The Political Economy of Governance Measurement: a database on providers, funders, and quality characteristics of governance measures.

Among the many tools of global governance, measuring governance performance and quality has become an important instrument of development agendas (given that ‘good’ governance has become a development goal (SDG 16) in itself) and of international politics (where governance measures are seen as a means of political pressure on states’ behaviour and as a scrutiny tool for international organisations). This increased relevance of governance for the development agendas of international organisations and states however requires an assessment of how governance is exactly measured. TRIGGER takes up previous research of consortium members and continues contributing to this reflection by analysing diverse governance measures that are used as instruments of global governance.

The dataset brings together comparative data on a set of relevant characteristics of governance performance measures. It aims to represent a valid overview of existing measures of both state and international organisational performance and hence includes a variety of measures that are broadly considered governance measures, even if they capture different aspects and dimensions of governance and are used by different entities.