Government, Governance and Good Governance

Abstract

It is proposed that government, being the tangible expression of the legitimate authority within an organised society, has undegone a long transformational journey since its very emergence. The various evolutionary forms and features of the government have been the product of its meaningful and viable responses to the changing expectations of the people as well as to the challenges they faced in an ever-changing environment. The exclusive domain of the state over the period became a shared space with inclusion of other actors and stakeholders, and an era of governance was ushered in since the 1980s. The much celebrated success of the liberal democracy and its market-led open economy heralded as an era of good governance. However, the universal model of good governance fails to take into account the local constraints of a society. Thus, the idea of good governance has to face various types of challenges in the developing as well as underdeveloped societies.