“Quality of Government: What it is? What you get? How to get it?” public lecture by Bo Rothstein

The Doctoral School of Political Science, Public Policy, and International Relations
cordially invites you to a public lecture of the
8th Annual Doctoral Conference

 

by

 

 

Introduction by Achim Kemmerling, Director of Doctoral School in Political Science, Public Policy and International Relations

 

 

In development policy, international organizations have shifted their focus to the importance of good governance and sound institutions. The theory behind this is that only with a high quality of government (QoG) can a country reap the benefits of economic growth and social development. We review the research behind this policy shift and offer a first benchmark statistical analysis. The first section contains a review of the conceptual discussion of what QoG means. Second, we present four salient approaches pertaining to the outcomes of QoG: the debates concerning QoG and democracy, economic growth, corruption, and the rule of law. The third section uses insights gained from these debates to focus on the policy outcomes of QoG—its effects on social well-being, public health, and environmental sustainability. We conclude by discussing possible pitfalls in future research on QoG and development.

 

Bo Rothstein holds the August Röhss Chair in Political Science at University which was established in 1901 by a donation from the Röhss family to the University of Gothenburg. He took is Ph.D. in Political Science at Lund University in 1986 and was from 1986 and until 1993 assistant and (in 1992) associate professor (docent) at the Department of Government at Uppsala University. In 1993 he became Professor at the Swedish Institute for Working Life Research in Stockholm and took up his current position in 1994. He has been a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation, Cornell University, Harvard University, Collegium Budapest Institute for Advanced Study, University of Bergen, Aalborg University, the Swedish Centre for Advanced Study, the Australian National University and the University of Washington in Seattle. In 2006 he served as Visiting Professor at the Department of Government at Harvard University. Rothstein is currently head of the Quality of Government Institute at the department. In 2003, the Swedish Science Council selected him to a six year term as leading scholar. In 2009, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation awarded him a five year grant as the sole social scientist in their new Wallenberg Scholars program that intends to support leading scholars in Sweden. Among his main publications in English are Just Institutions Matter: The Moral and Political Logic of the Universal Welfare and Social Traps and the Problem of Trust, both with Cambridge University Press. His latest books are The Quality of Government: Corruption, Inequality and Social Trust  (University of Chicago Press 2011) and Good Government: Relevance of Political Science (Edward Elgar in 2012). In press is Quality of Government and Corruption from a European Perspective (Edward Elgar 2013).