Governance - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Governance is the act of governing. It relates to decisions that define expectations, grant power

Power (sociology)

Power is a measurement of an entity's ability to control its environment, including the behavior of other entities. The term authority is often used for power perceived as legitimate by the social structure. Power can be seen as evil or unjust, but the exercise of power is accepted as endemic to...

, or verify performance

Performance (disambiguation)

Performance art refers to events in which one group of people behave in a particular way for another group of people .Performance may also refer to:* A show in the performing arts...

. It consists of either a separate process or part of management

Management

Management in all business and organizational activities is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively...

or leadership

Leadership

Leadership has been described as the “process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task". Other in-depth definitions of leadership have also emerged.-Theories:...

processes. These processes and systems are typically administered by a government

Government

Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...

.

In the case of a business

Business

A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...

or of a non-profit organisation, governance relates to consistent management, cohesive policies, guidance, processes and decision-rights for a given area of responsibility. For example, managing at a corporate level might involve evolving policies on privacy

Privacy

Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively...

, on internal investment, and on the use of data.

To distinguish the term governance from government: "governance" is what a "government" does. It might be a geo-political government (nation-state), a corporate government (business entity), a socio-political government (tribe, family etc.), or any number of different kinds of government, but governance is the physical exercise of management power and policy, while government

Government

is the instrument (usually collective) that does it. The term government is also used more abstractly as a synonym for governance, as in the Canadian motto, "Peace, Order and Good Government".

Origin of the word

The word governance derives from the Greek verb κυβερνάω [kubernáo] which means to steer and was used for the first time in a metaphorical sense by Plato. It then passed on to Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

and then on to many languages.

Processes and governance

As a process, governance may operate in an organization of any size: from a single human being to all of humanity; and it may function for any purpose, good or evil, for profit or not. A reasonable or rational purpose of governance might aim to assure, (sometimes on behalf of others) that an organization produces a worthwhile pattern of good results while avoiding an undesirable pattern of bad circumstances.

Perhaps the moral and natural purpose of governance consists of assuring, on behalf of those governed, a worthy pattern of good while avoiding an undesirable pattern of bad. The ideal purpose, obviously, would assure a perfect pattern of good with no bad.
A government, comprises a set of inter-related positions that govern and that use or exercise power, particularly coercive

Coercion

Coercion is the practice of forcing another party to behave in an involuntary manner by use of threats or intimidation or some other form of pressure or force. In law, coercion is codified as the duress crime. Such actions are used as leverage, to force the victim to act in the desired way...

power.

A good government, following this line of thought, could consist of a set of inter-related positions exercising coercive power that assures, on behalf of those governed, a worthwhile pattern of good results while avoiding an undesirable pattern of bad circumstances, by making decisions that define expectations, grant power, and verify performance.

Politics

Politics

Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

provides a means by which the governance process operates. For example, people may choose expectations by way of political activity; they may grant power through political action, and they may judge performance through political behavior.

Conceiving of governance in this way, one can apply the concept to states

State (polity)

A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...

, to corporation

Corporation

A corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...

s, to non-profit

Non-profit organization

Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

s, to NGOs, to partnerships and other associations, to project-team

Project team

A project team is a team whose members usually belong to different groups, functions and are assigned to activities for the same project. A team can be divided into sub-teams according to need. Usually project teams are only used for a defined period of time. They are disbanded after the project is...

s, and to any number of humans engaged in some purposeful activity.

Different definitions

The World Bank

World Bank

The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...

defines governance as:
The Worldwide Governance Indicators

Worldwide Governance Indicators

Based on a long-standing research program of the World Bank, the Worldwide Governance Indicators capture six key dimensions of governance between 1996 and present...

project of the World Bank defines governance as:
This considers the process by which governments are selected, monitored and replaced; the capacity of the government to effectively formulate and implement sound policies and the respect of citizens and the state of the institutions that govern economic and social interactions among them.

An alternate definition sees governance as:
According to the United Nations Development Programme

United Nations Development Programme

The United Nations Development Programme is the United Nations' global development network. It advocates for change and connects countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. UNDP operates in 177 countries, working with nations on their own solutions to...

's Regional Project on Local Governance for Latin America:

The state and politics

Some suggest making a clear distinction between the concepts of governance and of politics

Politics

. Politics involves processes by which a group of people with initially divergent opinions or interests reach collective decisions generally regarded as binding on the group, and enforced as common policy

Policy

A policy is typically described as a principle or rule to guide decisions and achieve rational outcome. The term is not normally used to denote what is actually done, this is normally referred to as either procedure or protocol...

. Governance, on the other hand, conveys the administrative

Public administration

Public Administration houses the implementation of government policy and an academic discipline that studies this implementation and that prepares civil servants for this work. As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope" its "fundamental goal.....

and process-oriented elements of governing rather than its antagonistic ones. Such an argument continues to assume the possibility of the traditional separation between "politics" and "administration". Contemporary governance practice and theory sometimes questions this distinction, premising that both "governance" and "politics" involve aspects of power

Power (sociology)

.

In general terms, governance occurs in three broad ways:

Through networks involving public-private partnership
Public-private partnership
Public–private partnership describes a government service or private business venture which is funded and operated through a partnership of government and one or more private sector companies...

s (PPP) or with the collaboration of community organisations;
Through the use of market
Market
A market is one of many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services in exchange for money from buyers...

mechanisms whereby market principles of competition
Competition
Competition is a contest between individuals, groups, animals, etc. for territory, a niche, or a location of resources. It arises whenever two and only two strive for a goal which cannot be shared. Competition occurs naturally between living organisms which co-exist in the same environment. For...

serve to allocate resources while operating under government regulation;
Through top-down methods that primarily involve governments and the state bureaucracy
Bureaucracy
A bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of a governmental or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institution, and are occasionally characterized by officialism and red tape.-Weberian bureaucracy:...

.

These modes of governance often appear in terms of hierarchy

Hierarchy

A hierarchy is an arrangement of items in which the items are represented as being "above," "below," or "at the same level as" one another...

, markets, and networks - but also in democracies. For instance, the tripartite governance of the United States consists of three branches of power (the Executive, its Legislature and the Supreme Court).

Corporate organizations

Corporation

often use the word governance to describe both:

The laws and customs (rules) applying to that direction
The manner in which board
Board of directors
A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...

s or their like direct a corporation

Fair governance

A fair governance

Good governance

Good governance is an indeterminate term used in development literature to describe how public institutions conduct public affairs and manage public resources in order to guarantee the realization of human rights. Governance describes "the process of decision-making and the process by which...

implies that mechanisms function in a way that allows the executives (the "agents") to respect the rights and interests of the stakeholders (the "principals"), in a spirit of democracy

Democracy

Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...

Global governance

see the main article at Global governance

Global governance

Global governance or world governance is the political interaction of transnational actors aimed at solving problems that affect more than one state or region when there is no power of enforcing compliance. The modern question of world governance exists in the context of globalization...

for a more detailed explanation.

Its defined as"the complex of formal and informal institutions, mechanisms relationships, and processes between and among states, markets, citizens and organnizations, both inter- and non-governmental, through which collective interests on the global plane are articulated, right and obligations are established, and differces are mediated".In contrast to the traditional meaning of "governance", some authors like James Rosenau have used the term "global governance" to denote the regulation of interdependent relations in the absence of an overarching political authority. The best example of this in the international system or relationships between independent states. The term can however apply wherever a group of free equals need to form a regular relationship.

Corporate governance

See the main article at corporate governance

Corporate governance

Corporate governance is a number of processes, customs, policies, laws, and institutions which have impact on the way a company is controlled...

.

Corporate governance consists of the set of processes, customs, policies, laws and institutions affecting the way people direct, administer or control a corporation

Corporation

. Corporate governance also includes the relationships among the many players involved (the stakeholders) and the corporate goals. The principal players include the shareholder

Shareholder

A shareholder or stockholder is an individual or institution that legally owns one or more shares of stock in a public or private corporation. Shareholders own the stock, but not the corporation itself ....

s, management

Management

Management in all business and organizational activities is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively...

, and the board of directors

Board of directors

A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...

. Other stakeholders include employees, suppliers, customers, banks and other lenders, regulators, the environment and the community at large.

The first documented use of the word "corporate governance" is by Richard Eells (1960, pg. 108) to denote "the structure and functioning of the corporate polity". The "corporate government" concept itself is older and was already used in finance textbooks at the beginning of the 20th century (Becht, Bolton, Röell 2004). These origins support a multiple constituency (stakeholder) definition of corporate governance.

Project governance

See Main article Project governance

Project governance

Project governance is the management framework within which project decisions are made. Project governance is a critical element of any project since while the accountabilities and responsibilities associated with an organization’s business as usual activities are laid down in their organizational...

The term governance as used in industry (especially in the information technology (IT) sector) describes the processes that need to exist for a successful project

Project

A project in business and science is typically defined as a collaborative enterprise, frequently involving research or design, that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim. Projects can be further defined as temporary rather than permanent social systems that are constituted by teams...

Information technology governance

See Main article Information technology governance

Information technology governance

Information Technology Governance, IT Governance is a subset discipline of Corporate Governance focused on information technology systems and their performance and risk management...

IT Governance primarily deals with connections between business focus and IT management. The goal of clear governance is to assure the investment in IT generate business value and mitigate the risks that are associated with IT projects.

Participatory Governance

See Main article Kafue River

Kafue River

The Kafue River sustains one of the world's great wildlife environments. It is a major tributary of the Zambezi, and of Zambia's principal rivers, it is the most central and the most urban, and the longest and largest lying wholly within Zambia....

section Participatory governance

Participatory Governance focuses on deepening democratic engagement through the participation of citizens in the processes of governance with the state. The idea is that citizens should play a more direct roles in public decision-making or at least engage more deeply with political issues. Government officials should also be responsive to this kind of engagement. In practice, Participatory Governance can supplement the roles of citizens as voters or as watchdogs through more direct forms of involvement.

Non-Profit Governance

Non-profit governance focuses primarily on the fiduciary responsibility that a board of trustees (sometimes called directors—the terms are interchangeable) has with respect to the exercise of authority over the explicit public trust that is understood to exist between the mission of an organization and those whom the organization serves.

Orders of governance

With the process of governing now involving a variety of private as well as public actors, governance is becoming an increasingly complex issue. More traditional theories of conceptualizing and understanding governance (such as the Westminster system

Westminster System

The Westminster system is a democratic parliamentary system of government modelled after the politics of the United Kingdom. This term comes from the Palace of Westminster, the seat of the Parliament of the United Kingdom....

) are now considered unsuitable, as they are too "government-oriented" and are unable to examine the more complex, modern nature of interactions between governing actors. This is where the 'Orders of Governance' conceptualisation comes in. It breaks down governance into three different orders, first, second and meta, which "correlate to the different levels at which governance is used" and allow for a more detailed analysis of the governing process.

First-order

First-order governance is the level at which problems are identified and solutions enacted . This is done through interaction between the governing organisation and its citizens which helps identify what the problem is, who is experiencing it and what an appropriate solution may be. There can be differing opinions in an organisation as to what constitutes a problem and there is, to some extent, a degree of subjectivity in coming up with an "ordered problem definition". The interaction with those being governed helps in this respect as it legitimises the definition. Once a problem is identified, a solution usually comes in the form of laws and/or regulations passed by the governing body.

Second-order

Second-order governance is the level at which the "institutional arrangements" are provided "within which first order governing takes place". Institutional arrangements can take many forms in both the public (a regulatory agency) and private (the financial market

Financial market

In economics, a financial market is a mechanism that allows people and entities to buy and sell financial securities , commodities , and other fungible items of value at low transaction costs and at prices that reflect supply and demand.Both general markets and...

) sectors. What is important is that a framework is provided that enables first-order governance to take place. Again, there is a distinct "two-way role" at this level with both "those being governed and those governing" having input into the process to provide an effective and legitimate institutional setting. This approach enables a more comprehensive analysis of governing interactions, as actors can often "be influenced by institutions (and the way) these help or hinder them" in the pursuit of their goals.

Metagovernance

Metagovernance is widely defined as the "governing of governing". It represents the established ethical principles, or 'norms', that shape and steer the entire governing process. It is important to note that there are no clearly defined settings within which metagoverning takes place, or particular persons who are responsible for it. While some believe metagoverning to be the role of the state who are assumed to want to steer actors in a particular direction, it can "potentially be exercised by any resourceful actor" who wishes to influence the governing process. Examples of this include the publishing of codes of conduct at the highest level of international government, and media focus on specific issues at the socio-cultural level. Despite their different sources, both seek to establish values in such a way that they become accepted 'norms'. The fact that 'norms' can be established at any level and can then be used to shape the governance process as whole, means metagovernance is part of the both the input and the output of the governing system.

Measuring governance

Over the last decade, several efforts have been conducted in the research and international development community in order to assess and measure the quality of governance of countries all around the world.

Measuring governance is inherently a controversial and political exercise. A distinction is therefore made between external assessments, peer assessments and self-assessments. Examples of external assessments may be donor assessments or comparative indices produced by international non-governmental organisations. An example of a peer assessment may be the African Peer Review Mechanism

African Peer Review Mechanism

The African Peer Review Mechanism is a mutually agreed instrument voluntarily acceded to by the member states of the African Union as a self-monitoring mechanism...

. Examples of self-assessments may be country-led assessments that can be led by Government, civil society, researchers and/or other stakeholders at the national level.

One of these efforts to create an internationally comparable measure of governance and an example of an external assessment is the Worldwide Governance Indicators

Worldwide Governance Indicators

Based on a long-standing research program of the World Bank, the Worldwide Governance Indicators capture six key dimensions of governance between 1996 and present...

project, developed by members of the World Bank and the World Bank Institute

World Bank Institute

The World Bank Institute is the capacity development branch of the World Bank. It provides learning programs, policy advice and technical assistance to policy makers, government and non-government agencies and development practitioners of developing countries...

. The project reports aggregate and individual indicators for more than 200 countries for six dimensions of governance: voice and accountability, political stability and lack of violence, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, control of corruption. To complement the macro-level cross-country Worldwide Governance Indicators, the World Bank Institute developed the World Bank Governance Surveys

World Bank Governance Surveys

The World Bank Governance Surveys are diagnostic tools used to assist World Bank partner governments in measuring and mapping governance challenges within the public sector structure. Survey questionnaires are applied to households, private enterprises and public officials within the country to...

, which are a country level governance assessment tools that operate at the micro or sub-national level and use information gathered from a country’s own citizens, business people and public sector workers to diagnose governance vulnerabilities and suggest concrete approaches for fighting corruption.

A new World Governance Index (WGI) has been developed and is open for improvement through public participation. The following domains, in the form of indicators and composite indexes, were selected to achieve the development of the WGI: Peace and Security, Rule of Law, Human Rights and Participation, Sustainable Development, and Human Development.

Additionally, in 2009 the Bertelsmann Foundation published the Sustainable Governance Indicators

Sustainable Governance Indicators

The Sustainable Governance Indicators , first published in spring 2009 and updated in 2011, analyze and compare the need for reform in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development member countries, as well as each country's ability to respond to current social and political challenges...

(SGI), which systematically measure the need for reform and the capacity for reform within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is an international economic organisation of 34 countries founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade...

(OECD) countries. The project examines to what extent governments can identify, formulate and implement effective reforms that render a society well-equipped to meet future challenges, and ensure their future viability. http://www.sgi-network.de/index.php?page=mission

Examples of country-led assessments include the Indonesian Democracy Index, monitoring of the Millennium Development Goal 9 on Human Rights and Democratic Governance in Mongolia and the Gross National Happiness Index in Bhutan.

Seat of Government

See: capital city

Capital City

Capital City was a television show produced by Euston Films which focused on the lives of investment bankers in London living and working on the corporate trading floor for the fictional international bank Shane-Longman....

for details and list of national capitals for each country's seat of government.

The seat of government is defined by Brewer's Politics as "the building, complex of buildings or city from which a government

Government

exercises its authority

Authority

The word Authority is derived mainly from the Latin word auctoritas, meaning invention, advice, opinion, influence, or command. In English, the word 'authority' can be used to mean power given by the state or by academic knowledge of an area .-Authority in Philosophy:In...

". The seat of government is usually located in the capital

Capital City

. In some countries the seat of government differs from the capital, e.g. in the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

where The Hague

The Hague

The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...

is the seat of government and Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

is the Capital of the Netherlands. In most it is the same city, for example Ankara

Ankara

Ankara is the capital of Turkey and the country's second largest city after Istanbul. The city has a mean elevation of , and as of 2010 the metropolitan area in the entire Ankara Province had a population of 4.4 million....

as the capital and seat of government of Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

. In the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, the seat of government is Westminster

Westminster

Westminster is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster, England. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, southwest of the City of London and southwest of Charing Cross...

, a city within London, the capital.

Literature

Marcel SennSovereignty – Some critical Remarks on the Genealogy of Governance In: Journal on European History of Law, London: STS Science Centre, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 9–13, (ISSN 2042-6402).

Becht, Marco, Patrick Bolton, Ailsa Röell, "Corporate Governance and Control" (October 2002; updated August 2004). ECGI - Finance Working Paper No. 02/2002.
Asie Dwise (2011), Corporate Governance: An Informative Glimpse, International Journal of Governance. 1(2) :206-214
Eells, R.S.F. (1960), The Meaning of Modern Business: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Large Corporate Enterprise (Columbia University Press, NY).
Türke, Ralf-Eckhard: Governance - Systemic Foundation and Framework (Contributions to Management Science, Physica of Springer, September 2008).

External links

Forum for a new World Governance
PUBLIC · ESADE's Institute of Public Governance & Management e-bulletin http://www.esade.edu/public
http://www.ijgmagzine.com International Journal of Governance
sgi-network.org Sustainable Governance Indicators
http://www.trust.org/trustlaw/country-profiles/statistics.dot?id=2ccb13a8-f6e3-4133-9c94-7faf1d062dcd Worldwide Governance Indicators
Journal of Politics & Governance

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Origin of the word

Processes and governance

Different definitions

The state and politics

Corporate organizations

Fair governance

Global governance

Corporate governance

Project governance

Information technology governance

Participatory Governance

Non-Profit Governance

Orders of governance

First-order

Second-order

Metagovernance

Measuring governance

Seat of Government

See also

Literature

External links