Governance capacity and economic reform in developing countries Book

The extended scope of governmental intervention in developing countries is usually accompanied by a short supply of governance capacity - understood as the ability to coordinate the aggregation of diverging interests and thus promote policy that can be taken to represent the public interest. Capacity is essential to engage the support and compliance of society to governmental decisions, and, of course, to make policies sustainable over time. Economic reform requires the politically difficult proposition that the scope of governmental intervention be reduced, which in itself hinges on expanded governance capacity. This paper discusses the reasons for the chronic deficiencies in governance capacity, and explores some conditions in which these deficiencies can be overcome to ease the way towards successful economic reform.