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Governance is the act of governing. It relates to decisions that define expectations, grant power, or verify performance. It consists of either a separate process or part of management or leadership processes. These processes and systems are typically administered by a government.

In the case of a business or of a non-profit organisation, governance relates to consistent management, cohesive policies, guidance, processes and decision-rights for a given area of responsibility. For example, managing at a corporate level might involve evolving policies on privacy, on internal investment, and on the use of data.

To distinguish the term governance from government: "governance" is what a "government" does. It might be a geo-political government (nation-state), a corporate government (business entity), a socio-political government (tribe, family etc.), or any number of different kinds of government, but governance is the physical exercise of management power and policy, while government is the instrument (usually collective) that does it. The term government is also used more abstractly as a synonym for governance, as in the Canadian motto, "Peace, Order and Good Government".

Origin of the word[link]

The word governance derives from the Greek verb κυβερνάω [kubernáo] which means to steer and was used for the first time in a metaphorical sense by Plato. It then passed on to Latin and then on to many languages.^[1]

Processes and governance[link]

As a process, governance may operate in an organization of any size: from a single human being to all of humanity; and it may function for any purpose, good or evil, for profit or not. A reasonable or rational purpose of governance might aim to assure, (sometimes on behalf of others) that an organization produces a worthwhile pattern of good results while avoiding an undesirable pattern of bad circumstances.

Perhaps the moral and natural purpose of governance consists of assuring, on behalf of those governed, a worthy pattern of good while avoiding an undesirable pattern of bad. The ideal purpose, obviously, would assure a perfect pattern of good with no bad. A government, comprises a set of inter-related positions that govern and that use or exercise power, particularly coercive power.

A good government, following this line of thought, could consist of a set of inter-related positions exercising coercive power that assures, on behalf of those governed, a worthwhile pattern of good results while avoiding an undesirable pattern of bad circumstances, by making decisions that define expectations, grant power, and verify performance.

Politics provides a means by which the governance process operates. For example, people may choose expectations by way of political activity; they may grant power through political action, and they may judge performance through political behavior.

Conceiving of governance in this way, one can apply the concept to states, to corporations, to non-profits, to NGOs, to partnerships and other associations, to project-teams, and to any number of humans engaged in some purposeful activity.

Different definitions[link]

The World Bank defines governance as:

the manner in which power is exercised in the management of a country's economic and social resources for development.^[2]

The Worldwide Governance Indicators project of the World Bank defines governance as:

The traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised.^[3]

This considers the process by which governments are selected, monitored and replaced; the capacity of the government to effectively formulate and implement sound policies and the respect of citizens and the state of the institutions that govern economic and social interactions among them.

An alternate definition sees governance as:

the use of institutions, structures of authority and even collaboration to allocate resources and coordinate or control activity in society or the economy.^[4]

According to the United Nations Development Programme's Regional Project on Local Governance for Latin America:

Governance has been defined as the rules of the political system to solve conflicts between actors and adopt decision (legality). It has also been used to describe the "proper functioning of institutions and their acceptance by the public" (legitimacy). And it has been used to invoke the efficacy of government and the achievement of consensus by democratic means (participation).^[5]

The state and politics[link]

Some^[who?] suggest making a clear distinction between the concepts of governance and of politics. Politics involves processes by which a group of people with initially divergent opinions or interests reach collective decisions generally regarded as binding on the group, and enforced as common policy. Governance, on the other hand, conveys the administrative and process-oriented elements of governing rather than its antagonistic ones. Such an argument continues to assume the possibility of the traditional separation between "politics" and "administration". Contemporary governance practice and theory sometimes questions this distinction, premising that both "governance" and "politics" involve aspects of power.

In general terms, governance occurs in three broad ways:

1. Through networks involving public-private partnerships (PPP) or with the collaboration of community organisations;
2. Through the use of market mechanisms whereby market principles of competition serve to allocate resources while operating under government regulation;
3. Through top-down methods that primarily involve governments and the state bureaucracy.

These modes of governance often appear in terms of hierarchy, markets, and networks - but also in democracies. For instance, the tripartite governance of the United States consists of three branches of power (the Executive, its Legislature and the Supreme Court).

Corporate organizations[link]

Corporate organizations often use the word governance to describe both:

1. The laws and customs (rules) applying to that direction
2. The manner in which boards or their like direct a corporation

Fair governance[link]

A fair governance implies that mechanisms function in a way that allows the executives (the "agents") to respect the rights and interests of the stakeholders (the "principals"), in a spirit of democracy.

Types of governance[link]

Global governance[link]

Its defined^{[by whom?]} as "the complex of formal and informal institutions, mechanisms relationships, and processes between and among states, markets, citizens and organizations, both inter- and non-governmental, through which collective interests on the global plane are articulated, right and obligations are established, and differences are mediated". In contrast to the traditional meaning of "governance", some authors like James Rosenau have used the term "global governance" to denote the regulation of interdependent relations in the absence of an overarching political authority.^[6] The best example of this in the international system or relationships between independent states. The term can however apply wherever a group of free equals need to form a regular relationship.

Corporate governance[link]

Corporate governance consists of the set of processes, customs, policies, laws and institutions affecting the way people direct, administer or control a corporation. Corporate governance also includes the relationships among the many players involved (the stakeholders) and the corporate goals. The principal players include the shareholders, management, and the board of directors. Other stakeholders include employees, suppliers, customers, banks and other lenders, regulators, the environment and the community at large.

The first documented use of the word "corporate governance" is by Richard Eells (1960, pg. 108) to denote "the structure and functioning of the corporate polity". The "corporate government" concept itself is older and was already used in finance textbooks at the beginning of the 20th century (Becht, Bolton, Röell 2004). These origins support a multiple constituency (stakeholder) definition of corporate governance.

Project governance[link]

The term governance as used in industry (especially in the information technology (IT) sector) describes the processes that need to exist for a successful project.

Information technology governance[link]

IT governance primarily deals with connections between business focus and IT management. The goal of clear governance is to assure the investment in IT generate business value and mitigate the risks that are associated with IT projects.^[7]

Participatory governance[link]

See Kafue River article, section Participatory governance

Participatory governance focuses on deepening democratic engagement through the participation of citizens in the processes of governance with the state. The idea is that citizens should play a more direct roles in public decision-making or at least engage more deeply with political issues. Government officials should also be responsive to this kind of engagement. In practice, Participatory Governance can supplement the roles of citizens as voters or as watchdogs through more direct forms of involvement.^[8]

Non-profit governance[link]

Non-profit governance focuses primarily on the fiduciary responsibility that a board of trustees (sometimes called directors—the terms are interchangeable) has with respect to the exercise of authority over the explicit public trust that is understood to exist between the mission of an organization and those whom the organization serves.^[9]

Orders of governance[link]

With the process of governing now involving a variety of private as well as public actors, governance is becoming an increasingly complex issue.^[10] More traditional theories of conceptualizing and understanding governance (such as the Westminster system) are now considered unsuitable, as they are too "government-oriented"^[11] and are unable to examine the more complex, modern nature of interactions between governing actors.^[12] This is where the 'Orders of Governance' conceptualisation comes in. It breaks down governance into three different orders, first, second and meta, which "correlate to the different levels at which governance is used"^[13] and allow for a more detailed analysis of the governing process.

First-order[link]

First-order governance is the level at which problems are identified and solutions enacted . This is done through interaction between the governing organisation and its citizens^[14] which helps identify what the problem is, who is experiencing it and what an appropriate solution may be. There can be differing opinions in an organisation as to what constitutes a problem and there is, to some extent, a degree of subjectivity in coming up with an "ordered problem definition".^[15] The interaction with those being governed helps in this respect as it legitimises the definition. Once a problem is identified, a solution usually comes in the form of laws and/or regulations passed by the governing body.

Second-order[link]

Second-order governance is the level at which the "institutional arrangements" are provided "within which first order governing takes place".^[14] Institutional arrangements can take many forms in both the public (a regulatory agency) and private (the financial market) sectors. What is important is that a framework is provided that enables first-order governance to take place. Again, there is a distinct "two-way role" at this level with both "those being governed and those governing"^[16] having input into the process to provide an effective and legitimate institutional setting. This approach enables a more comprehensive analysis of governing interactions, as actors can often "be influenced by institutions (and the way) these help or hinder them" in the pursuit of their goals.^[17]

Metagovernance[link]

"Metagovernance" is widely defined as the "governing of governing".^[18] It represents the established ethical principles, or 'norms', that shape and steer the entire governing process. It is important to note that there are no clearly defined settings within which metagoverning takes place, or particular persons who are responsible for it. While some^[who?] believe metagoverning to be the role of the state who are assumed to want to steer actors in a particular direction, it can "potentially be exercised by any resourceful actor"^[19] who wishes to influence the governing process. Examples of this include the publishing of codes of conduct at the highest level of international government,^[20] and media focus on specific issues ^[13] at the socio-cultural level. Despite their different sources, both seek to establish values in such a way that they become accepted 'norms'. The fact that 'norms' can be established at any level and can then be used to shape the governance process as whole, means metagovernance is part of the both the input and the output of the governing system.^[21]

Measuring governance[link]

Over the last decade,^[when?] several efforts have been conducted in the research and international development community in order to assess and measure the quality of governance of countries all around the world.

Measuring governance is inherently a controversial and political exercise. A distinction is therefore made between external assessments, peer assessments and self-assessments. Examples of external assessments may be donor assessments or comparative indices produced by international non-governmental organisations. An example of a peer assessment may be the African Peer Review Mechanism. Examples of self-assessments may be country-led assessments that can be led by Government, civil society, researchers and/or other stakeholders at the national level.

One of these efforts to create an internationally comparable measure of governance and an example of an external assessment is the Worldwide Governance Indicators project, developed by members of the World Bank and the World Bank Institute. The project reports aggregate and individual indicators for more than 200 countries for six dimensions of governance: voice and accountability, political stability and lack of violence, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, control of corruption. To complement the macro-level cross-country Worldwide Governance Indicators, the World Bank Institute developed the World Bank Governance Surveys, which are a country level governance assessment tools that operate at the micro or sub-national level and use information gathered from a country’s own citizens, business people and public sector workers to diagnose governance vulnerabilities and suggest concrete approaches for fighting corruption.

A new World Governance Index (WGI) has been developed and is open for improvement through public participation. The following domains, in the form of indicators and composite indexes, were selected to achieve the development of the WGI: Peace and Security, Rule of Law, Human Rights and Participation, Sustainable Development, and Human Development.

Additionally, in 2009 the Bertelsmann Foundation published the Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI), which systematically measure the need for reform and the capacity for reform within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. The project examines to what extent governments can identify, formulate and implement effective reforms that render a society well-equipped to meet future challenges, and ensure their future viability. [1]^[22]

Examples of country-led assessments include the Indonesian Democracy Index, monitoring of the Millennium Development Goal 9 on Human Rights and Democratic Governance in Mongolia and the Gross National Happiness Index in Bhutan.

Seat of government[link]

See: capital city for details and list of national capitals for each country's seat of government.

The seat of government is defined by Brewer's Politics as "the building, complex of buildings or city from which a government exercises its authority".^[23] The seat of government is usually located in the capital. In some countries the seat of government differs from the capital, e.g. in the Netherlands where The Hague is the seat of government and Amsterdam is the Capital of the Netherlands. In most it is the same city, for example Ankara as the capital and seat of government of Turkey. In the United Kingdom, the seat of government is Westminster, a city within London, the capital.

See also[link]

• Agency cost
• Anarchism
• Collaborative governance
• International healthcare accreditation
• Internet governance
• Global governance
• Governmentality
• Open-source governance
• Participatory democracy
• Principal–agent problem
• Public choice theory
• Public management and New public management
• Seat of local government
• Social innovation
• Statism
• Rule According to Higher Law

References[link]

Literature[link]

• Becht, Marco, Patrick Bolton, Ailsa Röell, "Corporate Governance and Control" (October 2002; updated August 2004). ECGI - Finance Working Paper No. 02/2002.
• Asie Dwise (2011), Corporate Governance: An Informative Glimpse, International Journal of Governance. 1(2) :206-214
• Eells, R.S.F. (1960), The Meaning of Modern Business: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Large Corporate Enterprise (Columbia University Press, NY).
• Senn, Marcell. Sovereignty – Some critical Remarks on the Genealogy of Governance In: Journal on European History of Law, London: STS Science Centre, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 9–13, (ISSN 2042-6402).
• Türke, Ralf-Eckhard: Governance - Systemic Foundation and Framework (Contributions to Management Science, Physica of Springer, September 2008).

External links[link]

Look up governance in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Forum for a new World Governance
• PUBLIC · ESADE's Institute of Public Governance & Management e-bulletin [2]
• [3] International Journal of Governance
• International Journal of Governance
• sgi-network.org Sustainable Governance Indicators
• [4] Worldwide Governance Indicators
• Journal of Politics & Governance

Brent Rathgeber (born 24 July 1964 in Melville, Saskatchewan) is a lawyer and politician from Alberta, Canada. Formerly a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 2001 to 2004, he was elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the 2008 federal election.

Political career[link]

Rathgeber won election to the provincial electoral district of Edmonton Calder in the 2001 Alberta general election after defeating Liberal incumbent Lance White.

In the 2004 Alberta general election, after only serving one term in office, he was defeated by David Eggen of the New Democratic Party.^[1]

He stood as the Conservative Party of Canada candidate for the federal electoral district of Edmonton—St. Albert in the 2008 election, and was elected with 61.6 per cent of the vote. In the 2011 federal election, he was re-elected and continues to serve as the MP for Edmonton-St. Albert.

Electoral record[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official Website
• Brent Rathgeber - Parliament of Canada biography

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