Worldwide Governance Indicators

2008 World Map of the Control of Corruption Index, which measures the degree to which corruption is perceived to exist among businesses, public officials and politicians.
  90-100th percentile*
  75-90th percentile
  50-75th percentile
  25-50th percentile
  10-25th percentile
  0-10th percentile
* Percentile rank indicates the percentage of countries worldwide that rate below the selected country. Higher values indicate better governance ratings.

Based on a long-standing research program of the World Bank, the Worldwide Governance Indicators capture six key dimensions of governance (Voice & Accountability, Political Stability and Lack of Violence, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, and Control of Corruption) between 1996 and present. They measure the quality of governance in over 200 countries, based on close to 40 data sources produced by over 30 organizations worldwide and are updated annually since 2002.

The governance indicators contribute to the growing empirical research of governance which have provided activists and reformers worldwide with advocacy tools for policy reform and monitoring. The indicators, and the underlying data behind them, are part of the current research and opinions that have reinforced the experiences and observations of reform-minded individuals in government, civil society, and the private sector, that good governance is key for development.[1] Their growing recognition of the link between good governance and successful development, as empirical evidence suggests,[1] has stimulated demand for monitoring the quality of governance across countries and within individual countries over time. Virtually all of the individual data sources underlying the aggregate indicators are, along with the aggregate indicators themselves, publicly available.

The Worldwide Governance Indicators are a compilation of the perceptions of a very diverse group of respondents, collected in large number of surveys and other cross-country assessments of governance. Some of these instruments capture the views of firms, individuals, and public officials in the countries being assessed. Others reflect the views of NGOs and aid donors with considerable experience in the countries being assessed, while others are based on the assessments of commercial risk-rating agencies.

A complementary vision of the macro-level Worldwide Governance Indicators are the World Bank Governance Surveys, which are country level governance assessment tools developed by the World Bank Institute.

Criticisms

The Worldwide Governance Indicators offer a useful snapshot of some perceptions of a country’s quality of governance but researchers have pointed out significant problems in their construction. These critiques have been extensively rebutted by the WGI authors in several publications.[2][3][4]

These critics have claimed that users often fail to take into account or are not aware of their limitations. Criticisms include:[5][6][7]

Countries with governance indicators

The countries presented in the table have a Country Data Report with the summary of the six aggregate governance indicators trends over the last decade, together with all of the publicly available disaggregated data on which the aggregate indicators are based. Additional information is available at Worldwide Governance Indicators.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Kaufmann, Daniel and Kraay, Aart, "Growth Without Governance" (November 2002). World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 2928.
  2. ↑ Kaufmann, Daniel, Aart Kraay and Massimo Mastruzzi (2007). "The Worldwide Governance Indicators: Answering the Critics". World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No 4149.
  3. ↑ Kaufmann, Daniel, Aart Kraay and Massimo Mastruzzi (2010). "Response to: What Do the Worldwide Governance Indicators Measure". European Journal of Development Research.
  4. ↑ Kaufmann, Daniel, Aart Kraay and Massimo Mastruzzi (2010). "Response to Knack-Langbein".
  5. ↑ Arndt, C.; Oman, C. (2008). "The Politics of Governance Ratings" (PDF). Working Paper MGSoG/2008/WP003.
  6. ↑ Thomas, M. (2009). "What Do the Worldwide Governance Indicators Measure?". European Journal of Development Research 22 (1): 31–54. doi:10.1057/ejdr.2009.32.
  7. ↑ Langbein, L.; Knack, S. (2010). "The Worldwide Governance Indicators: Six, One, or None?". Journal of Development Studies 46 (2): 350–370. doi:10.1080/00220380902952399.

External links

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