Havighurst Symposium in Economics “Russia Ten Years Later: Taking Stock”

In recent years, scholars and policy makers have come to regard the issue of governance as a critical link between the choice of policies and institutions and their actual impact on society. A growing body of evidence suggests that the effectiveness of policy measures in achieving their purposes depends on the effectiveness of governing institutions.1 The quality of governance—understood to mean the effectiveness of public institutions in producing collective goods—determines how well public policies are converted into desired outcomes such as economic growth and greater equality of distribution. The problem is no longer seen as one of trading off efficiency for equity. The real problem is how to improve governance so that good policy can contribute to both. It would be normatively satisfying if democratization always led to better governance in transitional polities. Unfortunately, this is not necessarily the case. Democratic transitions in times of severe economic crisis often stimulate a surge of demands for distributive policies that benefit particular groups at the expense of public goods, demands that weak new democratic governments are frequently unable to resist.