Looking for definitions between good and bad government and not good and bad governance or are they interchangeable

Published on by in Academic

I am looking at the definitions of the following: government, governance, water governance, management, and water management. I did not have troubles defining them, Then I want to compare the difference between government and governance, between good and bad government, between good and bad governance, and between water governance and water management. The reason is that these terms appear often in literature and want to make a clear distinction between them. From my understanding is that the progression of leadership starts with government in particularly with the establishment of laws, regulations, and policies, then moves to governance where the enforcement of laws, regulations, and policies take place, and finally moves to management where things are monitored and reported. If the leadership begins with a good government then it will end up with a good management, theoretically. My question is finding a good definition for good and bad government. I was only able to definitions for good governance and bad governance. Or are the definitions between government and governance interchangeable?

 

Taxonomy

5 Answers

  2. Basically, Government is already there in place with policies and regulations in place over a period of time.  The stakeholders (who change with every election - once in five years) along with their support staff have the responsibility to first of all understand these policies and regulations prior to implementation.  The right vibration across the entire network would provide excellent 'Governance' lest it falls miserably short of public expectation.  Changing governments have already modified these policies and regulations so horribly that 'Good Governance' is far from reality in many countries.

    Answered on by

    1 Comment

    1.  

      Peter Petersen 15 hours ago

      Good evening. When I look at the different levels of leadership starting with the government  at the top, and working my way down to the management, I look at how the laws that were established by the government, how these laws that are enforced by the governance, and how these laws that are monitored by the management. I want to make a clear distinction between the definitions of these terms, look at how they differ among each other. Sometimes  literature often interchanges the terms, government and governance, even though they have different functions. With that concept being said, the different levels of leadership impacts how the water resources will be managed, particularly with the increased impact of the climate change on the hydrological cycle within the watershed like increased frequency of drought, and the growing population. in other words, water shortage is becoming more real everyday, and depending upon the type of leadership that is governing the area, it will face many challenges in providing water resources to the community long term. So it is important to understand that whatever the decision-making progress  is being used, it will have some impact down the road. If you have good government and good governance, you will have good management, and vise versa. Since the impact of climate change is only going to get worse, so the leadership needs to be understand the full picture starting with where water comes all way down to being distributed to the customers. Any disruption along this path will have its consequences and is it prepared to resolve the issue, particularly with water quality.  

      1 Comment reply

      1. Adapting groundwater management towards climate change was at a project we are closing now. Next to lots of hydrological modelling and monitoring approaches, governance was a central issue in our about 18 pilots (most of them on sandy soils). We defined governance as "getting things done", i.e. making sure that promising measures are implemented. Leadership needed to be complemented with broader support. Stakeholders involved in groundwater management (including local / regional / national governments, NGOs, agriculture, water provision......) discussed different approaches around the North Sea Region (Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Belgium) and exchanged on how the different regions approached issue such as reducing salinization, improving groundwater buffering, managing groundwater flooding, and protecting groundwater quality.

        The close cooperation with land owners- and, depending on cultural / institutional context and issues, sometimes incentives, sometimes legal restrictions, sometimes adaptation of legal frameworks was central.

        My personal main lesson: governance improves a lot it if you take the time  to link science, stakeholders and groundwater management. Even in the relatively homogeneous contexts such as European Union and North Sea Region: getting things done needs a smaller scale approach. One needs to get specific.

        I assume that the instititional and ecological contexts  is completely different in your areas of the world. Still, maybe this  inspires you. I you are interested I can share the results with you.

  3. Hi, Peter, I agree  with Peter Dew that  you may want to define good and bad in in relation to the successful implementation of a specific policy objective and values (democracy, transparency, fairness, drinking water safety....) - so than the practical value of good and bad governments' definition might be rather context specific. Maybe you find a definition in a policy science book? To me, governance includes governments as one group of  key stakeholders, and it includes also management- since management can also involve developing measures, and cooperative approaches to implement them (e.g. land use management for protecting groundwater). What are you going to do with the definitions?

    1 Comment

    1. Good evening. When I look at the different levels of leadership starting with the government  at the top, and working my way down to the management, I look at how the laws that were established by the government, how these laws that are enforced by the governance, and how these laws that are monitored by the management. I want to make a clear distinction between the definitions of these terms, look at how they differ among each other. Sometimes  literature often interchanges the terms, government and governance, even though they have different functions. With that concept being said, the different levels of leadership impacts how the water resources will be managed, particularly with the increased impact of the climate change on the hydrological cycle within the watershed like increased frequency of drought, and the growing population. in other words, water shortage is becoming more real everyday, and depending upon the type of leadership that is governing the area, it will face many challenges in providing water resources to the community long term. So it is important to understand that whatever the decision-making progress  is being used, it will have some impact down the road. If you have good government and good governance, you will have good management, and vise versa. Since the impact of climate change is only going to get worse, so the leadership needs to be understand the full picture starting with where water comes all way down to being distributed to the customers. Any disruption along this path will have its consequences and is it prepared to resolve the issue, particularly with water quality.  

  4. Good and bad are subjective, government is political. You could look at how well government achieve their objective of integrating policy into law, i.e governance and the policy outcomes, i.e measurement of success in reducing harms. 

    1 Comment

    1. Yes. A government can have excellent policies promulgated into law, yet the funding, government action and court review of cases is what matters in the end.

      Commented on by

  5. When you see a reference to good or bad government in articles, generally it has to do with a slice in time as to a specific issue, a process gone wrong or a failure to be objective in decision making. I would suggest looking at the ICMA website for nuanced definitions. 
    it has been my experience government is no better than the leadership at the helm of government. ICMA studies have found that professional management in support of elected officials improves the quality of government and provides continuity over the long term often missing otherwise. 
    Hope this helps!