Governance - Study Guide
What this domain tests
Governance is about how public power is exercised: legitimacy, accountability, rule of law, participation, transparency, responsiveness, equity and effectiveness. Questions ask you to distinguish governance from government, identify Nepal's oversight institutions and apply good-governance principles to federal and local service delivery.
Core rules and concepts
- Government is the set of institutions; governance is the wider process involving the state, private sector and civil society.
- Good governance principles: participation, rule of law, transparency, responsiveness, consensus orientation, equity and inclusiveness, effectiveness and efficiency, and accountability.
- Accountability runs in three directions: upward to superiors and Parliament, outward to citizens, and inward to rules and subordinates.
- Nepal's accountability architecture includes Parliament and its committees, the CIAA, the Office of the Auditor General, the Public Service Commission, the NHRC, the Election Commission and local assemblies.
- Federal governance: Schedules 5–9 of the Constitution distribute powers; the Local Government Operation Act 2074 gives local governments planning, budgeting and service-delivery roles.
Worked example
A ward office publishes its budget but holds no public hearing and ignores citizen complaints. Which governance principles are weak? Publishing the budget partly meets transparency, but participation and responsiveness fail because there is no hearing or complaint handling. Accountability also fails because citizens receive no answer. A strong answer names the missing principles and the mechanism-public hearing, social audit, complaint register-rather than simply saying 'corruption'.
Traps that cost marks
- Treating transparency as the whole of good governance.
- Confusing decentralisation with deconcentration.
- Listing institutions without their constitutional or statutory basis.
- Describing federalism only as 'division of powers' without naming the schedules and local government law.