Governance Indicators

This paper analyzes the systemic corruption embedded within the political economies of Nepal, Indonesia, and the Philippines, highlighting how it has become a normalised practice. It analyses recent large-scale protests, often organised by a tech-savvy Gen Z, as a powerful response to government corruption, economic hardship, and weak institutional accountability. The study concludes by proposing policy recommendations, including an anti-political dynasty bill, stricter punishments for corrupt individuals, and a progressive performance evaluation system for public officials to strengthen accountability and address the root causes of corruption.

Algeria has worked to combat corruption by establishing legal mechanisms through its ratification of international conventions and treaties related to corruption, within the framework of protecting public funds. As part of these efforts, several bodies and institutions have been created and entrusted with the task of combating corruption, namely: the High Authority for Transparency and Corruption Prevention, the Central Office for the Repression of Corruption, and the Financial Intelligence Processing Unit. Additionally, specialized judicial divisions for corruption cases have been established, along with the Economic and Financial Judicial Division to address the most complex corruption-related crimes. The measures and mechanisms introduced by the legislator to preserve public funds have contributed to the fight against corruption and its reduction. However, the effectiveness of these bodies remains dependent on the achievement of a set of standards and characteristics within their legal framework, which must translate into tangible results. This starts with strengthening the independence of these bodies and institutions to carry out their assigned duties and achieve their primary objective: the protection of public funds.

Most anti-corruption initiatives fail. This Brief sets out to understand why that is, and what might be done about it. Anti-corruption initiatives fail because of over-large "designreality gaps"; that is, too great a mismatch between the expectations built into their design as compared to on-the-ground realities in the context of their deployment. Successfullyimplemented initiatives find ways to minimise or close these gaps. Unsuccessful initiatives do not. Effective design and implementation processes enable gap closure and improve the likelihood of success. But, beyond enablers, it is the politics of the situation that determine the drivers to anti-corruption success.

Regional planning faces numerous decision making uncertainties related to the complex interdependencies between urban and regional centres. Questions about how to achieve sustainable planning solutions across regions are a key uncertainty and relate to a lack of information about the actual achievement of outcomes as proposed by the objectives of a plan. Regional plan implementation and its impact on environmental, social and economic outcomes have been little explored within Australian urban and regional planning research. Despite a desire to improve the conditions across Australian regions, ambiguity persists regarding the results of regional planning efforts. Of the variables affecting regional planning, scholars argue that governance has a significant impact on achieving outcomes (see Pahl-Wostl 2009). In order to better analyse the impact of governance, we propose a set of governance indicators to examine decisions across regional planning institutions and apply this to governa...

On how journalistic excellence ran up against the judicial censorship that has gagged the daily broadsheet O Estado de S. Paulo "P OOR JOURNALISTS!", exclaims the French commentator Yves Mamou (1992, p. 201) in the conclusion to her book Blame it on the Press. "When peace reigns in society, they are accused of the worst connivances with their sources, but when a crisis explodes, they are painted as the persecutors of their informants…" Before going any further, a minor correction: journalists are not "poor" in the sense of being "defenseless victims", as used here by Mamou. Without descending into jokes of dubious taste, we have to recognize that while journalists may be "poor" in terms of the salaries they receive, they are certainly not "poor" in Yves Mamou's acceptation of the word. Defenseless, misunderstood or longsuffering they are certainly not. In fact, as a general rule, they know how to take care of themselves. Newsrooms, newspapers and the press as an institution have proved quite adept at standing their ground and repelling attacks from all comers. Nevertheless, it is an indisputable truth that the press-like the ever-guilty butler of classic detective stories-always emerges from political crises tarred with having aggravated social hardships. In this we have a rare example of supra-partisan agreement both in Brazil and abroad: when it comes to heaping blame on the press, everyone rallies to the cause, even if on the spur of opposing motives. The powers-that-be do not like the press, though they have no choice but to live with it-cynically, if necessary. In his Politics as a Vocation 1 , Max Weber, speaking on the condition of the professional journalist, captured this somewhat malign sign of our times with ingenuity and rawness, noting that:

4.2.5 Relationship between age of the firm and number of investigative journalists29 vi 4.2.6 Relationship between ownership status and geographic coverage of media firms 30 4.3 Role played by the Kenyan Media in the fight against corruption.

Environmental sustainability is a key issue in the current economic situation. Political and governance factors play an important role in formulating good environmental policy. This paper investigates the effect of governance, political stability, and energy consumption on per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as a measure of environmental sustainability. Using data from 1996 to 2021 and employing the ARDL model, this study found that governance has improved environmental quality by reducing GHG emissions in India. The governance variables contributing to this improvement include government effectiveness, regulatory quality, and accountability. In contrast, energy consumption and corruption levels positively affect GHG emissions. Political stability shows a long-term positive effect on GHG emissions and supports environmental sustainability. Further, this study shows that governance instruments are sustainable in the long run, whereas energy consumption positively affects GHG emissions in both the short and long run. GHG emission per capita is also responsible for the further spreading of emission levels in the long run.

This paper outlines the basis and set of tools required to advance anti-corruption reform. Economic and social progress, the rule of law under good governance, democratic values, and strong civil society are discussed as some of the basic prerequisites to building the national integrity system to sustain a fight against corruption in various forms and at various levels. The concomitant values, institutions and comprehensive, integrative, inclusive and coordinated approach within this framework are also discussed in this paper. CONTENTS I.

This paper examines the relationship between the lobbying power of different interest groups and public education spending in a panel data estimation during the period 1996-2009 for 132 countries. The resource rents, manufacture exports, and agriculture value added are used as proxy variables for the lobbying power of the natural resource owners, manufacturers, and landowners, respectively, in order to substantiate the definition of the lobbying power of the interest groups more with economic fundamentals. As lobbying power is mediated through political institutions, different governance indicators are used individually and in interaction terms with the proxy variables in the estimations. It is found that when the country is more politically stable and the more the rule of law applies, the negative (positive) effect of the lobbying power of natural resource owners (manufacturers) on public education spending intensifies. The negative effect of landowners' lobbying power diminishes as institutional quality as measured by governance indicators improves.

Using both secondary literature on the media and primary data collected via in-depth interviews with a diverse range of government officials, journalists, academics, researchers, law makers, NGO representatives, social activists and political actors, this paper examines the role and impact of a diverse range of media outlets on various aspects of governance in Bangladesh. It looks at an interlinked set of issues encompassing the national media’s role as a state watchdog and shaper of public opinion, and how this is enhanced or hindered by its lack of capacity, ownership structure and internal governance. Acknowledgement: I would like to acknowledge and thank my research assistant Mahfuz Sadique for his invaluable assistance in undertaking the primary research for this paper. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the institutions that have supported, published, or disseminated this research.

The political economies of many developing countries are characterised by varying degrees of patronage and state capture, a reality that has far-reaching implications for measures addressing corruption. Political strategies in such contexts often include maintaining political and economic power through personalised relations and seeking to influence political decisions for the benefit of an individual or group. Gaining and retaining power within these systems is a resource-intensive process, and corruption is a common way to sustain extensive power networks. This report asks whether this insight has found its way into one of the most important current anticorruption instruments, the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC). Analysis of the Convention itself and implementation efforts in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Kenya suggest that UNCAC is only partly suited to address the political nature of corruption, especially if not complemented by further reform measures.

The chapter justifies the increased interest in public sector financial management (PFM) through its scaling up in the economy. The paper reveals the essence of the PFM system, through an analysis of the definitions of the PFM, the role of the public sector in the economy, the key elements of the PFM system, and a comparative analysis of financial management systems in the public and the private sectors of the economy. The problematic issues of the functioning of the PFM system, which include the issues of assessing the quality of the PFM, are analyzed. The quality of the PFM is understood as its effectiveness, efficiency, and achievement of the goals of the PFM, the main of which is the growth of the well-being of society. The statement proved that the amount of public spending is not evidence of the effectiveness of the PFM system. The factors influencing the efficiency of the PFM system functioning are revealed. The importance of financial information formed in the system of state accounting on an accrual basis on the basis of IPSAS for making government decisions is revealed. An alternative point of view on the formation of financial information is given.

The chapter justifies the increased interest in public sector financial management (PFM) through its scaling up in the economy. The paper reveals the essence of the PFM system, through an analysis of the definitions of the PFM, the role of the public sector in the economy, the key elements of the PFM system, and a comparative analysis of financial management systems in the public and the private sectors of the economy. The problematic issues of the functioning of the PFM system, which include the issues of assessing the quality of the PFM, are analyzed. The quality of the PFM is understood as its effectiveness, efficiency, and achievement of the goals of the PFM, the main of which is the growth of the well-being of society. The statement proved that the amount of public spending is not evidence of the effectiveness of the PFM system. The factors influencing the efficiency of the PFM system functioning are revealed. The importance of financial information formed in the system of stat...

6 Introduction 7 1 Donors as a potential cause of corruption 7 1.1 Acts of commission 8 1.2 Acts of omission 8 2 Budget support, development and governance 9 3 Corruption and budget support: theoretical arguments 10 3.1 Aid modalities, corruption and fungibility 11 3.2 Budget support and domestic accountability 12 3.3 Budget support and external accountability 13 4 Empirical studies of corruption and budget support 15 4.1 Cross-country studies 15 4.2 Case studies and evaluations 16 5 Summary 20 6 References 22 U4 ISSUE 4:2008 CORRUPTION AND AID MODALITIES www.U4.no

Acronyms v Executive summary 1 Introduction 2 How to identify and assess risk 2.1 Key terms 2.2 Weighting risk: a donor political economy perspective 2.3 Risks from the recipient country perspective 2.4 A simple framework for assessing risk 3 Applying the framework: the case of Afghanistan 3.1 Explanation of methodology 3.2 Country overview 3.2 Main features of analysis 4 Policy implications for donors 4.1 Go beyond transaction-based approaches to managing fiduciary risk 4.2 Tailor the choice of aid instrument to the country context 4.3 Implement special risk mitigation measures in high-risk environments 4.4 Manage trade-offs among donor objectives so as to minimise the risks of doing harm 4.5 Strike a balance between allowing bureaucratic autonomy and rules-based processes

Corruption is a topical issue worldwide particularly when criminal justice systems and institutions that ensure compliance with the law and play a key role in controlling corruption are affected. Evidence from research shows that citizens of developing countries in Africa and elsewhere perceived criminal justice institutions in their countries, especially the police and judiciary, as among the most corrupt public institutions. However, little research has considered the views of criminal justice officials themselves when it comes to corruption in criminal justice systems. Through a survey of 616 Ghanaian police officers, this study examines police officers’ views of corruption in Ghana’s criminal justice system. Descriptive statistical analyses were conducted to ascertain police officers’ views of the nature, prevalence, levels, and initiators of corruption. A key finding is that police officers perceive corruption as prevalent in Ghana’s criminal justice system and as a serious pro...

Gerster Consulting This article describes general budget support as an instrument of development cooperation. Based on poverty reduction strategies, poorer developing countries are increasingly receiving general budget support which enables their governments to carry out their core responsibilities more effectively. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and risks are discussed in a holistic approach. In view of aid effectiveness and efficiency the author draws on an evaluation which was carried out in the context of the DAC/OECD in 2006, as well as on experience made in Switzerland"s budget support engagement. He argues that the budget support methodology could also inspire the cooperation with non-governmental organisations. Dieser Artikel beschreibt die allgemeine Budgethilfe als Instrument der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit. Basierend auf Strategien zur Armutsbekämpfung fliesst ärmeren Entwicklungsländern in zunehmendem Umfang Budgethilfe zu. Diese soll dazu beitragen, dass die Regierungen ihren Kernverpflichtungen gegenüber der Bevölkerung wirksam nachkommen können. Stärken, Schwächen, Potential und Risiken werden in einer gesamtgesellschaftlichen Auslegeordnung dargestellt. Im Hinblick auf die Wirksamkeit und Effizienz der Hilfe stützt sich der Autor namentlich auf eine im Rahmen der OECD durchgeführte Evaluation sowie auf Erfahrungen, welche die Schweiz im Rahmen ihres Budgethilfe-Engagements gemacht hat. Er argumentiert, dass die Methodik der Budgethilfe auch die Zusammenarbeit mit Nicht-Regierungsorganisationen inspirieren könnte.

Revised 8/20/23 Let us dispense with the traditional short answer first: "check to see if the lips are moving". While that is basically true, it is far too short to have any chance of getting published, so I would like to elaborate on the subject a bit more. In particular, I would like to explore the many ways politicians lie and deceive and look at what the actual truth might be, when they do. Most of you will not need any convincing that they do lie and will wonder why the issue is worthy of any further discussion. While that may be true for some of you, there must be many others that are taken in by the scoundrel� s deceptions-how else can we account for the almost total obsession of many citizens and nearly all of the press with every utterance of a politician or government official? Why is there still an unwarranted trust by much of the public in our two major parties when almost every one of their pronouncements are baloney? Apparently many citizens still believe that persons in the government and/or politics sometime lie but can still be believed most of the time. That belief has absolutely no foundation which is what I hope to show in this article. Others will say, "So what-we know they don� t always tell the truth, but it doesn� t seriously impact our lives." I hope to show here that their duplicity does have serious consequences for all of us now and will even more so in the future. With that inspiration, in this essay I will provide a summary of some of the major ways politicians and government bureaucrats deceive us. Since the scope of the types of deceit is very broad, I can only hit the high spots. But in every case, I will provide references to further material, online if I know about it. I will list some of the more important interactions we have with the politicians and show that there is a consistent pattern of duplicity in every one of them. This essay is mostly about politicians in office, bureaucrats, and other "public servants" (ha!). However, to get in office requires a fair amount of lying, so I will briefly discuss the campaign phase of political culture first. Campaign promises There has been an unusual amount of attention lately to Al Gore� s propensity for bending the truth. Many in the press and apparently around 50 percent of the public feel that it is just so much harmless "exaggeration". I disagree: either a politician ought not to lie or he/she should be clever enough not to get caught. Even politicians must be astounded at how easy it is to make promises, get elected, break those promises, and come right back 2 or 4 years later, make the same promises, and get elected again! It is incredible to watch the public during an election get taken in by the same old garbage, time and time again. It would be easy to overlook this example of political duplicity, but you should not-the consequences are very serious. Let me explain. Many still believe that we have a functional representative republic, pointing out that we still have elections and our voice is still heard. Not if politicians lie to get elected. But the best advice for dealing with this problem is summed up in the simple quote, author unknown: "Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason."

Air pollution has emerged as a major global concern in recent decades as a result of rapid urbanization and industrialization, leading to a variety of adverse health outcomes. This research aims to investigate the influence of exposure to ambient and household particulate matter pollution (PM 2.5), and ground-level ozone (O 3) pollution on respiratory and cardiac mortality in Pakistan. We used grey incidence analysis (GIA) methodology to estimate the degree of proximity among selected variables and rank them based on mortality. Hurwicz's criterion is then adopted for further optimization by prioritizing the selected factors with the greatest influence on respiratory and cardiac mortality. The GIA findings revealed that asthma mortality is considerably impacted by exposure to ambient and household PM 2.5 concentration while ischemic heart disease (IHD) mortality is potentially influenced by ground-level ozone exposure. Furthermore, results based on Hurwicz's analysis demonstrated that exposure to ambient PM 2.5 concentration appeared as the most intensified factor of respiratory and cardiac mortality. This corroboration adds to the growing body of research demonstrating that exposure to ambient PM 2.5 adversely leads to respiratory and cardiac risks, emphasizing the demand for further improvement of air quality in Pakistan. Besides, the suggested methodologies provide a valuable tool and additional practical knowledge for policymakers and decision-makers in drawing rational decisions.

Good governance is a polymorphous concept that stems from economic and political science. It is used both in the context of the management of public action and in a strategic perspective of economic development. In this article, we are first interested in deconstructing the various contributions to define and reaffirm the role of "good governance" in development strategies. What is "good governance"? How does it have an impact on a country's economy? This paper addresses the issue of causality between good governance and economic development, by examining the inter-connections between economic development and governance indicators to increase transparency and efficiency. The purpose of this article is to organize a systematic literature review in a scientific manner from data collection, through data selection, reading and finally data analysis. The impact of good Governance in economic development differs in political system structure, governance current characteristics and contextual factors. Although outcome factors are influenced by contextual determinants, the governance characteristics are of great importance.

To choose a set of definitions on corruption and summarize the quantitative measures of corruption, this study gives some comments on a wealth of national indicators of corruption. Based on the academic research, the factors of corruption could be mapped in three levels: macro, meso and micro. In the past, most studies on corruption pay attention to the macro factors to study the relationship between corruption, development, culture and politics. In the meso-level, internet system construction is the most important factors on corruption. More and more scholars tend to use the real raw data rather than the perception of data to study the corruption of a certain country or region.
Strategies for reducing corruption have been widely discussed in academic studies and other research. This study briefly summarizes relevant and interesting findings and perceptions on corruption that may be useful to the entirely country and other interested parties out of this country. The inferences cited in this study cover various corruption research themes, including an anti-corruption theoretical framework, case studies, policy recommendations, and economic analysis.
A common wisdom is that corruption must be fought out at all costs. This opinion is shared by governments and non-government organizations, international institutions, media, the public, politicians, and mainstream academics. Corruption is considered as the greatest challenges of the contemporary world. It undermines good governance, systematically distorts public policy, leads to a misallocation of public resources, deteriorates private and public sector development and especially affects the poor. This worldwide concern is highlighted for example by the UN anti-corruption agreement in Mexico, 2003, ratified by 140 countries.
Nevertheless, corruption in all its forms is a resilient phenomenon that can still be found behind many grave upheavals, such as the Arab Spring (Ramadan, 2012), or the European refugee tsunami (UNCHR, 2015).
In terms of economics, the mainstream view is that corruption constitutes a serious impediment to economic development. The seminal idea of Shleifer & Vishny (2019) is that corruption hampers the economy because of its distortive effects on investments, particularly on foreign direct investments. Mauro (2019), Mo (2021), and Méon & Sekkat (2020) confirm the idea that investments, economic growth, and welfare are significantly reduced by corrupted bureaucracy.
The argument of Bliss & Di Tella (2019) is that corruption fosters monopolies, whose profits are then drained by the bureaucrats. Myrdal (2019) and Kurer (2019) emphasize bureaucrats’ self-interests in the creation of To choose a set of definitions on corruption and summarize the quantitative measures of corruption, this study gives some comments on a wealth of national indicators of corruption. Based on the academic research, the factors of corruption could be mapped in three levels: macro, meso and micro. In the past, most studies on corruption pay attention to the macro factors to study the relationship between corruption, development, culture and politics. In the meso-level, internet system construction is the most important factors on corruption. More and more scholars tend to use the real raw data rather than the perception of data to study the corruption of a certain country or region.
Strategies for reducing corruption have been widely discussed in academic studies and other research. This study briefly summarizes relevant and interesting findings and perceptions on corruption that may be useful to the entirely country and other interested parties out of this country. The inferences cited in this study cover various corruption research themes, including an anti-corruption theoretical framework, case studies, policy recommendations, and economic analysis.
A common wisdom is that corruption must be fought out at all costs. This opinion is shared by governments and non-government organizations, international institutions, media, the public, politicians, and mainstream academics. Corruption is considered as the greatest challenges of the contemporary world. It undermines good governance, systematically distorts public policy, leads to a misallocation of public resources, deteriorates private and public sector development and especially affects the poor. This worldwide concern is highlighted for example by the UN anti-corruption agreement in Mexico, 2003, ratified by 140 countries.
Nevertheless, corruption in all its forms is a resilient phenomenon that can still be found behind many grave upheavals, such as the Arab Spring (Ramadan, 2012), or the European refugee tsunami (UNCHR, 2015).
In terms of economics, the mainstream view is that corruption constitutes a serious impediment to economic development. The seminal idea of Shleifer & Vishny (2019) is that corruption hampers the economy because of its distortive effects on investments, particularly on foreign direct investments. Mauro (2019), Mo (2021), and Méon & Sekkat (2020) confirm the idea that investments, economic growth, and welfare are significantly reduced by corrupted bureaucracy.
The argument of Bliss & Di Tella (2019) is that corruption fosters monopolies, whose profits are then drained by the bureaucrats. Myrdal (2019) and Kurer (2019) emphasize bureaucrats’ self-interests in the creation of economic distortions, and Kaufmann et al. (2021) states that corruption endogenously leads to poor governance and exacerbates the distortions.
economic distortions, and Kaufmann et al. (2021) states that corruption endogenously leads to poor governance and exacerbates the distortions.

Professor Savas has grounds for annoyance. During his tenure as Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research at HUD he found himself run through the wringer by an enterprising Washington Post reporter whose credentials as an investigative reporter leave, as Savas's response indicates, much to be desired. In my review of Privatizing the Public Sector I cited the Post stories that were appearing as I wrote.

The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), one of the spin-offs of the African development framework, NEPAD, offers a unique approach to the monitoring of agreed norms of political, economic, and corporate governance in Africa. This article analyzes the APRM structure and process with a focus on how the APRM could complement other efforts to realize the African Union objective of promotion and protection of human rights. The country review reports on Ghana, Kenya, and Rwanda are analyzed from a human rights perspective. I.

Climate change represents an increasing threat to society and demands collaborative actions for changing technologies, production methods, and consumption. The concept of Circular Economy (CE) emerged aiming to increase the resource use efficiency and minimize resource inputs, waste and emissions generation. However, the contribution of CE ecoinnovations to climate change mitigation goals, pushed by the Quintuple Helix Model (QHM) actors, is still unknown. This analytical review intends to fulfil this gap by investigating the main elements of the QHM that contribute to CE eco-innovations, namely companies, government, society, academia, and the natural environment. An analytical framework and theoretical propositions for future research are proposed. Eco-innovation technologies from energy, waste, transportation, construction and manufacturing sectors are discussed. Practical recommendations and implications for policymakers associated with CE and climate change policies and their interrelationship in terms of eco-innovations are also provided.

Annex 2 Objectives and intervention logic Annex 3 Assessing public policy eligibility Annex 4 Assessing macroeconomic eligibility Annex 5 Assessing public finance management eligibility Annex 6 Assessing eligibility on budget transparency and oversight Annex 7 Risk management framework Annex 8 Variable tranche design and performance indicators Annex 9 State and resilience building contracts for fragile situations Annex 10 Budget support in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) Annex 11 Domestic revenue mobilisation Annex 12 Assessment of fundamental values Annex 13 Policy dialogue in the context of budget support 1 See https://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/sites/devco/files/methodology-budget-support-guidelines-201209_en_3.pdf.

Journalism has long been presumed to serve as a check on the powerful, shedding light on wrongdoing; however, as local newspapers reach market failure, extant theory predicts corruption will go unchecked. We operationalize corruption as federal prosecutions for public corruption (PPCs), defined by the US Department of Justice as crimes involving the abuse of public trust by federal, state, and local public officials. We examine changes in the local news media ecosystems: first, whether declines in local newspaper employment and circulation are associated with changes in PPCs; and second, whether efforts to supplement watchdog journalism with nonprofit journalism might mitigate associated declines in federal PPC. Our findings suggest nonprofit interventions in failing local commercial news markets may be an important safeguard for keeping public officials accountable.

PurposeA number of studies and indicators have ranked European countries in terms of the performance of their public sectors. This paper aims to demonstrate that there are important conceptual problems with such rankings and comparisons.Design/methodology/approachUsing the existing indicators, the paper first shows how European countries' public sectors are ranked. It then goes on to show how conceptual problems with these indicators may lead to incorrect conclusions.FindingsCountries' public sector performance cannot be summarised using a single indicator because of inability to define “the public sector” and the disagreement on what it means for public sectors to perform.Practical implicationsDespite increasing demand and supply in policy circles for international public sector indicators, the existing ones are unreliable.Originality/valueThis paper extends the assessment of international public sector indicators beyond a mere technical evaluation.

Regional planning faces numerous decision making uncertainties related to the complex interdependencies between urban and regional centres. Questions about how to achieve sustainable planning solutions across regions are a key uncertainty and relate to a lack of information about the actual achievement of outcomes as proposed by the objectives of a plan. Regional plan implementation and its impact on environmental, social and economic outcomes have been little explored within Australian urban and regional planning research. Despite a desire to improve the conditions across Australian regions, ambiguity persists regarding the results of regional planning efforts. Of the variables affecting regional planning, scholars argue that governance has a significant impact on achieving outcomes (see Pahl-Wostl 2009). In order to better analyse the impact of governance, we propose a set of governance indicators to examine decisions across regional planning institutions and apply this to governa...

Environmental policies are a significant cornerstone of a developed economy, but the question that arises is whether such policies lead to a sustainable growth path. It is clear that the energy sector plays a pivotal role in environmental policies, and although the current literature has focused on examining the link between energy consumption and economic growth through an abundance of studies, it does not explicitly consider the role of institutional or governance quality variables in the process. Both globalization and democracy are important drivers of sustainability, while environmentalism is essential for the objective of gaining a “better world.” Governance quality is expected to be the key, not only for economic purposes but also for the efficiency of environmental policies. To that end, the analysis in this paper explores the link between governance quality and energy efficiency for the EU-28 countries, spanning the period 1995 to 2014. The findings document that there is a...

Although there is substantial research on service delivery, empirical research into how development activities incentivise better service delivery is fragmented (Tavakoli 2012; Joshi 2010). It is increasingly recognised that increasing technical or financial capacity does not automatically translate into improved service delivery performance or better development results (World Bank 2003; Andrews et al. 2012). Understanding incentives has been identified as a key variable in any thinking about motivation, behaviour, capacity and institutions involved in service delivery. Central to this is how to incentivise positive change in both the formal and informal institutions that affect service delivery.

The scope of this summary evaluation is to review the existing practice of the budget support (BS) with the particular emphasis on the EU budget support suspension practice. The paper explores several hypothesis: 1) Sector budget support has been provided to achieve specific policy objectives, 2) Suspension decision is both predictable, based on the clear criteria that can be traced from the existing practice and has been used in the manner compatible with the existing practice, 3) Suspension is not a sanction imposed and has at worst just limited adverse impact on original budget support objectives of: “poverty eradication”, “citizens well-being”, “sustainable economic growth”, “consolidate democracy”.

PurposeThe relationship between institutional quality and economic growth is revisited.Design/methodology/approachA panel cointegration methodology and causality analysis are applied to 27 postsocialist economies over the period from 1996 to 2016.FindingsUtilizing the Worldwide Governance Indicators as a means of assessing the quality of institutions, it is found that in the long run, economic growth is positively associated with the rule of law and voice and accountability. In the short run, regulatory quality retains a positive effect, but voice and accountability demonstrate a puzzling negative effect on economic growth that merits further analysis. In exploring the causal dimension of our variables, supporting evidence of the strong links between the quality of institutions and economic growth is provided, hence rendering robust results.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first time that an ARDL methodological framework, which addresses potential en...

This study explores corruption in capital expenditure of local governments and prosecutor officials' failure to combat it. Applying an instrumental case study strategy through an actor network theory (ANT) approach, the study analyzes archival data and field data got from in-depth interviews with 67 key informants in DI Yogyakarta's Regency/City. The results highlight the prosecutor officials face two essential hamper to handle corruption of using capital expenditure in local government. First, they have limited access to corrupt activities. Second, they experience some intervention to handle corruption. Thus, the study develops an analysis to decipher the local prosecutor officials fail in combating local corruption effectively, in which useful enhance anti-corruption strategies related to execution of local capital expenditures. The study also provides an insight to improve the understanding of local and national policymakers dealing with the corruption eradication ineffectively in capital expenditures.

In its first judgment of 2012 related to (journalistic) freedom of expression, the European Court of Human Rights dealt with an interesting application of the right of the media to report on criminal cases in an early stage of investigation. The judgment also focuses in a peculiar way on the notion of a “public figure”. The case concerns an article published by the Austrian newspaper Der Standard, reporting on the enormous speculation losses incurred by a regional bank, Hypo Alpe-Adria. The article reported on the criminal investigation into embezzlement that had been opened by the public prosecutor in respect of the senior management of the bank. It identified some of the persons involved, including Mr Rauscher, the head of the bank’s treasury. Mr Rauscher brought proceedings against the newspaper’s company for disclosing his identity in that article and, as a result, he was awarded EUR 5,000 in compensation. In its judgment the Vienna Court of Appeal found that Mr Rauscher’s inter...

El objetivo de este artículo es compartir con nuevos usuarios de indicadores de gobernanza para el análisis comparativo de políticas públicas algunas fortalezas y debilidades de la construcción de estos datos, así como aspectos relevantes de su evolución en el tiempo, como la incorporación de los llamados «indicadores de segunda generación», que se centran en aspectos específicos de la gobernanza, sus efectos en el bienestar social, así como la transparencia del proceso de creación de estas evidencias y su reproducibilidad. Entre los desafíos de la producción y el empleo de indicadores globales de gobernanza se subrayan los relativos a la operacionalización de este concepto abstracto. Asimismo, el artículo anima a explotar de forma creativa los diversos indicadores de gobernanza disponibles en la actualidad, en ensayos, trabajos de consultoría e investigaciones en el campo del análisis de políticas en perspectiva comparada. / The purpose of this article is to share with new users of governance indicators for comparative policy analysis some strengths and pitfalls of the construction of these data, along with relevant features of their evolution over time, such as the addition of the so-called “second-generation indicators”, which are focused on specific aspects of governance, their effects on social welfare, along with transparency issues in the process by which these indicators are created and their replication. Among the challenges of the production and usage of global governance indicators, emphasis is made on those related to the operationalization of the abstract concept of governance. Furthermore, the article encourages the creative exploitation of the array of governance indicators available today when drafting essays and doing consultancy work and research in the field of comparative policy analysis.

This political economy analysis of the research-to-policy interface in Pakistan finds that the decentralisation of many government functions and services changed the Planning Commission's role from detailed command planning towards more indicative planning, with a focus on inclusive growth and developing human capital and infrastructure. Findings suggest that links between research and policy in Pakistan are weak due to political insecurity and volatility which prompts short-term, highly politicised decision making rather than evidence-based choices and policy. The impact of research on policy is weak in part because policy makers do not have the capacity or incentives to absorb complex analysis. Participants in this study said that donors dominate the public policy research space through funding and commissioning, but tend to have short term, project-focused priorities and do not build long-term capacity or engage with the longterm development narrative or strategy of the country. Research outlets are relatively few and highly concentrated and there are many barriers to undertaking research and to its uptake.