ABSTRACT
Introduction The focus on quality of governance in developing countries that emerged during the 1990s should not be seen to reflect an interest of multi-and bilateral aid agencies in the political aspects of the development process. Rather, the emphasis on governance was a new stage in the long-term process of depoliticising development. As various authors have outlined, the World Bank and large parts of the international development community function as an ‘anti-politics machine’ (Ferguson 1990; Harriss 2001). The introduction of the governance concept – along with other elements of the international development agenda, such as social capital, civil society and participation – can be seen as an attempt to ‘represent problems that are rooted in differences of power and in class relations as purely technical matters that can be resolved outside the political arena’ (Harriss 2001: 2-3). This concentration on technical aspects should not, however, obscure the fact that the governance agenda is highly political, as preferred modes of governance imply a preference for market-led development, in which the role of the state is delegitimised (Abrahamsen 2000: 49).
