Although necessary and often first rate, technocratic solutions alone have been ineffective in delivering real change or lasting results in governance reforms. This is primarily because reform programs are delivered no in controlled environments, but under complex, diverse, sociopolitical and economic conditions. Real-world conditions. In political societies, ownership of reform programs by the entire country cannot be assumed, public opinion will not necessarily be benign, and coalitions of support may be scare or nonexistent, even when intended reforms really will benefit those who need them most. While the development community has the technical tools to address governance challenges, experience shows that technical solutions are often insufficient. Difficulties arise when attempts are made to apply what are often excellent technical solutions. Human beings--either acting alone or in groups small and large--are not as amenable as are pure numbers, and they cannot be ignored. In the real world, reforms will not succeed, and they will certainly not be sustained, without the correct alignment of citizens, stakeholders, and voice. 'Governance Reform under Real-World Conditions: Citizens, Stakeholders, and Voice' is a contribution to efforts to improve governance systems around the world, particularly in developing countries. The contributors, who are academics and development practitioners, provide a range of theoretical frameworks and innovative approaches and techniques for dealing with the most important nontechnical or adaptive challenges that impede the success and sustainability of reform efforts. The editors and contributors hope that this book will be a useful guider for governments, think tanks, civil society organizations, and development agencies working to improve the ways in which governance reforms are implemented around the world.

The inability to coordinate diverging interests and to promote policies that represent the public interest is one of many non-economic obstacles to economic reform. This paper examines the relationship between governance capacity and economic reform. The

What are the ideal roles the mass media should play as an institution to strengthen democratic governance and thus bolster human development? Under what conditions do media systems succeed or fail to meet these objectives? And what strategic reforms would close the gap between the democratic promise and performance of media systems? Working within the notion of the democratic public sphere, 'Public Sentinel: News Media and Governance Reform' emphasizes the institutional or collective roles of the news media as watchdogs over the powerful, as agenda setters calling attention to social needs in natural and human-caused disasters and humanitarian crises, and as gatekeepers incorporating a diverse and balanced range of political perspectives and social actors. Each is vital to making democratic governance work in an effective, transparent, inclusive, and accountable manner. The capacity of media systems and thus individual reporters embedded within those institutions to fulfill these roles is constrained by the broader context of the journalistic profession, the market, and ultimately the state. Successive chapters apply these arguments to countries and regions worldwide. This study brought together a wide range of international experts under the auspices of the Communication for Governance and Accountability Program (CommGAP) at the World Bank and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University. The book is designed for policy makers and media professionals working within the international development community, national governments, and grassroots organizations, and for journalists, democratic activists, and scholars engaged in understanding mass communications, democratic governance, and development.

Developing countries commonly adopt reforms to improve their governments yet they usually fail to produce more functional and effective governments. Andrews argues that reforms often fail to make governments better because they are introduced as signals to gain short-term support. These signals introduce unrealistic best practices that do not fit developing country contexts and are not considered relevant by implementing agents. The result is a set of new forms that do not function. However, there are realistic solutions emerging from institutional reforms in some developing countries. Lessons from these experiences suggest that reform limits, although challenging to adopt, can be overcome by focusing change on problem solving through an incremental process that involves multiple agents.

Policy dialogue on governance.

In this major new contribution to a rapidly expanding field, the authors offer an integrated analysis of the wave of management reforms which have swept through so many countries in the last twenty years. The reform trajectories of ten countries are compared, and key differences of approach discussed. Unlike some previous works, this volume affords balanced coverage to the 'New Public Management' (NPM) and the 'non-NPM' or 'reluctant NPM' countries, since it covers Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, the UK and the USA. Unusually, it also includes a preliminary analysis of attempts to improve management within the European Commission.

Developing-country governance and its monitoring have risen to the top of the development agenda. This mounting interest is in response to compelling evidence that links governance to development performance-policy quality, public service provision, the investment climate, and the extent of corruption. 'Governance Reform: Bridging, Monitoring, and Action' lays out a broad framework for analyzing and monitoring governance in developing countries. It identifies fourteen core indicators for governance monitoring both broad measures of overall patterns and specific 'actionable' measures that can be used to guide reforms and track progress. The book also summarizes good practices for reforming public bureaucracies and checks and balances institutions (including parliaments, the justice system, media and information, and local governance); highlights improvements in transparency as a relatively low-cost and low-key way of deepening government accountability to civil society; and suggests ways to complement top-down reforms with approaches that focus directly on improving service provision and the investment climate (such as strengthening the bottom-up accountabilities of service providers to communities, firms, and citizens). 'Governance Reform' has no universally applicable trajectory of change. Rather, the aims are: to find country-specific entry points for reform which have development impact in the short-term; to address binding public management constraints, and to help build momentum for further change.