Governance and well-being

People expect public institutions to create the conditions for them to thrive and prosper, to be responsive to their needs, to support them in exceptional circumstances, and to perform their functions efficiently. This chapter explores the role of governance in shaping people’s well-being, with a focus on how people experience and engage with public institutions at the national level. While governance remains a complex multidimensional concept lacking a standardised definition, key components required for “good governance” and their relation to well-being have been identified in the literature. For each of these components, an analysis is made of the often-limited comparative evidence, which comes mainly from non-official household surveys. The evidence shown in this chapter suggests, amongst other things, that beyond voting other forms of political participation are weak that only one in three adults believes they have a say in what government does and that people tend to be dissatisfied with government efforts to reduce inequalities. Finally, the main steps to be implemented in order to improve the measurement of governance are discussed.