Responsible Citizenship for Good Governance

A few weeks ago while visiting my home country (in Latin America), I stumbled over a journal devoted to study the fact that my country was ungovernable. I wondered, what did these pundits mean by describing page after page, the lack of governance in our country? Using words like inequity, ineffective, non-transparent and non-participative to qualify the government’s work, they described a country bared in chaos and unable to see light at the end of the darkest tunnel.

So I started questioning the purpose of this journal, because other than plain cynicism, I just could not see anything else offered for my gain. I saw a myriad of reasons to justify serious depression or defeatism, with nothing proposed, and no hope. Being the relentless person that I am and refusing to accept such pity, I drew some conclusions that I share here:

Government is not governance.

We all see our governments as the structure responsible for constructing and enforcing the law in our territory, where the final purpose is to serve society in achieving its satisfaction of needs and procure its well being. But that does not mean the government is the only actor, no matter how much power it holds, it cannot control, serve or modify its society if society does not want to play along. After all, to govern is mainly to strongly influence on the behavior of the majority.

Assuming we live in a democratic state, the government was produced by our society to lead, to manage, and to plan for its citizens, not to do their work. If we see society not as a whole group of individuals, but a conglomerate of interrelated groups, we will discover the true wavers of the social threads that create our governance. Non-profit organizations, foundations, advocacy groups, professional groups, unions, churches, independent press, leagues, clubs, community associations, and other groups mobilize citizens to voice their opinions and act their civic duties, forming the scaffold of governance.

Governance is a process.