In one of her articles Grindle argues that the good governance agenda is unrealistically
long and growing longer over time. Among the multitude of governance reforms that “must be
done”, there is little guidance about what’s essential and what’s not, what should come first and
what should follow, what can be achieved in the short term and what can only be achieved over
the longer term, what is feasible and what is not. If more attention is given to sorting out these
questions, “good enough governance” may become a more realistic goal for many countries.
Good enough governance is seen as governance that scores high on those factors that do matter
for the reduction of societal problems, although it may fail on other indicators of good
governance which are less relevant in a specific situation.