Ppt hickey sh antwerp seminar april 2012 presentation

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New thinking on the politics of development:New thinking on the politics of development: From incentives to ideas? 

Insights from Uganda

Sam Hickey, IDPM, University of ManchesterCo‐Research Director, Effective States and Inclusive Development Centre

Seminar on Rethinking State, Economy and Society: Political settlements and transformation potential of African States.

27 April 2012, IOB, University of Antwerp

Effective States and Inclusive Development (ESID) Research Centre

• www effective‐states org• www.effective‐states.org

• “What kinds of politics can help secure inclusive development & how can these be promoted?”

• Based at the Institute for Development Policy and Management (IDPM), University of Manchester, 

• Partner countries: Ghana, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, Bangladesh, India 

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Structure

• Rethinking the politics of development 

– Problems with the new mainstream

• The new politics of development in Uganda: towards structural transformation?

• Implications: theory and practice

Beyond new institutionalism• “…historical political economy offer(s) a more robust 

explanation of institutional change and development than new l ” (d h d l )institutional economics” (di John and Putzel 2009: 6)

– ‘political settlements’Mushtaq Khan (2000, 2010)

• Historical institutionalism: theories of path generation – ‘Limited access orders’ (North, Wallis & Weingast 2009)– Autonomy, interests, power and coalitions (Mahoney and Thelen 2011)

• Some important differences (e.g. on capitalism) but more unites than separates them viz. earlier work

• Increasingly influential: theory and practice

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Key insights • Elite bargaining as central to political settlements/social order

– Elites centralise violence and establish institutions that align the distribution of benefits with the underlying distribution of power (Khan 2010). 

– Elite bargains give rise to institutions that shape social change; in ‘limited access orders’ these involve special deals based on personalistic ties not impersonal organisations (North et al 2009)

• Explains how rent‐seeking & patronage dominates the politics of development in most developing countries

• Shapes the capacity of the state to act and establishes the incentives to which elites respond– Explains the failure of the good governance agenda

Critical problems• Problems of application

Limited elaboration and testing to date– Limited elaboration and testing to date

– Danger of conceptual over‐reach

• Intrinsic: ontological oversights– Elitist: downplays the role of subordinate groups 

– Foundational: lack proximity to policy and policy actorsp y p y p y

– Rational‐actor approach: tends to overlook the role of ideology, beliefs, discursive politics (e.g. nationalism)

– Tend towards methodological nationalism

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Materialism/incentives vs. ideas • Khan: elites as rational actors intent only on securing and 

maintaining power. Ideology important only in keeping ruling g p gy p y p g gcoalitions together 

• North et al (2009: 262): beliefs as an outcome of different social orders not a cause: “Controlling violence through rent‐seeking results in a society based on personal identities and privilege”: rules out ideas around equality or impersonality

• Broader literature takes more account of ideas– Nationalism, national identity and developmental states (e.g. SE Asia)

– Critical to social democracy in South: Sandbrook et al (2007) on programmatic political parties; Singh (2010): ‘we‐ness’ and ‘equality’

– Clarke (2012): ‘incentives’ versus ‘idealist’ approaches to the English Industrial Revolution: ‘historical materialism’ as a hybrid approach

Insights from beyond the mainstream

• African studies, e.g. ‘negotiated statehood’“ l h d d l f b li i– “…states are not only the product and realm of bureaucrats, policies and institutions, but also of imageries, symbols and discourses. (Hagmann and Peclard 2010: 543). 

– “By these and other processes, political power in Africa is increasingly ‘internationalized’ and statehood partly suspended (Schlichte, 2008).” (Hagmannn and Peclard 2010: 556), with reference to China, South‐South transfers, transnational migration etc. 

• Critical political theory and cultural political economy• Critical political theory and cultural political economy– e.g. Jessop’s (2007) strategic‐relational approach to state power– Discursive hegemonic strategies central to state power– Transnational: “international relations intertwine with these internal 

relations of nation‐states, creating new, unique and historically concrete combinations”. 

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Thinking about the politics of inclusive development: a relational approach

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Trends in PAF funding 1997/98‐20010/11

1997/98 - 2005/06 (PEAP evaluation: PSR 2005); 2007/10 (BPR excluding donors for 2008-9); 2010-11: National BFP 10/11-14/15; 2011-12: National BFP 11/12-15/15

Allocations & Performance: Roads and Energy

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Uganda’s new political economy

Domestic/aid shares of budget

Source: 2003/4 (BTTB 2009/10); 2004/5-2006/7 (BTTB 2010/11); 2007/08-20010/11 (BTTB 2011:43); 2011/12 (Budget Speech 2011). *= Budget

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The return of multi‐partyism

• Shoring up the ruling coalition• Deepened the clientelistic political settlement• The ambiguous politicisation of policy-making

•Personalised patronage; but also programmatic?

Ideas matter• Political/Presidential discourse on ‘modernisation’ and ‘transformation’and  transformation– Historical: reignited by political/political economy shifts

• NDP: no poverty data; review of E Asian experience

• TransnationalTransnational– World Bank Country Memo (2007): gains traction amongst some leading technocrats

– Financial crisis further undermines neoliberalism

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A new convergence?

• ‘As economic tectonic plates have shifted, 

di t hift t ’paradigms must shift too’• ‘This is no longer about the 

Washington Consensus’ • ‘Securing transformation’

– Robert Zoellick, WB President (Sept 2010)

Th ‘ l• The ‘new structural economics’– Justin Lin, Chief Economist 

• BUT: an idea without agency on the ground

Will the NDP be implemented?

INITIAL CONDIT

IONSNew oil finds;

POLITICAL ECONOMYOil & rising powers

??IDEOLOGY & DISCOURSE

‘Transformation’ displaces PWC (growth & poverty) but lacks agency in policy circles

;declining food

security; rising

cost of living; rising youth

unemployment

C&C

Oil & rising powers displace trad donors

Growth creates new constituencies

INSTITUTIONAL FORMS

POLITICAL SETTLEMENTS

Ruling coalition narrowing, reduced legitimacy?

Remains highly clientelistic

COALITIONS AND PACTS*In transit: pro-poor pact (aid, MoF & CSOs) broken

New deals & actors required for new strategy not yet in place

DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY Transformation?Jobless growth? Social protection?

DELIVERY MECHANISMSDeclining PS

fFORMS Presidentialist‘Multiparty’ politicsSubord groups disorganisedCorruption

UNDERLYING CONDITIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT

PROXIMATE CONDITIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT

not yet in place performanceDistrictisation

Feedback

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Implications• Achieving structural transformation requires more than a new 

political and political context and a new strategy– Shifts in elite‐level relations are critical: but within policy coalitions as 

well as political coalitions– Ideas matter: not just about incentives– Transnational factors (actors, flows) interplay with both

• Theory – Need to go beyond the new mainstream: critical insights from the 

marginsmargins

• Practice – Ideas (not just institutions) provide external actors with an interface 

for engagement– Developing agents for structural transformation?

Introducing ESID• A six‐year research consortium funded by the UK Department for International Developmentepa e o e a o a e e op e

• One of four new consortia focused on governance

• Roughly £6.25 mn, 2011‐2016

• Research, capacity‐strengthening & uptake

• Moving into primary research phase now

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Who are we?• Based at the Institute for Development Policy and 

M (IDPM) d h B k W ld PManagement (IDPM) and the Brooks World Poverty Institute (BWPI), University of Manchester, 

• CEO: [email protected]

• Research Directors: [email protected]; [email protected]

Consortium partners: p

• Institute for Economic Growth, India

• BRAC Development Institute, Bangladesh

• University of Malawi

• Centre for Democratic Development, Ghana

• Centre for International Development at KSG, Harvard. 

ESID’s Core research questionsWhat kinds of politics can help secure inclusive 

development & how can these be promoted?

1. What capacities do states require to help deliver inclusive development? 

h h l d l l2. What shapes elite commitment to delivering inclusive development and state effectiveness? 

3. Under what conditions do developmental forms of state capacity and elite commitment emerge and become sustained? 

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Research programmes

1. Concepts, Theory and Measurement

2. The Politics of Accumulation• Development and growth strategies

• Natural resources: exploitation and governance

3. The Politics of Social Provisioning• Basic services; social protection; focus on implementation

4. The Politics of Recognitiong• Elite commitment to inclusion (e.g. quotas, anti‐discrimination)

• Impact of inclusion on state capacity and development outcomes

5. The Transnational Politics of Development• New geopolitics of aid (e.g. non‐traditional donors, new approaches 

to governance reform)

• Beyond aid: transnational drivers of capacity and commitment