Contents
Preamble
Is democracy good Governance?
Present day democracy in theory and practice?
Democracies failings
Description
Good governance is an indeterminate term often used to describe how public institutions conduct public affairs and manage public resources in order to guarantee the realization of human rights. Governance describes the process of decision-making and the process by which decisions are implemented (or not implemented). The term governance applies to corporate, international, national, local governance or to the interactions between other sectors of society. The concept of "good governance" often emerges as a model to compare ineffective economies or political bodies with viable economies and political bodies, which, in the contemporary world, are most often liberal democratic states. Thus the term, though it seems to be something that could be objectively defined, is often very nebulous, defined in ways that are advantageous or in alignment with the agendas of aid organizations or authorities of developed countries.
Because concepts such as civil society, decentralization, peaceful conflict management and accountability are used when defining the concept of good governance, good governance's definition promotes many ideas that closely align with effective democratic governance. Therefore, emphasis on good governance can sometimes be equated with promoting democratic government.