Instead, I define country governance as the extent to which a state delivers to its citizens the desired benefits of government at acceptable costs (9, p. 3–18). By defining governance in terms of benefits to citizens rather than coordination among units, we can assess the quality of governance by using standard measures, such as the World Bank’s six Worldwide Governance Indicators:
1. Rule of Law (RL) – capturing perceptions of the extent to which agents have confidence in and abide by the rules of society, and in particular the quality of contract enforcement, property rights, the police, and the courts, as well as the likelihood of crime and violence;
2. Voice and Accountability (VA) – capturing perceptions of the extent to which a country's citizens are able to participate in selecting their government, as well as freedom of expression, freedom of association, and a free media;
3. Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism (PV) – capturing perceptions of the likelihood that the government will be destabilized or overthrown by unconstitutional or violent means, including politically‐motivated violence and terrorism;
4. Government Effectiveness (GE) – capturing perceptions of the quality of public services, the quality of the civil service and the degree of its independence from political pressures, the quality of policy formulation and implementation, and the credibility of the government's commitment to such policies;
5. Regulatory Quality (RQ) – capturing perceptions of the ability of the government to formulate and implement sound policies and regulations that permit and promote private sector development;
6. Control of Corruption (CC) – capturing perceptions of the extent to which public power is exercised for private gain, including both petty and grand forms of corruption, as well as «capture» of the state by elites and private interests (10).
All of these indicators are important, but the first, the Rule of Law, is especially important. One scholar writing on the «Euro-Mediterranean partnership» wrote: «At the macro level, donor agencies have increasingly realized that programmes promoting good governance and the rule of law are vital in creating the type of environment in which the benefits of social programmes can reach the most vulnerable» (4, p. 348).