Актуальные проблемы Европы №2 / 2014

Accordingly, the European Commission formulated a new «European Neighbourhood Policy» (ENP) that «aims to create a «ring of friends» around the EU by actively promoting democratic political and legal reform and economic liberalization in sixteen European and Mediterranean countries» (2). Although the ENP’s sixteen «ring of friends» included the non-Mediterranean nations of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Jordan, Moldova, Palestinian Territories (Gaza on the Mediterranean but a special case), and Ukraine, they are not included in this study, which is limited to the diverse twenty-two Mediterranean countries. According to a «2008 GO-EuroMed report», «The region remains differentiated in terms of political governance, mainly in terms of differing ideologies and the establishment of autocratic, authoritarian, and totalitarian regimes. Obstacles to building confidence are more political than cultural, as conflicts are aggravated by a lack of trust among Arab leaders rather than the general population in the “Arab street”» (6, p. 38).

Governance in Mediterranean Countries

Various GO-EuroMed documents stress the importance of «governance» in Mediterranean countries, especially those not in the EU, usually without defining what «governance» means. Russian scholar Mikhail Ilyin finds that it is not a clear and coherent concept, saying that «A host of fuzzy meanings have resulted in an undifferentiated semantical overlap. <…> The term, nowadays, may be seen to encapsulate a variety of modes of coordinating individual action, or basic forms of social order (7, p. 4). For example, a report of the «Institut de la M'editerran'ee» (Mediterranean Institute) said: «Governance can be defined as coordination between government, local and regional authorities, multilateral organizations but also private actors, companies and NGOs, coordination that results in public policies, decisions and projects» (10, p. 11).

Unfortunately, this definition is not very useful. By equating governance with «coordination», one is led to think, «the better the coordination, the better the governance». By definition, that would be true, regardless of how well the policies, decisions, and projects benefited the people being governed. Moreover, it is not at all clear how one can measure «coordination between government, local and regional authorities» and the other sets of actors.

Instead, I define country governance as the extent to which a state delivers to its citizens the desired benefits of government at acceptable costs (9, p. 3–18). By defining governance in terms of benefits to citizens rather than coordination among units, we can assess the quality of governance by using standard measures, such as the World Bank’s six Worldwide Governance Indicators:

1. Rule of Law (RL) – capturing perceptions of the extent to which agents have confidence in and abide by the rules of society, and in particular the quality of contract enforcement, property rights, the police, and the courts, as well as the likelihood of crime and violence;

2. Voice and Accountability (VA) – capturing perceptions of the extent to which a country's citizens are able to participate in selecting their government, as well as freedom of expression, freedom of association, and a free media;

3. Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism (PV) – capturing perceptions of the likelihood that the government will be destabilized or overthrown by unconstitutional or violent means, including politically-motivated violence and terrorism;

4. Government Effectiveness (GE) – capturing perceptions of the quality of public services, the quality of the civil service and the degree of its independence from political pressures, the quality of policy formulation and implementation, and the credibility of the government's commitment to such policies;

5. Regulatory Quality (RQ) – capturing perceptions of the ability of the government to formulate and implement sound policies and regulations that permit and promote private sector development;

6. Control of Corruption (CC) – capturing perceptions of the extent to which public power is exercised for private gain, including both petty and grand forms of corruption, as well as «capture» of the state by elites and private interests (10).

All of these indicators are important, but the first, the Rule of Law, is especially important. One scholar writing on the «Euro-Mediterranean partnership» wrote: «At the macro level, donor agencies have increasingly realized that programmes promoting good governance and the rule of law are vital in creating the type of environment in which the benefits of social programmes can reach the most vulnerable» (4, p. 348).

He quotes a United Nations publication that said: «Development is unsustainable where the rule of law and equity do not exist» (8, p. 6).