essay questions
- With reference to Hulme (2009), Habermas (2001) and Singer (2002) discuss the following statement: ‘Debating governance’ is a cornerstone of participatory democracy that requires rethinking the conceptual, spatial and organizational boundaries of the nation state, regional environments, market and society.
- With reference to Hyden (2004), chapter1 and Stiglitz (2010), discuss the different ways in which the United Nations Development Program and the World Bank define governance. Explain the reasons for the different definitions. How does Hyden sum up the different approaches to governance?
- With reference to Lawn (2010), Urry (2010) critically assess the debate about market-based governance within democratic societies.
- With reference to Pierre and Peters (2000) and Kjaer (2004) critically assess the debates about public sector and government reform during the past two decades addressing the various ideas driving the reforms and the debates about the strengths and limits of those ideas with reference to specific examples.
- Good Governance is pragmatic and contextual in so far as it takes into account social, cultural, political and economic and environmental considerations. Critically discuss with reference to examples.
- Critically discuss the following quotation: “The job of government is to provide the stitches that link the patchwork, not prescribe the colour, shape and texture of every separate piece of the quilt. The best of the new links will be created by people who rely on their own practical, tacit knowledge of what is needed and who harness their own anger and frustration into a new and positive energy. They may well be uncomfortable for politicians and bureaucrats alike, but that is what democracy is all about. People problems are not neat and tidy packages to be handled by experts at the centre.”(Edgar 2001:193).
- “Governance in democratization theory is … in a sense Meta policy making: it refers to the setting of rules that guide rule making “(Hyden, 1999 in Kjaer 2004: 165). Critically discuss with reference to the literature and examples.
- Explain the following statement with reference to the literature, case studies and or your own experience: “Local government staff need to consider the way in which management has shifted away from administration based on compartmentalized thinking, practice and policy to governance based on joined-up thinking, practice and policy”.
- Critically discuss the following quotation from “Changing Patterns of Governance in Britain (Bevier and Rhodes 2003: 59) by drawing on Du Gay’s (2002a, b) criticisms of governance:
What are the implications for governance internationally?
“In an important sense, there is no such thing as governance, but only the differing constructions of the several traditions. There is no necessary logic or structural process determining the form governance takes, neither a process based on the intrinsic rationality of markets more one [based] on the path dependency of institutions. In an equally important sense, however governance is the diverse actions and political struggles informed by the beliefs of agents as they arise in traditions. There may be some agreement that the boundary between state and civil society is being redrawn, and that the form and extent of state intervention is changing, but there is little agreement on how, why and whether it is desirable. The reinvention of the minimal state by the New Right and the discovery of networks by New Labour are attempts to find substitutes for the voluntaristic bonds diminished by state intervention and the erosion of intermediate institutions such as local government. We are witnessing the search for an extended role for civil society as a counterweight to the centralization of the 1960s and 1970s”.
- Critically discuss Florini’s (2003) arguments in chapter 4, entitled “Why Governments won’t solve everything” in “The Coming Democracy” with reference to the literature discussed in modules 1 and 2.
- Discuss the following quotation with reference to accountability and transparency issues raised by Hyden et al (2004). How relevant are these ideas for developing nations?
“People are not just separate actors competing in the market place of life. They are citizens of a community. We are social beings. We develop the moral power of personal responsibility for ourselves and each other. People are not just competitive; they are co-operative too. They are not just interested in the welfare of themselves; they are interested in the wellbeing of others” (Blair 1996, pp 299-300)…Partnerships [are the basis for] an enabling state…joined up problems need joined up solutions (cited in Bevier and Rhodes 2003: 58).
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