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Viable institutions are the basis for the continual reproduction of good
governance values and practice. However, in
post-colonial states even the most core governmental
institutional functions tend to be highly deficient,
including police, justice, tax collection, and land
registration on one hand, and policy making, execution,
monitoring and evaluation on the other. Transactions
such as taxes, fees, fines, and customs collections,
contracting procurement, personnel actions, and the
control of all of the above are neuralgic areas for
institutional entropy. The origins of these and many
governance challenges that confront contemporary
post-colonial countries can be traced to the colonial
powers intrusion into the subsequent withdrawal from
these regions during the 19th and 20th Centuries.
The institutional
restructuring of the post-colonial state of Pakistan
requires adequate information and analysis as well as
policy formulation that factors into its equations the
history of the cultural, political, economic, and social
factors that determine policy outcomes. A feedback
apparatus that conveys policy implementation realities
to those who make policies is badly needed. All
restructuring process must be spear headed by efforts
directed at key change agents, to capacitate their
knowledge base, enrich their vision, empower their
intellect, facilitate their professional growth, and
promote shared values necessary for the required
processes.
Institutions play a
crucial role in socio-economic development. Institutions
conductive to economic growth guarantee property rights
and minimize transaction costs. While an uncertain
institutional environment and the considerable sunk
costs of previous investments create large disincentives
against fundamental institutional transformation,
continued institutional decay and eventual breakdown
incur the costs of bad governance. Good governance has a
price to be sure but the cost of bad governance is not
only economic in as much as it also weakens the
political system which adversely affects a society’s
values and regard for human rights. It is necessary to
evolve an institutional matrix that effectively solves
problems of social conflict management or, from a
different perspective, a worked out and generally
accepted framework for property rights, respect for
human rights and delivery of social services within a
framework of widely accepted integrity and fiscal
probity.
The
emphasis in the development paradigm must be shifted
from the supply to the demand side, from top-down policy
modification to bottom-up change based on demand amongst
key stakeholders. It is only when civil society is
empowered in political spheres of influence that true
citizenship may begin to be cultivated and civic affairs
activated and advanced, allowing the citizen to step
into the public arena. Hence, it is vital for linkages
between the state and the citizenry to be
institutionalized.
As the above
diagram illustrates, the restructuring of governance
institutions which must address policy institutions and
culture simultaneously. This is only possible through an
integral, holistic approach so that the root causes
rather than superficial symptoms of institutional
deterioration may be successfully addressed with the
vision, knowledge and skills necessary to articulate,
bottom up demand into strategies for political,
institutional and cultural transformations.
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