Good Governance & Institutional Quality

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En provenance du cours de University of Pennsylvania

Global Trends for Business and Society

169 notes

University of Pennsylvania

Global Trends for Business and Society

169 notes

Cours 1 sur 4 dans Specialization Business Strategies for A Better World

In this course, you’ll learn to analyze rapidly changing global trends, their effects on consumer and labor markets, financial systems, and geopolitical relationships among countries all over the world. Professor Mauro Guillen of the Wharton School has designed this course to help you understand the magnitude of influence these trends have on the business world and society. Through real-world case studies, both historical and contemporary, you’ll examine how changes within one society affect others. By the end of this course, you’ll have gained the tools to be able to identify, analyze, and adapt to global changes as they affect your business and society.

À partir de la leçon

Module 4: The Shifting Geopolitical Landscape

In this module, you’ll explore global geopolitical landscapes and the global powers of the 21st century. Through examination of different political regimes—from autocracies to democracies—you’ll discover effective roles for states to play in society and its economy. You’ll also learn about failed states and anocracies, two importance sources of instability in the world, and how such instabilities manifest frictions and conflicts in the form of war and terrorism. Through analyzing the evolution of political regimes and failed states, you’ll learn the definition of global powers, the difference between and hard and soft power resources, and whether emerging global powers will cause dramatic changes in the existing geopolitical power structure. By the end of this module, you’ll have a deeper understanding of the trajectories of global powers, and be able to assess how the changes in geopolitical power structure will affect your business and society.

The Global Geopolitical Landscape2:43

Political Regimes8:03

Geopolitical Instability in the World4:45

Violent Conflict in the World5:36

The State Under Pressure3:27

Good Governance & Institutional Quality6:20

The Rise and Fall of Global Powers11:02

Global Power Resources12:27

China's Role in the World9:11

Global Governance8:44

Global Tensions9:35

Rencontrer les enseignants

Mauro Guillen
Professor of International Management
Director of the Lauder Institute of Management and International Studies

So what are the implications of the physical crisis of the states and

its legitimacy crisis for a very important concept which is the concept of good

governance and for institutional quality.

Well if you remember there are two main criticisms of the state.

One is that some people argue that the state should be minimal and

the other one is that the state doesn't have to be big in order to do its job.

So in other words the question really is, what's the proper role for

the state to play in the society and in the economy?

Well, let me frame the issue in the following way.

I think most people agree that there are certain basics,

certain things that should be provided by the state.

That includes law and order, and it also includes national security and defense.

There's relatively speaking very little debate about that.

There's a little more debate about economic management and

the role that the state should play in this respect.

For instance, what should be the extent to which this state

intervenes through fiscal and monetary policy?

Or to what extent states should manage international economic and

financial relationships?

And also should the state create specific policies

to set up conditions for entrepreneurs to prosper?

There is a little bit more debate, as I just mentioned about these three aspects

where there's a ton of debate, and some of this debate is actually very bitter.

It's concerning social welfare, the extent to which the state should be engaged in

education, healthcare, old-age pension schemes,

unemployment benefits, and the so-called social safety net.

So in addition to defining what is the role of the state,

it's also important to define what is, quote, good governance, unquote.

A government is providing good governance when it is able to ensure

political stability, also policy predictability.

That is to say its policies don't change all the time in unforeseen ways.

When there's rule of law that's also an indication of good governance.

When there's quality of regulation that is to say not just regulation but good,

reasonable, rational regulation.

Also, good governance is also to say with transparency, with accountability, and

with a lack of corruption.

As we say an enabling bureaucracy that is to say with the absence of red tape.

And lastly good governance also involves

the protection of property rights including intellectual property rights.

Now, how we do we measure the extent in which governments deliver

good governance to their citizens around the world?

Well there's a number of rankings that attempt to do just that.

Has become a cottage industry to measure the extent to which governments

offer their citizens good governance.

The World Bank, Transparency International,

Freedom House, the Heritage Foundation, the International Country Risk Guide,

the World Economic Forum, the Fraser Institute and many, many other kinds of

foundations, nonprofit or international agencies offer indicators of good balance.

Now in most of these rankings, the same set of countries always

ends up being at the top with very, very high scores.

Those countries typically include Singapore,

the ones in North East Asia such as South Korea or Taiwan, the United States,

the Scandinavian countries, the U.K. and most countries in Western Europe.

Now at the end of the spectrum, the countries that typically score very low on

measures or indicators of good governance are China, Russia, parts of Latin America,

parts of South Asia and Central Asia, most of the Middle East, and most of Africa.

Now keep in mind one very important phenomenon here.

By publishing rankings, what these international agencies, foundations,

or non-profits accomplish Is that government starts competing

to become better at the indicator that they propose.

So in other words, governments seek to improve their ranking

in order to enhance competitiveness to attract foreign investors, and

to increase their status and legitimacy in the world.

The rankings in other words provide a benchmark for policymaking.

So governments implement policies that they believe are going to increase their

standing in the raking.

The governments also seek to optimize the indicators included in

the ranking playing strategically to try to get higher scores.

As a result, there is this isomorphic pressure.

Everybody's trying to do the same thing, trying to increase their standing in

the rankings, and this of course produces institutional convergence.

Let me give you an example of this.

Since the year 2003, the different,

the differences in the world across countries have become smaller and

smaller in terms of for example, the time spent preparing and paying taxes,

the time required to start a business or the cost to start a business.

And this is been because, governments have realized that unless they reduce the time

that people spent preparing or paying for their taxes, or the time

that entrepreneurs spend trying to set up their business and get it up and running.

Unless they cut those times by simplifying procedures by making it easier, then their

country is not going to score very high on international rankings of good governance.

Now obviously I think most of us see this as a welcome outcome that governments

are competing to become better places in which citizens can live or

businesses can operate.

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