RESEARCH evidence shows that in a politically polarised state, preference for individual leadership to institution building and reform is a primary hindrance to ensuring good governance. Douglass North identified institutions as humanly devised constraints that structure political, economic and social interactions wherein formal rules: constitutions, laws, property rights and informal sanctions such as taboos, customs, traditions and codes of conduct, usually contribute to establishing order and safety in a society. But the degree to which they are effective is subject to varying circumstances such as the government’s limited enforcement or its absence.
Social order generally deteriorates if such institutional constraints are not persistently enforced under a stable political climate wherein lofty ideas are not spun time and again by politicians at every juncture. They, rather, mindfully evaluate and account for the benefits if any, derived by citizens from previous programmes and action. Anything contrary to this practice often results in the demonic rise of handpicked, partisan administrators who defy all regulations and norms and, thereby, emerge as trendsetter of negating the institutions and organisations. As such, they serve more the members of the clientele groups which helped the individual administrators to climb the upper rungs of promotion as rewards.
In this process, the state apparatus does not only face the question of legitimacy of its functions but also contributes to marring the rule of law. Law-abiding people are often kept waiting in long queues for hours for getting some basic services while ‘a few gifted ones’ avail the same without any time lapsed waiting. Thus, ordinary people feel betrayed by a system patronised by personal connections and face identification. If it persists, the deprived out of the system harbour discontent and organise in silence to burst out sometime, somewhere. That is how once dominating power and authoritarian voice gets drowned in whispering memory only to be remembered who played what role to play down the institutional capacity in governance. Thus, the scar remains and sometimes, some reformists turn around, trying to fix things clinging to the once inherent but later discarded institutional order.
In countries characterised by frequent changes in political environment and people mostly supporting two or three political parties, ideas such as good governance, citizen-centric services delivery system, governance performance monitoring and evaluation, practised in developed countries since the age of new public management movement, are discovered anew as an aftermath to compensate for the scar already deepened into system during the immediately past ‘golden age.’
The efficacy of services delivery, value for taxpayer’s money, reduction in time cost and visit on part of services seekers et cetera are buzzed for a while and after some hum-drumming, people look around in amazement that nothing is changed. Such repeated but futile exercises often result in the squandering of public money rather than bringing any benefits to them. Paper-based progress reports are produced, validated often by foreign partners in development gleefully, while the trust of citizens in the institutions and organisations sedates gradually. The more sedimentary people demand equity in treatment, services delivery and the distribution of wealth, the more discontent thrives.
What is more disappointing is uncertainty in people’s life marked by unemployment, inflation, deterioration of order and corruption. At times, availing essential utilities such as gas, electricity and water exacerbate their life as rules-based administering in these areas disappears. Moreover, institutions such as education, police and health care become privatised, often facilitating quick profiteering businesspeople, who finance the process of change: contribution to party budget, election campaigns and others. Consequentially, a lion’s share of people’s income is spent on educating or treating familues with sub-standard medical services and educational certificates that do little to get employed.
Hopes for establishing a welfare state or an equitable society, thus, remains hypes for many nations because of the disappearing role of state institutions and organisations as they are run with heavy-thumbed and partisan individuals in the guise of civil servants. The power-induced individual executives, irrespective of services in a state not only do injustice to citizens but also engage in peripheral businesses that are beyond their domains over the feuds because of which the whole fragile system collapse over time.
Before looking for any outlandish solutions to the malady-infesting good governance, states have to start with welcoming institutions and organisations which some experts debate to have been ruined over time. As of ours, did we ever choose to think of establishing or empowering organisations and institutions other than hand-picking the so-called proactive administrative leaders, instead?
Md Mukhlesur Rahaman Akand is a joint secretary to the expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment ministry.
