MG214_Week 9 Governance, Accountability and Ethics.pdf -...

WEEK 9 – GOVERNANCE,
ACCOUNTABILITY AND ETHICS
MG214 – Principles of Public Sector Management
Thursday, May 20
th
, 2021
The University of the South Pacific
By Christian Girard

1. Governance
3. Ethics
2. Accountability
PLAN FOR TODAY’S COURSE
Good
Governance

1.1 – DEFINITIONS OF GOVERNANCE
(BOVAIRD AND LOEFFLER, 2016:370)
• The exercise of political power to manage a nation’s affairs. (World Bank, 1989: 60)
• Governance is the process whereby societies or organizations make important
decisions, determine whom they involve and how they render account .
(Canadian Institute on Governance, )
• Public governance is how an organization works with its partners, stakeholders
and networks to influence the outcomes of public policies . (Governance
International, UK, )
• The pattern or structure that emerges in a socio-political system as a
‘common’ result or outcome of the interacting intervention efforts of all
involved actors . This pattern cannot be reduced to [the outcome produced by] one
actor or groups of actors in particular. (Kooiman, 1993: 258)

1.2 – WHAT IS GOVERNANCE?
(UNESCAP & CITIZENS’ CONSTITUTIONAL FORUM, FIJI)
• Governance can be defined as the process of decision-making and the
process by which decisions are implemented (or not implemented).
• Corporate (NB: organizational) & international, national, local levels
• Governance focuses on:
• The formal and informal actors involved in decision-making and
implementing the decisions made; and
• The formal and informal structures that have been set in place to arrive at
and implement the decision.
• Government not the sole actor, but one in a network of government and
societal actors in the policy process (e.g. citizens, civil society, media,
businesses, associations, ministries, political parties, religious organizations)

1.3 – MOST DEFINITIONS SHOW THAT GOVERNANCE…
(BOVAIRD AND LOEFFLER, 2016:372)
• Assumes a multiple stakeholder scenario , where collective problems can no longer be
solved only by public authorities but require the cooperation of other players (citizens, business,
voluntary sector, media, etc.) – and in which practices such as mediation, arbitration and self-
regulation may often be even more effective than public action;
• Recognizes the importance of both formal rules (constitutions, laws, regulations) and
informal rules (codes of ethics, customs, traditions) , but assumes that negotiation between
stakeholders seeking to use their power can alter the importance of these rules in specific
situations.
• No longer focuses only on market structures as steering mechanisms , as in
conventional ‘New Public Management’ approaches, but also considers hierarchies (such as
bureaucracies) and cooperative networks as potential facilitating structures in appropriate
circumstances;
• Employs reasoning not only in terms of the logic of ends and means, inputs and outputs, but
recognizes that some characteristics of key social interaction processes (transparency,
integrity, inclusion, etc.) are valuable in themselves;
• Is inherently political, concerned as it is with the interplay of stakeholders seeking to