Organizing for Prosperity : Collective Action, Political Parties and the Political Economy of Development
The ability of citizens to act collectively plays a central role in major debates in the political economy of development, including the causes and consequences of democratization and clientelism. This essay uses two lines of research to underscore...
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2013
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2013/08/18143375/organizing-prosperity-collective-action-political-parties-political-economy-development http://hdl.handle.net/10986/16016 |
| Summary: | The ability of citizens to act
collectively plays a central role in major debates in the
political economy of development, including the causes and
consequences of democratization and clientelism. This essay
uses two lines of research to underscore the importance of
explicitly introducing the organization of collective action
into these debates. Exhaustive research on the management of
open access resources demonstrates that citizens'
ability to act collectively depends on non-trivial
organizational arrangements that allow leaders to sanction
free-riding and allow members to replace leaders if they
shirk. Other research demonstrates wide variability in the
organization of political parties. In countries where
political parties do not have these two organizational
characteristics, public policies are less friendly to
economic development. This evidence suggests that in future
research on democracy, state-building and development,
citizen organization should be a central object of analysis. |
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