If Politics Is the Problem, How Can External Actors Be Part of the Solution?
Despite a large body of research and evidence on the policies and institutions needed to generate growth and reduce poverty, many governments fail to adopt these policies or establish the institutions. Research advances since the 1990s have explain...
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2016
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/07/26596689/politics-problem-can-external-actors-part-solution http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24842 |
| Summary: | Despite a large body of research and
evidence on the policies and institutions needed to generate
growth and reduce poverty, many governments fail to adopt
these policies or establish the institutions. Research
advances since the 1990s have explained this syndrome, which
this paper generically calls "government failure,"
in terms of the incentives facing politicians, and the
underlying political institutions that lead to those
incentives. Meanwhile, development assistance, which is
intended to generate growth and reduce poverty, has hardly
changed since the 1950s, when it was thought that the
problem was one of market failure. Most assistance is still
delivered to governments, in the form of finance and
knowledge that are bundled together as a
"project." Drawing on recent research on the
politics of government failure, the paper shows how
traditional development assistance can contribute to the
persistence of government failures. It proposes a new model
of development assistance that can help societies transition
to better institutions. Specifically, the paper suggests
that knowledge be provided to citizens to build their
capacity to select and sanction leaders who have the
political will and legitimacy to deliver the public goods
needed for development. As for the financial transfer, which
for various reasons has to be delivered to governments, the
paper proposes that this be provided in a lump sum manner
(that is, not linked to individual projects), conditional on
the government following broadly favorable policies and
making information available to citizens. |
|---|