The role played by political, accountability, regulatory quality and the rule of law in public governance: Evidence from Iraq

Abstract

The present study explores the impact of political, accountability, and regulatory quality on public governance. The data for this research was collected from the years 2000 to 2021, enabling a comprehensive analysis of voice and accountability (VA), political stability and absence of violence (PSA) and regulatory quality (RQ), and the rule of law (RL) in Iraq's public governance (PG) over time. This study employed two estimation techniques, namely OLS and FMOLS, to examine the relationship between variables. As per the OLS and FMOLS estimation, while PSA and RL negatively influence PG, their associations are deemed insignificant due to p-values exceeding 0.05. On the other hand, RQ is found to have a positive impact on PG but lacks statistical evidence to support the association. Similarly, VA is negatively associated with PG but with an insignificant impact based on the p-values. Diagnostic tests confirmed the absence of heteroskedasticity and serial correlation in the model. The study concludes by highlighting the implications of the findings and offers areas for further research.