Defining Governance and Democracy - Essay Example

Accountability – is defined in the local governance or delegation of duty as the answerability/liability of an official/representative or an organization for the success or downfall of an organization.

On Defining Governance, Democracy, and Decentralization:
 

At the outset, it is necessary to specify and understand more clearly the key elements at which we will be looking - governance; democracy; and decentralization. Because it is the most generic or elemental of the concepts, we will begin by examining the idea of governance (governance can be either democratic or non-democratic, centralized or decentralized, and as such, it is the more fundamental concept). In the modern dialogue over democracy and governance, the concept of governance is often used in two quite different ways. Increasingly, among international organizations (such as the World Bank and the United Nations), governance is used as a concept to both provide a broad overview of and describe the way societies manage themselves. In the dialogue routinely engaged in by the United Nations and the World Bank "governance" is normally spoken of in terms of three systems - the political/administrative; the economy; and the civil society. When looking at governance from this perspective an important additional dimension is introduced into any discussion of the relationship between governance, democracy, and decentralization because one is forced to pay attention to the significance of decentralization for economic development. This represents a very significant dimension in terms of the overall well-being of society as a whole for it can be central to the definition of its development potential.
 

Governance has also been described and dealt with, particularly in the past two decades, in terms of how to improve the functioning of the actual political/administrative system extant in a particular country. The term used has been "good governance." This has typically meant concern about civil service reform; the encouragement of efficient governmental organization (which frequently means the downsizing of government bureaucracies); and the strong encouragement of transparency and accountability in government.
 

There is obviously a long history of discussion about and consideration of what are the attributes of democracy and democratic governance. During the course of the past half-century, most attention in this regard has focused on four basic attributes. These include the conduct within a country of free and fair elections; the existence of a reasonably well-organized and competitive party system; a delineation of, respect for, and protection of basic civil liberties and human rights within the society; and, the encouragement, support of and active participation of a vigorous civil society and, in particular, strong interest groups.
 

While democracy and its attributes have been the topic of much thought, writing, and discussion, it is still the case that there are not totally precise measures of or delineations of where democratic governance begins or ends within a society. In fact, democracy is inevitably a "work in progress." The institutions and processes of democracy are constantly in a state of evolution. Such evolution is not always necessarily in a progressive or productive fashion. Clearly, there are moments in almost all societies in which democratic processes and values suffer setbacks. Likewise, there are other times when what is normally evolutionary progress toward higher levels of democratic governance sometimes becomes a dramatic movement.
 

The concept of decentralization is perhaps a little less clearly defined in part because it is the newest of these concerns. One of the things that have added some misunderstanding to the debate and discussion over decentralization is the frequent confusion within countries over issues of decentralization, devolution, and deconcentration. In many countries, particularly in the African context, efforts made to "encourage decentralization" have ended up in considerable failure. In truth, more often than not these efforts have focused not on decentralization but rather on deconcentration - that is to say where central governments have sought to devolve power, not to independent, autonomous local governments but rather have tried to create administrative structures through which they remain able to maintain control of what are essentially national government programs at the local level. In fact, real decentralization involves the devolution of both responsibilities and resources to relatively independent and autonomous sub-national authorities that are accountable not to any central national leadership of the country but to the citizens of the region and/or community.
 

An important element of the movement to decentralization has involved the organization and enhancement of governmental units beyond those of the national government. This has meant the strengthening and, in some cases, even the organizing of both local governments and intermediate levels of government (regions, provinces, states, etc.). Either simultaneously with this, or shortly thereafter, many countries, especially in Latin America have witnessed the emergence of issues of fiscal decentralization - especially in terms of revenue sharing, national grants in aid, and various types of privatization. Finally, this has also meant the encouragement and organizing of citizen participation, neighborhood groups, and local grassroots community organizations in both rural and urban areas.