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SUMMARY
The vacuum left by the collapse of colonial empires has been filled by new forms of cultural and
ideological imperialism conceived largely in the West. The new imperialism is evident in such
notions as sustainable human development (SHD) and good governance, which in many ways
are prescribed for poor countries by rich countries. It is suggested that there is no one best way to
good governance or SHD and that, while elements of a universal best practice may be found,
considerable room should be left for local variations.
INTRODUCTION
On the whole, it is probably true to say that rich countries are more reluctant than they
used to be to give aid of different kinds, but particularly grant aid, to developing
countries. Yet this trend has not been paralleled by a similar diminution in the
provision of development advice,or by a reduction in the extent of direct political and
economic interference by rich countries in the affairs of poorer nations. Powerful
governments, mainly in the West, and multilateral institutions such as the World Bank
and the International Monetary Fund, appear to be as willing as ever to prescribe for
others universal values they have identified concerning such questions as economic
management, democracy, human rights, sound governance and the nature of de-
velopment itself.
Resistance to what is seen by many to be a new form of imperialism is becoming
stronger among poor countries however. In many developing countries there is a
mounting reluctance to conform to ideals born in the USA, and increasing resentment
of their association with economic incentives. After all, who is to say that freedom of
association is more important than having enough food to eat, or that freedom of
expression should come before the provision of access to safe drinking water? Does
having a vote, but no job, no prospects and no dignity or self-respect, constitute more
meaningful and desirable participation in the workings of society than having a job,
some prospects, some dignity, but no vote?
This article is based on an invited address to the Annual Executive Meeting of the International Union of
Local Government Associations, held in Darwin, Australia, on 19 September 1994. Professor Peter Blunt is
Dean of the Faculty of Business, and Director of the Centre for Development Management, Northern
Territory University, Darwin, NT Australia 0909.
CCC 0271-2075/95/010001-09
0 1995 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
2 P.Blunt
The position adopted in this article is that such questions cannot be answered in any
general or absolute sense, and should not in any case be the subject of what amounts to
international fiat. There is no simple, unitarian or one best way to development, to
human rights, to sound governance or to economic management. Rather, all of these
questions are to some extent liable to interpretation in the light of different cultural,
institutional and environmental circumstances, hence the term cultural relativism.
This is not to say that anything goes. It is simply a recognition that a better balance
needs to be struck between, on the one hand, yet to be defined universal imperatives
concerning such issues as human rights and sound governance and, on the other,
localized variations.
Accordingly, this article examines critically two notions which are crucial concerns
to development generally. The first is the United Nations Development Programmes
(UNDP) idea of sustainable human development (SHD), which can be taken as an
attempt to define the ultimate mission of governments, at whatever level. The second
concerns the notion of sound governance itself, which more and more is being
recognized by donor agencies and others as a necessary condition for sustainable
development.
generations. Equality of access and opportunity are key ingredients of this vision of
the human condition. It is a vision which heralds the need for a global perspective
which eschews ethnic and national boundaries in the search for a new ethic of
universalism-one which regards all people as deserving of dignity and opportunity
and sees the planet as a global public good to be nurtured in the common interest rather
than exploited for the benefit of a few (UNDP, 1994a).
There is clearly much in the above that would find widespread acceptance. Equally,
there are some features, particularly those connected with development by the people,
which would be widely resisted.
times as many extremely poor people as China. In terms of the provision of basic
needs-food, shelter, clothing-and in terms of health and education services (both
key ingredients of SHD), China has clearly outperformed India. Neither can it be said
with confidence that democracy in India has had the effect of empowering the poor or
of providing them with much in the way of dignity and self-respect. The case of India
shows that democracy and structural adjustment by themselves are not enough to
ensure equitable and sustainable development. What are required are economic,
political and governmental systems which are responsive to Indias cultural traditions
and present circumstances.
It is therefore necessary to reconceptualize the three elements of human develop-
ment in a way which does not proscribe or rule out, say, government intervention in the
market, or insist on democratic reforms at the expense of economic progress. This is a
pragmatic rather than an ideological approach which has implications not only for the
notion of SHD, but also for approaches to good governance and public management
reform.
GOVERNANCE
But how do these arguments fare when it comes to questions of sound governance? It is
clear, once again, that the case for universalism is difficult to sustain theoretically or
empirically. Institutional arrangements in government, and the relationships between
governments and the private sector, vary between countries for cultural and historical
reasons, and evolve in response to, inter alia, internal pressures for change and forces
exerted by international markets. In particular, there is an emerging consensus regard-
ing the significance of culture-a societys collective mental programming, made up of
its beliefs and values-in the shaping of institutions and as a partial explanation for
economic performance. A widely quoted explanation is the neo-Confucian hypothesis
(Hofstede and Bond, 1988), which proposes that much of the economic success of
Japan, the Asian tigers or dragons of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and
Taiwan, and the overseas Chinese, can be attributed to a common Confucian cultural
heritage, which values, inter aliu, thrift, discipline, harmony, a respect for authority
and high regard for education and the acquisition of knowledge and skill. These
cultural building blocks, it is suggested, have been the foundation of rapid and
sustained economic growth supported by institutional arrangements which differ from
one another in ways which have tended to make the most of national circumstances
(e.g. Redding and Hsiao, 1990; Whitley, 1990). Discussion of public management or
governance therefore needs to take account of culture, since what will be workable or
advisable in one set of cultural circumstances may not be in another (e.g. Blunt, 1990,
1994, 1995; Blunt and Jones, 1992; Hofstede, 1993; UNDP, 1994b).
That this tends not to be done probably hasmuch to do with institutional authorship
and the associated high-ground mentality referred to earlier.
Most general accounts of governance-how it is defined, what governments should
do and symptoms of government failure--can accommodate local variations. The
World Banks (1992b) recent discussion of governance illustrates both the relative
ideological and cultural neutrality of the general account and the ethnocentrism of
certain features of the more detailed analysis of good governance.
Cultural relutivism 5
Governance defined
Governance can be understood in terms of three major components: first is the form of
political authority that exists in a country (parliamentary or presidential, civilian or
military and autocratic or democratic); second is the means through which authority is
exercised in the management of economic and social resources; and third is the ability
of governments to discharge government functions effectively, efficiently and equi-
tably through the design, formulation and implementation of sound policies (World
Bank, 1992b).
Good governance
According to the World Bank (1992a), six aspects of good governance are of
particular importance: political accountability, freedom of association and partici-
6 P. Blunt
CONCLUSION
Encouraging informed debate about what it is that governments ought to be doing, and
how, is clearly desirable. The debate must be genuinely multilateral, however, and it
should brook differences of opinion. The argument in this article has been that the
debate has tended to be too one-sided and has frequently been culturally and ideologi-
cally biased. We have seen, for example, how the UNDPs notion of sustainable human
development confounds ends and means in a way which gives prominence to an
ideological percept-popular participation in political and organizational decision-
making-that is central to the western democratic tradition. Similar preoccupations
are evident in the World Banks prescriptions concerning good governance.
8 P. Blunt
REFERENCES
Hofstede, G. and Bond, M. (1988). The Confucius connection: from cultural roots to economic
growth, Organisational Dynamics, 16 (4), 5-21.
Redding, S. G. and Hsiao, M. (1990). An empirical study of overseas Chinese managerial
ideology, International Journal of Psychology, 25,629-641.
UNDP (1993). Human Development Report, Oxford University Press, New York.
UNDP (1994a). Human Development Report, Oxford University Press, New York.
UNDP (1994b). Governance, public sector management and sustainable human development: a
UNDP strategy paper (mimeo), UNDP, New York.
Whitley, R. D. (1990). Eastern Asian enterprise structures and the comparative analysis of
forms of business organisation, Organisation Studies, 11,41-14.
World Bank (1992a). World Development Report 1992: Development and the Environment,
Oxford University Press, New York.
World Bank (1992b). Governance and Development, World Bank, Washington, DC.
World Bank (1993). The East Asian Miracle: Economic Growth and Public Policy, Oxford
University Press, New York.