Governance for Development
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Governance is arguing, shouting and, sometimes, getting to agreement

Sina Odugbemi's picture

The fact that whatever else governance is, it is a discursive, public arena practice is often underappreciated. Governance is partly technical, naturally, but it is also an argument, a fight, a shouting match, a negotiation, and, if you are lucky, sometimes an agreement. 

Not only is this reality underappreciated, many of those who work on governance for development initiatives are distinctly uncomfortable with it. Pressed, they would say: ‘Hey, we are experts here. We don’t do public arguments, fights, shouting matches and so on.’ So, let’s park the vexed question of who does what for a moment and simply reflect on the aspect of the practice that I am concerned to highlight.

First, governance reform is a public argument. Yes, some of it takes place in the shadows, as donor harmonization or policy dialogue with partner governments, but outside fixing the plumbing of state machinery, governance reform is a public argument. Now, I have had many a conversation with colleagues in donor agencies and technocrats in developing country governments during which people say to me: ‘You should keep most of the plans quiet. Even if you have to bring in the public later, try to keep things between officials for as long as possible.’ I usually ask them one question: ‘What if your reform plans leak? What do you think will happen?’ There is a cautionary case study here.

The point is that the country does not belong only to the Minister of Finance, or whichever official donors are doing business with. It belongs jointly to other ministers, members of parliament, civil society groups, reporters and commentators in the media, citizens. Eventually, somebody is going to have to explain what it is you are planning, why it makes sense, why alternatives were not adopted, why they have to lose a benefit -- and so on. Then it becomes an argument, a shouting match even, or a fight.

Second, there are many levels to the public argument. I hint at them as follows, adopting an in-country voice:
•Who says there is a problem to be fixed? Is it enough that the World Bank says so, or donors collectively?
•Even if there is a problem to be fixed, well, we have lots of problems in the country, why fix this one now and not something else? Who says we have to fix this problem at this time?
•The way the issue is framed, why should I care about it let alone support the effort?
•Why is this proposed solution the right one and not something else? And why are you putting the solution in my backyard? Why do I have to pay a special price to solve a national problem?
•What is in it for people like me? And why should I believe anything will change in this country where people like me always get left behind? As other members of the elite attack your plans, why should an ordinary fellow like me get off the fence and join the fight?

The questions point to why many reform initiatives do not produce the intended development results. 

Now, you will ask: who is supposed to do the arguing, bargaining and, sometimes – if forces align - getting to durable agreements? Answer: the people whose country it is. Where those in institutions like the World Bank often go wrong is in believing that the process of arguing, shouting and bargaining can be short-circuited because we bring money and technical expertise to the table.  It can’t. If we care about results we need to focus on what that means for how we work.
 

Comments

Dear Sina, your blog appealed to me because it resonates with an important part of my research, which focussed on peacebuilding coherence. One important side-effect of our efforts to pursue coherence is the tendency to discourage disagreement. We don't seem to appreciate the value of the 'marketplace' of ideas, i.e. the virtue of looking at the problem from several different perspectives, often informed by competing interests. We seem to assume that it is possible to arrive at a commonly agreed position if we only try hard enough, and people/interests that disagree with the position that seem to be emerging as the 'common' position is seen as spoilers. We don't seem to appreciate the value of the self-organizing process of negotiating the 'common' position, i.e. that the agreed to outcome/position has meaning in the context of the process that generated it, and to the people that participated in that process. The most sustainable outcomes are those where the process has generated a local context specific agreed to approach. I like the way you show how governance itself should be seen as process facilitation - as the process and platform of managing the marketplace of ideas - and that in that context it should encourage debate, disagreement, negotiation, etc. but steer it to inform the development of policy or the application of policy in a specific context, etc. Another important aspect is the recognition that the environment is dynamic and non-linear (complex) and that these processes thus have to be ongoing, or at least regularly repeated. What was agreed remain context and time relevant, and will have to be re-negotiated as the environment changes, and this needs to be recognized as normal governance, not as policy failure. Cedric de Coning Research Fellow: ACCORD & NUPI

I would go further to say that what we need is politics for development. Often, the Governance discourse is anti-political. I would never forget Bernard Crick's polite criticism of Jeffrey Sachs when the latter gave the Reith Lectures in Edinburgh.

Submitted by Ari Tatian on
Dear Sina, I understand your quest for finding a matching term that defines the various functions of governance, and would accommodate, as well, the distinct views regarding it. Well, I would like to add a new flavor to the various descriptions addressed toward the concept at hand, and which is compromise. My description is a product of the environment that I studied and worked in; that country being Lebanon. Evidently, local governance has been the outcome of series of compromises among local sectarian groups (currently eighteen), whether that being before, during or after the civil war (1975-90), a fact that jeopardized the integrity of governance schemes and reforms. To concentrate on present days, and despite the end of the war, the Lebanese people are still unable to reach to a consensus on issues and values of public interest, e.g. democracy, rule of law, stable and effective institutions… As a result, governance schemes and reform efforts move onward in an erratic manner, as the people are unable to differentiate between the practice of democracy and the exercise of freedom. Reforming the electoral law, mitigating corruption, and maintaining efficient judicial and administrative systems, are all urgent topics on Lebanon's political agenda. The local state-building process has wandered forward in a hectic pace, accompanied by citizens' lack of equal access to opportunities, especially in the public sector, as the latter suffered from prolonged absence of political accountability. Matters are aggravated further by the confessional political system, predominantly in terms of distribution of political and administrative posts. As a result, and for the sake of preserving the fragile sectarian balance, a weak state has emerged, which was unable to implement the required administrative reforms, paving the way for corruption, clientism, red tape, nepotism… The post-war political system led to the intensification of confessional conflicts and divisions, triggering struggle over key public posts by sectarian groups, and culminating into the paralysis of political and administrative authorities in many instances. There were some pressing demands for political reforms and equitable power sharing; however, the nature of desired reforms differed from one group to another: some wanted to render the political system less confessional, while others aimed at re-adjusting the prevailing sectarian formula, while others wanted to maintain the existing status-quo. Well, this has been the harsh environment which harbored governance schemes in Lebanon, and rendered it an odyssey of flawed achievements and experiences. Regards, Ari Ari Baghdassar Tatian Head of Department Research & Studies Lebanese Parliament

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