Does Governance Matter in South Asia and Beyond?

Abstract

The discourse on governance yields an unclear answer to the question of whether governance really matters in improving growth, not merely in economic terms, but also in improving the daily life of citizens, especially the poor. The first section of this article highlights trends in the theoretical discourse on governance, outlining attempts to define and assess the construct. Section 2 presents key criticisms launched against donors’ perspectives on governance: while critical voices suggest that the way governance has been pursued by external actors is heavily flawed, there is still universal consensus that good governance is sorely lacking in certain countries, particularly in South and Southeast Asia. Section 3 argues that in these regions, citizens’ civil liberties and political rights, government effectiveness, rule of law, regulatory quality, and anticorruption efforts have not kept pace with robust economic growth. Section 4 is devoted to summarizing what are perceived as the most interesting and critical observations in the book. Drawing on these and other observations from the first part of the chapter, the question of whether governance matters for the growth outcomes of developing countries is addressed. To make governance matter, there is a need for a tailored approach to governance reform—one that can maximize the impact and outcome of development.