COMMENTS BY THE DISCUSSANT

Mr. Heinrich Siedentopf
Professor
Deutsche Hochschule fuer Verwaltungswissenschaften Speyer
GERMANYJapan/ IIAS Joint Panel on Public Administration
July 11, 2001
Athens, Greece

Commentby Univ.-Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Heinrich Siedentopf

With great interest I have listened to the presentation of the papers by Professor Kosuke
Oyama, Professor Mohammad Mohabbat Khan, and Professor Khai Leong Ho. Each of themhas treated a different theme and has done so in a very deepening manner, so – naturally – it isnot easy for me to make any general comments. Generally spoken, the papers deal with thecentral question of how new governance systems can be build in Asia and the authors seem toagree that these new systems include but also modify and reach farther than traditional
government functions. The dramatic point of departure was the Asian Economic Crisis of1997 that clearly stated the urgent need for reforms in many countries.
Unfortunately – and all three papers stress this fact – there is neither a generally accepted
definition of governance nor a single reform model to be followed.1 For this reason we should
perhaps keep in mind that the governance-concept was first developed by the World Bank anduse it as a reference point for further discussions. 2 The World Bank together with theInternational Monetary Fund is one of the most important International Organizations with arather long experience in economic restructuring. Her mandate is to promote sustainableeconomic and social development and, therefore, does not include the interference withnational polities. But the World Bank, that in the seventies and early eighties promoted thenon-intervention of the State in the economic field and a lean administration, came torecognize that development depends very much on the performance of the State. In this sense
we can conclude that State and public administration are not to be neglected and that
institutions actually do matter.

1

2One interesting attempt to find an encompassing definition of governance was made by an international
working group of IIAS. See Joan Corkery, Introductory Report, in: Joan Corkery (ed.), Governance:
Concepts et Applications/ Governance: Concepts & Applications, Brussels 1999, p. 9 (pp. 14-15).
For the following see World Bank, Governance and Development, Washington 1992; and World Bank,
Governance: The World Bank’s Experience, Washington 1994.

With all necessary caution due to its limited mandate the World Bank tried to extend its
mission to the crucial field of State and administration by stressing the close relationshipbetween State performance and economic and social development. Her governance definition
is well known to all of us: “Governance is the manner in which power is exercised in themanagement of a country’s economic and social resources for development.” This is a rather
wide and unspecified definition but it has the advantage to include the relation between Stateand administration on the one hand and private sector, non-profit organizations and civilsociety on the other.
In very short time the governance discussion spread all over the world and was picked up by amultitude of individual scientists, national institutions and international organizations, eachcoming from different backgrounds and pursuing different goals.3 Governance as a concept
became multi-faceted, all-encompassing and in the last consequence almost meaningless.
But we should not forget that the World Bank initially had a clear idea what general elements
were needed to build sound and efficient governance-systems. Her experience with very
different national environments from all over the world allowed her to generalize about four
key issues of effective governance that are central for a country’s development performance.
Thus, the World Bank began to distinguish a normative connotation of governance,
employing the term “good governance”. The four main elements of good governance are
related to the economic field but they do also clearly aim at the political system itself.
1. Public Sector Management should increase the effectiveness of government and public
administration by a lot of single measures such as a merit based selection and promotion
systems for the civil service, sound financial management including planning andevaluation, etc. As you can easily see, all these elements collide with traditional structures
found in many countries. But even in modern democracies party clientelism poses grave
problems.
2. Accountability was described by the World Bank as being “at the heart of good
governance and [having] to do with holding governments responsible for their actions.”
Politically this means the “contestability of political power”, that is: democracy! But it3For the International Organizations see the contributions in: Klaus König/ Markus Adam (eds.), Governanceals entwicklungspolitischer Ansatz, Speyerer Forschungsberichte 219, Speyer 2001. On UN and UNDP see
Markus Adam, Governance als Ansatz der Vereinten Nationen, pp. 11-33; on the World Bank see ChristianTheobald, Zehn Eckpunkte zu Good Governance, pp. 35-65; and on OECD and SIGMA see Benedikt Speer,
Das SIGMA-Programm der OECD: Ein Governance-Ansatz für Mittel- und Osteuropa?, pp. 67-87.

also means accountability of administrations to the political level as well as to the public.
Here we can see that functioning control systems are central to well organized governancesystems. This also relates to one of the most urgent problems many societies face.
Corruption in the civil service can only be fought by control, accountability and regular
independent auditing.
3. Legal Framework means clear laws and efficient legal institutions. Many countries thatstill have democratic deficiencies have opted for implementing the rule of law as the basic
condition for sound economic development. This might be the single most importantfactor of good governance that will slowly introduce changes in the other fields, too. But
we should realize that the functioning of the legal system greatly depends on thecommitment of the political elite, which at the same moment will loose part of its power
due to uniform legal restrictions.
4. Transparency and Information are complementary to accountability. From the WorldBank’s point of view transparency does not only apply to the State and public
administration but also to the private sector. Transparent public budgets as well as
accurate financial information on companies and banks help to assess economic risks.
Again, functioning control mechanisms are central, but also a free and multifarious press.
If we concentrate on these four basic elements we have at least some common understanding
about the role that governments should play in governance systems. Government normally is
the main agent for change and experience tells us that it will be punished sooner or later if it
fails to live up to its responsibility. But we also know that in complex modern societies
governments are just one actor between others. Therefore, governments should try to designor – as a minimum – use actively the possibilities to interact with the private sector and civilsociety. Agenda setting and control may be the new key functions of government in muchwider governance systems.
Before summarizing my comments I would like to draw your attention to a phrase in theformal invitation to this Japan-IIAS-Panel, to a phrase which seems to demonstrate amisunderstanding of the basic functioning of the European Union (EU). There it is said: “TheEuropean Union, a supranational organization, which has confiscated part of the nationalsovereignty from the member states, has been established to function toward furtherintegration.” We should not forget that the European Union is by definition and from the very

beginning a legal community based on the autonomous decisions of the sovereign member
states and on the voluntary transfer of sovereignty from the member states to the EU.4
On the other hand it is true that the EU exerts to an increasing extent an influence on
administrative law and administrative actions of the member states. The administration andthe civil service of a member state is not deemed to represent a “domaine reservée” or toremain unaffected by the development towards integration. Even the field of administrative
organization is no longer wholly unaffected by Community rules and by an informal cooperation and co-ordination. Under the topic of the European Administrative Space (EAS) we
nowadays can observe not only a constant contact among public servants of the member statesand of the Commission but already the emergence of a Europe-wide system of administrative
justice, of rule of law and of shared basic public administration values and principles – evensome convergence amongst national administrations. 5 As a very practical and concrete
example of this co-ordination let me mention the Common Assessment Framework (CAF).
The CAF is used to evaluate and compare the performance of public administration units
responsible for the same administrative functions in the different member states. To set it up
the Deutsche Hochschule für Verwaltungswissenschaften Speyer (German University ofAdministrative Sciences Speyer) has made remarkable contributions.
In conclusion I want to underline my conviction that decentralization and deconcentration,out-sourcing and budgeting are only part of the reforms undertaken all over the world. If weforget that the rule of law, accountability inside and outside of public administration and –most importantly – functioning control mechanisms are central to these reforms, we will not
only endanger the reform projects themselves but we may also find out that predominantly
independent rowers have genuine interests not always compatible with the public good. The
advantage of the governance-concept lies basically in recognizing the many dimensions andthe complexity of government-environment-relations that go beyond the ideas of New PublicManagement.

45See Heinrich Siedentopf, Umsetzung und Anwendung des Gemeinschaftsrechts in den Mitgliedstaaten, in:
Siegfried Magiera/ Heinrich Siedentopf (eds.), Die Zukunft der Europäischen Union, Berlin 1997, p. 105(p. 108).
On the European Administrative Space see Heinrich Siedentopf/ Benedikt Speer, Der EuropäischeVerwaltungsraum: Eine Annäherung aus verwaltungswissenschaftlicher Sicht (forthcoming).