Effective Governance (effective + governance)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Creating Value Through Corporate Governance

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE, Issue 3 2002
Robert A.G. Monks
Value and governance are such familiar words that we do not often enough reflect on their meanings in a specific situation. This paper will suggest: Value is in the eye of the beholder. The appearance of governance may be preferable to the real thing. In order better to understand value, we will work with a simple question , is it appropriate for a global investor to purchase common shares in Volkswagen? There are many kinds of shareholder, each with distinctive interests that are not always compatible with the interests of the other investors. A global investor is typically the trustee of a pension plan with the simple obligation to collateralise the pension promise by maximising the long,term value of trust assets. The beneficiaries of pension funds are not rich people. Fluctuations in market values are no longer primarily a question as to whether rich people are a bit richer or poorer, they are a question as to whether pensions will be paid to the roughly half of the population of the OECD world who have interests in employee benefit plans. This makes investment a matter of social and political concern. At the end of our trip through the mythology and prospects for adding value to corporate enterprises through effective governance, we come to a very simple conclusion. I bastardise a celebrated principal of physics to conclude that both in science and in business a watched particle behaves differently than one that is not watched. "An observed board behaves differently" and is more likely to generate value for corporate owners. [source]


Deliberative Democracy and International Labor Standards

GOVERNANCE, Issue 1 2003
Archon Fung
Political theorists have argued that the methods of deliberative democracy can help to meet challenges such as legitimacy, effective governance, and citizen education in local and national contexts. These basic insights can also be applied to problems of international governance such as the formulation, implementation, and monitoring of labor standards. A participatory and deliberative democratic approach to labor standards would push the labor,standards debate into the global public sphere. It would seek to create broad discussion about labor standards that would include not only firms and regulators, but also consumers, nongovernmental organizations, journalists, and others. This discussion could potentially improve (1) the quality of labor standards by incorporating considerations of economic context and firm capability, (2) their implementation by bringing to bear not only state sanctions but also political and market pressures, and (3) the education and understanding of citizens. Whereas the role of public agencies in state,centered approaches is to formulate and enforce labor standards, central authorities in the decentralized,deliberative approach would foster the transparency of workplace practices to spur an inclusive, broad, public conversation about labor standards. To the extent that a substantive consensus around acceptable behavior emerges from that conversation, public power should also enforce those minimum standards. [source]


Turning the tide: Enabling sustainable development for Africa's mobile pastoralists

NATURAL RESOURCES FORUM, Issue 3 2008
Jonathan Davies
Abstract Sustainable development for Africa's mobile pastoralists is slowly becoming a reality. Success depends to a large extent on understanding the dynamics of drylands environments, accepting the logic of customary mobile livestock keeping, and enabling effective governance. Appropriate investment in pastoralism requires a clear understanding of the values that are attached to it and innovative approaches to marketing of the goods and services that emanate from the system. To make development truly sustainable it is imperative that the environmental services of pastoralism are recognised, rewarded and promoted. Constraints to sustainable pastoral development include low and misdirected public and private investment, weak security of resource rights, low human capital, weak pastoral voice and poor governance. Successful and sustainable development is observed in pastoral regions where customary governance has been legitimized, resource rights secured and economic development of the pastoral sector, as opposed to transformation of livestock keeping, has prevailed. This article presents state-of-the-art knowledge on sustainable pastoralism, gathered through the GEF/UNDP/IUCN World Initiative for Sustainable Pastoralism (WISP), with data and case studies taken from three recently published WISP reports: "Global Economic Review of Pastoralism", "Pastoralism as Conservation in the Horn of Africa", and "Policy Impacts on Pastoral Environments". [source]


What is more important to effective governance: Relationships, trust, and leadership, or structures and formal processes?

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR HIGHER EDUCATION, Issue 127 2004
Adrianna Kezar
Changing structures may be a less important factor in creating an effective approach to governance than leadership, relationships, and trust. [source]


The Twilight of Westminster?

POLITICAL STUDIES, Issue 5 2001
Electoral Reform, its Consequences
The UK political system has long exemplified ,majoritarian' or ,Westminster' government, a type subsequently exported to many Commonwealth countries. The primary advantage of this system, proponents since Bagehot have argued, lie in its ability to combine accountability with effective governance. Yet under the Blair administration, this system has undergone a series of major constitutional reforms, perhaps producing the twilight of the pure Westminster model. After conceptualizing the process of constitutional reform, this paper discusses two important claims made by those who favor retaining the current electoral system for Westminster, namely that single-member districts promote strong voter-member linkages and generate greater satisfaction with the political system. Evidence testing these claims is examined from comparative data covering 19 nations, drawing on the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. The study finds that member-voter linkages are stronger in single member than in pure multimember districts, but that combined districts such as MMP preserve these virtues. Concerning claims of greater public satisfaction under majoritarian systems, the study establishes some support for this contention, although the evidence remains limited. The conclusion considers the implications of the findings for debates about electoral reform and for the future of the Westminster political system. [source]


Rebuilding governance in failed states and post-conflict societies: core concepts and cross-cutting themes

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION & DEVELOPMENT, Issue 1 2005
Derick W. Brinkerhoff
This overview article looks at the emergence of failed and post-conflict states on the international relations and assistance agenda, and at the importance of governance in establishing peace, pursuing state reconstruction and preventing conflict. It introduces the topic of the special issue, how effective governance can be re-established following societal conflict or war. After a brief review of the terminology of failed states, post-conflict and governance, the article discusses governance reconstruction in terms of three dimensions: reconstituting legitimacy, re-establishing security and rebuilding effectiveness. The article summarises key points made by the contributors to the special issue, who look at donor governance reconstruction agendas, security-sector governance and subnational governance. Several common themes emerge and are elaborated upon: similarities between development and post-conflict assistance; linkages among governance's legitimacy, effectiveness and security dimensions; rebuilding versus creating governance systems; local versus national governance reconstruction; formal versus informal governance. The article concludes with a call for further work to elaborate frameworks that can incorporate the particulars of individual countries in addressing legitimacy, security and effectiveness. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Using information technology to sustain policy governance

BOARD LEADERSHIP: POLICY GOVERNANCE IN ACTION, Issue 76 2004
Article first published online: 15 MAR 200, Ray Tooley
Can Policy Governance provide a long-term sustainable model for owner-accountable effective governance? The answer is a resounding yes, but there are many challenges boards face in becoming mature and seasoned users of this comprehensive system. This article will examine some of the obstacles to achieving user-friendly Policy Governance sustainability and how information technology can be used to overcome the barriers on the road to success. [source]


What is the role of an advocacy group in effective governance?

BOARD LEADERSHIP: POLICY GOVERNANCE IN ACTION, Issue 70 2003
John Carver
No abstract is available for this article. [source]