“Good Enough” Governance in the Post-Soviet Eurasia

“DELIVER AFRICA FROM DEBTS”: Good Governance Alone is not Enough to Save the Continent From Debt Onslaught

“…However, the influence that other dimensions of governance (political stability and control of corruption) exercise on economic growth is statistically insignificant. An interesting point of note is that, while Baris, Knox, and Pelizzo (2021) reported that political stability was, among the various governance indicators, the single most important government determinant of economic growth, our analysis of the African data shows instead that political stability was not one of the drivers of economic performance in the African continent.…”

“…Grindle suggested that the international community, donor agencies, and developing countries should focus on a narrower set of governance dimensions. They should also realize that what developing countries need is just “good enough governance.” In what we have reason to believe was the first effort to test Grindle's claim, Baris, Knox, and Pelizzo (2021) showed that the economic performance of Central Asian countries was indeed made possible by improvements in the level of good governance. These authors also argued that some dimensions of governance had a greater influence on economic performance than others and that political stability—that is, the political stabilization of the region in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union—was the single most important determinant of economic performance in the Central Asian region.…”

“…So, Nounamo et al (2021), in contrast to what has been for many years a fairly established opinion in scholarly and policy circles, showed that debt does not always have a detrimental impact on economic growth. And Baris, Knox, and Pelizzo (2021) have shown that a fair number of governance dimensions are sufficient to stimulate a country's economic performance. Given these two positions, in the next section, we test whether the debt–economic growth nexus is affected by good enough governance.…”

“…Grindle (2004) went on to suggest that “good enough governance” was enough to secure development and that developing countries should focus on addressing first their more pressing governance needs and then to address the remaining ones in order of their respective importance. In what is possibly the first effort (Baris, Knox, and Pelizzo 2021) to empirically test Grindle's claim(s), it was shown that in the context of post‐Soviet states’ political stability and the absence of violence were the only governance dimensions that had a positive, significant, and robust impact on economic performance in the region.…”

Public sector reforms in developing countries: A preliminary review

“…First, political economy and institutions: The importance of politics and institutions as the necessary underpinning for public sector reforms. Second, ‘good‐enough’ governance (Grindle, 2004) where countries select interventions that are a good‐fit for their development needs, rather than an ever‐increasing package of reforms that don't get implemented (Baris et al., 2022). Third, iterative and adaptive reform processes where countries focus on the process side of public sector reform, the best design and implementation to ensure success, the PDIA approach described above.…”