About
Governance Innovation Labs delves into strategies, implementation roadmaps, and the critical importance of a robust opposition in ensuring accountability, transparency, and effective governance. Strengthening the opposition ensures accountability, represents diverse ideologies, and encourages better governance by scrutinizing government actions and policies. It fosters transparency and responsiveness, compelling the ruling party to address shortcomings and improve their performance. We bring together various instruments to empower the opposition to enhance the democratic processes and ensure that governance remains effective and inclusive.
How Strengthening the Opposition will improve Democracy
~A research project by Governance Innovation Labs
A strong opposition is an integral part for the smooth functioning of a democracy. It ensures accountability, represents diverse ideologies and encourages better governance. Strengthening the opposition does not only enhance the democratic process but also ensures that it remains responsive, transparent and effective in serving the needs and interests of all citizens.
1. Chronological Listing:
- Establish a systematic process for the daily tracking of allegations against the government. There should be a public platform with easy access to all, where the short fallings of the government are chronologically listed. This should include data collection from credible sources such as news reports, official statements, and public complaints.
- Regular upgradation of the curated list is required with the most pressing issues. This list should be also categorized and organized to highlight recurring problems and emerging trends.
- The government should be required to provide detailed action plans and timelines for addressing issues, and should be held accountable for meeting their commitments. They should be answerable to things like where they failed, and what they are going to implement to see no such things happen in future.
Best Practices:
- UPENN, has a comprehensive chronological list of major public apologies and issues related to it.
2. Weighted Listing:
- Develop a method to rank issues based on their impact. Assign weights to government mistakes and shortcomings, allowing for a more nuanced understanding of their significance. This can help prioritize which issues to address first.
- Factors to consider include the severity of the problem, the number of people affected and the potential long term consequences
- Assess government performance and weigh them based on how effectively the issue is identified, this includes tracking the implementation and impact of their actions. The performance evaluations reflect ongoing developments and responses. There should be regular updates on the time in which they respond. This ensures that evaluations remain relevant and accurate.
3. Compartmentalized Opposition:
- Organizing the opposition’s efforts by categorizing and focusing on specific sectors or government departments. This can be done by curating a list of allegations based on each sector. The opposition can thus scrutinize based on sectors such as health, education, infrastructure, defense etc.
- Creating chronological and weighted lists according to departments
Chronological List: Keeps track of issues and allegations in the order of their occurrence, categorized department wise.
Weighted List: Assigns importance to issues based on their impact, severity and public concern for each department.
- This allows different opposition members to focus on each department and improve the quality and depth of critiques. This type of targeted criticism enables a more precise and effective way of focusing on specific government departments and their policies.
4. Technocratic Opposition:
- A political entity ruled by experts — or technocrats — who are selected specifically for their expertise in the area over which they are delegated authority to govern, is known as technocracy.
- Employing subject matter experts as a form of parallel government in fields of economics, healthcare, education, and infrastructure to analyze government schemes. The experts can use their knowledge to identify flaws, inefficiencies, and areas for improvements in government policies.
- Based on their analysis, technocrats can propose well researched and cost cutting techniques to strengthen these policies. This increases the credibility of the opposition’s critiques and focuses on positive solution oriented outcomes instead of mere criticism.
Best Practices:
- The former government of the Soviet Union has often been referred to as a technocracy. Many leaders like Leonid Brezhnev, often had a technical background. In 1986, 89% of Politburo members were engineers.
- Leaders of the Chinese Communist Party is often cited as an example of a technocracy, as it has appointed many leaders with technical knowledge and expertise.
- Singapore is also considered having a technocratic style of governance.
5. Shadow Cabinet by Opposition:
- The Shadow Cabinet consists of shadow ministers who generally take roles that mirror and scrutinize the current government, and develop policies for the party. They are prepared to take up the responsibility of forming a government if the present government resigns or is defeated. This allows for a structured critique and alternative policy development.
- They should highlight inefficiencies and propose cost effective alternatives. The opposition should advocate for reducing unnecessary expenses while maintaining service ensuring that proposals are practical , well searched and feasible.
- Before advocating for large scale changes, they should test alternative policies on a smaller scale, this allows for adjustments based results.
- Conduct thorough analysis to identify potential drawbacks in existing and proposed policies.
Best Practices:
- In the UK, the shadow front bench decides if amendments are required to a legislation brought in by the treasury benches. Currently, Leader of the Labour Party Keir Starmer is leading the ‘shadow front bench’. The Labour Party is the main Opposition party in the UK House of Commons. Similar concepts exist in Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand and South Africa, among others, in some form.
- In India, there have been experiments with the running of shadow cabinets. However, these have happened only at the state level.
- In 2005, a shadow cabinet was formed by the opposition BJP in Maharashtra to counter the then chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh-led Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) government.
- The Congress had also formed a shadow cabinet in Madhya Pradesh in 2014 to counter the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led government.
- In 2015, a shadow cabinet was formed in the coastal state of Goa. However, it was not formed by the opposition, but by a NGO called Gen Next.
- The most recent example came from Kerala where a shadow cabinet was formed in April 2018 by social activists, and not members of the Opposition, to analyze policies of the Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) government.
- In the Lok Sabha Elections of 2024, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) secured a combined vote share of 42.5%. The combined vote share of the INDIA alliance was close behind, at 40.6%, just 2% lower than that of the NDA. While India might not have an official shadow government at a national level, this election results could pave the way for assembling an official shadow cabinet, with designated shadow ministers.
REFERENCES
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/shadow-cabinet
https://www.newsreel.asia/articles/the-case-for-an-unofficial-shadow-government-in-india
https://www.upenn.edu/static/pnc/politicalapologies.html
Roadmap for Strengthening the Opposition
~ A research project by Governance Innovation Labs
1. CROWDSOURCING — ONLINE AND OFFLINE:
Crowdsourcing is the process of gathering data by collecting feedback from a large number of individuals. This method employed by the opposition can help better leverage the knowledge and experience of the constituency. A wider audience can be reached by using an online crowdsourcing site, but there won’t be much chance to get customized comments. Again, using an offline crowdsourcing technique enables more personalized perspectives.
Online Platforms
- Creation of local public forums or websites to create and manage a curated list of issues in daily government implementation.
- Creation of a weighted list where the most important issues are weighed the most, followed by others. The weightage can be based on how effectively the issue is identified and resolved by the government.
- Using social media platforms to gather data and verify accordingly.
- Websites and apps for public engagement to bring out local issues that fail to reach mainstream media.
- Establishing portals for crowdsourcing political ideas and opposition strategies.
- Political and economic experts can come together to break down policies and simplify it in layman language to increase transparency.
- Online surveys and feedbacks on specific bills passed by the current government
- Media outlets should ensure reporting balanced and impartial government policies and their effects on the public.
Offline Methods:
- Organization of community meetings and town hall sessions
- Communicate with the public and collect their feedback through personal interaction to get more personalized views
- Distributing flyers, and pamphlets to spread information and gather input on government policies
- Hosting several workshops and conferences in local areas to spread awareness. This can be done by partnering with NGOs to reach a broader crowd
- Conduct rallies, and protests to make the government aware of the claims of the opposition
2. SHADOW CABINET FOR OPPOSITION:
The opposition should assemble a diverse team of ministers to mirror the position of power in the current government. As the political representation is divided into local, state and national levels, so the opposition should ensure to establish representation at each level. The different levels of government are:
Local Level Representation
- Panchayati Raj Institutions: The Panchayats are a system of rural local self government. It consists of:
Gram Panchayat (Village Level): elected by members of Gram Sabha which consists of all the eligible voters in the village
Panchayat Samiti (Block Level): Comprises representatives from the Gram Panchayats
Zila Parishad (District Level): Elected members from the Panchayat
- Municipalities: Urban local government consists of municipalities. Councilors are directly elected by the citizens
State Level Representation
- Vidhan Sabha (State Legislative Assemblies): MLA or the Members of the Legislative Assembly, are directly elected by the voters in their respective constituency
- Vidhan Parishad (State Legislative Councils): Members of the Legislative Council or MLCs, are elected by various constituencies or nominated by the Governor.
National Level Representation
- Lok Sabha (House of the People): Members of Parliament or MPs in Lok Sabha are directly elected by the citizens of their respective constituencies across India
- Rajya Sabha (Council of States): Members of Rajya Sabha are elected by the elected members of the State Legislative Assemblies, using a single transferable vote system.
REFERENCES:
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/what-are-the-three-levels-of-governance-in-india
https://www.indembassysweden.gov.in/page/political-structure
https://www.govocal.com/blog/why-citizen-participation-is-key-for-policymakers
https://medium.com/@RossAlTejada/crowdsourcing-in-the-offline-world-e3c736be451
Academic Papers on Strengthening of the Opposition
~ A research project by Governance Innovation Labs
1. The Opposition: Problems and Prospects — Ram Joshi and Kirti — 1973
- The paper discusses the development of an effective and meaningful opposition which is crucial for restoring competitiveness to the polity, development of sound programmatic and organizational strategies.
- According to the paper, fragmented opposition leads to instability with periods of Congress dominance interrupted by instability and eventual restoration of dominance. This pattern can result in periodic uncertainty and exacerbate legitimacy issues as large sections of the electorate feel alienated due to their peripheral role in governance
- They observed that effective opposition requires far sighted leadership and rigorous political analysis. Opposition parties in India have historically neglected theoretical analysis and conceptual frameworks which are essential for their development
- Opposition parties must maintain continuous contact with the people not just during election times. Sustained work among the populace is necessary to give strength and vitality to a party.
- The strategies mentioned for opposition growth is:
Opposition pirates need to acquire a wider political entity for proper role and efficacy.
They must avoid old and outdated modes of thinking and strive for bold and brave actions.
2. Democracy and the Opposition in India — Rakhahari Chatterji — 1988
- The article suggests the importance of a strong opposition for maintaining a balance of power within a democracy. The ruling party, if left unchecked may develop a vested interest in denying the opposition institutional representation which can be dangerous for the democratic system
- India’s political landscape is characterized by a municipality of identities and interest making a two-party system unfeasible. Therefore, a strong, diverse opposition is necessary to represent the various segments of society politically
- Strengthening the opposition at the state level is essential for promoting federalism and decentralization. This can be achieved by permitting free play of political and electoral processes in the states , which will help in sharing power and reducing centralization
- The opposition in India, although strong, is often not institutionally represented at the national level. This lack of representation is partly due to electoral system and the municipality of opposition patties,
- The article references the ‘Congress System’ under Nehru, which functioned well due to a consensus based approach. However, this broke down when Indira Gandhi adopted a majoritarian principle. This shift highlighted the need for a consensus approach to include opposition to maintain stability
3. ‘Political Opposition’: Towards a Renewed Research Agenda — Nathalie Brack — 2011
- The paper offers a new definition of political opposition: “a disagreement with the government or its policies, the political elite, or the political regime as a whole, expressed in the public sphere by an organized actor through different modes of action”
- This definition is inclusive and focuses on the position towards the government rather than functions, targets, or objectives. This broader perspective allows for a more comprehensive understanding of opposition activities and actors
- The author proposes a new research agenda to address previous limitations including:
Bridging the gap between studies of anti-system and “normal” oppositions
Expanding the view on opposition action repertoires and modalities
Moving beyond the sole focus on the parliament as the site of opposition
- The paper advocates for a dynamic analysis of opposition, considering the effects of labeling processes and the roles of various actors, including those outside the parliamentary context
- Emphasizes the existence of multiple oppositions in lobbies, and civil society not just within the parliamentary framework.
- Addresses the crisis of representation, acknowledging the political actors are not the sole legitimate representatives of opposition, and highlighting the role of organized civil society
- Highlights the impact of multi-level governance, regionalization and nationalization on the dynamics between government and opposition
The Role of Opposition in a Democracy: A Bibliometric Analysis — Abhinav Shrivastava and Richa Dwivedi — 2021
- The article emphasizes that “Freedom dies when criticism ends” highlighting the critical role of opposition in maintaining liberty within a democracy.
- Opposition plays a vital role to maintain accountability of the government as they prevent the ruling party from overstepping it’s boundaries
- An effective opposition acts as a restraint on the government checking arbitrary tendencies and posing a constant challenge by offering practical alternatives
- The article points out the failure of single-party regimes underscoring the necessity of a strong opposition to avoid such failures.
- This noted lack of research specifically focused on the role and strength of the opposition which needs to be addressed to improve democracy
- Need for strong opposition is essential for building a truly democratic society enhancing the quality of democracy. It provides maximum representation to electorates in govt decision making process
- More systematic and well funded research is needed to understand the opposition’s role better this includes broadening the geographical scope of such studies
- With authoritarian regimes worldwide, strengthening the opposition becomes more critical; to uphold the spirit of democracy
Government dominance and the role of opposition in parliamentary democracies — Thomas Konig, Nick Lin and Thiago N. Silva — 2023
- The study examines how government parties dominate legislative processes in parliamentary democracies. It highlights the high success rates of government bills compared to opposition bills, with government bills having passage rates ranging from 71.2% in Portugal to 95.6% in the UK, while opposition bills have significantly lower passage rates, sometimes as low as 0.6% in Germany.
- The paper investigates the influence of opposition parties in legislative processes. It discusses how opposition parties may support amendments to government bills to promote their electoral profiles and how the effectiveness of opposition amendments is limited by the institutional strength of the parliament
- The study focuses on the role of committee chairs, particularly those from opposition or coalition partner parties in reviewing government bills, it suggests that committee chairs can influence legislative outcomes by setting agendas and leading committee deliberations. The likelihood of opposition support for committee chairs is higher when there is lower policy disagreement between the chairing party and opposition parties.
- The paper delves into internal dynamics of coalition government, discussing how coalition partners may challenge govt bills and the costs associated with these challenges. It also examines how coalition partners influence legislative outcomes by negotiating compromises between radical and moderate bills
Best Practices to Strengthen the Opposition
~ A research project by Governance Innovation Labs
1. Chronological Listing: A comprehensive A-Z list of issues or allegations against the government. This should be regularly updated and maintained.
- UPENN, has a comprehensive chronological list of major public apologies and issues related to it.
- ProPublica, maintains comprehensive and updated databases of various government issues and misconduct in the United States. Their ‘Trump Town’ project tracked appointees and their conflicts of interest in the Trump administration.
- Human Rights Watch regularly updates its reports on human rights issues in various countries, providing detailed chronological information.
Various online media platforms like The Wire, The Guardian, and HowStuffWorks have come up with lists of allegations against the government. But there is no organized online platform with a comprehensive list listing everything with date and effect.
2. Weighted Listing: The issues of the government are ranked according to the importance of weightage given based on the impact of the policy, response of the government and steps taken to counter it in future.
- Transparency International, publishes the Corruption Perceptions Index, which ranks countries by their perceived levels of corruption using a weighted system.
- The World Bank uses a weighted system to assess and rank the different countries, considering multiple factors using World Development Indicators.
- Freedom House, publishes annual reports on global freedom, including detailed country reports that are weighed based on political rights and civil liberties
3. Compartmentalized Opposition: The opposition should curate a list of allegations based on each sector. (which is in both chronological and weighted list)
- The UK Labour Party maintains detailed reports on various sectors like the NHS (National Health Services), education, and housing, highlighting issues and allegations against the ruling Conservative Party.
- The Indian National Congress (INC) maintains sector-specific reports and allegations against the ruling government, though there is room for more systematic chronological and weighted listing
- Similarly, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is known for highlighting specific issues in sectors such as education and healthcare in Delhi
4. Technocratic Opposition: Employing subject matter experts as a form of parallel government in fields of economics, healthcare, education, and infrastructure to analyze government schemes.
- The former government of the Soviet Union has often been referred to as a technocracy. Many leaders like Leonid Brezhnev, often had a technical background. In 1986, 89% of Politburo members were engineers.
- Leaders of the Chinese Communist Party is often cited as an example of a technocracy, as it has appointed many leaders with technical knowledge and expertise.
- Singapore is also considered having a technocratic style of governance.
5. Shadow Cabinet by Opposition: The Shadow Cabinet consists of shadow ministers who generally take roles that mirror and scrutinize the current government, and develop policies for the party
- In the UK, the shadow front bench decides if amendments are required to a legislation brought in by the treasury benches. Currently, Leader of the Labour Party Keir Starmer is leading the ‘shadow front bench’. The Labour Party is the main Opposition party in the UK House of Commons. Similar concepts exist in Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand and South Africa, among others, in some form.
- In India, there have been experiments with the running of shadow cabinets. However, these have happened only at the state level.
- In 2005, a shadow cabinet was formed by the opposition BJP in Maharashtra to counter the then chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh-led Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) government.
- The Congress had also formed a shadow cabinet in Madhya Pradesh in 2014 to counter the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led government.
- In 2015, a shadow cabinet was formed in the coastal state of Goa. However, it was not formed by the opposition, but by a NGO called Gen Next.
- The most recent example came from Kerala where a shadow cabinet was formed in April 2018 by social activists, and not members of the Opposition, to analyze policies of the Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) government.
- In the Lok Sabha Elections of 2024, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) secured a combined vote share of 42.5%. The combined vote share of the INDIA alliance was close behind, at 40.6%, just 2% lower than that of the NDA. While India might not have an official shadow government at a national level, this election results could pave the way for assembling an official shadow cabinet, with designated shadow ministers.
REFERENCES
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/shadow-cabinet
https://www.newsreel.asia/articles/the-case-for-an-unofficial-shadow-government-in-india
https://www.upenn.edu/static/pnc/politicalapologies.html
GILabs Policy Note: Strengthening the Opposition
~ A research project by Governance Innovation Labs
OVERVIEW:
An effective opposition is crucial for a vibrant democracy, holding the government accountable and providing alternative policies. Enhancing the opposition will not only improve the democratic process but also ensure it remains responsive, transparent, and effective in serving the needs and interests of all citizens. This Post Note, by Governance Innovation Labs, explores the strategies to strengthen the opposition.
KEY POINTS:
1. Chronological Listing
- Create a public platform with easy access, listing chronologically government shortcomings
- Regularly update and categorize this list to highlight recurring problems and emerging trends.
- Hold the government accountable for addressing issues with detailed action plans and timelines.
2. Weighted Listing
- Rank the mistakes of the government by assigning weights to them based on impact
- Consider factors like severity, number of people affected and potential long-term consequences while assigning the weights
- Update performance evaluations to reflect ongoing developments and responses
3. Compartmentalized Opposition
- Organize opposition effects by categorizing and focusing on specific sectors or government departments.
- Create chronological and weighted lists for each sector, allowing targeted scrutiny
4. Technocratic Opposition
- Employ subject matter experts as a form of parallel government to analyze government schemes
- Experts can identify flaws in existing policies, and propose well-researched and cost effective alternative solutions.
5. Shadow Cabinet
- Assembling a shadow cabinet to mirror and scrutinize the current government
- Conduct thorough analyses to identify potential drawbacks in existing policies
- Highlight inefficiencies and propose efficient alternatives
BEST PRACTICES:
- University of Pennsylvania’s comprehensive list of major public apologies as a reference model
- Historical examples for technocratic governance include the Soviet Union, China, and Singapore.
- The UK’s shadow front bench is a prominent model, with similar concepts in Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand, and South Africa
RECOMMENDATIONS:
- Crowdsourcing: Utilize online and offline methods to gather public feedback, and engage citizens in political processes
- Community Engagement: Organize community meetings, distribute informational materials, and host workshops to increase public awareness and participation.
- Media and Public Relations: Ensure balanced and impartial reporting on government policies and their effects.
- Shadow Ministers: The opposition should ensure to establish representation at each level, i.e, local, state and national to mirror the position of power of the current government