Governance in the EU member states : evidence from three global indicators

This paper assesses governance in twenty-eight EU Member States (EUMS) by comparing these states among themselves and with the rest of the world, utilising three indicators relating to political, economic and social governance. The main contributions of this paper on the issue of governance are three. First the paper includes economic and social governance in the meaning of the term “governance”. Studies on governance generally use indicators associated with politics and public administration. Secondly, it attempts to place the governance scores of the EU Member states, as a block, in an international context. Thirdly, the study tries to explain why GDP growth and governance indicators are often found to be negatively correlated. Keywords: Governance, European Union, Economic Growth, Corruption, Institutions