Governance and Public Policy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Governance and Public Policy - Essay Example As good governance, there is a marriage of the new public management with liberal democracy. As a socio-cybernetic system, it refers to the interdependence of socio-political-administrative actors. And finally as a self-organizing network, it refers to networks seeking to establish their own policies and manage their environments (Rhodes, 1997). Other authors emphasize different points relating to governance. Farazmand (2004) highlights the international element of governance, including the fact that effective governance is value-laden. Lowndes and Skelcher (1998) have an actor view of governance with various elements of governance relating to the outcomes of social processes, ensuring that the means by which actors relate to each other is founded on reality. Frederickson and Smith (2003), on the other hand seeks to view governance as an attempt to understand the institutional interactions in administration. All of the definitions support the fact that governance refers to more than the actions which governments do to accomplish their tasks. Governance in other words relates to the interactions between the public sector and the society as a whole in the management of public issues and problems. Rhodes’ (1997) definitions of governance also include other kinds of relations, including hierarchical and market-style relations. Strong arguments against the narrow perspective of governance are made by Schuppert (2007) who argues that a narrow definition makes it difficult to include the generally more successful elements of governance, including hierarchical governing. As pointed out by Wolf (2007), what is more important is to consider the... This essay critically discusses the ways the word governance is used by Rhodes, mostly with reference to Judt and to various examples and conceptualizations. Initially, a discussion of concepts was established in this study, followed by a critical analysis of these concepts. Rhodes discusses how new applications of governance have emerged. He also evaluates the contributions of actors and institutions outside the central administrators to the general processes of governance. Theoretical contributions impact on conventional applications, which usually picture government to be strong and centralised executives, managing the unified state. Governance as defined and described by Rhodes refers to various elements, including transparency, accountability, new public management, good governance, socio-cybernetic applications, and self-organizing network. Other discussions on governance raised by Judt, who emphasizes the importance of adopting liberal principles of democracy in securing favou rable outcomes in governance. Governance lost its link with the traditional past, mostly because traditions have been considered backward, often holding back development for various states, including third world countries. Governance is also now based on the dynamic relations between the different political actors of the state, using resources which allow for transparency and accountability and the political actors, who include the engaged citizenry, working with the state and the governing authorities.