What is good governance and good government?

By Meuthia Ganie-Rochman

JAKARTA (JP): Since the World Bank adopted the concept of good governance as a new ethic of international lending, many have offered an interpretation on this concept. There is no fixed understanding about this concept. As a consequence, confusion and cursory applications pertain, especially among less academic community members, such as politicians and activists. One form of misconception is the conflation between governance and government. Thus, good governance is conflated to be good government.

Political intention always shadows the usage of this concept. This fact contributes to the misconception. The World Bank and other lending agencies try to use this concept to improve the management of development in recipient countries. To avoid the impression of domestic interference and to save government face, these lending agencies prefer to use more technical terminology rather than campaign against patronage and corruption. Prodemocratic activists use this concept to change the dominant influence of state and criticize the government. Government is the prime, even sole, actor that must change to create the condition called good governance.

Governance is actually a concept that is more inclusive than the government. The latter concept refers to an administration based on the highest form of authority. Governance, on the other hand, involves the role of parties outside the state. Boundaries between the state and private sectors are less distinct because both parts involve certain collective actions.

Therefore, the conditions of state and social groups must be taken into account when talking about governance. Within this framework, no social projects, such as democratization, can be realized merely by changing the nature of the state and the characteristics of its government. All political projects of good governance aim at strengthening the role of nonstate sectors in public management. However, it is understandable that the state and government always become the main target of a project to create good governance since the government, through the state, holds the highest forms of authority.

The adoption of good governance as a new development ethic has several backgrounds. One that has often been mentioned is the tendency to impose harsher requirements toward the recipient countries since the end of the cold war. Another was the development of development thinking itself. Until the second half of the 1990s, there was a view that a strong state was the prime condition to create economic growth.

It was this strong state that was needed to apply economic principles. But strong states were proved to have created distortions in economic efficiency. Businesses based on patron- client relations and corruption were only two kinds of distortions that were mentioned too often. The review about this situation led to the thought that a form of public control must be developed. A method to facilitate public control is institutional building.

In practice, institutional building often takes form in programs such as decentralization, improved mechanisms of accounting and auditing and law reform. Institutional reforms such as these will expectedly improve the pattern of resource allocation to be more efficient.

From the description above, it is clear that the concept of good governance does not necessarily deal with the strengthening of civil society within a democratization framework. It is only a maybe, but it is never by design. Good governance simply recognizes that economic programs can not be successful without political legitimacy, social order and institutional efficiency.

The pattern of resource allocation in the past undermined political legitimacy and, later, bred social disorder. The fact that now the concept is applied within the framework of democratization was made possible by the discourses developed by prodemocratic groups. They view people's participation and the protection of human rights as integral parts of the creation of good governance.

But good governance is not a mantra that is applicable to every country and situation. Successful governance depends on the constitution of the components of governance, mode of coordination adopted and the environment of relevant actors who coordinate their activities. Components of governance that are often mentioned are a rule of law, qualified bureaucracy, transparent policy-making, accountable executives and a strong civil society.

It is widely believed that the creation of these components is necessary for good governance. Of course, who can deny it? But the problem is, these components need more specification. Furthermore, we need to answer what actually are the relations between these components. I believe that every country has a different answer.

Take for example, the component of the rule of law. What laws does each country need? Here we speak about fields of public life that need to be formally regulated. In the context of present Indonesia, so many laws need to be revised and created. Some say that to bolster economic recovery, economic law must get priority. Without it, people do not feel secure and foreign investment will not come. Prolonged economic hardship will create other forms of social disorder. Other groups are more concerned with the protection of political rights.

But the rule of law does not only pertain with the scope. Not the least important is the rule of law needs tradition. It is within this tradition that people are willing to accept laws to solve conflicts and regulate things. It is clearer now that governance is not simply about government, but also about people.

How do we measure a strong civil society? General indicators often adopted are high education and political participation. Certainly, political organizations and associations are important. They are mediating institutions that bridge public policies and specific group interests. Often forgotten is the orientation of these institutions with a diversity in society.

One indicator is regulated competition. The absence of this element only creates a deepening fragmentation among communities. Another indicator of a strong civil society is the content of popular arts. Popular arts that deal more with the problem of humanity rather than expressing a group's position may indicate a strong civil society.

About the principle of coordination, take again the component of the rule of law. Must a condition of good governance entirely rely on the formal principle of coordination? Indonesia is not as modern as many analysts would understand it. Parts of society are still managed by different kinds of informal arrangements. We can see one clear example from the recent general election. It was not the concept of citizenship that moved many people to the polls. Social leaders have played an important role in mobilizing people.

The same thing happens with the rule of law. Many Indonesians are not ready to enter the intricacies of formal systems. They feel more comfortable to delegate their matters to informal leaders and arrangements. If they feel dissatisfied with the government, they do not come to formal organizations such as unions, but express their feelings to religious leaders. This condition demands the combination of formal and informal arrangements to make good governance.

Therefore, the concept of good governance proposed either by lending agencies or prodemocratic groups are often too simplistic and enthusiastic. In my opinion, both groups suffer the logic of trickle-down effects. Only this time it is not about modern industries but about formal institutions. Formal institutions, of course, are very important in facilitating orderly transactions. But it must be bore in mind that formal institutions generally serve modern sectors better than others. For developing countries, more focus must be given to the reactivation of the local economy and protection of disadvantaged groups.

The mistake made by prodemocratic groups pertains to their view about a strong state. Understandably, it is not popular to infuse the thought about the virtue of a strong state in good governance for a country that just experienced an authoritarian type of government. A strong state is needed to manage public sectors not only to serve them but also to protect the weaker groups that no civil groups want or are able to do so. The role of state becomes more important in the society where trust, solidarity and collective consciousness are thin.

In the context of present Indonesia, it is worthwhile to exploit the perspective that encourages mutual cooperation between the state and community institutions. The Indonesian state does not only need criticism to improve itself but also support. For example, to improve the performance of government agencies in certain development programs, civil groups can help by supplying data and monitoring.

Civic education must develop the orientation of rational politics. The state, on the other hand, must facilitate the economic and social cooperation between different groups through government policies. One promising a form of cooperation between the state and people is a civil network in public policies. This kind of network helps the government make acceptable policies that will later boost its legitimacy.

The writer is a teaching staff at the Department of Sociology, the University of Indonesia.