Effective government matters, but what is it? Good governance indicators go some way to provide a definition, but how much do they say about what effectiveness is, why this is so, and how it matters to development? This article argues that much work on the good governance agenda suggests a...

Governance indicators have come under fire in recent years, especially the World Governance Indicators. Critics present these indicators as atheoretical and biased. Critics of the critics counter that no better alternatives exist. The authors suggest otherwise, arguing that more appropriate...