The New Governance: Governing without Government - Essay Example

Has fragmentation and the proliferation of self-organised networks weakened the capacity of central/federal government? Discuss with reference to examples from Australia and elsewhere Government as Gullick understands is exercised in a myriad of micro locales, where authorities of all types exercise their powers over the conduct of others (Rose, 1999). Interestingly enough, the dynamics of translation and related alignments are forged between the objectives of authorities wishing to govern and the personal projects of those organizations, groups and individuals who are the personal projects of those organizations, groups and individuals who are subjects of governments. It is through the mechanisms of translation that various forms of links are established between political agencies, public bodies, economic, legal, and medical, social and technical authorities. The following essay will examine the vagaries of modern liberalism vis-à-vis the new phenomena of local governance where in the stress is on the self-management of the governance system by the civil society. The essay will therefore also examine the impact of the growing prominence of the self government trends in the context of local governance, in countries such as India, USA and Australia. This can be achieved only when carries out detailed discussion on the scope and nature of modern liberalism. Translation mechanisms are of particular significance in liberal mentalities of the government. This is because of the fact that liberal political rationalities are committed to the twin projects of respective the autonomy of certain private zones and shaping their conduct in ways conducive to particular conceptions of collective and individual well being. Liberalism and the train of liberal thought, refers in more ways than one to not just the cannon of liberal political philosophy-Locke Hume Ferguson and John Stuart Mill- but to a certain way of codifying and delimiting the exercise of sovereign power by the identification of a realm of society, with its own economic processes and its own principles of cohesion, populated by individuals that act and behave in accordance with certain principles that are of interest to them. This would mean therefore that the liberal political advances not just the flow of power from the centre to the people through an encouragement of the individualist line of thinking but also that it recognizes in some way, the right of individuals and individualists to govern themselves in the political arena. The concept would find application to not the economy but to the political. This would mean that liberalism justifies not just the absolute least amount of control exercised by the central sovereign authority but also that with the growth and the natural evolution of liberalism as a line of political thought and action there would be a natural tendency to take certain streams of power away from the political authority into the hands of the public. As a diagram of rule, liberalism sought not just to limit the scope of political authority therefore but also encouraged an exercise of vigilance over it. This would therefore translate into the delimitation of the exercise of certain laws of political control, even those that exist in the natural spheres (Rhodes, 1996). These would include markets, citizens, civil society-that was out with the legitimate scope of political interference. Good governance, liberalism believes, depends on the well-being of the domains of personal and economic health and not a definition of the actual exercise of political power by a given group or even the sovereign authority. This would follow automatically, then that if it were to appear that a curtain more localized, a more individualized section of society could do a better job of governing themselves, power should be decentralized and made a delimited authority that would be a lot more accessible and exercisable by the local self-governing organs. One could even stretch this further and state that the political authorities have the obligation to foster the self-organizing capacities of these natural organic self organizing capacities of these natural spheres. For many the study of political science today is the study of new institutionalism. New institutionalism was in essence a reaction to the trend of behavioralism. Just as historical institutionalism and rational choice by this logic would be a reaction against behavioralism and behavioralism was in turn a reaction against old institutionalism. There is thus a logical sequence that would presume that political science gave us historical institutionalism, economics gave us rational choice and sociology gave us sociological institutionalism (Rhodes, Binder and Rockman, 2003). Australian political science was framed by the strong intellectual links with Britain and it is thus a little difficult to assuage the exact impact on new institutionalism on local bodies. There are those that believe tradition to be a flow of sympathy and in any political activity we “sail a boundless and bottomless sea”. “The enterprise therefore is keep afloat on an even keel” (Oakeshott, 1962). This is therefore a conservative view of idealism that treats tradition as a resource to which one should typically feel allegiance. One can consider this to be the source of authority that political institutions have in the more idealist and conservative sense. Other views accept that political institutions “express…ideas about political authority…and embody a continuing approach to the resolving of the issues which arise in the relations between citizens and government” (Johnson, 2989, 131, 112). Institutions are also normative “serving as means of communicating and transmitting values”. They are thus an expression of human purpose, so political institutions would necessarily be consisting of some kind of normative elements. The international movement of local bodies and governments and the development of their associations occupy today a relevant place beside the NGOs in the so-called civil society sector (Bresso, 2004). First of all, the local bodies are acknowledged to be forms of government. They have a territory, a population and several levels of competences and decisional autonomy. Even if these features are present in a quite non-homogeneous fashion and can vary appreciably from State to State, an important factor they have in common, which represents the basis of the legitimacy of their status and their activity, is the democratic election by which the local community awards its mandate to the elected members. They have been created for making the local voice recognized and better heard at the decisional levels of the central governments and the international community. The decentralization debate has top focuses around the strength of democracy in a given scenario. The fact of the matter remains that the essence of democracy itself is the power in the people. There can be no state of liberalization or a manifestation of democracy if the state does not ensure empowerment of the people. There is also the concern that the state-the federal state to be more specific would at times remain disconnected with the problems f the people that exist at the grassroots level of the country. There is thus the need for organizations that could take the manifestations of local self managed societies, self governing bodies like municipalities and townships in many of the more developed countries of the world and ‘panchayats’ and ‘lokayuks’ in India, the largest democratic setup in the world in terms of the number of people participating in the democratic process. There has been a panchayat raj in India. Decentralization has become a latest trend in Indian politics and that has been spreading in global politics. Decentralization should be understood as a political process that would be helping the administrative Authority, public resources and responsibilities would be normally transferred from central government agencies to basic levels of government that could be termed as non-governmental bodies. These types of organizations would be called community based organizations. There would be delegation of powers to the lower levels in India and that would be helping the rural people more. There has been a concept in a state in India called Kerala in which the panchayat organizations were given more powers. The power that has been given has been termed community based and that has been said as revolutionary in India. There has been janasevana Kendras that has been functioning in Kerala and that has been meeting every month with the purpose of identifying the needs of the community. That means a notice would be given to every house in a particular area in the panchyat and a date would be given to the members so that they could discuss about the needs of the panchayat. That would mean that the biggest problem of unemployment would be solved and that would also mean that industries in rural areas would be supported. There would be support of environment protection that would be taken from the grass roots and there would be cases of middlemen being blocked and that would mean that the corruption issue would be dealt in a stronger manner from the grass roots level. The basic theme for these type of development measure from Kerala has been that mere spending of money would not bring development and there has to be spending of money at the correct areas. That would also mean high growth would be possible when compared with a train that would be considered as an engine that would be running with bogies and people inside it. That would be bringing a development from the bottom to the top of the democracy and there would be concrete measures that would be taken to reduce the gaps between the haves and have-nots. There would be a clear solution to the problems that has been faced by farmers and all solutions would be taken in accordance to the federal polity. The health care system would be also changed and that would mean that best hospitals would be set up in the rural areas. The decentralization of power would also mean that the vocational training would be changed and that would also mean that there would be more employable skilled people in the rural areas. The decentralization in India has also meant that inclusive growth has been sub text of developmental efforts and the issue has been the main factor of governance in India for some time. The basic theory of decentralization in India has been that a livelihood projects would be looking to globalization. There has been verification of records that has been done in the rural areas for the farmers and that has helped the farmers to get loan for the land and that would mean that the people would be challenged to change their complacency and get into micro finance area. The change has been made possible through the developed economics and that has seen also the poorest of poor women getting the necessary microfinance and there has been kudembshree for women that has been happening in the state of Kerala and that has led to wide spread change in the lives of women. The women in Kerala has been divided into groups and they have been given the opportunity to form their own development block and they were given the finance at low interest rates and that has helped the women to move forward. They have been instrumental in exporting many foods and vegetables to Middle East and other parts of the world and that has bought valuable foreign exchange money to India. The kudumbshree women has been instrumental in cleaning the garbage daily and that has helped the people of Kerala a lot and they has been good service in many parts of the world. The decentralization has also led to many changes in the technology front and that has seen many bpo centers mushrooming in many parts of rural areas and that has created more employment and that has also led to the change in the development of many rural areas. Self-organized local groups can also take the shape of lobbies and interest groups that seek to manipulate and change the process of governance and law making at the federal level by influencing the key lawmakers. This is in fact part of the accepted and expected trend in the politics of American federalism. The congress in USA in fact is divided more often than not on lobby lines rather than being divided on party lines. One could in fact observe the fact that is amusing to say the least. In most cases, the constitutions allow, in fact encourage independent organized group activity vis-à-vis the activities of the federal powers so that the country is not just able to keep a check on, but is also able to Decentralization is a necessary, but not a sufficient step to achieve greater accountability and sustainability. When controls from above are eliminated, it is important that checks from below are already in place. Without democracy, decentralization may compound the problems created by clientelist systems. The relationship between democracy and decentralization is partially reinforcing; decentralization first requires democracy to be effective, while decentralization deepens democracy by allowing local autonomy, greater responsiveness, and more effective representation. Decentralizing a clientelist system may simply cut the top off the pyramid, eliminating the central governments that held lower levels in check. Democracy enhances participation and legitimacy, two of Migdal’s three indicators of social control, so that society acts through state institutions. Democracy alters societal power, promoting some actors such as associations, small businesses, the media, and NGOs while weakening societal powers, which are more likely to rival the state, such as militaries or corporations. If democracy takes root, decentralization may create a state, which is more capable of achieving its goals because its units can best, react to local conditions. If democracy is absent, decentralization may empower strong societal actors such as local strongmen or corporations to resist the state. In order to understand the reasons that would justify the stand taken by the individualist forces of decentralization one would have to accept the simple fact that an assumption believing that the interests of the rulers and the ruled coincide need not always be correct. They might not always go in a positive sum game-the bias also known as the individualist bias tends to believe that the rulers are always more likely to look after themselves and their interests at the expense of the ruled unless the institutions and incentives structure are very carefully engineered. The idea therefore is that in an age where the corruption and the self serving nature of governing systems have been exposed time and time again, it is justified for people to put their faith in self organized networks that they know will serve their needs without the corruption bias and in which they would have a more active role to play. References: Bresso M, 2004, World Organization of United Cities and Local Governments: A Project for Local Democracy in the World, pub, The Federalist Debate, Year XVII Rhodes, R.A.W. (1996), ‘The New Governance: Governing without Government’, Political Studies, XLIV, 652-67 Hood, C. (1998), The Art of the State: Culture, Rhetoric and Public Management (Oxford: Clarendon Press), Chapter Five Rose N S, Powers of freedom: reframing political thought, pub, Cambride University Press, pp49-51 Oakshott M, Rationalism in Politics and other essays, pub, Penguin Publications, pp126-27 Rhodes R A W, Binder S and Rockman B A, 2003, The Oxford handbook of political institutions, pub, Barnes and Nobles, pp90-98 Read More