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Written Report on Major 7 (Comparative Government and Politics) Submitted by: Submitted to: Calaylay, Eddelyn Jessica S. Ms. C. Tobias BSED III-C (Soc. Sci.) PRESCRIPTIONS FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE In this digital age, good governance becomes possible when the following are present: 1. Transparency of government. Citizens must be kept informed of the decisions of the state and their justification. 2. Simplicity of procedures. Whether in fiscal matters, investment, or other areas, administrative procedures need to be as simple as possible, with the number of participants reduced to a minimum. 3. Responsibility. Public officials must be held accountable and, if necessary, penalized for offenses. 4. Fight against corruption. Eradication of corruption is imperative for promoting healthy and efficient economic management. 5. Individual freedom and collective expression. A free and responsible press, in particular, is an important pillar of democracy. 6. Independence of the legal system. The legal system must be free from pressure and intervention from political forces or any other organization, to ensure that its decisions are independent and impartial. It is observed that the list above has become the foundation of strong democracies in many developing countries. India, South Korea, Chile, Taiwan,

PRESCRIPTIONS FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE

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Page 1: PRESCRIPTIONS FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE

Written Report on Major 7

(Comparative Government and Politics)

Submitted by: Submitted to:

Calaylay, Eddelyn Jessica S. Ms. C. Tobias

BSED III-C (Soc. Sci.)

PRESCRIPTIONS FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE

In this digital age, good governance becomes possible when the following are

present:

1. Transparency of government. Citizens must be kept informed of the decisions

of the state and their justification.

2. Simplicity of procedures. Whether in fiscal matters, investment, or other areas,

administrative procedures need to be as simple as possible, with the number of

participants reduced to a minimum.

3. Responsibility. Public officials must be held accountable and, if necessary,

penalized for offenses.

4. Fight against corruption. Eradication of corruption is imperative for promoting

healthy and efficient economic management.

5. Individual freedom and collective expression. A free and responsible press, in

particular, is an important pillar of democracy.

6. Independence of the legal system. The legal system must be free from

pressure and intervention from political forces or any other organization, to

ensure that its decisions are independent and impartial.

It is observed that the list above has become the foundation of strong

democracies in many developing countries. India, South Korea, Chile, Taiwan,

Page 2: PRESCRIPTIONS FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE

Mexico, Malaysia, Singapore, Poland and Russia are enjoying relatively high growth

rates and rapid economic development because of good and effective governance

development framework.

TEN NOTES ON GOOD GOVERNANCE IMPLEMENTATION

Dr. Paul Oquist, a governance specialist for the United Nations wrote his “10

Notes on Good Governance Implementation” in the light of the emergent problems

confronting new democracies including the Philippines.

1. Policy and institutional analysis must be combined because policy without

institutions is difficult to implement, rarely successful, and never sustainable.

institutions without policies accomplish little, fail to adapt, and enter to decline

and decay.

2. The statement that politicians formulate strategic policies while civil servants

implement them is a gross oversimplification.

a.) The first reason is that politicians with great vision and strong leadership

capacity are exceptions to the rule, not the rule. Those that have these

characteristics in the right conditions, and with a little luck, can write history.

Those that don’t are heavily reliant on others for information, analysis, vision,

and policies. In some countries strong political parties and research institutes

play an important role. In others the leaders are the parties and there is little

additionality. In all countries pre-decision teams determine policy content,

including almost all of the details. The more technical the world becomes the

more this becomes the case. In all countries civil servants plays roles in these

processes, and in some countries almost all of the laws are written by the

concerned ministries, sometimes with and sometimes without external

consultations. In sum, civil servants are usually deeply involved in policy

formulation.

b.) The second reason is that politicians who do not pay attention to

implementation run the risk of not seeing a policy implemented, of the results

not being successful, and of the impact not being those desired. Most

politicians are working for the next two governments anyway. By the time

policies are formulated and programmes and projects designed, approved,

financed, and implemented, the results are in the next government after that.

If attention is not paid to implementation very little will be accomplished by a

government in its own term. Politicians must be attentive to implementation if

Page 3: PRESCRIPTIONS FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE

the bureaucracy does not like a policy. All bureaucracies are skilled at rear

guard actions to avoid policies they dislike. The British comedy “Yes, Prime

Minister” that Chief Secretary Anson Chan mentioned in her inaugural

address has been running for decades on variations of this theme. She

mentioned that no one person has the power to stop its implementation. A

minister or even government is simply outlasted—with permanence being the

prime asset of bureaucracy in long-term policy controversies. There are

thousands of means to this end but most can be categorized under the four

“d’s”. The four “d’s” are somewhat similar to the tactics the military applies in

counter-insurgency operations. The military applies in counter-insurgency

operations. The military applies “take, hold, consolidate, and develop”. To

disliked policies, the bureaucracy applies: “delay, dislute, distort, and

destroy”. In sum, politicians who are not involved in policy implementation do

so at their own peril.

3. Bureaucracy is the basic organizational and operational principle of the Industrial

Age while the network is the basic principle of the Knowledge Age. Since we live

in a period of transition between those two eras in human civilization we will have

to deal with the characteristics of both for some time to come. However, this also

entails great opportunities. Networking individuals in different bureaucratic

structures, as well as independents, can create non-hierarchical, results-oriented

work groups. These types of networks can work at both macro and micro levels.

4. At the macro-level, one of the most effective ways to support good governance

reform is to identify where good governance reform advocates and activities

already exist, network them, and promote positive synergies between them.

Support to an expanding universe of networks of change agents can constitute a

movement. Historically and in our time there are impressive examples of the

potential power of networks. To take but one example, when Rachel Carson

wrote “The Silent Spring” forty years ago she was practically alone in pointing out

the damage the industrial age does to the environment. Today the level of

consciousness on these issues is high, although enormous tasks lie ahead both

in terms of consciousness and policy. The environmental movement at the

international and national levels, including people from both the public and

private sectors at both the central and local levels, is largely responsible for the

higher levels of consciousness and some of the policy breakthroughs, such as

the Montreal protocol. Transparency, accountability, anti-corruption, devolution,

empowerment, poverty reduction, inclusion, including gender equity and minority

rights, as well as peace, can also benefit from good governance movements.

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5. At the micro-level, mission-specific, time-bound, ad hoc working groups or task

forces can bring together the best national talent available, from all sectors, for

policy formulation and consultation, as well as for the monitoring and evaluation

and implementation. They are non-official networks but their products are

officialized. These networks works best when they products are officialized.

These networks works best when they are accompanied by political will and

commitment at the highest are accompanied by political will and commitment at

the highest decision-making level, and used only for top priority issues that must

be accomplished and/or those that are so multi-sectoral, and remain for several

iterations of the policy process. This allows for participation in consensus

building, change management, phasing and sequencing, policy differentiation in

the territory, and policy adaptations across time, in sum the rigorous prioritization

of policy actions. Hawkins says that time in nature’s way of ensuring that

everything doesn’t happen all at once. A rigorous prioritization of a small set of

top priorities, and phasing the sequencing is also necessary to ensure that the

government doesn’t try to do everything all at once.

6. Bureaucratic organization and operations are sectoralized while networks are

holistic. The opportunities and problems emerging in the globalized knowledge

age tend to be inter-sectoral, requiring holistic attention. Attempts have been

made to deal with issues through inter-sectoral or inter-institutional coordination

committees and/or by designating lead institutions. If a programme must be done

or if it is so inter-sectoral that it won’t work unless multiple institutions effectively

participate, the will and commitment of top level political leadership are

necessary. The networked working groups provide a channel for this approach.

7. Information is a basic raw material of governance in all institutional and

organizational forms. However, its role is different in the bureaucratic form of

organization and operations as compared to network organization and

operations. In bureaucratic organizations everything that is not explicitly

permitted is forbidden, all information is secret unless explicitly made public,

information access is on a need-to-know basis, and information is power, for the

few. In a networked environment everything that is not forbidden is permitted, all

information is public unless explicitly restricted, there is the right to information,

and information is empowerment of the many. In sum the transition from

bureaucratic to networked institutions is also the move from information as power

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for the few to information as empowerment for the many. Both the market

economy and democracy can be optimized by open access and the free flow of

information. Rights, however, entail responsibilities and issues of individual

privacy and press ethics are highly relevant to getting the right mix in these

policies.

8. The combination of democratic values, humane governance objectives, a

networked policy approach, and a customer-service orientation requires citizen

voice and participation in policy iterations. Systematic information and analysis

methodologies at the grass-roots level are returned to the community, but they

have been linked to local decision-making and planning at best. It is important

that they also be consolidated at the provincial and national levels. This is most

effective if there is representative national sample of communities involved.

9. Learning experience is a term preferred to best practices because of the

prescriptive nature of the term. This is for two reasons. First, there is a strong

tendency to copy models rather than construct policies that take national reality

as the point of departure and the point of arrival for analysis and action. Second,

what is best practice in one context can be the worst practice in another. Also,

learning should take place with regard to negative experiences just as much as

from positive ones.

10. Governance in conflict situations requires a holistic approach. Protracted social

conflict is a symptom if institutional breakdown that requires holistic treatment.

Dealing with protracted social conflict requires a combination of system theory-

based changed management and chaos theory-based risk management. The

holistic approach is also necessary because several of the following processes

can be present at the same time: conflict prevention, conflict containment, conflict

resolution actions, ceasefires, demobilization, peace agreements, remobilization,

displaced persons, resettlements, transition support reconstruction, and

development. In the most complex situations all of these elements are present at

the same time.