Governance:

Governance generally means an action or manner of governing a state, organization, etc.

The Five Propositions of Governance by Garry Stoker
Garry Stoker provided five basic propositions of governance. These propositions are as follows.
1. Governance refers to as set of institutions and actors that are from the government but
actually are beyond the government.
2. Government systemizes the tackling of social and economic issues.
3. Governance identifies the power structure between institutions involved in collective
action.
4. Governance is about autonomous self-governing network of actors.
5. Governance recognizes the capacity to get things done which does not rest on the
power of government to command or use its authority. It sees government as able to
use new tools and techniques to steer and guide.
These propositions are considered to be complementary rather than contradictory or in
competition. Each proposition has associated with it a certain dilemma or critical issue.
There is a divorce between the complex reality of decision-making associated with governance
and the normative codes used to explain and justify government.
The blurring of responsibilities can lead to blame avoidance or scapegoating.
Power dependence exacerbates the problem of unintended consequences for
government.
The emergence of self-governing networks raises difficulties over accountability.
Even where governments operate in a flexible way to steer collective action governance
failure may occur.
1. Governance refers to a complex set of institutions and actors that are drawn from but
also beyond government:
Governance challenges the concept of government and its understandings. In case of British it
challenges the Westminster Model in which the British political system consisted of
Parliamentary sovereignty with strong cabinet government and accountability through
elections. This shows a unitary or single unit government based on ministerial doctrine.
Governance in contrast to the ministerial concept states that this model is limited and
misleading. British Government structure consists of different institutes and organizations
therefore ministerial model fails to address the complexity of this system.
Thus Governance perspective has established different structure which includes involvement of
local agencies and councils, private sector, volunteer organizations (NGOs) as well as publicprivate partnerships and hence the responsibility of government is divided and shared with
other agencies to provide services efficiently.
But in early stages of governance perspective the main issue was legitimization of these powers
used by this involved stake holders like local bodies, councils, private sector, NGOs and the
public-private partnerships. Therefore a systematic effort with legal frameworks had to be
done. There remains some ambiguity in all systems and improvements should be done with
passage of time.

2. Governance recognizes the blurring of boundaries and responsibilities for tackling

social and economic issues
By the emergence of third sector, NGOs, private sector and other non-governmental agencies
the concept of economy is turning into a Social Economy instead of Market economy or the
public sector. The responsibility is shared between the local bodies and explicitly on the citizens
to make the government a welfare government by active citizenship.
But there is a drawback of this approach that is policy makers and the public is confused about
who is responsible about what and to which extend because the boundaries of responsibility
are blur after this governance approach. Scapegoating, avoiding and blame game are common
problems of this perspective.
3. Governance identifies the power dependence involved in the relationships between
institutions involved in collective action
Power dependence implies that:

Organizations committed to collective action are dependent on other organizations.

In order to achieve goals organizations have to exchange resources and negotiate common
purposes.
The outcome of exchange is determined not only by the resources of the participants but also by
the rules of the game and the context of the exchange.
Governance perspective states that no single government agency can exercise all powers and exert
controls. Some agencies dominate others but the main purpose of this perspective is to build up a selfgoverning network by creating inter-governmental, cooperative, and coordinative link between the
government agencies. This integrated decision making leads to efficient achievement of collective goals
resulting in better delivery of services to the public.
4. Governance is about autonomous self-governing networks of actors.
Governance in all its perspectives has some actors and governing regimes. These regimes consist of
policy making community, business holders from government as well as private sector who always
influence the government decisions. The basic reason for this influence is that these regimes possess
resources and bargaining power to influence the decisions of government. Regimes actually are a
method of governing without government. The main problem of this perspective is the loose control of
government over accountability mechanism. When there is strong institution or regime influencing the
government there is problem of accountability at two levels one is at institutional level and the other is
at government level where the resources of all other institutions also blended to achieve a common
goal. Military Establishment of Pakistan is a very good example of this regime.

5.

Governance recognizes the capacity to get things done which does not rest on the power of
government to command or use its authority. It sees government as able to use new tools and
techniques to steer and guide
There is another perspective of running government by building up local bodies and agencies to work
more effectively
Composition and co-ordination
Collaboration and steering
Integration and regulation.
1. First thing is to define situation, identify key stake holders and develop effective linkages
between relevant parties.
2. Using links and strategies to achieve desired outcomes.
3. System Management Thinking and acting beyond the systems, avoiding unwanted side effects
and establishing mechanism of coordination.

Sometimes there is conflict of interest with in the stake holders which may lead to a dead lock for the
government to operate. Therefore there must be a code or principles of working agreed by the stake
holders. This can be done through system management which is to build a mission statement and decide
purposes of government policies in accordance to the interests involved by all parties to avoid any
uncertainty.
Conclusions
The governance perspectives provide a brief overview of changing world and government structures.
There can be a lot of improvements as well as changings can be done in current styles of governance
keeping in view the given perspectives of governance. Some problems are also identified and their
solution is suggested but in depth knowledge and practical solution lies in the research of the topic and
application of suggested strategies.