in the everyday use of the term. For instance, a 'political' solution to a problem implies peaceful debate and arbitration, by contrast with what is often called a 'military' solution. Bernard Crick, a leading proponent of this view, defined politics as follows:

Politics (is) the activity by which differing interests within a given unit of rule are conciliated by giving them a share in power in proportion to their importance to the welfare and the survival of the whole community.

The key to politics is therefore a wide dispersal of power. Accepting that conflict is inevitable, Crick argued that when social groups and interests possess power they must be conciliated, they cannot merely be crushed. This is why he portrayed politics as 'that solution to the problem of order which chooses conciliation rather than violence and coercion'. Such a view of politics reflects a resolute faith in the efficacy of debate and discussion, as well as the belief that society is characterised by consensus rather than by irreconcilable conflict. In other words, the disagreements that exist can be resolved without a resort to intimidation and violence. Critics, however, point out that Crick's conception of politics is heavily biased towards the form of politics that takes place in western pluralist democracies; in effect, he equated politics with electoral choice and party competition. As a result, his model has little to tell us about, say, one-party states or military regimes.Politics as powerThe fourth definition of politics is both the broadest and the most radical. Rather than confining politics to a particular sphere - the government, the state or the 'public' realm - this sees politics at work in all social activities and in every corner of human existence. As Adrian Leftwich put it: 'Politics is at the heart of all collective social activity, formal and informal, public and private, in all human groups, institutions and societies'. In this sense, politics takes place at every level of social interaction; it can be found within families and amongst small groups of friends just as much as within nations and on the global stage. However, what is it that is distinctive about political activity? What marks off politics from any other form of social behaviour?

At its broadest, politics concerns the production, distribution and use of resources in the course of social existence. Politics, in essence, is power: the ability to achieve a desired outcome, through whatever means. This notion was neatly summed up in the title of Harold Lasswell's book Politics: Who Gets What, When, How?. True, politics is about diversity and conflict, but this is enriched by the existence of scarcity, by the simple fact that while human needs and desires are infinite, the resources available to satisfy them are always limited. Politics is therefore a struggle over scarce resources, and power is the means through which this struggle is conducted.

Advocates of this view of power include feminists and Marxists. Modern feminists have shown particular interest in the idea of 'the political'. This arises from the fact that conventional definitions of politics effectively exclude women from political life. Women have traditionally been confined to a 'private' sphere of existence, centred on the family and domestic responsibilities. Radical feminists have therefore attacked the 'public/private' divide, proclaiming instead that 'the personal is the political'. This slogan neatly encapsulates the radical feminist belief that what goes on in domestic, family and personal life is intensely political, indeed it is the basis of all other political struggles. Clearly, a more radical notion of politics underlies this position. This was summed up by Kate Millett as, 'power-structured relationships, arrangements whereby one group of persons is controlled by another'. Feminists are therefore concerned with 'the politics of everyday life'. In their view, relationships within the family, between husbands and wives, or between parents and children, are every bit as political as relationships between employers and workers, or between government and citizens.

Marxists have used the term politics in two senses. On one level, Marx used 'politics' in a conventional sense to refer to the apparatus of the state. In the Communist Manifesto he thus referred to political power as 'merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another'. For Marx, politics, together with law and culture, are part of a 'superstructure', distinct from the economic 'base', which is the real foundation of social life. However, he did not see the economic 'base' and the legal and the political 'superstructure' as entirely separate, but believed that the 'superstructure' arose out of, and reflected, the economic 'base'. At a deeper level, political power is therefore rooted in the class system; as V. I. Lenin put it: 'Politics is the most concentrated form of economics'. Far from believing that politics can be confined to the state and a narrow public sphere, Marxists can be said to believe that 'the economic is political'. From this perspective, civil society, characterised as Marxists believe it to be by class struggle, is the very heart of politics.

References

For a broader discussion of politics, government and the state see Heywood, A. Political Theory: An Introduction. London: Palgrave, Ch. 3.

Easton, D. (1981) The Political System. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Aristotle (1948) Politics, ed. E. Baker. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Crick, B. (1993) In Defence of Politics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 21.

Crick, B. ibid ., 30.

Leftwich, A. What is Politics?: The Activity and its Study. Oxford: Blackwell, 64.

Lasswell, H. (1936) Politics: Who Get What, When, How? New York: McGraw-Hill.

Millett, K. (1970) Sexual Politics. London: Granada, 23.

Marx, K and Engels, F. (1970) Communist Manifesto. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 105.

Governance

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the concept of Governance. For the journal Governance, see Governance (journal).

This article needs attention from an expert in Philosophy or Business. Please add a reason or a talk parameter to this template to explain the issue with the article. WikiProject Philosophy or WikiProject Business (or their Portals) may be able to help recruit an expert. (February 2009)

Part of a series on

Governance

Models

Collaborative Good Multistakeholder Open-source Private

By level

Local Global

By field

Climate Clinical Corporate Data Earth system Ecclesiastical Environmental Higher education Information Network Ocean Political party Project Self Service-oriented architecture Soil Technology Transnational Website

Measures

World Governance Index

Sustainable Governance Indicators

Related topics

Chief governance officer

Governance, risk management

and compliance

E-governance

Environmental, social and

corporate governance

Market governance mechanism

v t e

Governance refers to "all processes of governing, whether undertaken by a government, market, or network, whether over a family, tribe, formal or informal organization, or territory, and whether through laws, norms, power, or language."[1] It relates to processes and decisions that seek to define actions, grant power, and verify performance.

In general terms, governance occurs in three broad ways:[citation needed]

Through networks involving public-private partnerships (PPP) or with the collaboration of community organisations;

Through the use of market mechanisms whereby market principles of competition serve to allocate resources while operating under government regulation;

Through top-down methods that primarily involve governments and the state bureaucracy.

To distinguish the term governance from government: "governance" is the concrete activity that reproduces a formal or informal organization. If the organization is a formal one, governance is primarily about what the relevant "governing body" does. If the organization is an informal one, such as a market, governance is primarily about the rules and norms that guide the relevant activity. Whether the organization is a geo-political entity (nation-state), a corporate entity (business entity), a socio-political entity (chiefdom, tribe, family, etc.), or an informal one, its governance is the way the rules and actions are produced, sustained, and regulated.

Contents [hide]

1 Origin of the word

2 Different uses

2.1 Governance as Process

2.2 Public governance

2.3 Private governance

2.4 Global governance

2.5 Non-profit governance

2.6 Corporate governance

2.7 Project governance

2.8 Environmental governance

2.9 Internet governance

2.10 Information technology governance

2.11 Regulatory governance

2.12 Participatory governance

2.13 Multilevel governance

2.14 Metagovernance

2.15 Collaborative governance

3 Governance as a normative concept

3.1 Fair governance

3.2 Good governance

3.3 Measuring governance

4 Seat of government

5 See also

6 References

7 Literature

8 External links

Origin of the word[edit]

The word governance derives from the Greek verb [kuberno] which means to steer and was used for the first time in a metaphorical sense by Plato. It then passed on to Latin and then on to many languages.[2]

Different uses[edit]

Governance is a very general concept that can refer to all manner of organizations. Equally, this generality means that governance is often defined more narrowly to refer to a particular 'level' of governance associated with a type of organization (including public governance, global governance, non-profit governance, corporate governance, and project governance), a particular 'field' of governance associated with a type of activity or outcome (including environmental governance, internet governance, and information technology governance), or a particular 'model' of governance, often derived as an empirical or normative theory (including regulatory governance, participatory governance, multilevel governance, metagovernance, and collaborative governance). Governance can be used not only to describe these diverse topics but also to define normative or practical agendas for them. Normative concepts of fair governance or good governance are common among public, voluntary, and private sector organizations.

Governance as Process[edit]

Question book-new.svg

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2013)

In its most abstract sense, governance is a theoretical concept referring to the actions and processes by which stable practices and organizations arise and persist. These actions and processes may operate in formal and informal organizations of any size; and they may function for any purpose, good or evil, for profit or not. Conceiving of governance in this way, one can apply the concept to states, to corporations, to non-profits, to NGOs, to partnerships and other associations, to project teams, and to any number of humans engaged in some purposeful activity.

Most theories of governance as process arose out of neoclassical economics. These theories build deductive models, based on the assumptions of modern economics, to show how rational actors may come to establish and sustain formal organizations, including firms and states, and informal organizations, such as networks and practices for governing the commons. Many of these theories draw on transaction cost economics

Public governance[edit]

Main article: Public administration

It is useful to note the distinction between the concepts of governance and politics. Politics involves processes by which a group of people (perhaps with divergent opinions or interests) reach collective decisions generally regarded as binding on the group, and enforced as common policy. Governance, on the other hand, conveys the administrative and process-oriented elements of governing rather than its antagonistic ones. Such an argument continues to assume the possibility of the traditional separation between "politics" and "administration". Contemporary governance practice and theory sometimes questions this distinction, premising that both "governance" and "politics" involve aspects of power.

Private governance[edit]

Private governance occurs when non-governmental entities, including private organizations, dispute resolution organizations, or other third party groups, make rules and/or standards which have a binding effect on the "quality of life and opportunities of the larger public." Simply put, privatenot publicentities are making public policy. The term "public policy" should not be exclusively associated with policy that is made by government. Public policy may be created by either the private sector or the public sector. If one wishes to refer only to public policy that is made by government, the best term to use is "governmental policy," which eliminates the ambiguity regarding the agent of the policy making.

Global governance[edit]

Main article: Global governance

Global governance is defined[by whom?] as "the complex of formal and informal institutions, mechanisms, relationships, and processes between and among states, markets, citizens and organizations, both inter- and non-governmental, through which collective interests on the global plane are articulated, right and obligations are established, and differences are mediated". In contrast to the traditional meaning of "governance", some authors like James Rosenau have used the term "global governance" to denote the regulation of interdependent relations in the absence of an overarching political authority.[3] The best example of this is the international system or relationships between independent states. The term, however, can apply wherever a group of free equals needs to form a regular relationship.

Non-profit governance[edit]

Non-profit governance focuses primarily on the fiduciary responsibility that a board of trustees (sometimes called directorsthe terms are interchangeable) has with respect to the exercise of authority over the explicit public trust that is understood to exist between the mission of an organization and those whom the organization serves.[4]

Corporate governance[edit]

Main article: Corporate governance

Corporate organizations often use the word governance to describe both:

The manner in which boards or their like direct a corporation

The laws and customs (rules) applying to that direction

Corporate governance consists of the set of processes, customs, policies, laws and institutions affecting the way people direct, administer or control a corporation. Corporate governance also includes the relationships among the many players involved (the stakeholders) and the corporate goals. The principal players include the shareholders, management, and the board of directors. Other stakeholders include employees, suppliers, customers, banks and other lenders, regulators, the environment and the community at large.

The first documented use of the word "corporate governance" is by Richard Eells (1960, pg. 108) to denote "the structure and functioning of the corporate polity". The "corporate government" concept itself is older and was already used in finance textbooks at the beginning of the 20th century (Becht, Bolton, Rell 2004).

Project governance[edit]

Main article: Project governance

The term governance as used in industry (especially in the information technology (IT) sector) describes the processes that need to exist for a successful project.

Environmental governance[edit]

Main article: Environmental governance

Internet governance[edit]

Main article: Internet governance

Information technology governance[edit]

Main article: Information technology governance

IT governance primarily deals with connections between business focus and IT management. The goal of clear governance is to assure the investment in IT generate business value and mitigate the risks that are associated with IT projects.[5]

Regulatory governance[edit]

Main article: Regulatory governance

Regulatory governance reflects the emergence of decentered and mutually adaptive policy regimes which rests on regulation rather than service provision or taxing and spending.[6] The term captures the tendency of policy regimes to deal with complexity with delegated system of rules. It is likely to appear in arenas and nations which are more complex, more global, more contested and more liberally democratic.[7] The term builds upon and extends the terms of the regulatory state on the one hand and governance on the other. While the term regulatory state marginalize non-state actors (NGOs and Business) in the domestic and global level, the term governance marginalize regulation as a constitutive instrument of governance. The term regulatory governance therefore allow us to understand governance beyond the state and governance via regulation.

Participatory governance[edit]

Participatory governance focuses on deepening democratic engagement through the participation of citizens in the processes of governance with the state. The idea is that citizens should play a more direct roles in public decision-making or at least engage more deeply with political issues. Government officials should also be responsive to this kind of engagement. In practice, participatory governance can supplement the roles of citizens as voters or as watchdogs through more direct forms of involvement.[8]

Multilevel governance[edit]

Main article: Multilevel governance

Metagovernance[edit]

"Metagovernance" is widely defined as the "governing of governing".[9] It represents the established ethical principles, or 'norms', that shape and steer the entire governing process. It is important to note that there are no clearly defined settings within which metagoverning takes place, or particular persons who are responsible for it. While some[who?] believe metagoverning to be the role of the state which is assumed to want to steer actors in a particular direction, it can "potentially be exercised by any resourceful actor"[10] who wishes to influence the governing process. Examples of this include the publishing of codes of conduct at the highest level of international government,[11] and media focus on specific issues[12] at the socio-cultural level. Despite their different sources, both seek to establish values in such a way that they become accepted 'norms'. The fact that 'norms' can be established at any level and can then be used to shape the governance process as whole, means metagovernance is part of the both the input and the output of the governing system.[13]

Collaborative governance[edit]

Main article: Collaborative governance

Governance as a normative concept[edit]

Fair governance[edit]

When discussing governance in particular organisations, the quality of governance within the organisation is often compared to a standard of good governance. In the case of a business or of a non-profit organization, for example, good governance relates to consistent management, cohesive policies, guidance, processes and decision-rights for a given area of responsibility, and proper oversight and accountability.

A fair governance implies that mechanisms function in a way that allows the executives (the "agents") to respect the rights and interests of the stakeholders (the "principals"), in a spirit of democracy.

Good governance[edit]

Main article: Good governance

Good governance is an indeterminate term used in international development literature to describe various normative accounts of how public institutions ought to conduct public affairs and manage public resources. These normative accounts are often justified on the grounds that they are thought to be conducive to economic ends, such as the eradication of poverty and successful economic development. Unsurprisingly different organizations have defined governance and good governance differently to promote different normative ends.

The World Bank defines governance as:

the manner in which power is exercised in the management of a country's economic and social resources for development.[14]

The Worldwide Governance Indicators project of the World Bank defines governance as:

the traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised.[15]

This considers 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 of the institutions that govern economic and social interactions among them.

An alternate definition sees governance as:

the use of institutions, structures of authority and even collaboration to allocate resources and coordinate or control activity in society or the economy.[16]

According to the United Nations Development Programme's Regional Project on Local Governance for Latin America:

Governance has been defined as the rules of the political system to solve conflicts between actors and adopt decision (legality). It has also been used to describe the "proper functioning of institutions and their acceptance by the public" (legitimacy). And it has been used to invoke the efficacy of government and the achievement of consensus by democratic means (participation).[17]

According to the Governance Analytical Framework (GAF),[18][19] governance can be defined in broader terms. It refers to the "processes of interactions and decision-making among the actors involved in a collective problem, that lead to the creation, reinforcement or reproduction of social norms and institutions". Governance processes are found in any society, and they can be analyzed from a non-normative perspective, the GAF.

The proposed method is based on five analytical tools: problems, actors, social norms, processes and nodal points. The GAF was developed in the context of the research programme NCCR North-South,[20] and on the basis of a critique of existing approaches to governance.

Measuring governance[edit]

Over the last decade,[when?] several efforts have been conducted in the research and international development community in order to assess and measure the quality of governance of countries all around the world.

Measuring governance is inherently a controversial and political exercise. A distinction is therefore made between external assessments, peer assessments and self-assessments. Examples of external assessments are donor assessments or comparative indices produced by international non-governmental organisations. An example of a peer assessment is the African Peer Review Mechanism. Examples of self-assessments are country-led assessments that can be led by government, civil society, researchers and/or other stakeholders at the national level.

One of these efforts to create an internationally comparable measure of governance and an example of an external assessment is the Worldwide Governance Indicators project, developed by members of the World Bank and the World Bank Institute. The project reports aggregate and individual indicators for more than 200 countries for six dimensions of governance: voice and accountability, political stability and lack of violence, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, control of corruption. To complement the macro-level cross-country Worldwide Governance Indicators, the World Bank Institute developed the World Bank Governance Surveys, which are country-level governance assessment tools that operate at the micro or sub-national level and use information gathered from a countrys own citizens, business people and public sector workers to diagnose governance vulnerabilities and suggest concrete approaches for fighting corruption.

A new World Governance Index (WGI)[21] has been developed and is open for improvement through public participation. The following domains, in the form of indicators and composite indexes, were selected to achieve the development of the WGI: Peace and Security, Rule of Law, Human Rights and Participation, Sustainable Development, and Human Development.

Additionally, in 2009 the Bertelsmann Foundation published the Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI), which systematically measure the need for reform and the capacity for reform within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. The project examines to what extent governments can identify, formulate and implement effective reforms that render a society well-equipped to meet future challenges, and ensure their future viability.[22]

Examples of country-led assessments include the Indonesian Democracy Index, monitoring of the Millennium Development Goal 9 on Human Rights and Democratic Governance in Mongolia and the Gross National Happiness Index in Bhutan.

Seat of government[edit]

See: capital city for details and list of national capitals for each country's seat of government.

The seat of government is defined by Brewer's Politics as "the building, complex of buildings or city from which a government exercises its authority".[23] The seat of government is usually located in the capital. In some countries the seat of government differs from the capital, e.g. in the Netherlands where The Hague is the seat of government and Amsterdam is the de jure capital of the Netherlands. In most, it is the same city, for example Moscow as the capital and seat of government of Russia. In the United Kingdom, the seat of government is London, the capital, or more specifically the City of Westminster.

Governance and Good Governance: Varying Definitions

Governance

The traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised Kaufman et al

The way power is exercised through a countrys economic, political, and social institutions. the World Banks PRSP Handbook.

The exercise of economic, political, and administrative authority to manage a countrys affairs at all levels. It comprises mechanisms, processes, and institutions through which citizens and groups articulate their interests, exercise their legal rights, meet their obligations, and mediate their differences. UNDP.

Dimensions of governance

Fundamental aspects of governance are: graft, rule of law, and government effectiveness. Other dimensions are: voice and accountability, political instability and violence, and regulatory burden. Kaufmann, Kraay and Zoido-Lobaton 1999.

Property rights and rule-based governance; the quality of budgetary & financial management; the efficiency of revenue mobilization; the efficiency of public expenditures; and transparency, accountability and corruption. World Bank CPIA indicators.

Good governance

It is among other things participatory, transparent and accountable. It is also effective and equitable. And it promotes the rule of law. UNDP

It 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 (www.oecd.org/dac/)

It is epitomized by predictable, open and enlightened policy making; a bureaucracy imbued with a professional ethos; an executive arm of government accountable for its actions; and a strong civil society participating in public affairs; and all behaving under the rule of law. World Bank 1994: Governance: The World Banks Experience.

Mechanisms for assuring good governance have three key elements: Internal rules and restraints (for example, internal accounting and auditing systems, independence of the judiciary and the central bank, civil service and budgeting rules); Voice and partnership (for example, public-private deliberation councils, and service delivery surveys to solicit client feedback); and Competition (for example, competitive social service delivery, private participation in infrastructure, alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, and outright privatization of certain market-driven activities). WDR 1997.

In other cases, the definition of good governance goes further than mechanisms and proposes that good governance be equated with specific outcomes in a Rawlsian sense of assuring that everyone, irrespective of social or economic status, has a voice in governing and receives just, fair, equitable treatment. For example, the UNDP notes that: Good governance is, among other things, participatory, transparent and accountable. It is also effective and equitable. And it promotes the rule of law. Good governance ensures that political, social and economic priorities are based on broad consensus in society and that the voices of the poorest and the most vulnerable are heard in decision-making over the allocation of development resources.[1]

In general, this initiative will take as a starting point the five dimensions of good governance that was developed in the World Banks Corruption study for Europe and Central Asia and contained in the Banks most recent update of its public sector strategy: public sector management, competitive private sector, structure of government, civil society participation and voice, and political accountability.[2] This definition goes well beyond effective delivery of public services (even if that is a benchmark indicator of the quality of governance, a lightning rod for public sentiments about government, and a useful starting point for assessing the quality of governance). And it can also go well beyond the notion of economic governance which is typically the focus of most World Bank work on governance.

Of these dimensions, the most problematic for this work are those of civil society voice and participation and political accountability. However, the consensus of the team is that neither better public sector management nor a competitive private sector can be reliably and sustainably achieved without voice and accountability, especially in MNA countries which typically score low on measures of these indices.

Section 2. Natural-born citizens are those who are citizens of the Philippines from birth without having to perform any act to acquire or perfect their Philippine citizenship. Those who elect Philippine citizenship in accordance with paragraph (3), Section 1 hereof shall be deemed natural-born citizens.

Section 3. Philippine citizenship may be lost or reacquired in the manner provided by law.

PAGE 15