146 Social Change :June 2004

Good Governance, Democratic Societies and Globalisation by Surendra

Munshi & Biju Paul Abraham (eds.), 2004, New Dethi: Sage, pp. 424,
Rs. 680.

Governance is the new buzzword in the current (and fashionable) debates

on the futures of State, polity and, strangely, economy. Making sense of
its meaning and usefulness, as indeed its trajectory, has not been easy,
primarily for the reason that it is often presumed to be a ‘given’ category
with a commonly agreed upon meaning and thus the task is then only one
of thinking of strategies best designed to achieve good governance.
Accordingly, it is a mantra that is invoked by almost everybody in the
business of making states accountable - global funding agencies such as
the IMF and the WB (who have been the most important peddlers of this
term), the guilt-ridden states and its officials, NGOs crying hoarse about
the ‘failure’ of the state, and the media pundits. Yet, more frustratingly,
much of the academic discourse has not fared any better.
Categories, like any human creation, will have a distinct history, context
and politics, and in most instances a clear idea of such specificities will
prove to be an inexorable resource in thinking of ways of working with
them. This edited volume, resulting from a conference organised at the
Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, is an attempt in this direction.
IIMC appears to be doing a great deal of work in collaboration with
scholars in Europe on the issue of governance, particularly as it relates to
transformations in economy [see Darryl Reed and Sanjoy Mukherjee (eds.)
2004 Corporate Governance, Economic Reforms and Development: The
Indian Experience. New Delhi: Oxford University Press]. This conference
was part of an initiative called the European Union-India Economic Cross-
cultural Programme, which drew participation from many European
universities.
The concern of this volume is to discuss ‘the issue of good governance in
democratic societies in the context of globalisation’ (p. 9) and thus the
title of the book. In translating this concern into a workable agenda, it has
sought to be comparative in approach (with scholars from Europe and
India coming together to contribute papers on the European and Indian
experience of economic reforms and globalisation) but also multi-
disciplinary. This approach, it appears, has defined both the strengths as
well as the limitations of the effort. But, first, an argumentative yet cursory
summation of the work.
147 Social Change : June 2004

The volume contains 18 papers that are bracketed under three parts in
addition to the introductory chapter. The first part, The societal context
ofgovernance, has six articles, three on Europe, two on India apart from
a perspectival piece. The second part, Administrative reforms, contains
two papers on Europe, three concerning India and one comparing the two
experiences. The third and final part, dealing with Corporate Governance,
accommodates two papers on India, three on Europe and one which is a
conceptual exercise.
In the Introduction, the editors present a clearly formulated note on the issues
involved here. In the midst of the euphoria of ‘the triumph of the West’ over
socialistkommunist ideology and experiment, and of the consequent ‘end of
history’, globalisation (as envisioned by the neo-liberal economy and polity of
the USA and the UK) has been heralded as a homogenising and inevitable
process that every nation will have to go through in the path ofprogress. It is
this context of globalisation that centralises the concern for good governance.
Euphemistically called the Third Way and heralded by the New Labour (sic.)
and Democratic governments in UK and USA respectively, the idea and the
demand for good governance is dished out as a package to all countries that
sought international aid, particularly since the 1990s. Thus the demand for
good governance emanates not from the citizens of a nation-state, but from
the external funding agencies such as, primarily, the WB and the IMF, which
closely mirror the interests of the developed countries, often at the peril of
the developing ones.
It is often at this point of realisation or discussion that participants group
into two mutually irreconcilable positions. One would dismiss with
indignation and contempt any attempt to speak the language of governance
as being necessarily collusive with the dominant politico-economic interests
while the other gears itself to celebrate (often uncritically yet armed with
great contempt for the critics deriding them as old-timers) the initiative.
While by the radical left is characterised by the former position, the latter
is represented by the chiefs of the New Economy but also, increasingly
hysterically, by the English media. But this volume seems to chart a Third
Way, in a manner of speaking. The editors, and most of the contributors,
appear to take the supposed irrevocable march of globalisation and the
subsequent argument for good governance as given, but then move on, if
unevenly, to understand the nature and constituents of the idea as well as
practice of governance. This feature, which the editors (inadequately, I
believe) seek to frame in terms of a thesis of Honouring Heterogeneity
(pp. 20-4), is what distinguishes this work.
148 Social Change :June 2004

The first part contains many interesting essays. In his essay, De Swaan
argues that the European Union is a political space where there is policy
but is greatly bereft of politics, for “there is no such thing as a European
public space, as yet” (p. 55). This is for the reason that the polity and
decision-making are getting de-politicised and the participation of
unencumbered political activists is decreasing. He does not say much
about how this matters, except suggesting that it is a weakness of the EU
experiment and that the goal should be to fill this “democratic deficit”.
Yet, this has important implications, particularly since EU is often seen as
the harbinger of the future directions that the idea and institution of nation-
state will take. An authoritarian and non-participatory polity, but one
which makes the politically-correct noises, will be an ideal regime for late
capitalism to flourish. Apparently the entire bogey of ‘economic reforms
with a human face’ that is bandied about in the Indian public space appear
to precisely indicate towards the desirability of replicating such polities all
over the world. Yet, as De S w a m indicates, we have not yet developed
an international political language which can involve and address people
across and beyond national boundaries, a point that Liberatore too makes
(pp. 83-4).
Anup Sinha’s paper, on the other hand, dealing with India scripts the
familiar story of failure of the state and its institutions, and thus the need
and desirability of politico-economic reforms. That brings us to our next
point. There are many essays here, particularly those of Sinha and Biju
Paul Abraham, that take off, without sufficient reasons, it appears, from
describing the so-called failure of the independent Indian state and the
consequent despicable conditions of the disadvantaged to make a case for
politico-economic reforms. It is as though the demand for such reforms
come from the discriminated. As far as one’s perception goes, the
marginalised have rather asked for vesting a greater role for the state in
India in regulating socio-economic and political chicanery than its debunking
and retrenchment.
Likewise, while many pieces (see also for instance Manfred Roeber’s
Administrurive Reforms in Germany) presume the desirability of “reforms”
as given and then move on to the task of delineating a particular case,
there are only few in this collection (like Mathur and Hollman, but especially
Reed) that see the need to subject the desirability or otherwise of these
measures to critical scrutiny.
Further, rather curiously, an agenda to look at good governance turns into
an inexorable interest in economic reforms. Does that say something
149 Social Change :June 2004

about where this debate is coming from?! Isn’t the distinction between
political governance and corporate governance crucial, in clarifying the
grounds of debate? Of course, as many contributors point out, it is
fundamental that we recognise that the very agenda of neo-liberal economics
and ideology is to render such distinctions blurred and, further, make
political governance work under the dictates of corporate-economic
interests. But this recognition need not detain us from continuing work
with the distinction. For instance, it would have been worthwhile to have
made way for some voices from political theory in the volume. There is
a rather significant debate that is underway in contemporary political theory,
which recognises the neo-liberal onslaught but move on to ask important
questions on the future of state, its validity and legitimacy, and, most
importantly I believe, on the differentials that obtain in any population and
their varied investments in and dependence on state.
Indeed, this last point is inescapable particularly in a context like the Indian,
wherein not only is the nation is forever deveEoping but more importantly
there is the elite (agrarian, economic, bureaucratic, technocratic, lumpen-
feudal-capitalist and of late the do-gooder) population that has increasingly
grown insulated from a sense of rule of law and from the realities of the
marginalised. It is in this context that the state should be in a position to
be proactive in order to protect the interests of its disabled citizens. It is
an issue that the contributions from India to the volume remain untouched
by. In fact, it is Reed who, arguing that economic reforms in developing
countries have been forced to move towards the anglo-american style,
which reflects the interests of the elites, appeals for the restoration to
these countries of the autonomy to formulate public policy (pp. 290-1).
The “degovernamentalisation and economisation of society” (p 345) could
have serious consequences in a nation such as ours.

Vithal Rajan’s essay sits smugly with the rest of the contributions but
asks some very constitutively subversive questions about the moral high
ground that is definitonally occupied by the ‘do-gooder’ NGO sector. In
a prickly critique of the contemporary NGO agenda, he indicates many
useful ways of making sense of this sector. Yet, the cynical sting
characterising the piece appears to smother many of its possibilities.
Finally, the point that was cursorily made earlier concerning the multi-
disciplinary and comparative approach of the book. The value of thinking
comparatively and through the prisms of different disciplines
simultaneously needs no reiteration and the volume is a rich example of
150 Social Change :June 2004

this. By placing side by side the two experiences of India and Europe and
asking scholars from different disciplines to make sense of those
experiences has been insightful. But, at the end of the collection, one is
still not sure as to what to make of this exercise. The primary lack appears
to emanate from the muddledness of the criteria of comparison. One is
not sure of what to compare, notwithstanding the feeble attempts by the
editors to talk of both the contexts beipg democratic, or the desirability to
reduce ethnocentrism. Consequently, many essays create their own
trajectory making it difficult to think of the connections.
Yet, there should be no doubt that this volume is a valuable addition to our
understanding of the contexts of governance. The emphasis on sensitivity
to heterogeneity of experiences and its ability to make space for divergent
thinking are only two of its positive attributes.

Ramesh Bairy T. S.* ....

Troubled Islands by Pankaj Sekhsaria (ed.), Kalpavriksh , Pune and
LEAD- India, New Delhi: p p . 89-1-16,Rs.lOO.

The four pictures on the cover of ‘Troubled Islands’- of an elephant

beside a giant log whose cross section is almost as high as the animal
itself ; of a group of Jarawa tribals in a long boat ; of the construction of
a sea wall to attempt to halt beach erosion and of the exotic Giant African
snail crawling up a tree- portray the critical ecological importance of the
Andaman and Nicobar islands and the wide spectrum of problems
confronting these islands and its indigenous peoples.
The book is a collection of articles on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands
which have been published since 1998 in many reputed national dailies
and magazines including the Economic and Political Weekly, Frontline,
The Hindu and Sanctuary Asia regarding the ecology and indigenous peoples
of this little-known region of India. The Andaman and Nicobar islands

* Associate Fellow, Council for Social Development, 53 Lodi Estate, New Delhi-
110003. <csdnd@delZ.vsnl.net.in>