Reflections on Malta’s governance experience

Abstract

In reflecting on the ‘on the unique governance experience of Malta’, I must begin by disclaiming the idea that Malta’s governance experience is ‘unique’: the country’s experience is compounded of some elements that are distinctive and many others that are shared with numerous states, small and large, developed and developing. It is this blend of shared and distinctive factors that merits examination, and perhaps holds some lessons that could be applied elsewhere, bearing in mind that ‘the roads to good governance are not paved in a linear or identical fashion’ (Koranteng 2010). A visitor to Malta encounters a small city-state, one of the most densely populated societies in the world – second only to Singapore; and, like Singapore, a regional economic, financial and transportation hub. Malta straddles one of the world’s major shipping lanes; its fine harbours are not so much gateways to these little islands, as thresholds of Southern Europe and North Africa. Malta sits at the geographical point of convergence of Catholic Southern Europe, Orthodox South-Eastern Europe and Muslim North Africa. It is assimilated into Western Europe’s dominant secular culture, while retaining a linguistic affinity with North Africa.