Glossary

• A
• B
• C
• D
• E
• F
• G
• H
• I
• J
• K
• L
• M
• N
• O
• P
• Q
• R
• S
• T
• U
• V
• W
• X
• Y
• Z

Search

 Good Governance

The Good Governance concept introduces a normative dimension that concern about the quality of governance (Santiso, 2001). Most considerations on "good governance” focused on transparency and accountability as well as citizens’ participation (Mokre, Riekmann, 2006) and associated the governance quality with the level of participation, transparency, accountability, rule of law, effectiveness and equity (OECD, 2006). According to the World Bank, Good Governance involves “the combination of transparent and accountable institutions, strong skills and competence, and a fundamental willingness to do the right thing that are enable a government to deliver services to its people efficiently” (Gisselquist, 2012). Good governance is also defined as a “competent management of a country’s resources and affairs in a manner that is open, transparent, accountable, equitable and responsive to people’s needs” (AusAID, 2000).
Related terms: Stakeholder, Stakeholder Engagement, Public Governance, Policy Governance, Governance, Democratic Governance
References:
Santiso, C. (2001), Good Governance and Aid Effectiveness: The World Bank and Conditionality, The Georgetown Public Policy Review, 7(1), 1-22.
Mokre, M. and Riekmann, S. (2006), From Good Governance to Democratic Governance? A policy review of the first wave of European governance research. EU Research in Social Sciences and Humanities.
OECD. (2006), Applying Strategic Environmental Assessment: Good Practice Guidance for Development Co-Operation. pdf
Gisselquist, R. M. (2012), Good Governance as a Concept, and Why This Matters for Development Policy, pdf
AusAID. (2000), Good Governance: Guiding principles for implementation, Available here

 Governance

Governance refers to the capacity of governing systems to co-ordinate policy and to solve public problems in a complex context (Pierre, 2000). Governance is "the sum of the many ways individuals and institutions, public and private, manage their common affairs. It is a continuing process through which conflicting or diverse interests may be accommodated and co-operative action may be taken" (Commission on Global Governance, 1995). The Governance concept implies the management of a country’s resources for development at all levels using mechanisms, processes and institutions for encouraging citizens and groups to articulate their interests, mediate their differences and exercise their legal rights and obligations (UNDP, 1997). Governance involves coordination and coherence among various actors with different objectives such as political actors and institutions, interest groups, civil society, non-governmental and transnational organizations (Pierre, 2000).
Related terms: Good Governance, Democratic Governance, IT Governance, Public Governance
References:
Commission on Global Governance (1995), Our Global Neighbourhood, New York: Oxford University Press,  p. 2
Pierre, J. (2000), Debating governance authority, steering, and democracy, Oxford University Press, USA.
UNDP. (1997), Governance for sustainable human development: A UNDP policy document, Available here

 Graph Theory

Graph theory concerns graphical models of pairwise relations between objects (e.g. Hansen, Shneiderman, Smith, 2011). Such a graph consists of nodes (or vertices), representing the objects, and edges (or lines), representing the relationships between them (West, 2000). Graphs are often represented by drawing a dot or circle for every node or vertex, and drawing an arc between two vertices if they are connected by an edge (ibid). Graphs can be directed or undirected. In directed graphs arrows are used (ibid).
These graphs can be used to represent connections between websites, decisions, but also between actors in social networks (see social network, SNA). There are many good introduction books (for example West, 2000) and applications for social media (for exampple Hansen et al., 2011)
References:
Hanneman, R. A., & Riddle, M. (2005). Introduction to Social Network Methods. from http://faculty.ucr.edu/~hanneman/nettext/Introduction_to_Social_Network_Methods.pdf
Hansen, D. L., Shneiderman, B., & Smith, M. A. (2011). Analyzing social media network swith NodeXL. Insigths from a connected world. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
West, D.B. (2000). Introduction to Graph Theory. Pearson (2nd edition).