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CSS Good Governance and

Public Policies Notes 1

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Table of Content
I. Basic Concepts of Governance:

• Origin of the term

Governance… ...................................................................................................7
• Definition of
Governance… ............................................................................................................8
• Definition of Good
Governance… ...................................................................................................8
• Characteristics of Good Governance: Participation, Rule of law, Transparency,
Responsiveness, Equity, Effectiveness and Efficiency, Accountability, Strategic
Vision… 9
• Collapse/Failure of Governance: its indicators diagnostic tools &
Effects ..................................... 9

II. Governance Theories:

• Communitarianism……………………………………………………………………………..
…14
• Decentered
Theory ......................................................................................................................... 17
• Libertarian
Socialism..................................................................................................................... 17
• Institutionalism………………………………………………………………………………..
…17
• Marxism……………………………………………………………………………………….
…18
• Neoliberalism….…………………………………………………………………..…………….
..21
• Rational Choice
Theory ............................................................................................................... 23
• Regulation
Theory ....................................................................................................................... 24

III. Governance Indicators laid by World Bank/IMF/UNESCO/UNDP/ADB, their

Explanation & Application Level in Pakistan:

• Voice and Accountability........................................................................................................ 26

• Political Stability and Absence of
Violence ............................................................................. 27
• Government Effectiveness ....................................................................................................... 28
• Regulatory Authorities & their
Quality ................................................................................... 29
• Rule of
Law .............................................................................................................................. 29

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 • Control of Corruption… .......................................................................................... 30

IV. Public Policy and Planning Institutions and their role in

Planning ......................................... 41

• Institutional Framework for Policy Coordination and Planning(ECNEC, Economic

Coordination Committees of the Cabinet, The Federal Cabinet, The Secretaries
Committee, The Prime Minister’s Secretariat, The Planning Commission, The Finance
Division, The Cabinet Division, and all Federal Ministries for their respective subjects)
……………………..…41
• Role of Planning Commission in Policy and
Planning ............................................................. 50
• Strategic Planning in
Federal ................................................................................................... 60
• Provincial Government and Local Government...................................................................... 63
• Role of International Donors in Policy Formulation (IMF Document “Memorandum on
Economic and Financial Policies 2013/14–2015/16,” that underpins almost all public
policies.)…65 ………………
• Public Policy and Implementation in Key Sectors (i.e., Health, Education).
…………………68

V. Accountability:

• General Introduction to Accountability and its concepts(Standards, Symbolism, regional

and country-wide comparisons, a Review of Contemporary Studies)
…………………………….…96
• Types of Accountability- Political Accountability, Legal/ Judicial Accountability,
Administrative Accountability, Professional Accountability, Private vs. Public
Accountability………………………………………………………………………………….
…98
• National Strategies against Corruption and remedial measures.
…………………..………..…101

VI. Bureaucracy:

• Introduction to the Concept of Bureaucracy(History, Neutrality, Steel Frame of the State,

Negative Connotations Associated with the term)…………………………………….105
• Theories of Bureaucracy (Max Weber, Marx, John Stewart Mill, Woodrow Wilson)…110
• Role of Bureaucracy in Pakistan (British legacy, civil-military relations, neutrality, dilution
of neutrality, political allegiance, power, corrupting the incumbent, institutional
degradation, constitutional guarantees, indexing of salaries with the CPI or lack
thereof.)…112
• Public Administration and Code of Ethics (Effectiveness of the Estacode and the Code of
Ethics, Comparison with other countries)……………………………………………136

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VII. Public Policy Formulation and Implementation

• The Policy Making Process: How Policies are Made (Six including diagnosis and six stages
with cautions to be exercise at each stage)
……………………………………………………….…151
• Policy Implementation & Role of Bureaucracy (Training, Pervasive Inertia and how to
break it, Lack of Decision Making, Culture of postponement and delays Lack of
resources, Political interference, Ability to say “No.”)
…………………………………………………..154
• Policy Analysis, The Quest for Solutions (Lack of research in policy analysis, Lack of
coordination among departments, secrecy, openness)
………………………………………….165
• Policy Evaluation: Assessing The Impact of Public Policy, Program Evaluation-Success
and failure of Govt.
…………………………………………………………………………………174

VIII. Multi-level Governance in Pakistan:

• Legislature: National Assembly, Senate, Provisional

Assemblies ........................................... 176
• Judiciary: Supreme Court, High Courts, Lower
Courts… ........................................................ 195
• Functioning of the offices:
………………………………………………………………….…204
• President of Pakistan,
…………………………………………………………………………206
• Prime Minister of
Pakistan ........................................................................................................ 207
• Office of Governor,
…………………………………………………………………………...209
• Office of Chief Minister, Federal Cabinet, Cabinet Committees, Federal Secretariat,
Provincial
Secretariat ................................................................................................................ 209
• Local Government system: District Government, Zila Government, Tehsil Government,
Union Administration, Its Efficacy, Performance & Causes of Success or
Failure ........... 218

IX. Federalism, Devolution and Decentralization… ................................................................. 224

• Constituents participation in Federal Structure ................................................................... 227

• Principle of Subsidiarity in Public Service Delivery...........................................................230
• Decentralization Model of Kerala… ................................................................................... 231

X. Role of Citizens in Governance ................................................................................................ 236

XI. Good Governance in Islam

• Quranic Guidance on Good Governance .............................................................................238

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• Concept of Governance and its application in light of Quran; Sunnah and Fiqh… ............ 247

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Basic Concepts of Governance:
Origin of the term Governance

Like government, the word governance derives, ultimately, from the Greek verb κυβερνάω [kubernáo]
(meaning to steer, the metaphorical sense first being attested in Plato). In above-described sense,
however, the term governance was re-minted as recently as the 1990s by economists and political
scientists, and disseminated by institutions such as the UN, IMF and World Bank.[3] Its use in
English can be traced to Charles Plummer’s 'The Governance of England' (published in 1885 as a
translation from the original 15th-century Latin of John Fortescue’s 'The Difference between an
Absolute and a Limited Monarchy'). This usage of governance to refer to the arrangements of
governing became orthodox including in Sidney Low’s seminal text of the same title in 1904 and
among some later British constitutional historians.

Definition of Governance:

Governance refers to "all processes of governing, whether undertaken by a government, market or

network, whether over a family, tribe, formal or informal organization or territory and whether
through laws, norms, power or language."[1] It relates to "the processes of interaction and decision-
making among the actors involved in a collective problem that lead to the creation, reinforcement, or
reproduction of social norms and institutions."

A variety of entities (known generically as governing bodies) can govern. The most formal is a
government, a body whose sole responsibility and authority is to make binding decisions in a given
geopolitical system (such as a state) by establishing laws. Other types of governing bodies are
possible. These include an organization (such as a corporation recognized as a legal entity by a
government), a socio-political group (chiefdom, tribe, family, religious denomination, etc.), or
another, informal group of people.

Whatever form the entity takes, its governance is the way the rules, norms and actions are produced,
sustained, regulated and held accountable. The degree of formality depends on the internal rules of a
given organization. As such, governance may take many forms, driven by many different motivations
and with many different results. For instance, a government may operate as a democracy where
citizens vote on who should govern and the public good is the goal, while a non-profit organization
may be governed by a small board of directors and pursue more specific aims.

In addition, a variety of external actors without decision-making power can influence the process of
governing. These include lobbies, political parties, and the media).

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Definition of Good Governance
Good governance is an indeterminate term used in international development literature to describe
various normative accounts of how public institutions ought to conduct public affairs and manage
public resources. These normative accounts are often justified on the grounds that they are thought to
be conducive to economic ends, such as the eradication of poverty and successful economic
development. Unsurprisingly different organizations have defined governance and good governance
differently to promote different normative ends.

The World Bank defines governance as:

• The manner in which power is exercised in the management of a country's economic and
social resources for development.
• The Worldwide Governance Indicators project of the World Bank defines governance as:
• The traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised.
• This considers the process by which governments are selected, monitored and replaced; the
capacity of the government to effectively formulate and implement sound policies and the
respect of citizens and the state of the institutions that govern economic and social
interactions among them.

An alternate definition sees governance as:

• The use of institutions, structures of authority and even collaboration to allocate resources and
coordinate or control activity in society or the economy.
• According to the United Nations Development Programme's Regional Project on Local
Governance for Latin America:
• Governance has been defined as the rules of the political system to solve conflicts between
actors and adopt decision (legality). It has also been used to describe the "proper functioning
of institutions and their acceptance by the public" (legitimacy). And it has been used to
invoke the efficacy of government and the achievement of consensus by democratic means
(participation)

Characteristics of Good Governance: Participation, Rule of law, Transparency, Responsiveness,

Equity, Effectiveness and Efficiency, Accountability, Strategic

Vision

• Participation

All men and women should have a voice in decision-making, either directly or through legitimate
intermediate institutions that represent their interests. Such broad participation is built on freedom of
association and speech, as well as capacities to participate constructively.

• Rule of law

Legal frameworks should be fair and enforced impartially, particularly the laws on human rights.

Transparency

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Transparency is built on the free flow of information. Processes, institutions and information are
directly accessible to those concerned with them, and enough information is provided to understand
and monitor them.

• Responsiveness

Institutions and processes try to serve all stakeholders.

• Consensus orientation

Good governance mediates differing interests to reach a broad consensus on what is in the best
interests of the group and,. where possible, on policies and procedures.

• Equity

All men and women have opportunities to improve or maintain their well-being.

Effectiveness and efficiency:

Processes and institutions produce results that meet needs while making the best use of resources.

Accountability:

Decision-makers in government, the private sector and civil society organisations are accountable to
the public, as well as to institutional stakeholders. This accountability differs depending on the
organisations and whether the decision is internal or external to an organisation.

Strategic vision:

Leaders and the public have a broad and long-term perspective on good governance and human
development, along with a sense of what is needed for such development. There is also an
understanding of the historical, cultural and social complexities in which that perspective is grounded.

Collapse/Failure of Governance: its indicators diagnostic tools & Effects

The concept of good governance has typically been used in development economics as a way to
describe the system of aid-recipient countries – developing economies. The recent economic crisis has
brought this concept into light in developed economies where governance, both public and private,
has been assumed to be sound. Euphemistically put, the unfolding of recent events has proven that
this is not always true.

Governments create the conditions for the functioning of markets, operation of private firms, strength
of civil society, and welfare of communities and individuals. (Or at least that’s what they’re supposed
to do.) Systems of governance affect the performance of the state in executing its core functions and
through this, the performance of countries in meeting their major economic and social goals. In the
private sector, the same concept applies – firms’ leadership enables the functioning of various
departments and is responsible for the welfare of the firm’s employees. A firm’s leadership also
largely determines the firm’s performance and its ability to meet its goals.

In recent months, developed economies around the world experienced an unprecedented shock –
credit markets froze up, equity markets tumbled to record lows and major banks failed and whole
countries were on the brink of default. While the crisis cannot be blamed on one single entity because

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it came about as a result of greed and complacency of consumers, investors and businesses alike, it is
widely argued that the lack of good governance at the public and private levels led to this meltdown.

PUMA’s Six Pillars of Governance

Good governance, in the private and public sphere, is the ability to exercise power, and to make good
decisions over time, across a spectrum of economic, social, environmental and other areas. There are
many ways to define good governance, however, there seems to be a general consensus that key
factors, as outlined by the OECD programme on Public Management and Governance (PUMA)
include:

• Technical and managerial competence

• Organizational capacity
• Reliability
• Accountability
• Transparency and open information systems
• Participation

Technical and Managerial Competence Under Question in The Wake of Crisis

Technical and managerial competence of leadership is an obvious factor of good governance. In this
financial crisis, it is hard not to question the competence of the regulatory bodies responsible for
overseeing the financial institutions, and the competence of the financial institutions themselves. It
became obvious that neither public sector leadership nor private sector leadership really understood
the complex financial instruments that were structured, packaged and sold during the boom years.

Rewind to April 2004. Only after the crisis had begun unfolding did the New York Times publish an
account of the brief meeting between Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) officials and the
heads of the large investment banks. The investment banks wanted the SEC to exempt their brokerage
units from an old regulation that limited the amount of debt they could take on. The exemption would
free up billions of dollars held in reserve as a cushion against losses on their investments. Those funds
could then flow up to the parent company, enabling it to invest in the fast-growing but opaque world
of mortgage-backed securities, credit derivatives, and other exotic instruments. This meeting was
sparsely attended and went unreported in the media. It lasted a total of 55 minutes, states The NY
Times.

In loosening the capital rules, which are supposed to provide a buffer in turbulent times, the SEC also
decided to rely on these investment banks’ own risk models, essentially allowing them to monitor and
regulate themselves. The 2004 decision was a chance for the SEC to supervise the banks’ increasingly
risky investments in mortgage-related securities, but the agency never followed through on this and it
remained a low priority, until now.

Inadequate Organizational Capacity: Failure of the Fed?

Another factor of good governance is organizational capacity. Good governance has to be built on the
quality of organizations so that development is based on this rather than simply relying only on the
political or personal will of a strong leader, which may not be sustainable over the longer term.

Both government and private sectors firms proved to be inadequate in this regard, and a case in point
is the failure of the Federal Reserve under Alan Greenspan. The Federal Reserve under Greenspan

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was operated by the will of one rather than by a system of checks and balances. Stephen Roach, Chief
Economist at Morgan Stanley said in an interview with the Financial Times that the Federal Reserve,
led by the “libertarian ideology” of Alan Greenspan was “very reckless in condoning the excesses of
complex financial information and setting the price of risk far too low.” Roach’s views are echoed by
many other economists who say that Greenspan encouraged the bubble in housing prices by keeping
interest rates too low for too long and that he failed to rein in the explosive growth of risky and often
fraudulent mortgage lending.

The Fed chairman had been one of the nation’s leading voices for deregulation, and there are past
statements in which Mr. Greenspan had argued that government regulators were no better than
markets at imposing discipline. The Fed slashed interest rates

from 2001 to mid-2004, which led to warnings of a potential bust, but Greenspan brushed these
worries aside, according to the NY Times. Greenspan, along with most other banking regulators in
Washington, also resisted calls for tighter regulation of subprime mortgages and other high-risk exotic
mortgages that allowed people to borrow far more than they could afford.

The Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae Case: The Case for Reliability Highlighted

Reliability is another factor of good governance. Reliability requires governance that is free from
distortionary incentives – through corruption, nepotism, patronage or capture by narrow private
interest groups. The story of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae is a classic case of policy capture that
highlights the importance of reliability in governance and the effects when it is absent. The Wall
Street Journal and CBS have reported that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae spent millions of dollars
lobbying some influential members of congress, in exchange for, among others, lax capital reserve
requirements. As a result of their lobbying prowess, these obsolete institutions became virtually
untouchable behemoths.

Congressman Ron Paul has said that “the special privileges granted to Fannie and Freddie have
distorted the housing market by allowing them to attract capital they could not attract under pure
market conditions.”

Accountability: too little, too late?

Accountability is a crucial way to ensure that the power that is given to those in public office is used
appropriately and in accordance with public interest. Accountability requires clarity about who is
accountable to whom, for what, and that civil servants, organizations and politicians are held
accountable for their decisions and performance.

Accountability is a convoluted concept with respect to this financial crisis because of the global nature
of the financial system. Consumers are at fault for over-borrowing, banks are at fault for over-lending,
investment banks are to blame for over-securitizing, and regulatory institutions are at fault for
allowing this excessive behaviour.

At some level, the leadership at the public and private institutions that has been involved in this crisis
are being held accountable – top executives at these banks are being questioned and will be missing
out on some of their bonuses; Greenspan is being called into question for his lax oversight of the
markets. But perhaps this call for accountability is a case of too little, too late.

Financial Crises: Due to A Breakdown of Transparency:

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Transparency is another important aspect of good governance. Governments have access to a vast
amount of important information. Dissemination of this information through transparency and open
information systems can provide specific information that firms and individuals need to have to be
able to make good decisions.

This financial crisis was a case study of the breakdown of transparency at many levels. Take for
example, AIG and its ‘small’ derivatives unit, headed by Joe Cassano. This unit was conveniently
classified and located in London so to ensure particularly lax oversight over the dubious accounting
and disclosure practices evidently abetted by its chief. The insurance behemoth came to its downfall
because its leadership had made some very risky bets, hid them from regulatory oversight, and moved
the risky business abroad.

Capital markets depend on information openness and transparency but the nature of these complex
derivative products made it difficult for most people to understand, much less regulate. The collapse
of the giant investment banks and the financial system are due to the lack of transparency surrounding
these products and the loss of confidence in the counterparties involved. As a result, investors
panicked, causing the markets to tumble.

Lack of The Right Kind of Participation Triggered The Crisis:

Another factor of good governance is participation. Participation involves consultation in the

development of policies and decision-making, elections and other democratic processes. Participation
gives governments access to important information about the needs and priorities of individuals,
communities and private businesses. Governments that involve the public will be in a better position
to make good decisions, and decisions will enjoy more support once taken.

Before the crisis happened, in boom times, participation was everywhere. However, it was not the
right kind of participation – this was participation in a party of excess, complacency and greed, and
the participants were not just greedy investors, but large banks and even regulators. As Professor at
Columbia University, Joseph Stiglitz put it, “it was all done in the name of innovation, and any
regulatory initiative was fought away with claims that it would suppress that innovation. They were
innovating, all right, but not in ways that made the economy stronger. Some of America’s best and
brightest were devoting their talents to getting around standards and regulations designed to ensure
the efficiency of the economy and the safety of the banking system.”

The lack of the right kind of participation – participation in developing sound policy and regulation,
has contributed to the unraveling of financial systems worldwide. Due to poor governance, America’s
financial system failed in its two crucial responsibilities: managing risk and allocating capital. The
industry as a whole had not been doing what it should have been doing and it must now face change
in its regulatory structures. Regrettably, many of the worst elements of the US financial system were
exported to the rest of the world, according to Joseph Stiglitz.

The global financial crisis, triggered by the mortgage and financial derivatives debacle in the US, was
not just a failure of dogmatic ideology, or of know-how, or of technical regulations. As illustrated at
the outset, powerful ‘vested’ interests, at the intersection between politics and business, and
corruption, played a role in shaping the flawed oversight, the absence of transparency, the regulations,
and their lax implementation.

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The Effect on Pakistan:

In Pakistan, people watched from afar as the capital markets crashed in the US and Europe. According
to sources within the banking industry, the global financial crisis has not affected Pakistan yet because
the country is not a large financial player in the global economy. However, the SBP’s First Quarterly
Report issued last month states, “the domestic economy is now more open and prone to external
shocks than ever before”.

Former president of the Overseas Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Zubyr Soomro believes that
the primary impact for Pakistan would be tightened terms for access to international debt markets.
Some analysts view this crisis in the West as a chance for Pakistan to establish a stronger economic
foothold in the region. They believe that investment will pour into the country as returns in developed
markets fall. According to the Head of retail banking of the National Bank of Pakistan, Amir Siddiqui,
“We need to prepare ourselves on a war footing by getting floating barrages from the Middle East to
overcome the energy shortages and to receive a fat chunk from the investment that would be diverted
to surging economies of Asia.”

But Pakistan has a crisis of its own to take care of for now. While Mr Musharraf’s prime minister,
Shaukat Aziz, frequently likened Pakistan to a “tiger economy”, the former government left an
economy on the brink of ruin without any durable base.

No Bail

The Pakistan Rupee has lost more than 21 percent of its value so far this year and inflation now runs
at 25 percent – by conservative estimates. The rise in world prices has driven up Pakistan’s food and
oil bill by a third since 2007, according to Wilkinson in the Telegraph. President Zardari told the Wall
Street Journal that Pakistan needed a bailout worth $100 billion from the international community.

President Zardari is expected to ask the international community for a rescue package at a meeting in
Abu Dhabi next month. This gathering will determine whether the West is willing to bailout Pakistan.
However, with developed nations vying for bailouts of their own, it is unclear if they even have the
capacity to provide this rescue package.

Whatever the outcome, it is clear that good governance is key to steering Pakistan, and the rest of the
world, out of a global recession. It will take cooperation at an international level and for many
governments to not only make the decisions that are right for their domestic situations, but also work
together with their counterparts abroad to find a solution to mend this problem and reduce its trickle
down effect on real economies.

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Governance Theories:
Communitarianism
Communitarianism is a philosophy that emphasizes the connection between the individual and the
community. Although the community might be a family unit, communitarianism usually is
understood, in the wider, philosophical sense, as a collection of interactions, among a community of
people in a given place (geographical location), or among a community who share an interest or who
share a history.[1] Communitarian philosophy is based upon the belief that a person's social identity
and personality are largely molded by community relationships : with a smaller degree of
development being placed on individualism.

Academic communitarianism:

Whereas the classical liberalism of the Enlightenment can be viewed as a reaction to centuries of
authoritarianism, oppressive government, overbearing communities, and rigid dogma, modern
communitarianism can be considered a reaction to excessive individualism, understood as an undue
emphasis on individual rights, leading people to become selfish or egocentric.

The close relation between the individual and the community was discussed on a theoretical level by
Michael Sandel and Charles Taylor, among other academic communitarians, in their criticisms of
philosophical liberalism, especially the work of the American liberal theorist John Rawls and that of
the German Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant. They argued that contemporary liberalism
and libertarianism presuppose an incoherent notion of the individual as existing outside and apart
from society, rather than embedded within it. To the contrary, they argued, there are no generic
individuals but rather only Germans or Russians, Berliners or Muscovites—or members of some other
particularistic community. Because individual identity is partly constructed by culture and social
relations, there is no coherent way of formulating individual rights or interests in abstraction from
social contexts. Thus, according to these communitarians, there is no point in attempting to found a
theory of justice on principles decided behind Rawls’ veil of ignorance, because individuals cannot
exist in such an abstracted state, even in principle.

Academic communitarians also contend that the nature of the political community is misunderstood
by liberalism. Where liberal philosophers described the polity as a neutral framework of rules within
which a multiplicity of commitments to moral values can coexist, academic communitarians argue
that such a thin conception of political community was both empirically misleading and normatively
dangerous. Good societies, these authors believe, rest on much more than neutral rules and
procedures—they rely on a shared moral culture. Some academic communitarians argued even more
strongly on behalf of such particularistic values, suggesting that these were the only kind of values
which matter and that it is a philosophical error to posit any truly universal moral values.

In addition to Charles Taylor and Michael Sandel, other thinkers sometimes associated with academic
communitarianism include Michael Walzer, Alasdair MacIntyre, Seyla Benhabib, and Shlomo
Avineri.

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Social capital

Beginning in the late 20th century, many authors began to observe a deterioration in the social
networks of the United States. In the book Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam observed that nearly every
form of civic organization has undergone drops in membership exemplified by the fact that, while
more people are bowling than in the 1950s, there are fewer bowling leagues.

This results in a decline in "social capital", described by Putnam as "the collective value of all 'social
networks' and the inclinations that arise from these networks to do things for each other". According
to Putnam and his followers, social capital is a key component to building and maintaining
democracy.

Communitarians seek to bolster social capital and the institutions of civil society. The Responsive
Communitarian Platform described it thus:

"Many social goals ... require partnership between public and private groups. Though government
should not seek to replace local communities, it may need to empower them by strategies of support,
including revenue-sharing and technical assistance. There is a great need for study and
experimentation with creative use of the structures of civil society, and public-private cooperation,
especially where the delivery of health, educational and social services are concerned."

Positive rights:

Important to some supporters of communitarian philosophy is the concept of positive rights, which are
rights or guarantees to certain things. These may include state-subsidized education, state-subsidized
housing, a safe and clean environment, universal health care, and even the right to a job with the
concomitant obligation of the government or individuals to provide one. To this end, communitarians
generally support social security programs, public works programs, and laws limiting such things as
pollution.

A common objection is that by providing such rights, communitarians violate the negative rights of
the citizens; rights to not have something done for you. For example, taxation to pay for such
programs as described above dispossesses individuals of property. Proponents of positive rights, by
attributing the protection of negative rights to the society rather than the government, respond that
individuals would not have any rights in the absence of societies—a central tenet of
communitarianism—and thus have a personal responsibility to give something back to it. Some have
viewed this as a negation of natural rights. However, what is or is not a "natural right" is a source of
contention in modern politics, as well as historically; for example, whether or not universal health
care, private property or protection from polluters can be considered a birthright.

Alternatively, some agree that negative rights may be violated by a government action, but argue that
it is justifiable if the positive rights protected outweigh the negative rights lost. In the same vein,
supporters of positive rights further argue that negative rights are irrelevant in their absence.
Moreover, some communitarians "experience this less as a case of being used for others' ends and
more as a way of contributing to the purposes of a community I regard as my own".[8]

Still other communitarians question the very idea of natural rights and their place in a properly
functioning community. They claim that instead, claims of rights and entitlements creates a society
unable to form cultural institutions and grounded social norms based on shared values. Rather, the

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liberalist claim to individual rights leads to a morality centered on individual emotivism, as ethical
issues can no longer be solved by working through common understandings of the good. The worry
here is that not only is society individualized, but so are moral claims.[9]

Comparison to other political philosophies

Communitarianism cannot be classified as being wholly left or right, and many theorists claim to
represent a sort of radical center. Progressives in the American sense or Social democrats in the
European sense generally share the communitarian position on issues relating to the economy, such as
the need for environmental protection and public education, but not on cultural issues.
Communitarians and moderates or moderate Conservatives generally loosely align on cultural issues,
such as support for character education programs, but communitarians do not support capitalism
generally embraced by American conservatives.

For the communitarian, leftist ideology fails to understand the importance of local tradition, identity,
and core cultural values that define different communities by taking power away from such local
communities and handing it to centralized bureaucratic structures which lack the sensitivity to
understand such values and local issues which may thereby arise. Furthermore, the focus of the
welfare state on individual rights and entitlements has also eroded many of the traditional family
bonds that united people as well as responsibilities to the community that used to exist.
Communitarians also critique libertarians and free market capitalists for supporting an economic
system that pressures communities into atomizing, thus undermining traditional ties between members
of a given community such as within a family

Decentered Theory

Libertarian Socialism

Institutionalism
An institutional approach dominated the study of the state, government, public administration, and
politics until about the 1940s. Scholars focused on formal rules, procedures, and organizations,
including constitutions, electoral systems, and political parties. Although they sometimes emphasized
the formal rules that governed such institutions, they also paid attention to the behaviour of actors
within them. This institutional approach was challenged in the latter half of the 20th century by a
series of attempts to craft universal theories: behaviourists, rational choice theorists, and others
attempted to explain social action with relatively little reference to specific institutional settings. The
new institutionalism is often seen as a restatement of the elder institutional approach in response to
these alternatives. The new institutionalists retain a focus on rules, procedures, and organizations:
institutions are composed of two or more people, they serve some kind of social purpose, and they
exist over time in a way that transcends the intentions and actions of specific individuals. But the new
institutionalists adopt a broader concept of institution that includes norms, habits, and cultural
customs alongside formal rules, procedures, and organizations.

It has become common to distinguish various species of new institutionalism. Rational choice
institutionalists examine how institutions shape the behaviour of rational actors by creating
expectations about the likely consequences of given courses of action. Such institutionalism remains
firmly rooted in the type of microanalysis just discussed. Other new institutionalists eschew deductive
models in which outcomes are explained by reference to rational actions. These institutionalists

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typically explain outcomes by comparing and contrasting institutional patterns. They offer two main
accounts of how institutions shape behaviour. Historical institutionalists tend to use metaphors such as
path dependency and to emphasize the importance of macro-level studies of institutions over time.
Sociological institutionalists tend to argue that cognitive and symbolic schemes give people identities
and roles.

Historical institutionalists focus on the way past institutional arrangements shape responses to
political pressures. They argue that past outcomes, having become embedded in national institutions,
prompt social groups to organize along particular lines and thereby lock states into paths of
development. Hence, they concentrate on comparative studies of welfare and administrative reform
across states in which the variety of such reforms is explicable by path dependency.

Sociological institutionalists focus on values, identities, and the ways in which these shape actors’
perceptions of their interests. They argue that informal sets of ideas and values constitute policy
paradigms that shape the ways in which organizations think about issues and conceive of political
pressures. Hence, they adopt a more constructivist approach that resembles the interpretive theories of
governance (see below). They concentrate on studies of the ways in which norms and values shape
what are often competing policy agendas of welfare and administrative reform.

Marxism
Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis, originating from the mid-to-late 19th century works
of German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, that analyzes class relations and societal
conflict using a materialist interpretation of historical development and a dialectical view of social
transformation.

Marxist methodology originally used economic and sociopolitical inquiry to analyze and critique the
development of capitalism and the role of class struggle in systemic economic change. According to
Marxist analysis, class conflict within capitalism arises due to intensifying contradictions between
highly productive mechanized and socialized production performed by the proletariat, and private
ownership and appropriation of the surplus product in the form of surplus value (profit) by a small
minority of private owners called the bourgeoisie. As the contradiction becomes apparent to the
proletariat, social unrest between the two antagonistic classes intensifies, culminating in a social
revolution. The eventual long-term outcome of this revolution would be the establishment of
socialism – a socioeconomic system based on social ownership of the means of production,
distribution based on one's contribution, and production organized directly for use. As the productive
forces and technology continued to advance, Marx hypothesized that socialism would eventually give
way to a communist stage of social development, which would be a classless, stateless, humane
society erected on common ownership and the principle of "From each according to his ability, to
each according to his needs".

Marxism has since developed into different branches and schools of thought, and there is now no
single definitive Marxist theory.[1] Different schools place a greater emphasis on certain aspects of
classical Marxism while de-emphasizing or rejecting other aspects, and sometimes combine Marxist
analysis with non-Marxian concepts. As a result, different schools of Marxism might reach
contradictory conclusions from one another.[2]

Marxist analyses and methodologies have influenced multiple political ideologies and social
movements, and Marxist understandings of history and society have been adopted by academics in the
disciplines of archaeology, anthropology,[3] media studies,[4] political science, theater, history,

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sociology, art history and theory, cultural studies, education, economics, geography, literary criticism,
aesthetics, critical psychology, and philosophy

Concepts

Historical Materialism:

The historical materialist theory of history[12] dialectically analyses the underlying causes of societal
development and change in the collective ways humans make their living. All constituent features of a
society (social classes, political pyramid, ideologies) stem from economic activity, an idea often
conveyed with the metaphor of the base and superstructure.

The base and superstructure metaphor explains that the totality of social relations in and by which
humans produce and re-produce their social existence, forms a society's economic base. From this
base rises a superstructure of political and legal institutions, i.e., ruling class. The base corresponds to
the social consciousness (politics, religion, philosophy, etc.), and it conditions the superstructure and
the dominant ideology. A conflict between the development of material productive forces and the
relations of production provokes social revolutions, thus, the resultant changes to the economic base
will lead to the transformation of the superstructure.[13] This relationship is reflexive; At first the
base gives rise to the superstructure and remains the foundation of a form of social organization.
Hence, that formed social organization can act again upon both parts of the base and superstructure,
whose relationship is not unilinear but dialectic, namely a relationship driven by conflicts and
contradictions. As Friedrich Engels clarified: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history
of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and
journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried
on uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary
reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes."'[14]

Marx considered these socio-economic conflicts as the driving force of human history since these
recurring conflicts have manifested themselves as distinct transitional stages of development in
Western Europe. Accordingly, Marx designates human history as encompassing four stages of
development in relations of production.[15]

• Primitive Communism: as in co-operative tribal societies.

• Slave Society: a development of tribal to city-state; aristocracy is born.
• Feudalism: aristocrats are the ruling class; merchants evolve into capitalists.
• Capitalism: capitalists are the ruling class, who create and employ the proletariat.

Criticism of capitalism

"We are, in Marx's terms, ‘an ensemble of social relations' and we live our lives at the core of the
intersection of a number of unequal social relations based on hierarchically interrelated structures
which, together, define the historical specificity of the capitalist modes of production and
reproduction and underlay their observable manifestations."

According to the Marxist theoretician and revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, "the principal content of
Marxism" was "Marx's economic doctrine".[17] Marx believed that the capitalist bourgeois and their
economists were promoting what he saw as the lie that "The interests of the capitalist and those of the
worker are ... one and the same"; he believed that they did this by purporting the concept that "the

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fastest possible growth of productive capital" was best not only for the wealthy capitalists but also for
the workers because it provided them with employment.

Exploitation is a matter of surplus labour – the amount of labour one performs beyond what one
receives in goods. Exploitation has been a socioeconomic feature of every class society, and is one of
the principal features distinguishing the social classes. The power of one social class to control the
means of production enables its exploitation of the other classes.

In capitalism, the labour theory of value is the operative concern; the value of a commodity equals the
socially necessary labour time required to produce it. Under that condition, surplus value (the
difference between the value produced and the value received by a labourer) is synonymous with the
term "surplus labour"; thus, capitalist exploitation is realised as deriving surplus value from the
worker.

In pre-capitalist economies, exploitation of the worker was achieved via physical coercion. In the
capitalist mode of production, that result is more subtly achieved; because the worker does not own
the means of production, he or she must voluntarily enter into an exploitive work relationship with a
capitalist in order to earn the necessities of life. The worker's entry into such employment is voluntary
in that he or she chooses which capitalist to work for. However, the worker must work or starve.
Thus, exploitation is inevitable, and the "voluntary" nature of a worker participating in a capitalist
society is illusory.

Alienation is the estrangement of people from their humanity (German: Gattungswesen, "species-
essence", "species-being"), which is a systematic result of capitalism. Under capitalism, the fruits of
production belong to the employers, who expropriate the surplus created by others, and so generate
alienated labourers.[19] In Marx's view, alienation is an objective characterization of the worker's
situation in capitalism – his or her self-awareness of this condition is not prerequisite.

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