Global Governance in Developed And Developing Countries - Coursework Example

What central theme have you taken away from comparatively analysing governance in developed and developing countries? Name Class Unit Introduction Through governance, what was seen as the roles of the government is now seen as common and can be resolved by the government as well as other actors. The political institutions have lost the monopoly in the orchestration of government. This is seen in both developing and developed countries (Pierre, 2000). Despite this, good governance has been hard to come by in the developing countries compared to the developed countries. From comparative analysis of the governance between the developing and developed countries, the theme of public service delivery arises. It is clear with governance, the public administration have been evolving while at the same time facing challenges in the developing countries (Batley, McCourt & Mcloughlin, 2012). I have been able to observe that the developing countries are facing challenges in governance of public tasks being faced with corruption and other wicked issues. To look at public service delivery as a core theme, I will focus on privatisation, decentralisation, public administrative reform and participation in both developed and developing countries. I believe that politics and governance have a great impact on the performance of the public services. In addition, governance differs between developed and developing countries. Also, the provision of public services differs sharply in the developed compared to the developing countries. Successful public reforms are dependent on the country institutional and political tools (Grindle, 2004). With the millennium development goals, the role of public administration has become very vital (United Nations, 2016). This is through encouraging the governments to ensure that they improve service delivery. In the developing economies, there have been reductions of government control through reduction of bureaucracy (Nayyar, 2016). This is through giving power to the population in controlling their own lives. Increase in social participation has made it possible to easily provide public services. From the comparative analysis, I am able to gain information that top-bottom approach of management of the public services have been left to some of the developing countries (Cameron, 2011). The developed countries have been able to eliminate the tight control of the government which has led to successful public reforms. Centrally controlled public services faces a lot of problems as evidenced in the developing countries (Fagbadebo, 2007). I can clearly state that it is wrong for the producers of the public services to overrule those who use them through bureaucracy (Cameron, 2011). To be at par with the developed countries, developing countries have been engaging in public sector reforms and privatisation. Privatisation is a move that ensures that public service delivery is no longer a preserve for the government only (Farazmand, 1999). This is supported by the World Bank reforms proposals in countries such as India. Despite the efforts, it is clear that local issues such as caste system in India are still an impediment. This is where human rights are not observed by those involved due to their culture. Caste system shows highly bureaucratic societies which the privatisation moves are supposed to consider. As seen in the case of India, the focus on privatisation by the World Bank fails to look at the humanity principle (Murphy, 2010). This is unlike the developed countries where caste system is almost non-existence making it easier to privatise service delivery without going against moral standards. It is clear that developed countries liberalised and privatised their public service delivery long before the developing countries (Farazmand, 1999). This helped in reducing the wage burden for the government and improved the service delivery to the public. The restructuring efforts in the public sectors have made it possible to ensure that the public is well catered for in the developed countries. With globalisation, it is hard for the governments in developing countries to continue having tight control on public service delivery (Bell & Hindmoor, 2009). The private actors have been playing a major role especially in the developed countries to provide public goods. This has been a challenge to governance due to contribution by the private sector (Knill & Lehmkuhl, 2002). In the developed countries, there has been creation of synergy between the private and public activities hence high reinforcement (Alford & O'Flynn, 2012). I feel that for the developing countries, the current trend involves private actors in the public service delivery alongside the state. This is a changing pattern of governance (Knill & Lehmkuhl, 2002). The theme of public service reforms have been derailed by corruption, inefficiency and patronage in the public service delivery especially in the developing countries. The issue of corruption which have been derailing provision of public services can be associated with the lack of accountability. In fact, there is a major gap between how accountability works in developing countries and how it is supposed to work (Grindle, 2004). In the developing countries, it is clear that there is asymmetry on information between service providers the politicians and end users. In this case, the users do not know who to blame in the case of service failures. This is in sharp contrast to the developed countries where the information gap is narrow and the public is unable to demand for accountability in service delivery. Public administration reforms in the developing countries have been hard to come by with the politicians favouring different ethnic groups. This is especially for electoral support instead of ensuring that public services are attained by everyone (Fagbadebo, 2007). For the developing countries, political and governance accountability is low compared to developed countries (Batley, McCourt & Mcloughlin, 2012). Compared to the developed countries, developing countries have poor improvements in their public service reforms. This has highly contributed to lack of good governance (Batley, McCourt & Mcloughlin, 2012). Good governance is associated with the low levels of poverty and equality in the developed countries (Peters, 2012). This has led to the calls for the developing countries to adopt good governance to tackle corruption and eliminate widespread poverty (Wilkinson & Clapp, 2010). As a condition for debt relief, developing countries have been required to address their governance. This is due to fact that among the developing countries, there are weak institutions which are very venerable (United Nations, 2016). This acts to support poor management of public resources while those working in the government are poorly trained and lacks motivation (Grindle, 2004). This is a direct opposite to the developed countries (Pierre, 2000). As proved by the developed countries, I believe that good governance is the main route towards poverty reduction and public service reforms in the developing countries. Compared to the developed countries, I find that corruption has made it hard to ensure that public resources are well utilised in the developing countries (Fagbadebo, 2007). This can be proved by the levels of corruption in developing countries such as Kenya and Nigeria. Corruption which has been aided by bad governance has led to massive looting of the public resources in these countries (Wrong, 2014). In this case, I can see from the comparison that there are no systems and procedures which can effectively fight corruption in these countries. For Nigeria, the country suffers from high level corruption and poor governance. This has led to a retarded national development and a poor political environment (Fagbadebo, 2007). The state controls of the scare resources as a means in which corruption is enshrined. This is where the top government officials manipulate the government for their personal gains leaving public with no essential services. This is also supported by an authoritarian government which has a high hierarchical system. Unlike the developed countries, the authoritarian regimes have supported corruption in the developing countries (Fagbadebo, 2007). Compared to the developed countries, there is low public participation in the running of the government in developing countries. The citizens in the authoritarian and bureaucratic regimes see the government irrelevant in their lives. In addition, lack of participation is a major governance issue in most of the developing countries since it contributes to lack of national unity (He, 2011). This has highly contributed to poor economic development and political stability in most of the developing countries. In this case, the development projects which are aimed at helping the public are regarded with indifference and seen as a way of exploiting the public resources. This is seen as an avenue to be taken advantage of rather than where commitment should be put at. I also look at lack of accountability and transparency as another major governance issue. This is the root of corruption in most of the developing countries (Kaufmann, 2005). This leads to cases where corruption and inefficiency are hidden from the public which eventually leads to collapse of projects meant for public service delivery. Conclusion To sum up, public service delivery is a central theme that appears in comparative analysis of the developing and developed countries. Public service delivery in this case can be analysed based on privatisation, decentralisation, public administrative reform and participation in both developed and developing countries. The developing countries have been urged to carry out public reforms to ensure that they reduce poverty and inequality. Despite this, corruption and poor governance continues being a challenge to some of the countries. To be at par with the developed countries in public service delivery, I find it imperative that developing countries have to embrace decentralisation. 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