How Change Happens lecture II: active citizens, effective states and change

Day 2: First let’s recap. In pairs, discuss:

Where we got too yesterday Any questions/comments/suggestions What topic you have chosen for your case

study– Then let’s go round the room

Active Citizens, Effective States and Change

Duncan GreenBrandeis Proseminar

March 2012Lecture 2

Main messages

Rights and dignity are a crucial part of development and well-being

Achieving these requires involvement in power and politics

Ability to exercise rights requires access to essential services, information and knowledge

Active citizenship, including civil society organization, is essential to development

Effective states play a central role in development The interaction between Active Citizens and Effective

States is crucial, complicated and doesn’t always follow the script!

And rights are about power - Picture

Development is about rightsDevelopment is about rights

Development is about rights

Rights are long-term guarantees that allow right- holders to put demands on duty bearers

Capabilities = rights + ability to exercise them

Involves crucial shift from treating poor people as ‘beneficiaries’ to seeing them as active agents

Rights = lawyers and scholars; development = economists and engineers

And rights are about power

Power over: the power of the strong over the weak

Power to: the capability to decide actions and carry them out

Power with: collective power, through organisation, solidarity, and joint action

Power within: personal self-confidence

First build the people…

Education, healthcare, water, sanitation and housing are basic building blocks of a decent life

Education: need improvements in both quality and quantity (esp. for girls)

Health: maternal mortality as example of gender and wealth-based inequalities

Control over fertility is both a rights and health issue

The state must be central to provision

Then ensure access to knowledge and information

Steady improvements in access to knowledge, e.g. radio, mobiles, internet

Technology holds enormous potential

But current incentives bias R&D against the needs of the poor

And intellectual property rules act as a barrier to technology transfer (pharmaceuticals, biopiracy)

And the right to organise Increasing range and complexity of civil society

organizations

Role of CSOs as catalysts and watchdogs

Intrinsic and instrumental benefits of CSO involvement

Civil society activism waxes and wanes

Civil society is very involved in decentralization processes

States are at the heart of development (and growing in importance)

Nation states play a core role in providing essential services, rule of law, economic stability and upgrading

Successful ‘developmental states’ (Chalmers Johnson):– Govern for the future– Promote growth – Start with equity – Integrate with the global economy, but discriminate – Guarantee health and education for all

But the politics of developmental states are tricky– Embedded autonomy (Peter Evans)– Strong ‘national bourgeoisie’ and elite alignment

Globalization and orthodoxy make building effective states harder

And Ineffective States are one of the biggest problems in development

Fragile and Conflict Afflicted States (FRACAS)

Clientilism and patronage are the opposite of ‘embedded autonomy’

What leads to a new ‘political settlement’?– Leadership (Botswana)– Shocks (Rwanda)– Strong civil society (Ghana)– Can be gradual, led by progressive elite

fractions (Taiwan)

How do Active Citizens and Effective States fit into our model of change?

Looking back/from the outside:Four Components of Change

Context– Technology, environment, demographics, globalization

Institutions– Culture, ethnicity, religion, attitudes and beliefs– Civil service, judiciary, electoral democracy, essential

services, Agents

– Social movements, elites, leaders, private sector, media

Events– Wars, disasters, confrontations

Dynamics and Pathways

Cumulative and SequentialChaotic

Events, tipping points and lightbulb moments

Demonstration Effects

Accumulation of forces

Path Dependence

How change happens: How change happens: the Chiquitanosthe Chiquitanos

How change happens: the Chiquitanos

3 July 2007: Chiquitanos win title to 1m hectares of traditional lands in Eastern Bolivia

Lived in near-feudal conditions up to 1980s Activism began on margins of football league Marches to La Paz forged links with highland

Indians and built ethnic identity Chiquitanos elected as mayors and senators Evo Morales’ 2006 election, the turning point

How change happens: How change happens: winning ‘pond rights’ in Indiawinning ‘pond rights’ in India

How change happens: winning ‘pond rights’ in India

Fishing ponds crucial to 45,000 families in Bundelkhand

Technology change (new fish varieties and stocking) prompted a new wave of seizures by landlords

Protests got support from state government for fishing cooperatives – basis for mobilisation

Dirty tricks and some violence were a turning point NGOs brokered relations with police and politicians 100 ponds now under fishers’ control

Dilemma: are Effective States compatible with Active Citizens?

Or is it more often like this?

How do Active Citizens interact with States?

Democracies:– Produce more predictable long run growth rates– Produce greater short term stability– Handle shocks much better– Deliver more equality

But legitimacy is an issue even in non-democratic states And change is seldom completely peaceful - cycles of

conflict and cooperation are the norm (Fox, Gaventa)

And how do Effective States interact with citizens?

Nation builders are often undemocratic, but autocrats often fail and societies may be becoming less tolerant of ‘benevolent dictators’

Taxation is key to the state-citizen compact Are ‘democratic developmental states’ feasible in

early stages of development (‘inclusive embeddedness’ Edigheji)

Or is it only in later stages – Brazil? South Korea? Botswana?

My (tentative and uncomfortable) conclusion

There are probably trade-offs in early stage development between achieving the kind of developmental state best suited to achieving fast economic take-off and the ‘democratic developmental state’ that can achieve wider development – freedoms ‘to do and to be’

But those trade-offs are likely to change over time, hopefully in a positive direction – growth and freedom will become more aligned

HOW DO YOU GET ALL THAT INTO A 3 MINUTE VIDEO?.........

Buzz in Pairs

Any questions, comments on what you’ve just heard?

Anything you disagreed with or felt worried about?

Groupwork

In pairs, take it in turns to present your case study

Apply HCH analysis to it (context, institutions, agents, events + pathways)

Identify any gaps in your understanding of the case study/questions for further research

Be prepared to report back on – the ideas and questions that emerged– What HCH added to your thinking about your

case study