2025 will mark the thirtieth year in which I have been scribbling about governance. In this time, I have been privileged to think and write about governance for the United Kingdom’s former Department for International Development (DFID), the World Bank, AusAID/DFAT, and now for Abt Global. Over the Christmas break I got to thinking about the ideas in governance that have kept me interested, and why these ideas matter.
Back in 1995 governance was barely a thing in development. At the time I had just finished three years in the UK’s Pacific Office in Suva as the economist and head of office. Before leaving for London, I was told that there were no economist positions vacant, but would I join a new department called the Governance and Institutions Department (GID)? Its remit was to consider issues of organisational performance and broader political economy. I said yes. I joined GID in January 1996. We were 12 strong.
Two things were to shape my experience. First, published works, and second, one woman. Regarding the former, two documents stand out. The World Bank’s 1997 World Development Report The State in a Changing World argued that the role of a state must be based on its “reach”: that is, its ability to deliver the key functions of a state. Second was Douglass North’s 1993 publication Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. The first line is well known: “Institutions are the rules of the game in a society, or more formally, are the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction.” We know now that there are formal rules of the game (laws, rules, regulations) and informal ones (norms, customs, values), and that often informal rules are more influential than formal rules.
The woman was DFID’s Secretary of State, the redoubtable Clare Short. From her I learned that individuals and agency really matter. Not always, not everywhere, but when the circumstances are right (that is, when formal and informal institutions align) individuals can be transformational. I was so caught up with institutions that I lost sight of the power of agency. Soon after taking over DFID, she announced her intent “to change it from a project factory into a development organisation”. The irony is that it took me three or four years to realise that I was working in an organisation that had been transformed by the ideas — the agency — of one woman.
Over time, I discovered six ideas which have animated my work and thinking ever since. They are presented in a report, A second-hand dealer in ideas: reflections on thirty years scribbling about governance, now published by ANU’s Development Policy Centre.
Where stands “governance” today? Two points can be made. First, governance now has four interpretations. Table 1 below summarises these interpretations and which donors are most associated with each view.
Table 1: Four interpretations of governance
Source: A second-hand dealer in ideas: reflections on thirty years scribbling about governance.
Second, there is now an absence of intellectual leadership. From 1995 to 2015 the World Bank played this role, with support from DFID. This has gone. The Bank’s restructure under President Kim (2012-2019) abolished the Washington department that provided intellectual direction to the governance agenda. There remain in the Bank a few brilliant thinkers and doers; some continue here in the region. But they are lone voices and admit to having no organisational heft in DC.
In the UK, the right-leaning government elected in 2010 pared back policy work in DFID. The importance of development was further eroded when the Foreign and Commonwealth Office absorbed DFID in 2020. Today, the Governance cadre in the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO) has 60 staff, less than half the number ten years ago. A more egregious cull happened in DFAT after the 2013 “merger”. When I arrived in AusAID in September 2012 to take up the position of Principal Governance Specialist, there were 39 staff in the governance branch in five teams. In DFAT today the number is 1.5 (full-time equivalent).
As a result of these trends, there is an intellectual vacuum of governance thinking and ideas. Some universities and think tanks have tried to respond to this vacuum. In Australia, it is the Australian National University here in Canberra and the Lowy Institute in Sydney. But their work is now harder to “socialise” within formal bureaucracies, as there are few staff members available to perform this task.
What can be done? I would suggest three modest things.
First, we need to regain sight of the instrumentality of the state. The Economist put it succinctly in its 11 January 2025 edition: “a capable state matters for economic growth” (page 11 of the Africa feature) and — with respect to Africa but the assertion applies globally — “… states are often incapable of doing things they should do while doing plenty of things they should not” (page 10). It is not about the size of the state. It is about what the state does and how well it does it. This was the central argument of the 1997 World Development Report. What the state seeks to do in Timor-Leste will be different to what it seeks to do in Norway.
Second, academics and practitioners (including me) need to do a better job of collecting and synthesising evidence on the impact of aid in general and “governance projects” in particular. Here in Canberra, Australian governments of both political persuasions continue to minimise aid because there seems to be a prevailing view that development support “does not work”. While the ideological argument for aid is accepted (“it’s good to help people”), there is scepticism regarding longer-term development programs. Humanitarian budgets (“aid”) will rise while “development” budgets will either decline or at best stagnate.
Third, the major development actors (FCDO, USAID*, the EU, the World Bank and DFAT) should reinvigorate their capability to engage with academia on ideas, and what those ideas mean for practice.
I am not optimistic. Looking at the donor landscape today it is hard to see from where change may come. Development is not a priority in any OECD Development Assistance Committee member country. Donors see aid as a means of pursuing their own interests, not as a means of poverty reduction. The world of course is different than it was in 1997 when DFID came into being: we live in a world of geo-strategic and geo-economic competition where countries pursue their own interests.
I have no problem with countries promoting their own interests. But I do have a problem with countries using aid budgets to promote their own interests rather than address problems of poverty and inequality. I am not naïve about the chances of this happening any time soon. However, even against this background development agencies can do better. Pat Conroy, as Minister for International Development and the Pacific has talked about restoring DFAT’s development capability and allocated a small amount of money for this purpose, which is excellent – we shall watch closely if this materialises. The FCDO still has about 500 sector specialists. The World Bank has retained staff with real intellectual gravitas.
The problem is that at the moment this does not add up to much. Most of these staff work on designing and delivering programs. It would be good if even a few of these competent and committed staff could have the time and space to think about ideas, concepts and theories, and to engage with our academic colleagues to make more persuasive and influential arguments.
Download the full report, A second-hand dealer in ideas: reflections on thirty years scribbling about governance, from the Development Policy Centre’s website.
*RIP.
Thank you Graham a very interesting perspective. Probably a great follow up would be the Global South perspective. I’m currently working on the Asian Relations conference of 1947 in New Delhi and recently about Bandung in 1955 – both of which explored and articulated important visions for governance in the Global South as did the NIEO in 1975. China’s work since 2000 in its Africa partnerships is another interesting example.
Congratulations Graham on your immense contributions to governance over the last 3 decades.
I am responding to your blog on governance from the education sector. The inadequate treatment of governance in education, especially at the system level, has significantly contributed to the learning crisis in education.
Governance reform was rarely included in education projects across developing countries. During my tenure at the World Bank, governance was the purview of public sector management. Therefore, it remained at a generic level rather than embedded in sector substance. Education sector staff were seldom involved with the implications of governance reform for all matters education. Questions such as, how one governs teachers’ performance and its connections with training or how one governs curriculum development and its rollout into instructional material, were never dealt with in depth. Limitations with the generic treatment of governance could account for the decline of “governance” from 2015, which coincided with the recognition of the crisis in learning.
I would maintain that governance reform can be appropriate and effective when it is embedded in a sector and system functioning. In recent years I have worked on education in Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu. In both countries, the formal and/or informal policies and most importantly, policy implementation in the different areas directly related to education service delivery require urgent attention. The sectoral embedding of governance reform will be critical for student enrolment and learning.
Thanks for this interesting read. Like you, I’ve never seen aid as purely altruistic, but the West’s behaviours during COVID-19 (vaccine hoarding) and its double standards in recent conflicts (selective reading of international law) have severely—perhaps irreparably—damaged its credibility in global governance, peace, and development. No amount of ‘intellectual leadership’ will undo this swiftly I am afraid. Moreover, ‘intellectual leadership’ itself will need to be far more multipolar which is a good thing isn’t it?…In the mean time…we brace for impact!
You’ve distilled so much here Graham. I’ve worked in governance in the region and for multilateral and bi-lateral aid (yes over a shorter timespan than you!). I’ve tried, in multiple programming contexts, to bring practice informed by proper disciplinary thinking in areas including political economy, historical institutional and political settlements analysis. I’ve seen brilliant and committed thinkers and doers engaging creatively and passionately, but banging their heads on (or losing their heads to) what has become an increasingly low and jagged ceiling. It’s chilling; and the ability to sit back now and say, ‘yes, well, that programming outcome was entirely predictable’ only adds to the astringent grief. Some of the best work I have seen was done on the inside of organisations, in reviews and program planning that needed to keep the real analysis in the background, but informing real grounded work. Sadly now the evidence of even the best of that work will perhaps not be a part of future assessment of what was gained. But that was a choice we made: to work inside, say what we thought was real and true, and what we needed to learn more about. And somehow- it seems naive now- to trust that in both the bigger picture and in the opps, the information and insight would reach and percolate. And, create an extra loop in the organisations’ practical consciousness; and, turn into something smarter and better grounded than what we got. And yes, now that the effective, informed institutional audience for this kind of input has itself been winnowed, and the intention has shifted from generically good governance and grounded engagement to geopolitics, it’s hard to see what can emerge, and where. I got out of the academy to do this work: now the academy looks like some kind of temporary refuge and viewpoint.
Thanks, Graham. I appreciate the summary of your work experience. More of us should follow suit. That comment about Claire Short and her goal to transform DFID “from a project factory into a development organisation” truly resonated. While some may now criticise Trump’s America for its complete capitulation to immediate self-interest, particularly regarding aid, they are merely following a path already trodden by Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and many others before them. The scales of development will eventually tip back, but likely only when enough people recognise that selfless service aligns with our long-term self-interest.