Governance, the State and the Politics of Development

In this article, Leftwich outlines the current 'good governance' agenda as advocated by the World Bank. He starts off by tracing the events that led to an interest in good governance: the experience of structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) in the 1980s and the questions of why they did not achieve everything that they set out to do; the expansion of the neo-liberal approach to include not only economic issues but also specifically political ones; the collapse of communism and the subsequent 'monopoly' enjoyed by Western liberal democracy; and finally, the impact of pro-democracy movements.

Leftwich divides the good governance agenda into three aspects. The 'systemic' aspect of good governance deals with the rules governing the distribution of power, and advocates a political system with a minimal state that provides the enabling environment for an open market and democracy. The 'political' aspect specifices more closely what this means: free and regular elections, checks and balances on power, structures of accountability, and pluralism. The 'administrative' aspect outlines the need for reliable and accessible information, efficient and accountable public services, and a transparent public administration.

Leftwich concludes that everybody can agree that the good governance agenda comprises many 'good things', but he argues that the project as a whole is nevertheless rather naïve because it fails to recognise that good governance is a function of state capacity. He criticises the current version of good governance for relegating the state to a peripheral role of creating an 'enabling environment', and suggests that this turns the good governance agenda into a universal, managerial, and illusory 'fix-it'.