CONCEPT
PAPER OF
TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL BANGLADESH
PRESENTED AT THE
REGIONAL SEMINAR ON GOOD GOVERNANCE,
DHAKA, BANGLADESH, MARCH 19-24, 1999
Though the discussion on governance has been topical for quite some time but approaches to define governance and discussions on it differ widely. Thus it may be appropriate to start with my understanding of it.
Governance is a process and need be perceived in the context of policy - oriented approach incorporating economic, social and behavioral inputs so that policy choice analysis can integrate all pertinent dimensions except a logic external to the system as is being done by Bank - Fund theorists even through unambiguous means of measuring and comparing policy alternatives need be attempted even under conditions of limited information availability. As governance concerns allocation of political, social and economic resources, it is important to understand costs and benefits, utility and productivity, profitability and sustainability of alternative courses of action to the regime in power and the opposition in waiting. This is so because the state is an organization which interact directly or indirectly, actively or passively through its actions with organizations, groups and individuals resulting in legitimacy, continuity, stability, participation, support and feedback for change. Thus the authority and obligations on the part of the government is properly understood only in the context of demands and mobilization of support as well as outputs, incidence and impacts. The incorporation of the concept of legitimacy, continuity and stability provides for an approach to define authority frontier as well as division of labour within the governance system.
The understanding of the authority of the authority frontier in the context of output of the governance system is helped when economic, social and political factors are treated within a common framework of 'resource' analysis emphasizing production aspects of the governance process in the face of given or assumed consumption contours. The effective mobilization of various types of resources including political resource of support and commitment for the ruling regime, economic resources of motivated manpower as an output of educational system, behavioural resource emphasizing ethical values and social resource of effective interdependence are not readily available and hence the important task of governance is to identify collective goals and work for attainment of those. So that promises made to the collective is fulfilled, support base is rewarded and widened, and free floating resources that undermine authorities and relationship is contained. Posited in this way governance is a set of interaction and exchange amongst individuals, groups, institutions and structures involving tangible flows of goods and services as well as intangible flows of support, decisions, relationship etc.
This production and exchange approach with respect to governance leads us to the concepts of entrepreneur, infrastructure and investments. Governmental entrepreneurs are those set of people who are able to bring forth newness in the organization and processes so as to effectively mobilize social, political and economic resource to create and sustain support for decision making involving state resources and influencing production, allocation and distribution of benefit stream.
The governance infrastructure is not limited to the administrative institutional system for information, revenue and decision flows as that is the minimum is any system. The democratic governance extends it to competing social, economic and political resource mobilization and utilization system to serve the broader collective interest with consent of the people in order to contain destabilizing options and degenerating attitudes of the few at the helm of affairs.
Such approach to governance immediately suggests that different regimes in different times in the same country or in different or in different country will have different governance system even though broad structures may look the same and the countries may have common inheritance of administrative cadres and institutions. Such a contrasting picture is seen in the decolorised South Asia not only because mobilisable resources for governance were different in these countries but also because of the differences in support base, conceptualization of authority frontier and in the vision of the collective good as well as the production and distribution of benefits from the system. While the regimes in Pakistan shifted the support base from the people to civil-military bureaucracy and the disruptive consequence of the process required compensatory use of resources in non-productive systems and in extra-political arena. The regimes in India gradually fractured the support base not only because of administrative tension within unequal state-federal relation but also because of absence of innovative governance entrepreneurship for the creation of an infrastructure that can optimize mobilization of resources for production and distribution of collective goods as a result of which divisive instead of cohesive orientation of action emerged. In Sri Lanka, despite its noteworthy investments in human resource development, governance has been most influenced by primordial attachments so that groups based on ethnicity and religion disrupted cross-cutting allegiances required for emergence of strong democratic governance making meaningful interaction difficult over much of the recent decades. In Bangladesh, despite unprecedented unity during its liberation war, the seeds of disruption on group lines severely affected mobilization of social, political and economic resources in the pursuit of a collective good. Nepal has also been subject to disruptive governance process as normative and structural conditions for voicing choice were largely non-existent for a long period as was the case in Pakistan and Bangladesh and as it remains so in Bhutan and Maldives. As a result South Asia has experienced more conflict in governance process and resolution of conflict through good governance is yet to find its way despite many pronouncements. Indian in this case stands alone for its long enduring preference for resolution of conflicts through and interactive process that changes the structure of governance and decision making process. This can not be said with conviction for other countries in South Asia.
South Asia's governance has been led by statesman (e.g. Nehru) as well as anti-statesman (e.g. Bhutto; Jayawardhane) and they made socio-economic choices involving politico-administrative resources which were congruent with their own value commitments creating demands on the political community. The choice once made (viz. planned development, democratic centralism) they sought to remove socio-political impediments more through an administrative arrangement than through social mobilization as a result the alienation of people from the process manifested in various degrees in all South Asian countries despite the regime variance. This is so because of the predominance of paternalistic and patronizing approach in allocation of political and economic resources by the governmental authorities without adequately comprehending the productivity consequences of such use of resources which emphasis on short term political stability to suppress presumed long-term possibility of political chaos however rational resolution of which have been desirable. Such short -term adhoc stability choices have been comparatively more dominant in the case of non-democratic and anti-statement led governance.
Thus conceiving a political system where authority and legitimacy is the output, the existence of an explicit bargaining is seen in a democratic polity even though conditions many not always permit a competitive environment as the values and dispositions are determined through the state of influence of the pressure groups on supply and demand for the outputs. In a non-democratic polity existence of the systemic process is less explicit and conditions of competitiveness almost non-existence. This political system is linked to the social system where the product is status and they in turn influence and is influenced by conditions of economic input-output nexus, which determines the control over economic goods and resources. In the political system the regime and / or dominant groups exercise authority with resources gained or centralized in that system to influence and alter allocations in all three interrelated systems to improve or maintain a particular input-output and exchange positions depending on their orientation towards change or statuesque. In this perspective, governance is a process to influence the exchange relationships prevailing in the economic and social system through influencing opportunity or otherwise for participation of certain groups from the peripheral to central activity. Truly democratic regimes would like to expand the sphere of participation and non-democratic regimes to limit it. But democratic regimes often tilt the participation opportunities to their favored groups, sectors, and communities and try to diffuse disappointments and frustrations by containing the politicization process. All regimes face a need to increase its command over political resources (viz. Information, authority, capacity, acceptance etc.) while in reality only statesman are able to augment supply of such resources at the risk of short run augmented cost and allocate such resources in an efficient manner for longer augmented benefits.
Each governmental regime are more or less unequally endowed with the social, economic and political rewards and the latter are the means by which the regime compliance in induced or coerced to attain the objective of the dominant of the dominant polity. Besides the objective or remaining in authority in the present and its continuity in the future, political resources are used to induce social and economic change and to conduct politico-administrative infrastructure. This involves making difficult choices in response to demands of pressure groups often under conditions of resource scarcity and inter temporal sustainability.
It is in this context that education can be viewed as an input in the governance infrastructure. There is a large body of literature that deal with contribution of education to political development in general, to economic development though formation of human capital and to social development through an induced change in social relation and mode of production. But some regime types are more interested in creating support base and allegiance in the interest of authority and legitimacy rather than creation of an enlightened citizenry, which result in unintended consequences and costs to the regime. Non-democratic or centrally planned regimes tend to opt more for and educational systems which teaches the alleged virtues of the regime and its policies. Attempts in those dissimilar direction were indeed seen in Pakistan and Bangladesh and was strongly advocated by certain quarters in Sri Lanka, Nepal and India.
India with a democratic superstructure was never concerned about legitimacy except may be during the period of emergency. But since emergency the concern about authority and continuity has been manifest in the centre and in some of the states. However, between state variations are wide. Pakistan with non-democratic governance has always been concerned about legitimacy and since the return of elected government about survival and authority. The scenario in Bangladesh is similar. In Nepal the concern about legitimacy and authority has been substituted by concern about survival and authority after the institution of party based government. In Sri Lanka, survival, authority and legitimacy at times have remained the issues of concern. In Bhutan the issues more of modernization and hegemony and in Maldives the political systemic issues are similar though survival surfaced as an issue at some points time.
Let us now turn to Parliament, which has meant different things to different people in different countries at different times. Here again we need to be clear as to what we mean by it. Parliament in a representative democracy signifies an institution where freely and fairly elected representatives of the people enlisted lawfully as voters discuss policies and issues to protect the interest of the nation and the electorate. It is no longer the place where summoned noblemen speak and discuss affairs of the state. Hence the democratic governance presumes appropriate representatives of the members and in the parlance of political scientist we know of no better institution for participatory and representative governance than the parliament it self. In other words Parliament (or any other name that one can give it) creates the basic relationship between society and politics. Hence for good governance this basic relationship is fundamental.
To understand the relationship between politics and society, we need to understand the political divisions of the electorate and how far they reflect the social structure of the nation. We also need to understand the constitution and dynamics within the political parties, as they are both political groups and the social groups. We must also understand the role-played by special groups (i.e. labor, business etc) vis-à-vis the political parties.
Almost all studies of electoral behavior indicate a connection between the way people vote and the social group they belong to. Voting has something to do with class, religion, social status, occupational interest group etc. In all countries voting behavior is sufficiently stable even though people do change the way they vote over the course of their life. Not many studies on voting behavior are available for the south Asian countries. Studies in Bangladesh by Mahfuzul Huq, Shamsul Huda Haroon, on India by various authors, on Sri Lanka and Pakistan do support the relationship between voting behavior and reaction to "important issue" as perceived by the members of social strata. The more stratified the society, the more functional is the voting response. Professor Jean Blondel points out that the social characteristics of the members of a party and the leaders need serious consideration. History of Political representation in the sub-continent shows that selective representation was heavily biased towards the native elite class. After 1935, this was being increasingly challanged on the one hand and increasingly suppressed by national identity on the other. After the demise of the omnipotent ‘supranational identity’ the relation of social characteristics of the members and leaders are becoming increasingly clear and assertive. The Indian political scenario possibly bears the best testimony about this. An analysis of the winners and losers in elections indicate that when candidates are chosen from a narrow social group of election in a free and fair election where money and arms do not play a significant role, the candidate fail to return. Thus one of the preconditions for effective parliament for good governance is election of representative must be such as to be acceptable to elector group even though juridically a representative does not have to be drawn from the same social group as the people whom he represents. Even when we speak of representation in the minimalist sense i.e. correspondence of views with the electors such minimal congruence is often overlooked by the political party as a result the candidate/representative having no understanding of the basic attitudes, motivations, needs and desires of the members of the electoral community, political party and the leaders is a necessary condition for good representative parliamentary body which in turn can ensure good governance.
A recent survey conducted by the author found that majority of the electoral community do not have adequate knowledge about the sources of income, sources of electoral expenditure, ability to work for the community, contribution to the social development in the community etc. They further asserted that they have little access to the elected representative to seek, redress for individual or collective grievances. They emphatically felt that the representatives have used their votes to foster their family interest and narrow interest of the goons around them. I do not think the picture is much different elsewhere in the sub-continent.
In theory, besides the elected representatives who are at the apex of the political party, large number of ‘supporters’ devote much time to build the constituency organizations. The sense of satisfaction derived from working for a cause, which was present even twenty-five years ago, is generally absent. Hence within the hierarchy of constituency organization, there is power-play which the pyramidal organization of the political parties with a supreme leader do often fail to control and guide in a disciplined manner in the South Asian countries. As political parties are in effect a corporate entity, the activities of the party inside and outside the Parliament are affected by ‘collective developments i.e. where from and how the political leadership emerge, do the leaders in effect represent the rank-and-file of the groups that constitute the party level do the leaders feel responsible to the rank-and-life? As the party machine is not ‘democratic’ in South Asia, there remains a problem of communication of ideas and attitudes between the bottom and the top.
Our survey on governance has shown that most of the respondents found the absence of communication to be acute as ‘oligarchy’ remain in office for a long term without being representative of the rank-and-file.
In south Asia, politicians are subjected to influences of the people certain social and economic interests and members of civil service whose main activity is not political but who primarily aim at playing politics to further their interest. The social and economic interest groups, formal or informal, are created for the promotion of a cause by influencing the policy making of the government. In south Asian Parliaments this is quite evident when one looks at the social and economic legislation and analyze their influence and link them to the promoters. This compels the parliamentary group to compromise at the command of the supreme leader. At the moment in South Asia some interest groups are being promoted (i.e. Chambers) while others are being relegated from earlier heights (i.e. Trade Union). These interest groups claim to be representative of a particular rank-and-file with premises for support if their interests are protected. This clearly circumscribed section of the community in south Asia seem to have aligned themselves with political parties and has often claimed representation in the office or in the hierarchy. This has made parliamentarians and ministers subject to certain kind of pressure which affect decision making and transparent accountability. Good governance by parliamentarians are affected by presence of non-democratic practices within the party, non congruence of leader and support base as to objects of action and alignment with interest groups. To this are many add that most of the parliamentarians are yet to familiarize themselves with democratic functioning of the parliament including effective functioning of the standing committees in the absence of efficiency and knowledge of the matters they deal with. Hence the deliberations tend to psychophancy, irrelevant, unproductive and pre-determined.
To make the parliaments effective in promoting good governance, I would like to submit the following:
First, strategic audit of the parliamentary proceedings and standing committee deliberations. We need to know how much time and at what cost we have spent to make governance good and how to contain the wastage emanating from intolerance, non-neutrality of officials and irrational behavior.
Second, adopt an incremental triggering mechanism to address the problems of gap between expectations of the electors and actual performance through continuous scanning of internal and external environment in the parliament, and of the internal alignment.
Third, good governance assures a rational means-ends relationship. It is important to identify ends of action of the Parliament through means that and ends may not always be easily distinguishable. The association of opposition in means-ends relationship is essential as agreements on basic help to define the best choice and the best choice of using Parliamentary resource is the one that closely approximates the desired end which should be characterized by participatory devolution down to the constituency to encompass transparency, openness and voice.
Fourth, the parliamentary strategy for good governance should evolve an integrative comprehensiveness, even if it is initially loosely defined. The absence of integrative comprehensiveness has often led to systemic inaction or ideational corruption.
Fifth, in public policymaking rational-comprehensive method is found impossible to implement as was mentioned by Lindblom, and he suggested that in such situations logical incrementalism could produce a rational approach leading to good governance. This however assumes periodic bargaining between parties with feedback from constituency and congruence in parliamentary culture backed by specialized organizational abilities in the bureaucracy. In case logical incrementalism becomes difficult to be made operative, Braybrooke has suggested that disjointed incrementalism may work in weak congruence in parliamentary culture even though position - opposition turbulence is high if frequency of bargaining is continuous. The basic premise is agreement to work for a government that works for the good of the people defined through a participatory process which connotes active civic engagement.
In conclusion, I may add that environment is largely absent in most of the south Asian democracies because of the historical legacy. But as democracy is best amongst the governance process and Parliament is the peak of the participative process, the political parties need to gear themselves up to work for governance for the good of the people through creative discourses by participative engagement.