ABSTRACT

In general, governance is a broader notion than "government," which is composed of such elements as the constitution, the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary. Governance involves interaction between these formally defined institutions and those of civil society. Existing cultural values, social norms, and traditions or structures have important influences on this institutional interaction (Corkery, 1999: 14-15). Due to the lack of a precise definition of governance, there are different explanations of the concept. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP, 1997) defines governance as "the exercise of political, economic, and administrative authority to manage a nation's affairs." The World Bank (1997) defines it as "the manner in which power is exercised in the management of a country's economic and social resources for development." According to a working group of the International Institute of Administrative Sciences (1997), "Governance refers to a process by which diverse elements in a society wield power and authority and thereby influence and enact policies and decisions concerning public life, and economic and social development. These involve the relationship of individual men and women to the state, the organization of organs of state, the generation and management of resources for current and future generations, and the relation between states."