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Good Governance: The Inflation of an Idea

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  • Merilee S. Grindle

Abstract

Good governance has grown rapidly to become a major ingredient in analyses of what's missing in countries struggling for economic and political development. Intuitively and in research, good governance is a seductive idea-who, after all, can reasonably defend bad governance? Nevertheless, the popularity of the idea has far outpaced its capacity to deliver. In its brief life, it has also muddied the waters of thinking about the development process, and has become conflated with the capacity to generate growth, alleviate poverty, and bring effective democracy to peoples in poor countries. Scholars and practitioners need to develop a reasonable understanding of what good governance can deliver-and what it cannot. They must also assume more realistic expectations about how much good governance can be expected in poor countries struggling with a plethora of demands on their capacities to pursue change. In this paper, I explore how and why the concept of good governance emerged and grew, and then suggest ways that academics and practitioners can become more sensitive to the limitations of fads and to curb the tendency toward idea inflation.

Suggested Citation

  • Merilee S. Grindle, 2010. "Good Governance: The Inflation of an Idea," CID Working Papers 202, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
  • Handle: RePEc:cid:wpfacu:202
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. James Copestake & Richard Williams, 2014. "Political-Economy Analysis, Aid Effectiveness and the Art of Development Management," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 32(1), pages 133-153, January.
    2. Camilla Louise Bjerkli, 2013. "Governance on the Ground: A Study of Solid Waste Management in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 1273-1287, July.
    3. Siudek, Tomasz & Zawojska, Aldona, 2014. "Quality of national governance and rural development: The case of the European Union countries," 2014 International Congress, August 26-29, 2014, Ljubljana, Slovenia 182793, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. Olesya Venger & Terance D. Miethe, 2018. "Volatile Places, Volatile Times: Predicting Revolutionary Situations with Nations’ Governance and Fragility Indicators," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 138(1), pages 373-402, July.
    5. Tobin Im & Kris Hartley, 2019. "Aligning Needs and Capacities to Boost Government Competitiveness," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 119-137, March.
    6. Maiden, Emily & Brockway, Mark, 2018. "Parlez-vous français? Language and agricultural aid allocation strategies in northern Mali," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 356-375.
    7. Sud, Nikita, 2014. "Governing India’s Land," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 43-56.
    8. Onsardi, Onsardi & Darmi, Titi & Ekowati, Sri, 2019. "Muhammadiyah Political Role In Increasing Rural Community Economicn (The Role Of Institutional Assessment Branch Of Muhammadiyah In Resources Management)," OSF Preprints mqpdy, Center for Open Science.
    9. Kostas Rontos & Maria-Eleni Syrmali & Ioannis Vavouras, 2015. "Economic, political and social determinants of governance worldwide," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 17(2), pages 105-119, October.
    10. Castro, A. Peter, 2018. "Promoting natural resource conflict management in an illiberal setting: Experiences from Central Darfur, Sudan," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 163-171.
    11. Muhammad Azam, 2022. "Governance and Economic Growth: Evidence from 14 Latin America and Caribbean Countries," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 13(2), pages 1470-1495, June.
    12. Bright IGHOROJEH & Biliamin Adekunle ADEYEYE, 2019. "Democracy, good governance and development in the nascent democracies: A case study of Nigeria’s fourth republic," International Journal of Science and Business, IJSAB International, vol. 3(1), pages 175-183.

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