Governments often are described as standing on three legs – economics, politics, and administration – whereas governance is the sum of the many ways that individuals and institutions, public and private, manage their com- mon affairs. It is a continuing process through which conflicting or diverse interests may be accommodated and cooperative action may be taken. It includes formal institutions and regimes empowered to enforce compliance, as well as informal arrangements that people and institutions either have agreed to or perceive to be in their interest (as in UNDP 1999:29). The efficacy of an administration depends on civil service and public financial management, government policy-making procedures, leadership, and service delivery systems (UNDP 1997, 2009).
Table 7.2 summarizes the standing of the four countries of this study with regard to overall governance performance in terms of six universally applied parameters (Kaufmann; Kraay; and Mastruzzi 2010). India holds the top position, followed by Bangladesh on voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence, and rule of law (second among the four);
Pakistan in government effectiveness and regulatory quality (second among the four); and Nepal, which is the second among the four in control of corruption. In the category of political stability and absence of violence, Pakistan scores the lowest and Nepal the eighth lowest in the world.
7.2.1 Summary of the Results on Governance Performance 1. Voice and Accountability (measures about political processes, civil
liberties, political rights, and independence of the media) is one of the major measures of governance performance, whereas India’s per- formance increased by 6 points from 1996 to 2008; in contrast, Nepal appeared one of the worst by dropping 21 points, followed by
7.2 Governance Performances of Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan 129
Table 7.2 Governance performance (higher score better on rank) Voice and Accountability Political Stability and
Country (Rank and Estimation) Absence of Violence
2008 2008 1996 1996 2008 2008 1996 1996
Year % Rank Est. % Rank Est. % Rank Est. % Rank Est.
India 59 0.45 53 0.12 17 −0.99 16 −0.99
Bangladesh 31 −0.61 42 −0.23 10 −1.54 20 −0.80
Nepal 25 −0.79 46 −0.06 8 −1.69 42 −0.09
Pakistan 19 −1.01 27 −0.71 1 −2.61 9 −1.44
Government Effectiveness Regulatory Quality
2008 2008 1996 1996 2008 2008 1996 1996
Year % Rank Est. % Rank Est. % Rank Est. % Rank Est.
India 54 −0.03 57 −0.15 47 −0.21 40 −0.01
Pakistan 26 −0.73 32 −0.54 35 −0.47 29 −0.38
Nepal 24 −0.75 49 −0.25 27 −0.66 23 −0.72
Bangladesh 23 −0.77 26 −0.65 21 −0.82 35 −0.22
Rule of Law Control of Corruption
2008 2008 1996 1996 2008 2008 1996 1996
Year % Rank Est. % Rank Est. % Rank Est. % Rank Est.
India 56 0.12 62 0.34 44 −0.37 38 −0.38
Pakistan 19 −0.92 35 −0.55 29 −0.68 64 0.35
Nepal 25 −0.76 50 −0.20 25 −0.77 15 −1.04
Bangladesh 27 −0.70 24 −0.76 11 −1.10 33 −0.51
Source: Kaufmann; Kraay and Mastruzzi 2010; Bhandari 2011.
Note: WGI measures the standard normal units of the governance indicator, ranging from around−2.5 (low performance) to 2.5 (high performance), and in percentile rank terms ranging from 0 (lowest) to 100 (highest) among all countries worldwide. The column labeled ”Est.” provides the point estimate.2
Bangladesh by 11, and Pakistan by 8 points, respectively. The reason for such a drastic fall in Nepal’s performance was the Maoist insurgency, which kept the country in turmoil for about 11 years over that period.
In the case of Bangladesh and Pakistan, the reasons are the direct or indirect militarization, internal violence, and power struggles.
2. Political Stability and Absence of Violence (measures the stability of government and change of government through unconstitutional or violent means): All four countries’ performance is not satisfactory in
2Disclaimer (The governance indicators presented here reflect the statistical compilation of responses on the quality of governance given by a large number of enterprise, citizen, and expert survey respondents in industrial and developing countries, as reported by a number of survey institutes, think tanks, non-governmental organizations, and international organizations as in Governance Matters VIII: Governance Indicators for 1996 – 2008).
130 Comparative Chapter
the global context. To some extent, India is stable; in contrast, in 1996, Nepal was the best performing country among the four, with a rank of 42, but dropped by 34 points by 2008 and was eighth among the 10 weakest performing nations. Pakistan ranked the worst and Bangladesh 10th.
3. Government Effectiveness (measures quality of public services, the quality of bureaucracies, and competencies of civil services): India remained almost constant over the 12 years studied, whereas again Nepal’s performance dropped by 25 points (from 49 to 24), while Pakistan dropped by 6 and Bangladesh by only 3 points.
4. Regulatory Quality (measures policies and effectiveness in implementa- tion): India’s performance increased by 7 points, Pakistan’s by 6 points, and Nepal by 4 points; in contrast, Bangladesh’s quality dropped by 14 points.
5. Rule of Law (measure the extent to which agents abide the roles of soci- ety): Bangladesh gained 3 points in 12 years; whereas Nepal appeared a major loser by 25 points, followed by Pakistan 16 points and India by 6 points.
6. Control of Corruption (measures perceptions of corruption, defined as the exercise of public power for private gains) has been considered as a serious problem of the region (UNDP 1999). In this category, Pakistan gained 10 points and India 6 points, whereas again Nepal was the worst among the four, dropping 35 points (from 64 to 29) and Bangladesh 22 points (from 33 to 11; Bhandari 2011).
In summing up, Table 7.2 shows that the overall situation is that the all four countries are performing poorly in relation to the global scenario governance performance. Among the four, India’s situation is either stable or improving incrementally and shows that India has stable government and strong bureaucracy. However Nepal’s performance dropped drastically in all categories followed by Pakistan and Bangladesh. This table also reveals that regardless of international effort, a country’s position in governance performance could not be improved until or unless the norms of governance function. The case of Nepal, for example, is frustrating picture in the sense that it instituted a democratic government system in 1990, but has not been able to institutionalize democratic norms. Instead of keeping pace with the global scenario, Nepal’s performance has been deteriorating further every year in all six governance performance measures.