Good government depends more on boring institutions than inspiring leaders

We tend to remember leaders and forget the offices that make decisions possible to check. Yet auditors, ombudsmen, courts, statistical agencies and election administrators quietly decide whether a system is fair, whether errors are caught and whether ordinary people can get a mistake corrected.

An ombudsman, for example, is an independent official who investigates complaints about public bodies. It is not a glamorous job, but it gives a resident with a problem somewhere to go that is neither the agency that caused it nor an expensive lawyer.

Our view is that countries and cities should judge themselves by the strength of these dull institutions: are they independent, funded, staffed with expertise, and listened to?

The objection is that structures cannot fix bad leadership. That is true. But strong institutions raise the cost of bad behaviour, and make good behaviour easier for people who are trying.

What would change our mind: evidence that, across many cases, leader quality explains outcomes far better than institutional strength does.