Governance is always a tricky issue. It is often a trade-off between what a person in control wants to be done and what a person/institution on which that control is supposed to be exercised ,will allow to be done without demure. Indeed the recipient of the regulatory order may protest but the inevitable question arises, can he get away with it? If he can the entire edifice of governance is threatened.
Hence the basic question remains; what if one does not comply? Thus it is that governance requires the capacity to enforce. This itself can be a tricky question because it raises issues of the legitimacy of the seat of governance. Governance has the prerequisite of an acceptable and identifiable legal structure.
Consider the case of current ‘ruling set up’ in Afghanistan. It wrested power from the preceding Ashraf Ghani government, figuratively, at the ‘point of a bayonet’. There was no ‘transfer of power’. The current ‘ruling’ set up has not yet been formally recognised by any international agency. Even the two or three nations who are reported to be broadly sympathetic have not offered to recognise the ‘government in control’ in a formal manner. Within the territory of Afghanistan, because of the militia, the writ of the ruling segment of the people who run the ruling set up, holds. This itself simplifies the issue from its inherent complexity. The inherent complexity is that even within the factions of the gun totting regime in armorial control of Afghanistan, the equations are not settled. There are challenges and counter challenges. Only time or a change in armorial balance could settle the issue. Till then the situation has its own complexities. Externally there are problems of channelising aid to Afghanistan and unfreezing its financial holdings in other countries.
It wrested power from the preceding Ashraf Ghani government, figuratively, at the point of a bayonet.
To put it simply, governance requires the acceptance of the legitimacy of those who seek to govern. Any doubt there has its own reverberations. The example of Afghanistan, based on media reports is merely an illustration. Ultimately the point to be made is that governance requires the acceptability and legitimacy of those who frame the regulations. One has the example of United States hunting Osama bin Laden deep in the territories of Pakistan and getting away with it. There was no ‘debate’ on the legitimacy of this action.
The message is simple, if one has the power one gets away with it. If one does not, many types of questions can be raised. The fuzziness of the situation is the complexity of jurisdiction and the enforceability of a decision. The light and shade character is obvious of the scene.
