Engaged Governance and Public Policy Processes During Transition to a Market Economy

Tikhomirov A¹*

1. UNDESA, New York, USA

Globalization and transition to a market economy in the Commonwealth of Independent States have led to a significant change of the role of government. The evolving role of newly established private and civil society sectors in decision making and development process shapes a new role of the government that relies less on state intervention and more on market forces brought about by deregulation, decentralization, liberalization and privatization. Resulting from this is engaged governance that is increasingly encouraging the inter-organizational networks of state and non-state sectors jointly involving in public policy processes in the above mentioned countries.

The purpose of the engaged governance arrangements is to mainstream non-state actors’ inputs into the formulation, implementation and monitoring of public programs and policies. In this paper the major framework for engaged governance is analyzed from the viewpoint of two aspects: institutional and technological. While the former reflect generally interaction of three major sectors/actors: state, market and civil society, the latter seek to decompose public policy- and decision-making process into three broad stages, namely (i) exposure of the problem, (ii) working out of the program and (iii) implementation of the program, that the non-state sector is supposed to engage in.

The paper concluded that the mechanism of EG in these countries is still in the process of formation. The level of development of EG is predicated by varying quality of many factors including market oriented reforms and exposure to global economy. It is noted that efforts to enhance political, economic and social governance may be strengthened through incorporation and operationalization of the concept of EG. A number of actions are deemed important to that effect. Among them are reconceptualizing EG, improvement of the legal and regulatory framework, strengthening and capacity building of CSOs/NGOs, etc.

Click here to view the full paper