| Chapter 1: | Jamaican Governance and Citizen Politics in Context |
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social science scholars are obliged to take a more comprehensive view of the concept, including its potentially uncivil aspects. This conceptual stance is important because it not only exposes the real nature of civil society but provides a good yardstick by which to assess its usefulness in society. This is even more important today, especially as the normative requirements of good governance increasingly collide with the complexities of governance in real-world contexts such as Jamaica. It is often the absence of good governance which leads citizens to angrily contest their government. But what does this concept mean within the context of the overall discussion in this book? I look at the basic theoretical parameters of governance and governmentality in the following section.
Governance and Governmentality: Some Considerations
Discussions of governance often take as their point of reference an assessment of the failure or success of contemporary governments of states (developed and developing) to meet the fundamental expectations of their citizens (United Nations Development Programme, 1997). Conceptually, the notion is akin to the Foucauldian notion of pastoral power which “links the individual to the state through an obligation to preserve the well-being of the citizen and attend to the needs of the population, in order to, in turn, assure a strong state” (Packer, 2003, p. 136). Embedded in expectations of governance for poor and marginalized citizens in many countries2 is the fulfillment of immediate survival needs—water, food, health, housing, employment, education, and (good) roads. In other words, citizens expect the state to be the provider of economic security and ensure that all citizens have access to regular, reliable, and efficient basic services. There is also an expectation that the state guarantees appropriate legal protections, respects human rights by allowing civil freedoms, and demonstrates the capacity to resolve conflicts without force or violence. Citizens also count on the state to guarantee political stability, eliminate corruption, ensure accountability