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M. Doornbos
To cite this article: M. Doornbos (2001) 'Good Governance': The Rise and Decline of a Policy
Metaphor?, The Journal of Development Studies, 37:6, 93-108, DOI: 10.1080/713601084
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376jds05.qxd 09/08/2001 11:13 Page 93
Good Governance:
The Rise and Decline of a Policy Metaphor?
M A RT I N D O O R N B O S
I. INTRODUCTION
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For over a decade, the notion of good governance has served as a general
guiding principle for donor agencies in demanding adherence from recipient
governments to proper administrative processes in the handling of
development assistance and expecting them to put in place efficient policy
instruments towards that end. At the present time, indications are that donor
references to the good governance notion as a way of trying to induce
changes in the institutional environment in recipient countries may have had
their longest day, making room for new preferred patterns of interaction
between donors and selected recipient countries on the aid front. The
present study aims to explore the conditions under which the criterion of
good governance first became adopted as a donor policy metaphor and
now seems likely to get eclipsed. Particular attention will need to be given
in this regard to successive shifts in the relevant policy thinking within the
World Bank.
As a background, it should be recalled that around 198990, all of a
sudden the good governance concept became prominent on the
international aid front. First launched as a donor discourse, it came just as
unexpectedly as the fall of the Berlin Wall which happened only a little
earlier, and in fact the two developments may not have been entirely
unconnected. Before that time, aid agencies and other development
institutions had not been in the habit of approaching their programme
relations with counterparts in terms of criteria of good governance. Nor
had, for that matter, the term governance constituted part of the
vocabularies used in political science courses at European and American
universities in the decades before. To be sure, the word had a dictionary
existence, but as such it primarily carried seemingly outmoded legalistic
Martin Doornbos, Emeritus Professor of Political Science, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague.
The author would like to thank John Martinussen and Daniel Fleming of the Graduate School of
International Development Studies at Roskilde University and an anonymous referee for their
useful comments on an earlier draft of this study.
The Journal of Development Studies, Vol.37, No.6, August 2001, pp.000000
PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON
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Europe or North America from where the concept was being (re-)launched.
Moreover, with the adjective good added to it, it became unmistakably
clear that the concept of good governance could be used to invite
judgement about how the country, city or agency concerned was being
governed: it enabled the raising of evaluative questions about proper
procedures, transparency, the quality and process of decision-making, and
other such matters [Doornbos, 1995].
Looking back now at the ten-year interval since the launch of the good
governance discourse, it has been striking to see how in virtually no time
the term governance, retrieved from a lingering, obscure existence,
became a household word figuring on top of the list of concerns of aid
agencies, governments, researchers and the media. As is often true with new
buzz-words, though, there is as yet hardly a consensus as to its core
meaning, and less and less of a common idea as to how it could be applied
more concretely. Still, it is there and it has gained a key function by virtue
of its capacity all at once to draw attention to a whole range of (often largely
unspecified) issues concerning processes of public policy-making and
authority structures. In that sense it rapidly appealed to the imagination of
analysts as well as practitioners, and became a focal point for intellectual as
well as for policy discourses.
Today, some ten years after its rebirth, several questions appear to have
continuing pertinence with regard to the use of good governance as a
policy metaphor:1 What exactly does it mean? Is it a universal concept or
does it vary from context to context? What meaning does the World Bank
attach to the term? Is that a useful conceptualisation? What critique does it
invite? What handle does it offer when judging countries in connection with
the allocation of aid funds? Is it in any case right or proper to make aid
conditional on good governance? By posing conditionalities in terms of
practices and structures for good governance, changes in the latter respect
will be (partly) externally determined. Again, is that right; and why or why
not would that be the case?
A reflection on the origins and evolution of the good governance idea,
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G O O D G O V E R N A N C E A P O L I C Y M E TA P H O R ? 95
especially as regards its use as a reference point in donor-recipient
discourses, must ask why it emerged at the time it did and what has, since
then, been its track record. Moreover, one may well ask whether it is likely
to keep drawing the same level of attention as it has done hitherto. It is these
two tasks which constitute the objectives of this contribution.
In terms of its scope and potential coverage, the notion of governance had
an a priori attractiveness from a perspective of global policy-making as it
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it to say that the academic stream has been largely concerned with
developing a better understanding of different ways in which power and
authority relations are structured in different contexts thus focusing on
different modes of inter-penetration of statecivil society relations. Notions
of governance rapidly found their way into academic usage following its
adoption in donor circles and in recent times have stimulated lively
discussion on various aspects of the themes they denote, that is, pertaining
to both forms and practice of the exercise of power. One advantage it has
here, as Goran Hyden once remarked, was that it does not prejudge the locus
of actual decision-making, which could be within the state, within an
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G O O D G O V E R N A N C E A P O L I C Y M E TA P H O R ? 97
amongst the circle of international donor agencies, the World Bank in
particular. Increasingly they had felt a need for it, though a different one
from that of the academic interest. To better appreciate this, it will be
instructive to recall the transitions and expectations occurring at the global
level at the time.
With the demise of the cold war, the paramount urge this had created to
organise the world in opposite camps had come to an end. Until that
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moment, the firmer, that is, the more strong-handed, the client states
concerned, the easier it had often appeared for global powers and
institutions to conclude alliances and aid relations with them.
Authoritarianism and dictatorships had been thriving during those years,
although in the late 1980s donors had already begun to attach certain
conditions to the granting of development aid. But following the fall of the
Berlin wall there no longer was much of a need to get the support from, or
give support to, regimes with a dubious track record in the handling of their
own internal affairs, including human rights issues. Instead, time had come
when it seemed quite justified, and when there appeared no more
constraints, to set conditions to, and prescriptions for, the manner certain
client states should be going about the management of their governmental
affairs. A new chapter of conditionalities, that is, of internally directed
political conditionalities concerned with the structuring and operation of
recipient countries institutions, was being opened. This, however, required
a suitable conceptual framework enabling and justifying such interventions.
Until this time, political conditionalities per se had by no means been
unknown: in fact they had been of the essence of many client relationships
built up during the cold war. Political support for the West, or for the then
so-called East bloc, in the UN, in the field and in other fora, had been a key
condition for material and other upkeep of the regimes concerned. As long
as this situation obtained, however, these basically externally-oriented
conditionalities did not specify how the governments concerned should
structure their administration and policy-making processes, what priority
they should assign to certain policy initiatives, or how they should handle a
whole range of other matters that might typically come up for policy
dialogue. The new, post-cold war generation of political conditionalities
were aimed to do exactly that. The new idea was to establish a grip on
recipient developing countries handling of policy processes, and on the
basic manner in which government and its constituent political processes
multi-partyism or other would be structured. National sovereignty and
non-interference in internal affairs, for long held in high esteem in
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G O O D G O V E R N A N C E A P O L I C Y M E TA P H O R ? 99
broadened, though still essentially a-political, conception of governance
[Martinussen, 1998a].
None the less, the Banks earlier repositioning had also entailed adoption
of a formula which allowed it to play a pivotal role in the donor-recipient
country relations concerned. While henceforth in its own dealings with
loan-recipient countries it had to stick to strictly non-political, financial
accountability and transparency notions of governance, the Bank would
accept the role of secretariat for various donor consortia stipulating what
political conditionalities would need to be met. In principle this placed the
Bank in the strategic position of being able to convey political
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I V. U N I V E R S A L I T Y A N D G L O B A L I S AT I O N
inevitably about form, rather than about substance/practice. One and the
same form may be handled well, or badly. If certain standards or practices
are now advocated globally, this cannot be because they are intrinsically
universal but because the donor world would like to see them being taken
up for universal adoption presumably because this might make life easier
for donors.
If donor-conceptualised standards of good governance were to be more
fully elaborated and insisted upon, it would thus almost certainly imply an
insistence on Western-derived standards of conduct to be adopted in non-
Western politico-cultural contexts. This is neither new nor particularly
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In retrospect, the early 1990s may yet come to be viewed as one of the high
points in good governance thinking. A broad set of interrelated concepts
were formulated that delineated areas of concern with policy structures and
processes, and more specific issues were put forward for reform in the
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G O O D G O V E R N A N C E A P O L I C Y M E TA P H O R ? 101
context of aid packages with conditionalities attached. Thus the dismantling
of over-developed state structures in Third World countries seemed in
easy reach, while multi-party democratisation just appeared to be waiting
for an external nod and encouragement (see Srensen [1995]). Carrot-
quality conditionalities, it was anticipated, would help induce these various
transformations, thus bringing about a wholesale overhaul of the
developmental state that had been typical for the cold war era. International
expectations were quite high as to what the good governance idea could
point to and what the formulation and application of political
conditionalities might be able to accomplish. In short, the climate of the
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seem to have lived up to the expectations that had come to be raised about
it. Besides, as already noted, the World Bank had taken a lead in de-
emphasising the political dimensions of governance in its own dealings
with aid-recipient countries from an early point onwards. Inasmuch as
multi-partyism and democratisation (irrespective of whether these two
categories should be seen as equivalents) constituted key aspects of the
political dimension of the international good governance agenda, thus
calling for political conditionalities to redress and restructure the political
processes concerned, they rather seemed to be quietly slipping into the
background.
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G O O D G O V E R N A N C E A P O L I C Y M E TA P H O R ? 103
having to monitor attempts at amelioration of policy processes which
require more attention and detailed knowledge than most donors, even the
World Bank, can muster. In this connection, the recent so-called Dollar
report (after its main author, David Dollar), Assessing Aid [World Bank,
1998], in putting forward the research finding that good performers (in
terms of growth rates) are best able to absorb and utilise aid funds
effectively, has come to provide a policy rationale for this new approach.
Through reference to the scientific evidence presented in this report,
selectivity can be advocated and rationalised as being the most cost
effective and results-oriented donor strategy. Hence the keen interest with
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which this report has been taken up for discussion in various donor circuits
[e.g., Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2000]. There have been
serious criticisms regarding the reliability and relevance of the way these
particular findings have been construed [e.g., Lensink and White, 2000; Van
der Hoeven, 1999]. Yet to several donor agencies these may have appeared
a lesser concern compared to the perceived operational advantages on which
the report seemed to open a window. These lay in the experience to date that
attempting to steer governance restructuring programmes from the outside
have turned out to be far more complicated and laborious engagements than
self-confident and optimistic aid agencies had first assumed they would be.
Against these realities, an a priori interest to shift to a fresh approach that
can relieve these agencies from these self-imposed burdens is likely to
welcome any authoritative report that appears to provide a theoretical
justification for such a move, as has been the case with the Dollar report.
It is useful to ask what may happen to the notions of good governance and
conditionalities in the light of these shifting insights and priorities. The
recent Dutch policy reversal in favour of concentrating Dutch structural aid
to a limited list of 19 (later 17, following the enduring Ethiopian-Eritrean
conflict) aid-receiving countries with strong good governance records
may be taken as an example, even though in its rigorous adoption of the
principle of selectivity on the basis of good governance, the Dutch case
still is fairly exceptional among Western donors.4 In the first place,
paradoxically, the encouragement of good governance (through political
conditionalities) itself figures no longer as an area of prime policy attention
in this new scenario. Good governance is now assumed to be present to
begin with, and has been elevated to one of the key criteria for selection to
the status of most-favoured aid-recipient countries as far as Dutch aid is
concerned [Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2000]. This is in
contrast to Danish and other Scandinavian aid, for example, which has not
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been tied to this single criterion [Martinussen, 1998b]. But evidently, to take
the existence of good governance as a criterion to decide which countries
are qualifying for assistance and which are not, is something quite different
from trying to demand improvements in terms of good governance as a
conditionality to aid. In the new thinking, bad governance in principle will
remain bad governance, unless the government concerned is so keen to
qualify for Dutch or similarly conditioned aid that it will be motivated to
first put its governance structures in order to meet the required criteria
which seems unlikely. And even then, the question might arise again as to
which criteria that would involve: on the side of donors as well as
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G O O D G O V E R N A N C E A P O L I C Y M E TA P H O R ? 105
process was conducted, or by what criteria. Unless it is demonstrated
otherwise, one cannot but assume that it is embassy notes and political
expediency on the basis of which these choices have been made, for which
in the end the label good governance then serves as a rationalisation.
Whether that in itself constitutes an example of good governance remains
a question.
One sub-area that has usually come up for special attention in
donorrecipient relationships under the heading of governance,
meanwhile, is that of financial accountability. Indeed, one particular set of
motivations for raising good governance on the agenda has undoubtedly
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arisen out of this area for understandable reasons. Quite possibly, when
other, less tangible concerns have lost their immediate pertinence or self-
evidence, or when donors sense they do not quite get a grip on them, it will
be this hard core of financial accountability questions that keeps standing
out as the core of good governance concerns. Often, therefore, one may
already see good governance, transparency and accountability posing
as a trinity of synonymous bullet points with particular reference to
financial management. It seems quite possible that if in due course the
broader notion of good governance would evaporate, due to its lack of
tangible utility as well as in the light of the decline of the larger aspirations
of re-constituting political systems, its exit may well be marked by
increased emphasis on the more tangible issues of financial accountability
which as a matter of fact it is any banks good right, if not obligation, to
raise.
qualify for other aid. In a case like this (and others like it), the question thus
might be raised whether there would not be a validity in reversing the
standard approach in our thinking about international development
assistance, trying to see it in terms of recipientdonor rather than donor
recipient relations?
Illusory as this may seem at the present moment, such a reversal would
in principle call for a situation in which donors would be available on
demand, rather than being in command. In such an imagined situation,
demanding countries (as an alternative expression to recipient countries)
might be expected to take the initiative, basically saying, for example, this
is our program for reconstruction, would you be willing to help?
Supplying countries, which through some forum could pledge to be ready
in principle to receive such requests, might respond by donating what they
can afford, and what they believe constitutes a reasonable contribution. This
would reverse a situation in which it is commonly donor governments
which develop their programmes, preferences and priorities (and tend to
revise them at an ever increasing pace), and where recipient countries can
at most try and sort out how best they can fit in, or whether and how they
can meet the criteria, all within the latest donors preoccupation. The idea
would require a good deal more flexibility and adjustment to become
available on the supplying side admittedly difficult from the point of
view of budget control but, above all, allow demanding or requesting
countries to regain a sense of overall command over their own policy
formulation and policy integration.
G O O D G O V E R N A N C E A P O L I C Y M E TA P H O R ? 107
policy objectives with respect to aid recipient countries they might help
accomplish, it has increasingly become apparent that these expectations
have been rather overstretched and that this particular ensemble of donor
policy concepts and instruments is now on its retreat. Posing political
conditionalities as a leverage to induce good governance clearly did not
work out as envisaged, and as a policy metaphor with these particular
connotations the phrase has lost much of its appeal. Conceivably, the good
governance policy metaphor might have had a different career path if
donors had not attached political conditionalities to it.
Today, new kinds of donorrecipient relations are increasingly being
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NOTES
1. The questions that follow were formulated by the organisers of the workshop on Changing
the Conditions for Development Aid: A New Paradigm?, University of Groningen, 6
October, 1999, at which a preliminary version of this paper was presented.
2. For a perceptive discussion of some such efforts, see Ahrens [1999].
3. See, for example, the paper by Pierre Landell-Mills and Ismail Serageldin, Governance and
the External Factor [Landell-Mills and Serageldin, 1991] and compare this with the version
published in the Proceedings of the World Bank Annual Conference on Development
Economics 1991 [Landell-Mills and Serageldin, 1992].
4. It should be noted that apart from the key list of countries that have been selected for
structural aid, Dutch foreign aid still includes various other (thematic) programmes for which
good governance does not figure as a qualifying criterion.
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