Research

2013: Governance challenges

The Governance Report 2013
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Faculty leads: Helmut K. Anheier, Mark Hallerberg, Mark Kayser

The first in an annual series, the 2013 edition of the Governance Report addresses the changing conditions of governance in today’s world, the challenges and opportunities involved, and the implications for practitioners, analysts and policymakers. With an emphasis on managing interdependency between actors and levels, the Report introduces governance innovations and proposes a new framework for collecting, interpreting, and applying governance-related data.

Downloads: Table of contents (PDF) | Foreword (PDF) | Chapter 1 (PDF) | Executive summary (PDF) | Executive summary (German, PDF)

Contributors: Helmut K. Anheier, William Roberts Clark, Mark Copelovitch, Mark Hallerberg, Inge Kaul, Mark Kayser, Sabrina Korreck, Lucia Quaglia, Piero Stanig, Stephanie Walter


Governance Challenges and Innovations: Financial and Fiscal Governance
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Editor: Helmut K. Anheier

Although few would doubt that the conditions of governance have changed and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, little consensus has emerged when it comes to improving governance today. This volume addresses the implications of the current state of the world in terms of good governance across several fields and at multiple levels. With a special focus on financial and fiscal governance in the wake of the global financial crisis, chapters by commissioned experts examine the difficult trade-offs faced by governance actors and assess the numerous arrangements that have emerged in recent years.

Downloads: Table of contents (PDF) | Chapter abstracts (PDF)

Contributors: Helmut K. Anheier, Vincent Arel-Bundock, Klaus J. Brösamle, William Roberts Clark, Mark Copelovitch, Mark T. Fliegauf, Mark Hallerberg, Mark Kayser, Regina A. List, Lucia Quaglia, Piero Stanig, Stephanie Walter

Governance Challenges and Innovations: Financial and Fiscal Governance is also available on Oxford Scholarship Online.

Issues in focus

Responsible sovereignty as a response to global challenges

The world is facing a growing list of global challenges, while at the same time, strategies for international cooperation have not been fully adjusted to today’s policy-making realities. By remaining shackled to their territories, nation-states diminish rather than increase their policy-making sovereignty. Responsible, or smart, sovereignty is a calculated approach that anticipates the limitations of "going it alone" while foreseeing the benefits of joint action. In order to regain or maintain their policy-making sovereignty under deepening interdependence, states must pursue a three-part strategy of greater multilateralism:

  • Commitment to voluntarily strengthen national-level management of cross-border spillovers to avoid infringing on other states’ sovereignty,
  • Commitment to contribute their fair share to collective efforts to protect the sovereignty of any state under attack and
  • Commitment to cooperate in meeting global systemic risks.

For states to deepen their commitment to international cooperation, fairness and justice in international negotiations must also be strengthened.

Challenges to financial and fiscal governance

Aspects such as increased capital mobility and the speed of contagion distinguish the most recent set of financial and fiscal crises from all others. Fundamental governance problems remain at the heart of international finance, including the fact that regulation and supervision are almost exclusively the domain of national authorities. Despite efforts to change the system, progress has been slow due to numerous trade-offs for policy-makers and leaders, including liquidity versus moral hazard, accountability versus effectiveness, and domestic politics versus international commitments. 

Fiscal governance problems, as a result of financial crisis or exacerbated by it, have also had tremendous impacts beyond national borders. In responding to fiscal governance challenges, governments and other actors have also faced difficult trade-offs, including equity versus efficiency, consumption versus productive investment, and again, domestic politics versus international commitments.

To find out more, order The Governance Report 2013 and Governance Challenges and Innovations: Financial and Fiscal Governance from Oxford University Press.

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Governance indicators

For the inaugural edition of the Governance Report in 2013, a new, conceptually grounded system of governance indicators was introduced. Examining a wide range of data at the city, national and transnational levels, these indicators provide a means for measuring three essential components: governance readiness in relation to governance requirements, governance performance in relation to policy outcomes and welfare effects, and governance innovativeness.

An interactive tool is available: Interactive data explorer

Data from the indicators created for The Governance Report 2013 as well as any images generated by the interactive tools are free to use for research purposes. Please use the following citation: Hertie School (2013). The Governance Report 2013: Governance Challenges Indicators. Hertie School: Berlin.

2013 general downloads: Methodological notes (PDF)

2013 city-level indicators downloads: Codebook (PDF) | CSV | Excel (XLSX) | Stata (DTA)

2013 national governance indicators downloads: Codebook (PDF) | CSV | Excel (XLSX) | Stata (DTA)

2013 transnational governance indicators downloads: Codebook (PDF) | CSV | Excel (XLSX) | Stata (DTA)

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Governance innovations

As part of The Governance Report 2013, ten especially noteworthy governance innovations from around the world were selected based on a rigorous research process and with input from an international steering group. These innovations were assessed for their scalability, replicability and promise as solutions to public problems and governance challenges:

  • Charter cities
  • Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralisation
  • Debt brakes
  • Low-profit, limited liability corporations
  • mySociety
  • The Government Pension Fund Global (Norway)
  • The Open Government Partnership
  • Social impact bonds
  • Transition initiatives
  • Ushahidi

Visit our collection of governance innovations to learn more. For more detailed case studies, order The Governance Report 2013.

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