Agency costs-Just managerial behavior?

Often one learns about Agency costs of Equity and Debt in a Finance Class. And the context of learning is more often than not related to Corporations and managers associated with those corporations! I also went through the same rules and rigors of learning Agency concepts. But, my curious mind is unable to fathom why these Agency costs cannot be related with a sovereign "Government's" functioning? Can the agency costs also circumscribe the performance of stakeholders associated with a government. After-all the policies and decisions of these stakeholders affect the growth and prosperity of large number of people.

Lets have a peek at Government structures across countries. A Government at the top-end consists of the Political Class or The Executive, then there is Bureaucracy and at the lower rung are the government employees rendering out services to the commoners like you and me! Of-course, Judiciary and members of the Fourth Estate keep the system of checks and balances on the Government. To make an Apple to Apple comparison we must be able to relate the concepts of Debt and Equity with a Government hierarchy.

Debt is easy since governments do take debt from Central Banks to fulfill commitments (whether they pay it back is something which is always questionable, after all government's can print Currency at there will!). However, Equity is something which is difficult to define in terms of shareholdings! Equity for a government does not directly relate to money. Governments don't sell equity to raise funds (unless they sell there holdings in Public Sector Undertakings), only in tangible enterprises run by governments can sale of equity be done. Therefore, can equity be seen as the goodwill which increases/decreases or is it an "individual vote" which each citizen is authorized during Elections? I don't see a clear answer, but feel the answer to be a mixture of the two. It can be the goodwill which is based on the choice made by the electorate in a country.

Moot point would be to understand whether agency cost of equity incentivizes development of people through government or it is just not applicable at all except for manager/corporations.