Context:

India has proposed the creation of a new International Governance Index under its presidency of the International Institute of Administrative Sciences (IIAS), headquartered in Brussels. The proposal comes in the backdrop of India’s declining performance in various global governance and democracy indices and its long-standing concerns about their methodology, data sources, and transparency.

• • India assumed the presidency of the IIAS for the first time in June 2025, after winning a contested election against Austria. As it completed 100 days of its three-year term, the IIAS highlighted the progress made under India’s leadership, including steps taken toward developing an international governance index aimed at ensuring a fairer and more representative assessment of governance systems worldwide.

About the International Institute of Administrative Sciences (IIAS):

• • The International Institute of Administrative Sciences (IIAS) was established in 1930 and is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. It functions as an international non-profit organization dedicated to promoting research, dialogue, and training in public administration and governance.
    • IIAS currently has 31 member countries, including India, Japan, China, Germany, and Saudi Arabia.
    • While it is not a United Nations body, it collaborates closely with institutions such as the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
    • It serves as a global forum for the exchange of ideas among scholars, administrators, and policymakers on governance, ethics, and administrative reform.
  • India has been associated with the IIAS since 1998 through the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG). The presidency for the 2025–2028 term marks India’s first-ever leadership role in this body.
  • Under its presidency, India aims to promote the principle of “maximum governance, minimum government” and to foster greater cooperation between developed and developing nations on governance reforms.

India’s Proposal for an International Governance Index:

India has proposed the creation of a new International Governance Index (IGI) as part of the IIAS’s research and analytical agenda. The proposal seeks to develop a globally accepted framework for measuring governance performance using transparent, evidence-based, and context-sensitive methods.

In September 2025, discussions were held with the IIAS Research Advisory Committee on advancing this initiative. The deliberations focused on:

• • Strengthening IIAS’s scientific strategy by including the creation of an international governance index and trend analysis as a core research activity.
  • Collaborating with established international organizations such as the World Bank, OECD, and UN DESA to leverage existing work and avoid duplication.
  • Establishing a dedicated working group within IIAS to design and refine the index’s methodology.
  • Placing the proposal for discussion and approval at the IIAS Annual Conference in 2026.

The International Governance Index would combine both quantitative data and qualitative institutional assessments to create a comprehensive and balanced tool for evaluating governance globally.

Why the Proposal Matters for India?

India's proposal is a step towards balancing the unbalanced global governance rankings and promoting more objective, data-based evaluation systems.

Concerns with Existing Indices

• • The Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute has classified India as an “electoral autocracy” since 2017. In its 2025 report, India ranked 100 out of 179 on the Liberal Democracy Index (Denmark ranked first).
  • The Freedom in the World Index and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Democracy Index has also downgraded India’s scores in their latest editions.

India’s Response:

These rankings have been criticized for relying heavily on expert perceptions instead of measurable data.

A 2022 working paper by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC–PM) analysed the methodologies of these indices — including V-Dem, Freedom in the World, and EIU — and found that:

• • India’s rankings were often comparable to the Emergency era (1970s), which was misleading.
  • The indices lacked transparency and accountability, despite influencing global opinion and economic ratings.
  • The Council recommended encouraging Indian research institutions to develop comparable indices to challenge Western dominance in defining governance standards.

Concerns Regarding the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI):

India has also raised questions about the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) published by the World Bank, which cover over 200 economies. These indicators are widely used by international organizations and credit rating agencies to assess governance quality and economic risk.

The WGI evaluates governance performance on six parameters:

1.       Voice and Accountability

2.      Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism

3.      Government Effectiveness

4.     Regulatory Quality

5.     Rule of Law

6.     Control of Corruption

In the 2023 WGI report, India’s percentile ranks were:

• • Voice and Accountability – 51.47
  • Political Stability and Absence of Violence – 21.33
  • Government Effectiveness – 67.92
  • Regulatory Quality – 47.17
  • Rule of Law – 56.13
  • Control of Corruption – 41.51

(Note: Zero indicates the lowest and 100 the highest percentile rank.)

The Indian government has expressed concerns that many of these parameters are based on subjective expert assessments rather than ground-level data. It has argued that the organizations producing these indices often have limited local presence and may not fully understand national contexts.

Purpose and Relevance of Global Governance Indices:

Global governance indices aim to measure the quality of governance, democratic participation, and institutional performance across countries. Their objectives include:

• • Offering comparative benchmarks for policymakers.
  • Encouraging accountability and reform in public institutions.
  • Assisting investors and rating agencies in evaluating political and administrative stability.
  • Providing a basis for academic and policy research on global governance trends.

However, these indices face criticism for their methodological uniformity and Western-centric frameworks. Many developing countries argue that governance cannot be assessed through a single template, as social structures, developmental stages, and administrative traditions vary widely across regions.

Significance of India’s Initiative:

1.      Balancing Global Narratives

o    India’s initiative seeks to democratize the process of global governance assessment and reduce dependence on indices controlled by a few Western institutions.

2.      Introducing Contextual Evaluation

o    The proposed index aims to recognize the diversity of governance models, accommodating regional contexts, policy priorities, and development stages.

3.     Promoting Evidence-Based Assessment

o    The index will prioritize measurable indicators and verifiable data, making governance evaluation more objective and transparent.

4.     Strengthening South-South Collaboration

o    Through its leadership role in IIAS, India can foster partnerships among developing nations to create a more inclusive and representative global evaluation system.

5.     Enhancing India’s Role in Global Governance Discourse

o    Leading such an initiative enhances India’s credibility in the international policy sphere and reinforces its image as a reform-oriented democracy.

Conclusion:

For the International Governance Index to gain global credibility, it will need to adopt a transparent, replicable, and participatory methodology. Collaboration with global organizations like the World Bank, OECD, and UN DESA can help ensure comparability, while broad consultations with regional and national institutions can strengthen legitimacy.

The working group proposed under IIAS will play a crucial role in finalizing the parameters, data sources, and weightage of indicators. The proposal will be further discussed at the IIAS Annual Conference in 2026, where a draft framework is expected to be presented for review. If implemented effectively, the index could emerge as an alternative benchmark — one that reflects not just governance quality from a Western liberal democratic lens, but also administrative innovation, citizen service delivery, and institutional resilience across diverse political systems.