IS402 Review
Class: IS402 Created Time: January 20, 2022 9:48 PM Database: Class Notes Database Last Edited Time: January 25, 2022 12:08 PM
1. key concepts and theoretical framework
1.1. What is Governance? 1 (UNDP)
- The exercise of economic, political, and administrative authority to manage a country’s affairs at all levels.
- It comprises mechanisms, processes, and institutions through which citizens and groups articulate their interests, exercise their legal rights, meet their obligations, and mediate their difference.”
1.1.1. What’s the difference between government & governance?
| Government | Governance |
|---|---|
| Require authority to operate | Require authority to operate |
| There is state government | There’s world governance, not world government |
| Governance authority comes from government | Governance authority doesn’t need to come from government |
| Unidirectional power: top-down | Multi-directional power: tow ways (co-workers to reach goal) |
1.1.2. What is ‘Good Governance’?
- The mechanisms through which a Democracy is practicing and improving its good civil rights, transparency, rule of law, efficient public services…
- 6 essentials of good governance
- Legitimacy
- Transparency
- Accountability
- Rule of Law
- Responsiveness
- Effectiveness
- Who are stakeholders in governance?
-
Citizens
-
Government
-
Private Sector: media
-
Civil Society
-
Social Environment: technology, culture, history, traditions
-
Arranged like this normally
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1.2. What is Public Policy?
- Public Policy: are actions of government and the intentions that determine those actions which has effects on the life of citizens and to achieve societal goals
- A policy is a public policy because they are rules that apply to the general public
- Public policy is made by government
- Policy is interpreted and implemented by public and private actors who have different interpretations of problems, solutions, and their own motivations.
3. Major governance issues: Looking into root causes of the problems
- Inequality:
- Driving Force:
- Inequality of opportunity (education)
- Economic growth → poverty reduction, but unequal distribution of income
- Poor stays poor, rich get richer
- Inequality = small middle class who sustain economy
- Political & institutional instability
- Demand makes policy benefit the poor rather than economic growth
- Policy Options
- Driving Force:
- Ethnopolitics and Nationalism
- Resource Curse and Corruption
- Religion
- Democratization
- Women and Gender
- Security
- Terrorism
- Cambodia Before the Killing Field
4. Formulating policy solutions: What can states or policy makers do to deal with these problems?
4.1. Assessing the policy implications
5. Case Studies
- Developing Asia’s Inequality
Questions-
- Can we attain economic growth/productivity without inequality? is it possible?
- With progressive public policy like
- Tax Rich
- Increasing minimum wage
- Invest in education
- With progressive public policy like
- Key Term Matching (10 Marks)
- T/F Statements (5 Marks)
- MCQs (10 Marks)
- Comprehension Qs (3 Questions = 45 marks)
- Critical Thinking Q (Essay) = 30 marks
Total mark: 100 / Time allowed: 90 minutes
My suggestions for your review and preparation:
- Study the structure of essay writing and how to write it again
- Points of focus:
- aid conditionality and its success;
- Problem: Government lack independent political action, more responsive to donors demand than the citizen, generate a domestic culture of rent seeking.
- Accountability
- Positively: of delivering aid to poor without corruption, getting praise. Reward success
- Negatively: taking responsibility for failure and seek recompense.
- Sanction NGOs
- upward model makes NGOs accountable towards trustees, governments, or the international financial institutions.
- participatory development that aims to engage the poor in the design, implementation, and evaluation of the projects.
- Problem: poor lack power to sanction NGOs
- Unbiased Third-party: ombudsmen, ethics committees, and administrative courts to evaluate projects.
- how the ideas of governance make a valuable contribution to understanding politics in the developing world
- Conceptualization of good governance, government, fair governance.
- Setting a standard of democratic practices, respect of human rights, and how a state should be governed
- leads to the creation, reinforcement or reproduction of social norms and institutions
- Help spread the norm that the act of governance doesn’t necessarily have to be centralized in a government like structure. A country can be governed by many actors and environments its it.
- ecological arguments that have been raised against market liberalization supported by the liberal groups.
- Race to the bottom for environmental degradation: choose environment or economic growth
- Disaster risk management
- Global Warming
- Unrestrained development or economic growth need to incorporate
- disaster risk management: such as the Millennium Development Goal
- There are Challenges to integrating disaster risk reduction into development planning
- Risk reduction is less attractive to policy makers than emergency relief
- Development specialists can’t focus on disaster risk reduction and distracted by more immediate needs
- Misconception that disaster risk reduction is already incorporated into pro-poor development
- Misconception that disasters are beyond human control
- There are Challenges to integrating disaster risk reduction into development planning
- environmental sustainability: policies and measures to address climate change should be put into national development programs as its part of general sustainable development strategy
- Is it the responsibility of developing states or developed states to reduce their environmental impacts?
- Economic growth vs environmental sustainability: no one willing to pay price
- disaster risk management: such as the Millennium Development Goal
- Race to the bottom for environmental degradation: choose environment or economic growth
- playing politics vs. just the general political process of argument, negotiation, and compromise
- Why do people think so negatively of politics given that this is the process by which we address public problems? (Essay)
- Based on our understanding, the term “playing politics” is different from the general political process of argument, negotiation, and compromise mainly in terms of the intention or the objective of this process.
- According to Merriam-Webster’s definition, the term “playing politics” is defined as doing things for political reasons or power instead of implementing something that is right or best for the general public.
- The well-known definition of politics is the one from Harold Lasswell who defines politics as “who gets what, when, and why”.
- This definition implies the use of power in the process of politics for the interests of certain groups of people.
- Therefore, the difference between “playing politics” and the general political process is that “playing politics” implies the process that involves serving the interests of oneself or a small group of people either to stay in power or gaining other interests
- while the general political process implies the process that involves serving the interests of the public or the people by which it addresses the public problems.
- People would think so negatively of politics given that this is the process by which we address public problems because of the general perception and receiver of the benefits.
- Firstly, the general perception associates “politics” with the competition of power and “playing politics” which shapes the thinking that it is the competition among the elite that people in general should not involve.
- Additionally, while politics address the public problems and benefit a certain group, those results also impact or affect the interests of another group.
- Usually, the dominant groups are the one who gain the interests and benefits while the less powerful group either in terms of tangible resource or level of significance.
- Politics can also be dangerous for people to be involved in because the field is filled with corruption, elites with selfish intentions, and filled with powerplays like assassination, slander,
- You may use bullet points for the comprehension Qs’ part. Please pay attention to the timeframe of your exam. First thing should come first!