Book Review: The Quality of Government: Corruption, Social Trust and Inequality in International Perspective
| Published date | 01 September 2013 |
| DOI | 10.1177/138826271301500305 |
| Date | 01 September 2013 |
| Author | Michael Adler |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
312 Intersentia
BOOK REVIEWS
Bo Rothstein, e Quality of Government: Corru ption, Social Trust and
Inequality in International Perspective, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Pre ss,
2011, xviii + 285 pp., ISBN 978–0–226 –72956–5 (hardcover), 978–0–226–72957–2
(paperba ck).
Bo Rothstein is a very distinguished political scientist who holds the August Röhss
Chair in Political Science at University of Gothenburg in Sweden where he heads
the Quality of Government (QoG) Institute, a large group of researchers who study
the importance of trustworthy, reliable, competent and non-corrupt government
institutions.
In his latest book, Rothstein argues that democracy, which concerns access to
public power and authority, is not synonymous w ith ‘good government’, which refers
to how governments use their politica l power and authority. us, as he shows in his
nal c hapter, which compares Jamaica and Singapore, democratic politica l orders can
produce bad government and economic stagnation while non-democratic political
orders can produce good government and spectacular economic growth. It follows
that representative democracy is not a neces sary condition for QoG.
Rothstein de nes quality of governa nce (QoG) in procedural rather than
substantive terms. us, for him, QoG concerns the way i n which policies are delivered
rather than features of the policies t hemselves and is best understood in terms of the
principle of impartia lity. According to Rothstein, QoG − de ned as impart iality − is
a better predictor of the t hings that people really ca re about, i.e. economic prosperit y,
quality of life and adherence to the rule of law than any of the measures used by
organisations like t he IMF and the World Bank that seek to promote economic and
social development. Ensuring that institutions implement laws and policies fairly,
and deal with citizens impartially, should therefore be given priority over ensuring
that public policies promote e ciency or e ectiveness. He also argues that endemic
corruption, associated w ith low QoG, cannot be eliminated by incremental means
because the successful elimination of corruption demands a radical cha nge in the
political culture towards one in which people can t rust the government to behave
impartially.
Two chapters, chapter 6 on ‘Quality of Government and the Welfare State’ and
chapter 7 on ‘ e Low Trust − Corruption − Inequality Trap’ will be of par ticular
interest to readers of this journa l.In Chapter 6, Rothstein argues t hat, although the
power resource theory (PRT), which holds that the ex tent of political mobilisation
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