By sharp contrast, other countries in the U.N. Security Council, which voted in favor of the resolution condemning the violence perpetuated by Syria’s government, perform distinctly better on both Voice & Accountability and Control of Corruption.

Worse—and another reason for why there should be no surprise at the stance taken by Russia and China—the countries’ performance on these important dimensions of governance is not only highly challenged but has deteriorated over the past decade. 

At a recent conference on Russia, I presented empirical evidence on the deteriorating governance situation in the country. One chart depicted Russia’s trend in several governance dimensions over the past decade such as Voice & Democratic Accountability, Political Stability & No Violence, and Control of Corruption and is summarized in Figure 2 below. The low and deteriorating level of governance by Russia’s government is not only evident from these indicators, but also from the actions of top political leaders, and in the reaction of its citizens in the form of mass demonstrations against Putin.



Such sharply contrasting performance on national-level indicators of governance and the disparate priorities across powerful countries provides a sobering perspective on the constraints faced by global governance institutions nowadays, particularly the U.N. and G-20.

The power of uncensored data and the voice of domestic and international non-governmental institutions should feature more prominently in an era where some powerful governments are not playing a constructive role in global governance. Nobody knows this better today, and feels the pain of such misgovernance more acutely, than the citizens of Homs.