Governance and development Flashcards
Governance
Börzel and Risse: the various institutionalized modes of social coordination to produce and implement collectively binding rules, or to provide collective goods
Fahlberg criticizes the focus on violent means of coercion in this conventional approach to governance!
Statehood
institutionalized structure with the capacity to implement and enforce central decision including ability to rule authoritatively and to legitimately control the means of violence -> capacity of the state to enforce and implement central decisions and uphold a monopoly over violent means
Level of democracy in global south
Hybrid regime combining democracy with authoritarianism e.g. countries in the middle east and Malaysia
State capacity: ability to implement complex policy. Effective states are positively correlated with high levels of development e.g. Singapore and Botswana.
States failing to perform basic functions (limited statehood) e.g. Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, DRC
Areas of limited statehood (Börzel & Risse)
Different modes of governance, and different dimension open up for understanding state-society relations and governance empirical context
ALS: problematizes conventional western bias and Eurocentric values in governance theory.
territorial or functional spaces within otherwise functioning states have lost their ability to govern
-> not limited to failed or failing states but found in many countries (also internationally recognized states)
≠ consolidated statehood: the state has the monopoly over means of violence and can implement collective binding rules
4 dimensions of statehood and limited statehood (can be several at the same time):
Territorial: limited to regions of a country
Sectoral: special policy area
Sociocultural: definite parts of the population
Temporal: specific period
Motivation for violent actors to engage in governance
Motives for violent and criminal groups to invest in governance: access to resources; ascertain control; increase legitimacy; and fulfil state-building aspirations.
• Providing basic collective goods (e.g. security and justice): Crucial for politically motivated actors
• Control over territory or population: combines profit seeking activities, political ideologies, and violent control
• Legitimacy building
• Enforcement and state-building
-> Enhancing the position of the group compared to the state and other groups
Characteristics of violent and non-state actors
These groups are characterized by their distance from the state and relying on violence and force when pursuing their objectives.
Differentiation between violent and criminal governors:
1. Main goal: profit vs political: Political is further differentiated between supporting or opposing the existing state. Political driven organizations compensate the lack of state capacity by providing protection, security, and collective goods
2. Operation’s spatial-geographical scale and scope: regional, national or transnational
3. Purpose of violence and force: Distinction between political/public goas as in terrorism and private-personal gains as militia.
“violent and criminal groups can be defined as governors when they become directly involved in the provision of governance as ‘institutionalized modes of social coordination to produce and implement collectively binding rules, or to provide collective goods’” Berti
The concept of failed state (Call)
- Concept serves as a lens to understand deprived regions suffering from conflicts
- A novel way of thinking of societal order, peace and development
- Concepts of a “successful state” contains cultural assumption and bias
- Idealizes the developmental path of Western countries as “the path” for other countries to follow (paternalism)
- Failed state is an example of an asymmetrical comparison with little explanatory power
-> the concept lead to the development of indexes such as “fragile state index”
• Concepts lacks clear definitions aggregating a diverse list of countries with a one-size fits all solution: state-building to restore order, security, modernize (not enough emphasis on democracy)
Good governance
Combination of transparent and accountable institutions, skills and competencies, as well as a will to do the right thing -> deliver services to its people
Balance the power of government with free press and independent judiciary system
Shadow if hierarchy
The state constitutes an authority with the capacity to rule legitimacy. Where the state is consolidated it cast a shadow of hierarchy providing incentives for governments and non-state actors to engage in rule making and providing collectives goods
Areas of limited statehood critique of conventional governance theory
Rooted in European history, conventional governance theory distinguishes between the public (state) and private (non-state) -> unable to understand informal power structure, that are key for economic redistribution in Global South
Conventional governance theory, assume that the consolidated state is the only source of governance -> overlooking the importance of non-state actors
Conventional governance theory has a rather one dimensional approach to state building
Trend in development theory
1950s: Post war modernization theory. Arguing for replication of western industrialization in developing countries, thus focusing on transferring technologies in order to modernize and liberalize world trade. Advocated for an active state, utilizing comparative advantages, and understanding local context
1960’s-70’s. Structuralism and dependency theory. Critiqued modernization to have a poor idea of power, seeing the world economy as a system, arguing that some countries to not develop because they are exploited by west. Critique trade theory by Ricardo. Perceive global political economy as core vs periphery or metropol vs satelites. Failed to explain the economic development in Asian countries in the 80’s.
1980’s: Rise of neoliberalism and neoclassical economic theory. Structural adjustment policies: conditionality for loans from world bank and IMF to handle debt requiring: deregulation, privatization, liberalizing labor markets, external opening.
2000’s: Post development/Post-colonialism: emphasize historical perspective. Draws upon dependency theory. Emphasis on material and symbolic consequences of categorizing countries
