Rethinking Good Governance

Public institutions support good governance, which, in turn, promotes sustainable economic development and, thereby nurtures the welfare of the people. The vital bond between a people and its government is that of trust, and these public institutions help maintain that trust.

The standard approach to the legal foundations of corporate governance is based on the view that corporate law promotes separation of ownership and control by protecting non-controlling shareholders from expropriation. This book takes a broader perspective by showing that investor protection is a necessary, but not sufficient, legal condition for the efficient separation of ownership and control. Supporting the control powers of managers or controlling shareholders is as important as protecting investors from the abuse of these powers. Rethinking Corporate Governance reappraises the existing framework for the economic analysis of corporate law based on three categories of private benefits of control. Some of these benefits are not necessarily bad for corporate governance. The areas of law mainly affecting private benefits of control – including the distribution of corporate powers, self-dealing, and takeover regulation – are analyzed in five jurisdictions, namely the US, the UK, Italy, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Not only does this approach to corporate law explain separation of ownership and control better than just investor protection; it also suggests that the law can improve the efficiency of corporate governance by allowing non-controlling shareholders to be less powerful.

The world currently faces a number of challenges that no single country can solve. Whether it is managing a crisis-prone global economy, maintaining peace and stability, or trying to do something about climate change, there are some problems that necessitate collective action on the part of states and other actors. Global governance would seem functionally necessary and normatively desirable, but it is proving increasingly difficult to provide. This accessible introduction to, and analysis of, contemporary global governance explains what it is and the obstacles to its realization. Paying particular attention to the possible decline of American influence and the rise of China and a number of other actors, Mark Beeson explains why cooperation is proving difficult, despite its obvious need and desirability. This is an essential text for undergraduate and postgraduate students studying global governance or international organizations, and is also important reading for those working on political economy, international development and globalization.

This volume explores new directions of governance and public policy arising both from interpretive political science and those who engage with interpretive ideas. It conceives governance as the various policies and outcomes emerging from the increasing salience of neoclassical and institutional economics or, neoliberalism and new institutionalisms. In doing so, it suggests that that the British state consists of a vast array of meaningful actions that may coalesce into contingent, shifting, and contestable practices. Based on original fieldwork, it examines the myriad ways in which local actors - civil servants, mid-level public managers, and street level bureaucrats - have interpreted elite policy narratives and thus forged practices of governance on the ground. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of governance and public policy.

Governance and Ministry has proven to be an indispensable guide for leaders and clergy on how to work together to lead congregations. In this second edition, veteran congregational consultant and minister Dan Hotchkiss updates the book to reflect today’s church and synagogue landscape and shares practical insights based on his work with readers of the first edition. Governance and Ministry highlights the importance of reaching the right governance model for a congregation to fulfill its mission—to achieve both the outward results and the inward quality of life to which it is called. Hotchkiss draws on governance research from business, non-profits, and churches, as well as deep experience in a variety of denominations and congregations to help readers determine the governance model that best fits their needs. The second edition has been streamlined and reorganized to better help readers think through leadership models and the process of change. The book features new material on the implications of congregation size, the process of governance change, policy choices, and the lay-clergy relationship. It also features two appendices with resources often requested by Hotchkiss’s consulting clients: a style guide for policy-makers and a unified example of a board policy book. Written with energy and humor, and offering plenty of practical examples, the second edition of this helpful resource is ideal for anyone involved in church leadership to assist in framing critical questions, creating a vision, and implementing a plan.

Several problems plague contemporary thinking about governance. From the multiple definitions that are often vague and confusing, to the assumption that governance strategies, networks and markets represent attempts by weakening states to maintain control. Rethinking Governance questions this view and seeks to clarify how we understand governance. Arguing that it is best understood as 'the strategies used by governments to help govern', the authors counter the view that governments have been decentred. They show that far from receding, states are in fact enhancing their capacity to govern by developing closer ties with non-government sectors. Identifying five 'modes' of government (governance through hierarchy, persuasion, markets and contracts, community engagement, and network associations), Stephen Bell and Andrew Hindmoor use practical examples to explore the strengths and limitations of each. In so doing, they demonstrate how modern states are using a mixture of governance modes to address specific policy problems. This book demonstrates why the argument that states are being 'hollowed out' is overblown.

This book explores the unintended consequences of security governance actions and explores how their effects can be limited. Security governance describes new modes of security policy that differ from traditional approaches to national and international security. While traditional security policy used to be the exclusive domain of states and aimed at military defense, security governance is performed by multiple actors and is intended to create a global environment of security for states, social groups, and individuals. By pooling the strength and expertise of states, international organizations, and private actors, security governance is seen to provide more effective and efficient means to cope with today’s security risks. Generally, security governance is assumed to be a good thing, and the most appropriate way of coping with contemporary security problems. This assumption has led scholars to neglect an important phenomenon: unintended consequences. While unintended consequences do not need to be negative, often they are. The CIA term "blowback," for example, refers to the phenomenon that a long nurtured group may turn against its sponsor. The rise of al Qaeda, which had benefited from US Cold War policies, is only one example. Raising awareness about unwanted and even paradoxical policy outcomes and suggesting ways of avoiding damage or limiting their scale, this book will be of much interest to students of security governance, risk management, international security and IR. Christopher Daase is Professor at the Goethe University Frankfurt and head of the research department International Organizations and International Law at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF/HSFK). Cornelius Friesendorf is lecturer at the Goethe University Frankfurt and research fellow at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF/HSFK).

There are a multitude of hazards that confront attempts to change institutional or political orders in pursuit of good governance. Even seemingly technical prescriptions run up against local political and social realities which make their adoption difficult and, if adopted, require significant modification of the original prescriptions. Moreover, the technical, rationalist and/or normative language employed in the good governance discourse masks contests over power, rights, resources, and actors’ conflicting interests. There is a definite need to situate the good governance debate in the local context rather than reflexively adopting a universalistic positing of the fact or desirability of governance convergence across countries and sectors because the reality is that the world-wide deployment of good governance rhetoric is not accompanied by convergence in thinking or practices across nations. Transforming Asian Governance asks: • How do good governance principles translate into local settings? • How do local settings influence the conception of what is good governance and how the debate over good governance is deployed as a political or administrative strategy? Using case studies in governance from Thailand, the Philippines, Pakistan, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, Korea and Japan, this book will be essential reading for anyone interested in the public and social policy of Asia, and international and comparative governance more generally.