Evaluation of Good Governance

Good governance is thus a vague normative formulation which is very difficult to practice in its original form. The criticisms of the good governance can be summed up in the following points:

•         It draws very ideal picture of harmonious functioning of various stakeholders like State, Private Sector and civil society organizations like NGOs. In reality their relationship is complicated and guided by their struggle for supremacy in their respective spheres which hampers the process of governance and divert the resources in wrong directions.

•         Good governance advocates increasing participation of private bodies in the issues of governance. However practice shows that accountability for an activity which has been contracted out, and maintenance of ethical standards in private sector is problematic to maintain.

•         It seems that the concept tried to re invent the old politics administration dichotomy of the Wilsonian age which is nothing but a neo-liberal agenda to legitimize the profit making agenda of capitalist economies from the first world.

•         Good governance attempt to impose western notion of democracy and governance over the Third World. It neglects indigenous striders of governance alternative paradigms of developments.

•         To belittle the importance of public agencies in the Third World may prove disastrous due to the social and political issues (like communalism, castes, racism, ethnic clashes) involved in the community life of the people from these countries.

Check your progress Fill in the Blanks Features of Good Governance are : A. Participation B.......................... C. Transparency D.......................... E. Consensus oriented F.......................... G. Effectiveness and Efficiency H..........................

LET’S SUM UP

To sum up the entire discussion on the public administration in the age of globalization and liberalization we are in the position to say that failures of traditional welfare oriented approach to the governance to solve the major problems of the citizens lead to the rethinking of the role of public administration. In those circumstances Neo liberal theorist found a justification for the free market policy of liberalism. This results in discarding traditional Weberian bureaucratic model of administration and emergence of New Public Administration and Good Governance.

New Public Administration is the synthesis of public ethics and private competence. With the watch words of efficiency, economy and effectiveness NPM becomes synonymous with the Neo Liberal Agenda of development induced growth.

Good Governance altered the administrative fabric of the third world countries with its eight principles to be accountable for the assistance received from the international donor agencies for the developmental purposes.

New Public Administration and Good Governance along with its manifold problems of implementation have now become key words in the vocabulary of public administration after 1980s.