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Abstract
Political Society and Governance in 16 Developing Countries,
World Governance Survey Discussion Paper 5
In a political process perspective like the one underlying
our study, political society is perhaps the most critical
link in the governance chain. It is the arena where citizens
are represented and their views are aggregated and packaged
into specific policy demands and proposals. As part of a project
to undertake comprehensive governance assessments, we focus
here on the nature of the rules (formal and informal) that
affect political society. How political society is structured
and how its rules are the subject of collective stewardship
are critical for the stability of the political system at
large.
This paper presents the findings for political society in
16 developing countries. Our study confirms that political
society is the most difficult arena to govern. The political
society arena is problematic in virtually all countries included
in our survey. Many of the countries included in our sample
are newcomers to a system in which political society is meant
to play an important part in the political process. Institutions
are only now being introduced or put into place. Many of the
shortcomings of political society, however, are directly attributable
to the behavior of individual members of the legislature.
They do not necessarily live up to the expectations associated
with the rules or, even worse, they outright violate these
rules. We came across frequent references to elected representatives
having abandoned their constituents or having engaged in corrupt
behavior.
The study highlights a number of implications for practitioners
in the international community. The first point is that in
spite of all the money that has gone into strengthening legislatures
and monitoring elections, remarkably little progress seems
to have been made. This should not necessarily be a source
of despair but an invitation to accept that any support of
political society, whether the legislature or the electoral
administration, is not merely a technical or 'capacity-building'
issue. While greater capacity is needed in many countries,
every gesture of support is highly political and will be perceived
as such. Our study suggests that trust and social capital
in the relationship between voters and their representatives
- or civil and political society - are as important ingredients
in what needs to be done as such inputs as training, staff
capacity, or archives.
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