Governance and Public Policy
Public Policy
Called public policy because it is impacting the public at large.
Public Administration
Efficient and effective management of state resources to deliver the essential public services
to the people.
These resources act as inputs. (land labor and capital)
The process of managing these inputs is public administration (managers). They can
maximize the outputs using the given inputs or technically called as human resource
efficiency. (health and education collectively known as Social development and when
poverty management is added, it is called Human development.)
Hence the output if delivery of public services (health education and other)
Public Policy
Administration of resources is done by a direction and for that a direction is needed which is
derived by laws and policies. Public policy is sectoral in nature. Specific department derive
policy for that that issue. e.g health dep. Make health policy
These public has following features and needs to be met first. While deriving a policy
A public policy must be forward looking and futuristic
A public policy must be realistic
A public policy has to be achievable
A public policy must be resource efficient
A public policy must be manageable.
Policy is the direction for achieving certain demands while plan include direction and
mechanism of acting on that policy. Plan can short, medium or long term.
For instance, SDGs (an international agenda) is a perfect policy with each and everything
defined and directed to carry out a plan
Governance
Governance is the implementation of public policy.
Governance is done by public administration through the process of public administration
in general and for ensuring efficiency and effectiveness, it is done by good governance.,
while staying within the ambit of public policy. For that good governance tools are
employed by public administrators.
Tools of good governance including winning over, 1 public opinion, 2 accessing state
resources accurately, 3 winning over political figures, 4 control of corruption, 5 building
political consensus and so on.
For instance, the policy of implementation of lockdown in Pakistan. And these 5 tools of
good governance suit this lockdown policy well.
Government
Political government comprises of those individuals who sit on the treasury benches of
parliament.
Elected side and non-elected side of the governments
Elected side form the political part of government
Non-elected part is the bureaucracy
Division of govt include Political govt and bureaucracy.
Actors or stake holders in implementing public policy and carrying out governance. Since not
only governments perform governance by other institutions also does governance including
NGOs, MNCs, IGOs, especially after globalization. These actors also include different regional
alliances.
So, it can be said that governance does have external influence in every society these days.
In some areas governments totally out-sources a policy and only regulated the process and keeps
a check on the policy implementation
Stake Holders
1. Government itself
2. NGOs, IGOs (NGOs help govt. in policy formulation. Govt take advice of
3. Civil Society Organizations (CSOs). They are into public policy formulation but more
into policy implementation, public opinion formulation. For instance, in orange train
construction, heritage preservation CSOs took stays in court on construction that was
spoiling the cultural heritage. . they formed public opinions, formed political consensus,
take help of members of parliament in taking their demand to the legislation. Also the
duty of Post-Ante that CSOs does after policy formulation in a way that if a policy is
dangerous for a society, CSOs come into action and tell the govt the this policy will be
detrimental to the public
4. Inter-Developmental Organization. They work as a pressure group as CSOs and
influence the policy formulation of govt. for instance, IDOs are of the view that poverty
is the big threat to economy and they advise the govt that for poverty alleviation program
is needed for developing countries and carry out a detailed research on that the policy
that directs the policy of govt on the particular issue. Except that any the research that
comes with time, derives the policy in that direction and government is assisted and
influenced from these IDOs and their research.
5. Bilateral Multilateral Organizations (alliances). SAARC, SCO, EU etc.
6. Media. Awareness and problem diagnostics are done majorly by media to assist govt in
policy making for any particular issue.
7. Private Sector. Multiple entities included. Private sector entities (PSEs) including
chamber of commerce and others that suggests and advices government for different
policy, particularly economic policies.
8. Judiciary.
Evolution of Good Governance
During the 1950s, the world focused on creating an international economy which is why
international trade and foreign aid became the focus of the international economic policy.
Geography and climate emerged as the dominant explanation to development as proposed by
Jeffery Sacks. This means that the economists thought that those countries which had favorable
climatic conditions suited to agriculture and physical human growth would develop faster than
countries in hotter climates, this also became of the dependency theory which said that
countries in the global south are under develop because of hotter climate while countries in the
global north are developed because of the favorable climate.
However, the East Asian miracle in the 1970s busted the myth that geography defines
development and economists from all over the world rushed into China to see what special with
the Chinese who are doing to achieve such phenomenal rates of growth. They found out that
industrialization was the key to the Chinese model of development. Thereupon the world focus
shifted to industrialization. However, in the 1980s economists started questioning the East Asian
model by arguing that while the East Asian countries where growing at a rapid pace, large parts
of their population remained poor, unhealthy and without proper education. So, economists then
started thinking that the end of the economic process cannot be industrialization of economic
growth, but it has to be human development and therefore the human development approach
dominated governance and public policy during the 1990s.
During the same decade, the American institutional economist Douglas North published
ap paper in which he argued that institutional development is the greatest contribution to the
development of nations. The same argument was later epitomized by Ace Moglu and Robinson
in their 2012 book, “Why Nations Fail”.
In the evidence that emerged from the developing world, it seemed that developing
institutions was easier said than done. Many developing countries were lost in trying to develop
institutions that would ultimately develop their people. Therefore, the international development
organizations like the WB, IMF, UNESCO, ADB and so on so forth came up with a consensus
concept that originated out of WB research that separated good from bad governance. So
basically, it told the developing countries that if you do the following in your respective
societies you would be governing in a good way and ensure institutional development which
would eventually develop humans.
These steps proposed by the World Bank came to be known as the Good Governance
Framework.
Good Governance Framework
i. Voice and Accountability/ Participation
ii. Political stability and absence of violence
iii. Government effectiveness
iv. Regulatory authorities and their quality
v. Rule of law and access to justice
vi. Control of corruption
Voice and Accountability/Participation
Under democratic societies all citizens must have a voice or must be allowed to
participate in the public policy formulation or decision process of the government. This is
even more so important within institutions which the evidence suggests develop faster when
run democratically as opposed to bureaucratically. The idea within institutions is to take
decisions that are inclusive and participatory. In simple words, this implies that all those
effected by a certain decision should be allowed to take part in the making of that decision.
Such voice should be provided without any discrimination or prejudice of race cast or
religion etc. Allowing citizens’ voice after decision and policies are implemented makes
room for public accountability and accountability within institutions. This means that those
have a voice can utilize it to make those with power and authority accountable.