Governance: Who Governs? Who Should Govern?

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Literature Review
Analysis and Argumentation
Discussion and Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

Governance is the mechanisms that are used by an organization in order to make decisions, analyze these decisions, and implement them for improving the situation in the country and international relations.

The role of the state governance and public administration is considered to be important in contemporary societies because more and more challenges take place and governments have to “manoeuvre within this terrain of conflicting domestic and international normative standards of governing procedures… and policy outcomes” (Skogstad 957).

To create a proper state, it is necessary to make sure that governance is good and reliable and is able to make decisions, which will be implemented for good. In her article Who Governs? Who Should Governs?: Political Authority and Legitimacy in Canada in the Twenty-First Century, Grace Skogstad makes an attempt to analyze why so many people have to obey the rules and decisions, offered by authority and what makes so many people being bound collectively.

There are lots of elements of Canadian political life, and this variety of elements promote the development of conflicts that happen among federal, provincial, and other governments. Grace Skogstad underlines that no substitute for the Canadians is able to centre political authority during the analysis of the outcomes, and this nation demands much more accountability from authority during the time between elections.

Governance in contemporary societies like the Canadian one undergoes certain changes and challenges, which weaken political authority because of the influence of input and output legitimacy; the work by Grace Skogstad proves that the activities from the Canadian government’s side are regarded as the last means to improve current affairs and clear up who should govern and what purposes have to be achieved by the government.

Literature Review

Governance as the concept gained recognition during the post-Second World War period: the 1980s were the years of the implementation of a new meaning for the word governance and differentiating it from the terms like authority and government (Kjær 1). In order to comprehend who should govern, it is necessary to clear up what governance can mean, what types of governance exist, and whether it is possible to improve governance.

Governmental policy-making system may be affected by numerous domestic and international factors, and as the Canadian political culture is more individualistic in comparison to other countries like the United States of America, this nation has all chances to develop own forms of public management and implement the necessary policies to overcome turbulence and crisis.

To evaluate governance of Canada and its effective influence on the development of the country, we will take into consideration five reliable works by different authors, who concentrate much attention on the forms of political authorities in Canada, its public sector, and the changes, which happen within public policy.

The Changing Context of Public Policy

Tony Bovaird and Elke Loffler deal with the ideas of public policy in contemporary societies and the required changes of the actions, taken by the government. “These new pressures [a mixture of external … and internal factors] have emphasized the quality of life implications of public policies and the governance aspects of public sector organizations.

They have re-emphasized the role of politicians in the public policy arena” (Bovaird and Loffler 15). The ideas of this author prove the political globalization, developed by Grace Skogstad in her article.

Modern Governance: The Challenges for Policy Analysis

Globalization has to be identified as a dynamic process but not as a static one because it usually involves technological and national integration. As a rule, the changes that influence the work of the government and the effectiveness of governance take place within financial, political, and economical spheres.

It involves expanding of telecommunication networks, shifts within economic landscapes, and computerization. “In Canada as well as other industrialized countries, political culture is less deferential and more individualistic and participatory. Changing notions of governance reflect these forces but also have their own dynamics that stresses smaller government and new forms of public management” (Pal 43).

The Dynamics of Canadian Federalism

Grace Skogstad admits that the Canadian nation lives according to the rules offered by one political authority and does not want to go deep into details in order to comprehend why the only one governance has power and is able to bind people.

From these words, it becomes clear that Canada is the country to which such political concept like federalism is rather appropriate. Canadian federalism proves that the country is ruled by national and central governments. Richard Simeon and Ian Robinson explain that as federation, Canada has the most decentralized political authority, power, and financial resources (p. 117).

The Size and Scope of the Public Sector

The public sector is one of the most important subtypes of governance actors that imply the institution, dealing with governmental good and services. The last fifty years were crucial for the public sector and definition of its size and scope. As a rule, such sizes and scopes depend on costs, benefits, and the development of welfare state.

Proper definition of public sector and public expenditure allows to identify the role of government and its attitude to governance that is described in the Skogstad’s article. This author tells that the roles of the government quite various and consist of “distributional issues”, “stabilization”, and “repair certain leaks” (Jackson 29).

Introduction: the Meanings of Governance

Evaluation of governance in Canada is impossible without proper and clear definitions of this term, and the work by Anne Kjær turns out to be rather helpful in this case. Several definitions of governance help to realize that the essence of governance is huge and concentrated on “the role of networks in the pursuit of common goals” (Kjær 4).

The main idea of this article is to explain that “governance is about managing rules of the game in order to enhance the legitimacy of the public realm” (Kjær 15), and the author does everything possible to prove the correctness of own ideas and effectiveness of its further use.

Analysis and Argumentation

Reasons to obey are all about trust. The article under consideration is the work by Grace Skogstad about the essence of governance and the reasons why people prefer to obey someone else.

Taking into account two major components of governance, roles and responsibilities (Simeon and Robinson 125), we can admit that the role of the government is to prove the reliability of their intentions and actions and make people obey their orders. However, what strategies does the government use that all people obey the rules and do not fight this governance?

The author gives rather clear answers in her article. First of all, many things are connected to people’s trust to all those decisions, made by the government (Skogstad 955). People believe that all those decisions are correct and legally approved, this is why there are no doubts whether to obey them or not. Secondly, the vast majority of people obey all these rules because they comprehend that such obedience is acceptable in the society and it is better not to stand out against the offered background.

Such traditional sources of authority like police or even educators inform people about the necessary norms of behaviour and, due to the gained respect (Bovaird and Loffler 17), get some kind of power to control society.

Governance is one of the opportunities for the government to steer society (Kjær 10), this is why such attitude to the role of governance and the outcomes of disobedience to the orders may lead to unpredictable results. The conditions of globalization (Pal 45) also make people trust to the governmental ideas and accept them.

Innovations are offered to society in order to improve their lives and provide them with the necessary time; however, not each member of this society is able to comprehend innovations and use them profitably, this is why any kind of governance should be used to direct society, give some hints, and support if necessary, and even taxation can serve as a powerful means to control human actions and create certain limitations (Jackson 28).

When people have something or someone to control their lives and actions, they get some kind of protection of the mistakes, they would probably do.

Political authority in Canada. The Canadian political authority is characterized like a state-centred model that has its own advantages, disadvantages, and problems, caused by numerous external and internal changes, and is “overwhelming in the hands of elected state actors” (Skogstad 957).

The activities of the state actors like political and public sector institutions usually depend on the processes, which lead to changes and improvements within the spheres, which are vital for human development. In this article, Grace Skogstad admits that Canadian political authority, as the major state actor, suffers mostly because of globalization, to more concrete because of its three features.

These features involve market liberation (Jackson 29), difficulties with international rule-making processes, taking into consideration the fact that Canada is a federation (Simeon and Robinson 101), and technological changes within communication between society actors. One of the major points that have to be achieved by Canadian authority during globalization is gross exaggeration of political decisions (Bovaird and Loffler 24). As any political or social process, globalization has come to its logical end under more or less clear conditions.

This is why it is crucially important to find out what circumstances may promote the spreading of globalization and its effects on different spheres of life. One of the final steps in globalization process is considerable increase of mobility and capital flows (Pal 51). To achieve this stage, it is obligatory for some banks and other investing organizations to develop systems in order to be able to transfer capital all over the world.

In spite of the fact that the concept of democracy is increasing considerably day by day, political authority in Canada still makes numerous attempts to establish procedures and improve the influence of policy networks (Kjær 16). Politicians prove their authority by means of properly chosen activities and programs and still existing trust from society’s side.

Popular, private, and expert authority as a powerful alternative to state-centred authority. There are three other types of authority that may create effective alternative to the already discussed state-centred one. Expert authority is usually recognized as one of the most desirable and effective ones (Skogstad 959) because their background knowledge and experience allow to present positive outcomes and prevent undesirable effects. One of the brightest examples of Canadian expert authority is the Bank of Canada.

The point is that so frequently discussed globalization and its effects positively influence the development of this kind of authority: “the more countries integrate with the world economy and allow global economic forces to penetrate domestic economies, the more they will prosper” (Pal 45). The Bank of Canada always presents good and qualified services, demonstrates monetary stability, and uses proper transport policies.

If we take into consideration the fact that governance is all about control and ruling with authorities (Kjær 3) and the manner of how the Bank of Canada uses its powers, it is possible to suggest that expert authority is as legitimate as state-centred authority. Even more, the peculiarity of this authority is the possibility to be strengthened by means of globalization of economic and political spheres (Skogstad 960).

Another alternative to state-centred authority is private authority, also known as market-based. This type of authority is popular due to its abilities to encompass families and use self-regulation as a powerful means to conduct. Very often, policy-makers spend implications, face problems, caused by money shortage, and cannot manoeuvre enough (Bovaird and Loffler 16).

This is why private authority becomes more reliable and depends less on external factors and challenges from the world. The activities of Internet participants, certification organizations, and rail transportation agents use market-based authorities to achieve personal benefits and demonstrate their competence in respect to other members of society.

The growth of public spending is regarded as one of those inevitable processes (Jackson 30), this is why private authority gets all chances to be developed and conquer as many people as possible. Private or market-based authority is not a new thing for the Canadian society. Its historical development that started in the 1950s and the results, which are noticeable nowadays, show that such alternative to state-centred authority can and should be enlarged as soon as possible.

Finally, it is necessary to mention that popular authority, the alternative to state-centred authority that is interesting to people due to its “direct public input and deliberation in the decision-making process” (Skogstad 962). One the one hand, Canada is a constitutional monarchy, and all authority should come from the Crown. One the other hand, Canada is regarded as federation, and political authority has to be divided between “two or more constitutionally distinct orders” (Simeon and Robertson 1).

To achieve success on the political arena and on the international level, Canadian governance has to be properly identified and follow certain structure. Canadian themselves do not believe that their state-centred political authority may be substituted by any of these alternatives, however, it may happen that they just do not want to notice how many faces Canadian authority has already got and to realize that they become stable doers of rules and orders, established by familiar to them but not existed any more state-centred authority.

If people want to clear up why they have to obey certain orders and what makes them choose one particular authority, they have to unite in order not to concentrate on possible alternatives to state-centred governance but pick out one and evaluate each step from one legitimized perspective.

Discussion and Conclusion

Lecture notes and argumentations of the articles. Class lectures help to comprehend the essence of governance and its components. Taking into account the idea that governance is all those interactions and traditions that enjoin the analysis of decision making processes and the obedience to these decisions, it becomes clear that governance has two sides, two processes: decision-making and decision implementation.

However, the argumentations, which have been presented in the article by Grace Skogstad, and discussed with the help of the works by Bovaird, Loffler, Pal, Simeon, etc. provided me with a chance to evaluate the essence of governance and possible types of political authority. There are three alternatives to political authority of Canada, and each of these alternatives can substitute state-centred policy and cope with the challenges caused by globalization, computerization, and trade development.

The questions like “Who governs” and “Who should govern?” become more urgent and significant because it becomes clear that people prefer to obey the orders of authority but not to have an idea why this obedience should happen and who actually gives all these orders and establish the rules. It is clear that there is some kind of authority that is responsible for the conditions under which the Canadians live today, however, during the lectures, it was identified that social governance touched economic, administrative, and political sectors.

Public management and public policy in Canada play a very important role in discussions, this is why the analysis of contemporary societies should be started from these two issues and then, with properly identified meanings of governance, the theme of Canadian governance may be studied. The state-centred policy and governance that runs people’s lives have to be studied thoroughly in order to be able to meet the demands of the state and improve conditions for cooperation between ordinary people and governance actors.

In general, all six readings under discussion turn out to be helpful while analyzing governance of Canada and the reasons, which make so many people not care about such issues like who governs over them and who should actually govern.

The diversity of authorities, the outcomes of globalization, and the inability to set up goals and roles within society – all this creates one big problem while analysing governance. Grace Skogstad and her work Who Governs? Who Should Governs?: Political Authority and Legitimacy in Canada in the Twenty-First Century present a reliable overview of political authority and governance that has a considerable impact on the development of hundreds of Canadians lives.

The authors like Tony Bovaird, Peter Jackson, and Richard Simeon offer their own points of view concerning Canadian governance and its components and serve as good arguments for the article by Skogstad. People have the right to know who control their lives, thoughts, and actions, and their awareness should start with defining governance, its types, and actors, and Grace Skogstad takes the first step to inform people about such crucial points.

Works Cited

Bovaird, Tony and Loffler, Elke. “The Changing Context of Public Policy.” In Public Management and Governance. New York: Routledge, 2009. Print.

Jackson, Peter, M. “The Size and Scope of the Public Sector.” In Public Management and Governance by Tony Bovaird and Elke Loffler. New York: Routledge, 2009. Print.

Kjær, Anne, M. “Introduction: the Meanings of Governance.” In Governance. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2004. Print.

Pal, Leslie, A. “Modern Governance: The Challenges for Policy Analysis.” In Beyond Policy Analysis: Public Issue Management in Turbulent Times. Toronto: ITP Nelson, 2006. Print.

Simeon, Richard and Robinson, Ian. “The Dynamics of Canadian Federalism.” Canadian Politics by Alain Gagnon and James Bickerton. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2004. Print.

Skogstad, Grace. “Who Governs? Who Should Govern?: Political Authority and Legitimacy in Canada in the Twenty-First Century.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 36.5 (Dec. 2003): 955-973.

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