INTRODUCTION

Governance is a concept rich with democratic potential, and it has become a ubiquitous part of the political, academic and other discourse since the early 1990s. Because of its inherent demand for power to be held accountable at every level, governance is potentially threatening to those with power, and to those who may wish to abuse power. In a country where the former president is (at the time of writing) facing over 780 counts of corruption, major parts of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) have fallen into a squabbling, thuggish entity feeding from the trough of public resources, and the country has witnessed a decade of ‘state capture’ engineered by willing buyers in the private and state-owned enterprise sector and willing sellers in the state, the need for governance is self-evident. All major domestic policy documents, such as the National Development Plan (NDP) (National Planning Commission 2011), speak to ‘good governance’, and the worse the situation becomes, the more governance is hailed by its enemies. Like virtue, governance is apparently most often observed in the breach of it.

THESIS

This chapter argues that power is the central concern of governance – power and the ability to hold it to account. Power may be located in government, or may have been delegated to its local agents – MPs or school principals or librarians – or it may be located within non-state actors (NSAs) or non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or markets or multilateral institutions or corporations, themselves with power and resources from multiple sources. Ranged ‘against’ (not automatically in opposition), these holders of power are those with what may be termed ‘legitimacy’, by representing the people, communities, groups and collectives most affected by the decisions taken by these various agencies. The tension between them – the struggle against impunity and for accountability – is where governance should be sought.

To mediate this possibly Manichean separation, it is worth noting that corrupt political factions – across the political spectrum – are actively involved in forming or supporting the creation of their own NGOs, foundations, and support groups of various types. No easy assumptions should be made that either side is automatically on the side of the angels or the devil.