Governance and Good Governance I: Kautilya, Plato and Aristotle; Elements and Forms of Good Governance; the World Bank and UNDP; State, Market and Civil Society; Public Choice, New Public Management, Public Value and Governance as Theory; Rule of Law, Administrative Law, Delegated Legislation, Administrative Adjudication and the Ethical Foundations of Governance

The modern use of "governance" in development discourse dates from the World Bank's report Sub-Saharan Africa: From Crisis to Sustainable Growth (1989), which diagnosed a "crisis of governance" behind the region's economic failure. Governance and Development (1992) defined governance as "the manner in which power is exercised in the management of a country's economic and social resources for development", and identified four areas: public sector management, accountability, a legal framework for development, and transparency and information. The Bank's mandate barred it from political interference, so its emphasis was managerial and economic — efficiency, predictability, and an enabling environment for markets. The Worldwide Governance Indicators (developed by Daniel Kaufmann, Aart Kraay and Massimo Mastruzzi) measure six dimensions: voice and accountability; political stability and absence of violence; government effectiveness; regulatory quality; rule of law; and control of corruption.

The UNDP's policy paper Governance for Sustainable Human Development (1997) took a broader, explicitly political and human-development view: governance is "the exercise of economic, political and administrative authority to manage a country's affairs at all levels", carried out through three domains — the state (creating a conducive political and legal environment), the private sector (generating jobs and income) and civil society (facilitating political and social interaction). It listed the characteristics of good governance as participation, rule of law, transparency, responsiveness, consensus orientation, equity, effectiveness and efficiency, accountability and strategic vision.

Governance theory rests on a changing balance between state, market and civil society. The post-war consensus trusted the state to correct market failure; the 1970s and 1980s emphasised government failure — bureaucratic self-interest, inefficiency and rent-seeking — and turned to markets; the governance literature since the 1990s emphasises the complementarity of all three and the role of civil society in holding both state and market to account.

• Stoker's five propositions: governance refers to institutions and actors drawn from but also beyond government;
• it identifies the blurring of boundaries and responsibilities for tackling social and economic issues;
• it identifies the power dependence involved in relationships between institutions in collective action;
• it is about autonomous self-governing networks of actors;
• and it recognises the capacity to get things done that does not rest on the power of government to command — government can steer and guide.

The rule of law, in A. V. Dicey's classic formulation (Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution, 1885), has three meanings: the supremacy of regular law as opposed to arbitrary power, so that no one can be punished except for a breach of law established in the ordinary courts; equality before the law, every official being subject to the same law and courts as the ordinary citizen; and the constitution as the result of the ordinary law as developed by the courts. Dicey contrasted this with French droit administratif, which he wrongly believed gave officials special privileges. Administrative law is the body of law governing the powers and procedures of administrative authorities and the remedies available against their abuse — its growth follows the growth of the welfare and regulatory state. In India the rule of law is part of the basic structure, and Article 14's guarantee of equality has been read (since E. P. Royappa, 1974) as a guarantee against arbitrariness.

Delegated legislation is law made by the executive under powers conferred by the legislature — rules, regulations, orders, bye-laws and notifications. It is justified by the pressure on legislative time, the technical nature of many subjects, the need for flexibility and speed, and emergencies. Its dangers are the transfer of real law-making to unelected officials and the risk of abuse. It is controlled in three ways: parliamentary control — laying of rules before the house, and the Committee on Subordinate Legislation (set up in the Lok Sabha in 1953) which scrutinises whether rules are within the parent Act; judicial control — rules can be struck down as ultra vires the parent Act or the Constitution, and the courts insist that the legislature may not delegate its essential legislative function (In re Delhi Laws Act, 1951); and procedural control — publication, consultation and prior notice.

Administrative adjudication is the determination of disputes by administrative authorities and tribunals rather than by ordinary courts. It offers speed, low cost, informality and expert knowledge, but raises concerns about the independence of the adjudicator. The 42nd Amendment (1976) inserted Article 323A (tribunals for public-service matters) and Article 323B (tribunals for taxation, land reform, elections and other matters). Under the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, the Central Administrative Tribunal was set up for service disputes of central government employees, with state administrative tribunals for the states. In L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India (1997) the Supreme Court held that the High Courts' power of judicial review under Articles 226 and 227 is part of the basic structure, so tribunal decisions are subject to it. Administrative adjudication must observe the principles of natural justice: *nemo judex in causa sua* (no one should be a judge in his own cause — the rule against bias) and *audi alteram partem* (hear the other side), with the later addition of the duty to give reasoned decisions. The UK's Franks Committee (1957) summed up the desirable qualities of tribunals as openness, fairness and impartiality. The Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021 abolished several appellate tribunals and transferred their work to the courts.

Laws and institutions constrain officials from outside; ethics works from inside, through values the official has internalised. The constitutional values of the Preamble — justice (social, economic and political), liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship, equality of status and opportunity, and fraternity assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the nation — together with sovereignty, socialism, secularism and democracy, supply the civil servant's first code. These values are formed long before recruitment, by the family (the first agent of socialisation, where honesty, empathy and respect are learned or not), society (community norms, religion, peer groups and the example of public figures, which can support integrity or normalise corruption) and education (which can cultivate critical thinking, civic sense and constitutional morality, or merely instruct). Training academies and codes of conduct build on — and cannot fully substitute for — this foundation.