Good governance in the Pacific? Ambivalence and possibility

Abstract

In September 2005, the Pacific Islands Forum issued a finalized Pacific Plan. The overarching goal of the Plan is to ''Enhance and stimulate economic growth, sustainable development, good governance and security for Pacific countries through regionalism.'' In this paper we focus on the salient role of (good) governance in the Plan. Governance has become a keyword, albeit a deeply ambivalent one, in development and foreign policy realms and the Pacific is now a particularly intense site of activities understood in terms of governance. Governance has become an important vehicle through which intervention in the region is imagined and realized.Using interviews with persons connected in various ways with the development of the Pacific Plan and from a documentary history, we address questions about the political closures and openings enabled by the governance agenda. We investigate the kinds of work that gets done in the name of governance through an analysis of the ways that it is understood, deployed and redefined in practice. To do this we turn to the Pacific Plan as our case. We find that governance, as it is defined and operationalized in the Plan, is pulled in a highly technocratic direction such that a particularly narrow conceptualization of governance dominates. Despite this disciplining process, however, the continued salience of governance as a framing device within struggles for racial and gender equality and the emergence of Pacific-based projects that act to remake governance in unexpected ways leads us to conclude that the term retains fields of meaning that allow for alternative political openings and possibilities.

The Good Cause: Theoretical Perspectives on Corruption

“…Just as we saw in the Pacific Plan example (Roberts/Wright/O'Neill 2007), it is often stated in critical corruption literature that the current dominating anti-corruption discourse is too focused on technical solutions and the public-private distinction, resulting in too much attention to the public sector as the major cause of corruption. In short, the 'anti-corruption crusade needs to be shorn of its anti-state bias' (Brown/Cloke 2004: 291).…”

“…Building partly on the work of Foucault, some have shown how discourses on corruption with their inherent worldviews give some an advantage over others. For example, Roberts et al (2007) have shown how the discourse on governance in the so-called Pacific Plan resulted in a technocratic direction such that a particularly narrow conceptualization of governance dominates. 'In a direct reading of the Pacific Plan and the interventions it empowers there is ample evidence that governance (good and bad) is used in a disciplining way' (Roberts/Wright/O'Neill 2007: 981).…”

The Integration of Good Governance in Effectiveness of Regional Autonomy Implementation

“…Earlier, this term is widely introduced by institutions donors in the form of technical assistance and international cooperation in developing countries. World Bank publication in 1992 on governance and development, has introduced the concept of good governance (De Graaf et al, 2011;Roberts et al, 2007;Effendi, 2005). It can be caused by the power of the World Bank in 'pressing' the lending countries to accept a variety of programs offered.…”

Effectiveness of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in addressing development-induced disasters: a comparison of the EIA processes of Sri Lanka and New Zealand

“…However, the role of governments in governance and their accountability towards protection of society and the environment is a fundamentally accepted norm today. In particular, the concern attached to bad governance is most often directed at governments (Roberts, Wright, & O'Neill, 2007).…”

“…Good governance is represented by the 'presence' of these elements in a society (Roberts et al, 2007). Access to information on disaster risk, particularly for the most vulnerable, is considered as the first step in effective DRR (UNISDR, 2011).…”