Ungovernability: Is There Fire behind the Smoke?

Abstract

Ungovernability is a catchword of the moment, but analytically the term is a nonsense. A modern Western society can no more do without political authority than it could do without money. This paper defines the supposed threat to governability as the prospect of a fully legitimate government losing its effectiveness, losing popular consent, or both. One threat to effectiveness is an imbalance of resources, with the fiscal dividend of growth failing to keep up with the inertia growth in the costs of public policy. Another is an accumulation of government organizations, losing efficiency by increasing costs of co-ordination and losing effectiveness by adopting contradictory objectives or ends without known means. Authority is only seriously jeopardized by citizens growing increasingly indifferent to an ineffectual government, turning their backs on government and relying upon other major institutions of society to provide for their needs.