Brokers and Conveyors of Governance

Abstract

A notable characteristic of development theory and practice during recent decades has been that of reinvention in response to earlier failures. Crafting and diffusing changing visions of development has been one of the tasks of international institutions such as the World Bank, the regional development banks and the IMF. The most persuasive addition to the current discourse on development is ‘good governance’, largely founded on the recognition that strong and accountable institutions grounded in a sound market economy are fundamental to equitable development. Good governance is now central to academic and policy debates concerning the relationship between state, markets and civil society. There is an excess of material focusing on the ways in which local governance institutions are changing combined with those analysing the global forces behind these changes. From the perspective of IFIs, good governance is presented as a technical project to discipline the role of the state in developing economies. In the World Bank’s own definition, governance represents the process by which authority is exercised in the management of a country’s economic and social resources for development, and the capacity of governments to design, formulate and implement policies and discharge functions (Boeninger 1992: 3).