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'Good Governance': The Rise and Decline of a

Policy Metaphor?
M. Doornbos
Version of record first published: 29 Mar 2010.

To cite this article: M. Doornbos (2001): 'Good Governance': The Rise and Decline of a Policy Metaphor?, The
Journal of Development Studies, 37:6, 93-108

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‘Good Governance’:
The Rise and Decline of a Policy Metaphor?

M A RT I N D O O R N B O S

I. INTRODUCTION
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For over a decade, the notion of ‘good governance’ has served as a general
guiding principle for donor agencies in demanding adherence from recipient
governments to proper administrative processes in the handling of
development assistance and expecting them to put in place efficient policy
instruments towards that end. At the present time, indications are that donor
references to the ‘good governance’ notion as a way of trying to induce
changes in the institutional environment in recipient countries may have had
their longest day, making room for new preferred patterns of interaction
between donors and selected recipient countries on the aid front. The
present study aims to explore the conditions under which the criterion of
‘good governance’ first became adopted as a donor policy metaphor and
now seems likely to get eclipsed. Particular attention will need to be given
in this regard to successive shifts in the relevant policy thinking within the
World Bank.
As a background, it should be recalled that around 1989–90, all of a
sudden the ‘good governance’ concept became prominent on the
international aid front. First launched as a donor discourse, it came just as
unexpectedly as the fall of the Berlin Wall which happened only a little
earlier, and in fact the two developments may not have been entirely
unconnected. Before that time, aid agencies and other development
institutions had not been in the habit of approaching their programme
relations with counterparts in terms of criteria of ‘good governance’. Nor
had, for that matter, the term ‘governance’ constituted part of the
vocabularies used in political science courses at European and American
universities in the decades before. To be sure, the word had a dictionary
existence, but as such it primarily carried seemingly outmoded legalistic

Martin Doornbos, Emeritus Professor of Political Science, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague.
The author would like to thank John Martinussen and Daniel Fleming of the Graduate School of
International Development Studies at Roskilde University and an anonymous referee for their
useful comments on an earlier draft of this study.
The Journal of Development Studies, Vol.37, No.6, August 2001, pp.000–000
PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON
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94 CHANGING THE CONDITIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT AID

connotations, such as in respect of the governance of an estate or a

philanthropic foundation. These were the kind of bodies that had boards of
governors whose institutional role required a designation rather grander
than ‘administration’, less business-like than ‘management’, and having
their ‘political’ concerns handled discreetly but firmly.
But then, all at once, the notion of ‘good governance’ was there, now to
refer to the way in which whole countries, or cities or provinces for that
matter, were being ‘governed’, or to be governed. Contextually, rather than
intrinsically, it soon transpired that any references that were made through
it somehow pertained to states and other entities in the South, rather than in
Europe or North America from where the concept was being (re-)launched.
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Moreover, with the adjective ‘good’ added to it, it became unmistakably

clear that the concept of ‘good governance’ could be used to invite
judgement about how the country, city or agency concerned was being
‘governed’: it enabled the raising of evaluative questions about proper
procedures, transparency, the quality and process of decision-making, and
other such matters [Doornbos, 1995].
Looking back now at the ten-year interval since the launch of the ‘good
governance’ discourse, it has been striking to see how in virtually no time
the term ‘governance’, retrieved from a lingering, obscure existence,
became a household word figuring on top of the list of concerns of aid
agencies, governments, researchers and the media. As is often true with new
buzz-words, though, there is as yet hardly a consensus as to its core
meaning, and less and less of a common idea as to how it could be applied
more concretely. Still, it is there and it has gained a key function by virtue
of its capacity all at once to draw attention to a whole range of (often largely
unspecified) issues concerning processes of public policy-making and
authority structures. In that sense it rapidly appealed to the imagination of
analysts as well as practitioners, and became a focal point for intellectual as
well as for policy discourses.
Today, some ten years after its rebirth, several questions appear to have
continuing pertinence with regard to the use of ‘good governance’ as a
policy metaphor:1 What exactly does it mean? Is it a universal concept or
does it vary from context to context? What meaning does the World Bank
attach to the term? Is that a useful conceptualisation? What critique does it
invite? What handle does it offer when judging countries in connection with
the allocation of aid funds? Is it in any case ‘right’ or ‘proper’ to make aid
conditional on good governance? By posing conditionalities in terms of
practices and structures for good governance, changes in the latter respect
will be (partly) externally determined. Again, is that ‘right’; and why or why
not would that be the case?
A reflection on the origins and evolution of the ‘good governance’ idea,
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especially as regards its use as a reference point in donor-recipient
discourses, must ask why it emerged at the time it did and what has, since
then, been its track record. Moreover, one may well ask whether it is likely
to keep drawing the same level of attention as it has done hitherto. It is these
two tasks which constitute the objectives of this contribution.

II. THE ELASTICITY OF THE ‘GOVERN A N C E ’ CO N CEP T

In terms of its scope and potential coverage, the notion of ‘governance’ had
an a priori attractiveness from a perspective of global policy-making as it
could refer to complexities entailing a good deal more than (sound)
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administration or management, namely the element of political structuring

and the handling of this, while at the same time including the
administrative-managerial dimension. Though evidently not to be equated
with ‘politics’, let alone ‘political leadership’, it thus none the less opened
a window for a focus on how ‘politics’ or the political process was
conducted and embedded within larger structures. Significantly, in the
dichotomous manner in which for years many practitioners and theorists
had been used to think about ‘politics’ and ‘administration’, there had
earlier been hardly a single word connecting these two spheres – distinct yet
closely related and overlapping as they are. Part of the term’s appeal was
indeed that it seemed to be able to fill that need. Curiously, though, while
thus in principle comprising a political dimension, in actuality the use of
‘governance’ on the donor front soon seemed to imply a certain de-
politicisation of political processes.
Yet it should be born in mind that the term itself, while pointing to a
general area of common interest, hardly carries a specific meaning. Rather,
its intrinsic open-endedness, vagueness, and inherent lack of specificity
tend to generate a good deal of searching and debate as to what is or should
be its ‘proper’ meaning, prompting multiple efforts to appropriate it and
define it in particular ways and directions.2 Nor is such lack of specificity
particularly surprising: an elastic term like ‘governance’, rather than
constituting a concept in its own right, is more like a flexible carrier which
can be used to convey varying combinations of messages or consignments,
though largely remaining within the same general trade specialisation. Thus,
there has so far been a fair amount of oscillation in the usage entertained; in
this process, also, broadly two streams of definition have been emerging,
one a policy-oriented one and second, a more academic one [McCarney,
1999].
It is beyond the scope of the present analysis to deal with the academic
stream of writing on ‘governance’, on which a substantial body of literature
has developed (see Hyden and Bratton [1992] and Leftwich [1994]). Suffice
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96 CHANGING THE CONDITIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT AID

it to say that the academic stream has been largely concerned with
developing a better understanding of different ways in which power and
authority relations are structured in different contexts – thus focusing on
different modes of inter-penetration of state–civil society relations. Notions
of ‘governance’ rapidly found their way into academic usage following its
adoption in donor circles and in recent times have stimulated lively
discussion on various aspects of the themes they denote, that is, pertaining
to both forms and practice of the exercise of power. One advantage it has
here, as Goran Hyden once remarked, was that it does not prejudge the locus
of actual decision-making, – which could be within the state, within an
international organisation or within some other structural context [Hyden,
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1992: 6]. In that regard a concept of ‘governance’ facilitates new analytical

pursuits into the exercise of political power, unhindered by formal
boundaries, and may fit discourse analysis, embedded structuralism,
Marxism and mainstream thinking alike. Indeed, political scientists and
sociologists, as increasingly also economists, today could hardly do without
the term.
In contrast, the donor-directed and policy-oriented discourse on
governance has rather been focused on state–market relations and more
specifically on state structures designed to ensure accountability, due
processes of law, and related safeguards. There has naturally been a certain
amount of interaction between the two discourses, which can be fruitful as
long as both sides remain open to it. But obviously the basic purposes have
been different, the academic discourse being primarily oriented towards
better analysis and understanding of the institutional linkages between state
and society in different contexts, the donor-driven discourse rather being
geared towards enhancing policy effectiveness and conceptually preparing
the terrain for policy intervention. The guiding motive in this
interventionism, some would say, has been towards the establishment of
new global-institutional patterns of ‘hegemony’, through a ‘disciplining’, in
a Foucauldian sense – including the governance of ‘self’ – of state and
policy structures in individual countries to conform to the norms set by the
global institutions. There are indeed intriguing overlaps, though also
differences, between notions of ‘governance’ and Foucault’s
‘governmentability’. However, historically derived social and economic
structures, or the specific needs and potential of particular countries, have
not figured much as points of departure in the respective policy designs.
One of the key aims in this regard has been the creation of state-market
mechanisms in developing country contexts that have been characteristic
for Western liberal-capitalist systems.
As noted already, the impetus for a renewed interest in having a concept
of ‘governance’ did not first originate in any academic context, but from
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amongst the circle of international donor agencies, the World Bank in
particular. Increasingly they had felt a need for it, though a different one
from that of the academic interest. To better appreciate this, it will be
instructive to recall the transitions and expectations occurring at the global
level at the time.

III. ‘GOOD GOVERNANCE’ AND POLI T I CA L C O N D I T I O N A L I TI E S

With the demise of the cold war, the paramount urge this had created to
organise the world in opposite camps had come to an end. Until that
moment, the firmer, that is, the more strong-handed, the client states
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concerned, the easier it had often appeared for global powers and
institutions to conclude alliances and aid relations with them.
Authoritarianism and dictatorships had been thriving during those years,
although in the late 1980s donors had already begun to attach certain
conditions to the granting of development aid. But following the fall of the
Berlin wall there no longer was much of a need to get the support from, or
give support to, regimes with a dubious track record in the handling of their
own internal affairs, including human rights issues. Instead, time had come
when it seemed quite justified, and when there appeared no more
constraints, to set conditions to, and prescriptions for, the manner certain
client states should be going about the management of their governmental
affairs. A new chapter of conditionalities, that is, of internally directed
political conditionalities concerned with the structuring and operation of
recipient countries’ institutions, was being opened. This, however, required
a suitable conceptual framework enabling and justifying such interventions.
Until this time, political conditionalities per se had by no means been
unknown: in fact they had been of the essence of many client relationships
built up during the cold war. Political support for the West, or for the then
so-called East bloc, in the UN, in the field and in other fora, had been a key
condition for material and other upkeep of the regimes concerned. As long
as this situation obtained, however, these basically externally-oriented
conditionalities did not specify how the governments concerned should
structure their administration and policy-making processes, what priority
they should assign to certain policy initiatives, or how they should handle a
whole range of other matters that might typically come up for ‘policy
dialogue’. The new, post-cold war generation of political conditionalities
were aimed to do exactly that. The new idea was to establish a grip on
recipient developing countries’ handling of policy processes, and on the
basic manner in which government and its constituent political processes –
multi-partyism or other – would be structured. National sovereignty and
non-interference in internal affairs, for long held in high esteem in
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98 CHANGING THE CONDITIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT AID

international politics, were met with increasing impatience. In World Bank

circles at the time, there was an acute awareness that one was about to step
into ‘sensitive’ matters, as its then President Barber Conable put it. Still, in
his words, ‘If we are to achieve development, we must aim for growth that
cannot be easily reversed through the political process of imperfect
governance’ [Conable, 1992: 6]. In 1991, when the Bank for the first time
devoted part of its Annual Development Economics Conference to the
‘good governance’ theme, the anticipations as to what this might come to
imply in terms of the Bank’s future agenda were indeed quite high, and in
principle comprised nothing less than a ‘reform of politics’ in aid-dependent
countries [Summers and Shah, 1992].
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To be able to raise conditionalities of political and administrative

reform, however, some new standard or set of criteria was called for. It is
here where the notion of ‘good governance’ came in, somehow broad
enough to comprise public management as well as political dimensions,
while at the same time vague enough to allow some discretion and
flexibility in interpretation as to what ‘good’ governance would or would
not condone. In the donor world led by the World Bank the re-invention of
the notion of ‘(good) governance’ thus figured as a necessary instrument
enabling the launching of a new generation of political conditionalities.
Significantly, the Bank’s own, already key role in this respect, soon
became further enhanced through the adoption of this line, as individual
donor countries were not always certain as to what could be subsumed and
demanded, and what not, under ‘good governance’. They thus often felt
more secure in going ‘multilateral’, that is, accepting the World Bank’s lead
and signals in the matter (see Uvin [1993: 67]). For the World Bank itself,
none the less, venturing into these new areas in a way was ironic, as its
statutes had prohibited it to enter into ‘political’ lines of action. When the
new line of activities under the label of governance cum political
conditionalities suggested itself, and were proposed and elaborated by Bank
staff, the Bank’s governors pondered long as to whether the strictly non-
political line should be maintained or broadened. The outcome was to
‘maintain’ it, and indeed in its own successive definitions of the concept the
Bank then for several years kept to a strictly non-political view of
‘governance’. Already, there were significant differences in this regard
between the staff papers presented at the Bank’s 1991 Annual Development
Economics Conference, which departed from a broader understanding that
was explicitly inclusive of the political dimension, and the published
versions of the same papers.3 Only about six years later, with the publication
of its 1997 World Development Report [World Bank, 1997], which included
a certain re-appraisal of the role of the state and attention for matters like
citizen participation, the Bank by implication moved again to a somewhat
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broadened, though still essentially ‘a-political’, conception of ‘governance‘
[Martinussen, 1998a].
None the less, the Bank’s earlier repositioning had also entailed adoption
of a formula which allowed it to play a pivotal role in the donor-recipient
country relations concerned. While henceforth in its own dealings with
loan-recipient countries it had to stick to strictly non-political, financial
accountability and transparency notions of ‘governance’, the Bank would
accept the role of secretariat for various donor consortia stipulating what
political conditionalities would need to be met. In principle this placed the
Bank in the strategic position of being able to convey political
conditionalities set by the respective consortia to the recipient countries
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concerned, and subsequently to monitor their implementation, without

compromising its own, non-political mandate [Gibbon, 1993: 55–6].

I V. ‘ U N I V E R S A L I T Y ’ A N D G L O B A L I S AT I O N

It is useful to place the construction of an intervention-oriented ‘good

governance’ agenda within a broader perspective and look at some of its
implications. In particular, there are two rubrics under which the emergence
and evolution – as well as the possible eclipse – of notions of ‘good
governance’ might be considered further. There is first the question of how
universal are standards of good governance put up by the Western donor
community. In regard to this, as already noted, the standards in reality in the
first place do not seem to go very deep; thus, it could be argued, their
universality may not reach very far either. More important, standards of
‘good governance’ in principle are conceivable within different socio-
cultural and political contexts, and would constitute a rich field for
comparative political anthropology or political science. But in actual fact it
is unlikely that the world’s donor community would borrow its standards
from comparative political anthropology or from other socio-cultural
contexts. Rather, donor standards are likely to be derived from the way
donors are used to perceive and handle the world around them, that is, from
their own particular – and cultural – perspective, even though they may be
presented as having ‘universal’ value.
Historically and across countries at the present time there are numerous
different ways in which state-society relations and processes for public
policy-making – that is, governance structures – have been given shape.
Some of these may be considered ‘good’, others ‘bad’; judgements will
vary. Most or all societies are likely to score ‘good’ and ‘bad’ judgements
for different aspects of their policy performance; again, what one opinion,
from one background/experience, will consider positively, may be looked
upon critically elsewhere. Besides, comparative judgements are almost
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100 CHANGING THE CONDITIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT AID

inevitably about form, rather than about substance/practice. One and the
same ‘form’ may be handled well, or badly. If certain standards or practices
are now advocated globally, this cannot be because they are intrinsically
universal but because the donor world would like to see them being taken
up for universal adoption – presumably because this might make life easier
for donors.
If donor-conceptualised standards of ‘good governance’ were to be more
fully elaborated and insisted upon, it would thus almost certainly imply an
insistence on Western-derived standards of conduct to be adopted in non-
Western politico-cultural contexts. This is neither new nor particularly
surprising, yet it remains important to recognise it for whatever it is, namely
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a confrontation of different practices and cultural premises [Martin, 1992:

15]. It is in this regard also that one may note a basic distinction between
academic and donor discourses on ‘governance’. An academic discourse, at
least if it is inspired by some cultural sensitivity [Ter Haar, 2000: 13],
presumably would take cultural variation as its point of departure, and
would try to better understand the merits and demerits of different
configurations of ‘governance’ in different contexts. Donor discourses by
contrast are likely to depart from just one general notion of ‘governance’,
and to demand abiding by it.
Related to this is the role which implicit or explicit insistence on ‘good
governance’ might take on in globalisation processes. Globalisation of
course has numerous facets, but one particular one is the way in which state
functions seem to get gradually subsumed under broader transnational
institutional constructs. This plays in all parts of the world, though rather
differently so in the developed West as contrasted to the ‘developing’ South,
and the pattern is not unlike the way in which commodity production
functions are being rearranged in globally integrated chains. If an emerging
‘good governance’ agenda were to be actively pursued, then in the final
analysis it would constitute one more, potentially key, instrument by which
a Western-derived institutional globalisation would be furthered. Whether
or to what extent that could become the case is a matter of further debate
and analysis, and is likely to point particularly to the need to come to grips
with evolving patterns of interaction and confrontation between different
sets of norms and practices [Doornbos, 2000].

V. PRINCIPLE AND PRACTICE

In retrospect, the early 1990s may yet come to be viewed as one of the high
points in ‘good governance’ thinking. A broad set of interrelated concepts
were formulated that delineated areas of concern with policy structures and
processes, and more specific issues were put forward for reform in the
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context of aid packages with conditionalities attached. Thus the dismantling
of ‘over-developed’ state structures in Third World countries seemed in
easy reach, while multi-party ‘democratisation’ just appeared to be waiting
for an external nod and encouragement (see Sørensen [1995]). Carrot-
quality conditionalities, it was anticipated, would help induce these various
transformations, thus bringing about a wholesale overhaul of the
developmental state that had been typical for the cold war era. International
expectations were quite high as to what the ‘good governance’ idea could
point to and what the formulation and application of political
conditionalities might be able to accomplish. In short, the climate of the
time, particularly as perceived from the heights of global institutions, was
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one full of promise regarding the potential for creating and directing a
better, and more ‘governable’, world.
When putting principle into practice, however, some significant shifts
soon became noticeable. Basically, the idea of posing political
conditionalities had sounded easier in theory than it would turn out in
reality. Not surprisingly, in many countries there was a willy-nilly reception
of and compliance with various donor-instigated projects for political
reform [Bayart, 1993]. These projects and proposals were bound to affect
stakes in local political processes and balances of power, which the actors
concerned would not readily give up. ‘Transparency’ of political processes
and the idea of level playing fields did not easily match with prevailing
political cultures and configurations of power, nor to lend themselves to
translation into practical terms. Step by step the anticipated applicability of
conditionalities for ‘good governance’ began to shrink. Two aspects in
particular are worth noting in this respect.
First, one broad area for international ‘good governance’ attention in the
immediate post-cold war situation was that of democratisation and multi-
partyism. In the early 1990s the launch of the good governance theme, then
still conceptualised in its broadest possible fashion, in fact became partly
focused on the call for multi-partyism. There was then much discussion
about this, and there still is some, but it did not change much. Some
authoritarian regimes skilfully transformed themselves into dominant
parties within facade-type multi-party systems, as in Kenya or Ethiopia,
demonstrating their resilience as political machines. Others continued,
possibly with as little, or as much, by way of development collaboration
contacts as they had before. Yet other countries, like Uganda, struggled to
get recognition for an alternative to multi-partyism, arguing that multi-
partyism as it had evolved in the Western experience did not necessarily
constitute the sole route to democratic political processes, or to ‘good
governance’ for that matter [Mugaju and Oloka-Onyango, 2000].
All in all, this particular dimension of the governance theme does not
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102 CHANGING THE CONDITIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT AID

seem to have lived up to the expectations that had come to be raised about
it. Besides, as already noted, the World Bank had taken a lead in de-
emphasising the ‘political’ dimensions of ‘governance’ in its own dealings
with aid-recipient countries from an early point onwards. Inasmuch as
multi-partyism and democratisation (irrespective of whether these two
categories should be seen as equivalents) constituted key aspects of the
‘political’ dimension of the international ‘good governance’ agenda, thus
calling for political conditionalities to redress and restructure the political
processes concerned, they rather seemed to be quietly slipping into the
background.
Second, one of the original intentions with the ‘good governance’
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agenda had been to enable donors to question aid-recipient countries’ policy

structures and processes, and to get them to alter these – according to
‘universal’ criteria and conditionalities as set by the donors. How feasible
or how universally valid this approach would actually be could be
questioned, given the enduring definitional obscurities; none the less, the
idea was to ultimately try and transform what donors perceived as ‘bad’
governance into ‘good’ governance. Ten years after, the experience with
setting conditionalities by and large appears to have become a sobering
learning exercise: donors and observers recount many examples of lip-
service and less than spontaneous implementation of conditionalities
[Bayart, 1993] – which should not be too surprising. Also, introducing
policy conditionalities often meant inserting new, specific elements into
highly complex processes and situations, leading up to new complexities for
which donors and recipients would henceforth bear joint responsibility. In
the process, donors ran the risk of themselves getting further enmeshed in
the internal policy processes of recipient countries than they thought they
had bargained for (see Harrison [1999] for an analysis of the Mozambican
example). Against this background, moreover, attempts to measure the
effectiveness of conditionalities did not produce particularly promising
results, and themselves were rather problematic propositions to begin with.
Second thoughts about the practicability of the conditionality instrument as
a leverage thus began to preoccupy donors, along with recipients who
naturally had had their own reservations about it. It is mainly in the context
of new sectoral policy involvements on which several donors in recent years
have opted to concentrate their aid, that organisational and policy guidelines
are now being stipulated in relatively great detail.

VI. FROM ‘CONDITIONALITY’ TO ‘SE L E C T I V I TY ’

Against the background of these experiences, the present tendency is to

move from ‘conditionality’ to ‘selectivity’, thus avoiding the burden of
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having to monitor attempts at amelioration of policy processes which
require more attention and detailed knowledge than most donors, even the
World Bank, can muster. In this connection, the recent so-called ‘Dollar
report’ (after its main author, David Dollar), Assessing Aid [World Bank,
1998], in putting forward the research finding that ‘good’ performers (in
terms of growth rates) are ‘best’ able to absorb and utilise aid funds
effectively, has come to provide a policy rationale for this new approach.
Through reference to the ‘scientific’ evidence presented in this report,
‘selectivity’ can be advocated and rationalised as being the most cost
effective and results-oriented donor strategy. Hence the keen interest with
which this report has been taken up for discussion in various donor circuits
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[e.g., Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2000]. There have been

serious criticisms regarding the reliability and relevance of the way these
particular findings have been construed [e.g., Lensink and White, 2000; Van
der Hoeven, 1999]. Yet to several donor agencies these may have appeared
a lesser concern compared to the perceived operational advantages on which
the report seemed to open a window. These lay in the experience to date that
attempting to steer governance restructuring programmes from the outside
have turned out to be far more complicated and laborious engagements than
self-confident and optimistic aid agencies had first assumed they would be.
Against these realities, an a priori interest to shift to a fresh approach that
can relieve these agencies from these self-imposed burdens is likely to
welcome any ‘authoritative’ report that appears to provide a theoretical
justification for such a move, as has been the case with the ‘Dollar report’.

VII. ’CONDITIONALITY’ REDEFINED: TH E D U T C H EX A M P L E

It is useful to ask what may happen to the notions of ‘good governance’ and
‘conditionalities’ in the light of these shifting insights and priorities. The
recent Dutch policy reversal in favour of concentrating Dutch structural aid
to a limited list of 19 (later 17, following the enduring Ethiopian-Eritrean
conflict) aid-receiving countries with strong ‘good governance’ records
may be taken as an example, even though in its rigorous adoption of the
principle of ‘selectivity’ on the basis of ‘good governance’, the Dutch case
still is fairly exceptional among Western donors.4 In the first place,
paradoxically, the encouragement of ‘good governance’ (through political
conditionalities) itself figures no longer as an area of prime policy attention
in this new scenario. ‘Good governance’ is now assumed to be present to
begin with, and has been elevated to one of the key criteria for selection to
the status of ‘most-favoured’ aid-recipient countries as far as Dutch aid is
concerned [Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2000]. This is in
contrast to Danish and other Scandinavian aid, for example, which has not
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104 CHANGING THE CONDITIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT AID

been tied to this single criterion [Martinussen, 1998b]. But evidently, to take
the existence of ‘good governance’ as a criterion to decide which countries
are qualifying for assistance and which are not, is something quite different
from trying to demand improvements in terms of ‘good governance’ as a
conditionality to aid. In the new thinking, ‘bad’ governance in principle will
remain bad governance, unless the government concerned is so keen to
qualify for Dutch or similarly conditioned aid that it will be motivated to
first put its governance structures in order to meet the required criteria –
which seems unlikely. And even then, the question might arise again as to
which criteria that would involve: on the side of donors as well as
recipients, clarity as to what ‘good governance’ would imply would be
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presupposed. But in reality that clarity still is difficult to obtain, as the word
itself, magic as it may sound, in and of itself does not contain it. Rather than
a ‘step forward’ in thinking in terms of ‘good governance’, as the Dutch
policy shift has been claimed to represent, it could thus well be regarded as
a ‘setback’ in the face of the problematic attempts to come to grips with the
complexities of ‘good governance’ as a policy objective conceptually and in
practice.
Thus one may justifiably ask what future is there for ‘good governance’
as an operational concept in the context of aid policies. First, as it remains
difficult to specify or to reach consensus about its contents, it would seem
likely that ‘good governance’ may continue to figure as a general, fairly
open but vague term with which to register one’s approval or disapproval of
particular administrative/political practices or of actual governments,
although somehow suggesting that there is a reference to particular ‘higher
standards’ in one’s judgement. If this is to be the case, the label ‘good
governance’ becomes a political tool to justify and rationalise choices that
are made on other, possibly arbitrary grounds. Again, the example of new-
style Dutch development aid, which has taken ‘good governance’ as its
criterion for selecting aid-deserving partners, may illustrate the relative
arbitrariness involved: how in fact has one tested and examined the
governance record of the countries finally selected, along with those non-
selected? Assuming they were all interested to become candidates, selecting
from well over a hundred potential candidate countries some 17 that would
be particularly deserving, on the basis of their strong ‘good governance’
records, to receive Dutch development aid, would be a task of truly
momentous proportions. What instruments and expertise did the Dutch
ministry of development collaboration employ to accomplish such a task?
Developing a reliable comparative good governance record for even half a
dozen countries would constitute no minor analytical and methodological
challenges, let alone one that should theoretically include over half of the
world’s states. The interested public has not learnt how this selection
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process was conducted, or by what criteria. Unless it is demonstrated
otherwise, one cannot but assume that it is embassy notes and political
expediency on the basis of which these choices have been made, for which
in the end the label ‘good governance’ then serves as a rationalisation.
Whether that in itself constitutes an example of ‘good governance’ remains
a question.
One sub-area that has usually come up for special attention in
donor–recipient relationships under the heading of ‘governance’,
meanwhile, is that of financial accountability. Indeed, one particular set of
motivations for raising ‘good governance’ on the agenda has undoubtedly
arisen out of this area – for understandable reasons. Quite possibly, when
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other, less tangible concerns have lost their immediate pertinence or self-
evidence, or when donors sense they do not quite get a grip on them, it will
be this hard core of financial accountability questions that keeps standing
out as the core of ‘good governance’ concerns. Often, therefore, one may
already see ‘good governance’, ‘transparency’ and ‘accountability’ posing
as a trinity of synonymous bullet points with particular reference to
financial management. It seems quite possible that if in due course the
broader notion of ‘good governance’ would evaporate, due to its lack of
tangible utility as well as in the light of the decline of the larger aspirations
of re-constituting political systems, its exit may well be marked by
increased emphasis on the more tangible issues of financial accountability –
which as a matter of fact it is any bank’s good right, if not obligation, to
raise.

VIII. CONTEMPLATING ALTERNATIVE P R I O R I TI E S

The notion of ‘good governance’ initially seemed full of promise as a donor

policy concept and instrument. The question should be raised, however,
whether it was strictly necessary – and prudent – for ‘good governance’ and
‘political conditionalities’ to be put forward as closely interlinked as they
have been. If ‘good governance’ (broadly defined, and allowing different
interpretations of it) is considered a worthwhile objective, why attach
conditionalities? Could one not have considered (and perhaps yet do so)
development assistance programmes that would support such objectives,
but without attaching conditionalities?
What this would call for is a reversal of the relevant relationships
concerned. It might be illustrated by the case of (ex-) Somalia, now without
an overarching state framework but with initial efforts in different regions
to establish basic government services, including Somaliland and the new
state of Puntland in the Northeastern Region. At this time the new
governments and various civic groups there would very much welcome help
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106 CHANGING THE CONDITIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT AID

in their efforts to reconstitute a (different) kind of state structure(s), a very

complex challenge indeed. But only few donors are prepared (and even then
most cautiously) to give this any attention, while most prefer a wait and see
attitude. If the Dutch position of ‘good governance’ first, then aid, were to
be followed in this case, these Somali efforts might not qualify in over a
hundred years for anything like structural development assistance towards
improved governance. Yet here is a case where ‘needs’ are beyond dispute,
and where assistance in creating some meaningful form of ‘good
governance’ would be eagerly accepted, though now constituting a goal in
its own right rather than the fulfilment of a ‘conditionality’ in order to
qualify for other aid. In a case like this (and others like it), the question thus
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might be raised whether there would not be a validity in reversing the

standard approach in our thinking about international development
assistance, trying to see it in terms of recipient–donor rather than donor–
recipient relations?
Illusory as this may seem at the present moment, such a reversal would
in principle call for a situation in which donors would be available ‘on
demand’, rather than being ‘in command’. In such an imagined situation,
‘demanding’ countries (as an alternative expression to ‘recipient’ countries)
might be expected to take the initiative, basically saying, for example, ‘this
is our program for reconstruction, would you be willing to help?’
‘Supplying’ countries, which through some forum could pledge to be ready
in principle to receive such requests, might respond by donating what they
can afford, and what they believe constitutes a reasonable contribution. This
would reverse a situation in which it is commonly ‘donor’ governments
which develop their programmes, preferences and priorities (and tend to
revise them at an ever increasing pace), and where ‘recipient’ countries can
at most try and sort out how best they can fit in, or whether and how they
can meet the criteria, all within the latest donors’ preoccupation. The idea
would require a good deal more flexibility and adjustment to become
available on the ‘supplying’ side – admittedly difficult from the point of
view of budget control – but, above all, allow ‘demanding’ or ‘requesting’
countries to regain a sense of overall command over their own policy
formulation and policy integration.

IX. CONCLUDING REMARKS

Notions of ‘good governance’, in association with ‘political

conditionalities’ as a handle for donor intervention, have formed the corner
stone for a series of interlocking policy criteria and initiatives that have been
prominent on the international aid front for about a decade. Bestowed in the
post cold war era with high expectations as to the broadened ‘political’
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policy objectives with respect to aid recipient countries they might help
accomplish, it has increasingly become apparent that these expectations
have been rather overstretched and that this particular ensemble of donor
policy concepts and instruments is now on its retreat. Posing political
conditionalities as a leverage to induce ‘good governance’ clearly did not
work out as envisaged, and as a policy metaphor with these particular
connotations the phrase has lost much of its appeal. Conceivably, the ‘good
governance’ policy metaphor might have had a different career path if
donors had not attached political conditionalities to it.
Today, new kinds of donor–recipient relations are increasingly being
favoured, within which detailed agreements (with in-built, contractual
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conditionalities) with selected countries about the set-up and

implementation of comprehensive donor-supported sector programmes are
worked out, implemented and monitored. Notions of governance and ‘good
governance’ are likely to remain part of donor parlance, but no longer with
the high expectations about the scope for intervention and political
restructuring attached to them. Within the donor discourse, the notion of
‘good governance’ has thus had quite a remarkable succession of
connotations: at first representing a key objective in donor development and
foreign policy in its own right, one or more donors now would like to treat
it as a selection criterion for aid recipient countries, while more broadly it
appears to be evolving into a general figure of speech without too much
practical consequence.

NOTES

1. The questions that follow were formulated by the organisers of the workshop on ‘Changing
the Conditions for Development Aid: A New Paradigm?’, University of Groningen, 6
October, 1999, at which a preliminary version of this paper was presented.
2. For a perceptive discussion of some such efforts, see Ahrens [1999].
3. See, for example, the paper by Pierre Landell-Mills and Ismail Serageldin, ‘Governance and
the External Factor’ [Landell-Mills and Serageldin, 1991] and compare this with the version
published in the Proceedings of the World Bank Annual Conference on Development
Economics 1991 [Landell-Mills and Serageldin, 1992].
4. It should be noted that apart from the key list of countries that have been selected for
structural aid, Dutch foreign aid still includes various other (thematic) programmes for which
‘good governance’ does not figure as a qualifying criterion.

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