Development Effectiveness and the Politics of Commitment

International aid agencies have experienced a ‘political turn’ over the past decade, with political economy analyses becoming increasingly numerous as a means to drive development effectiveness. Yet aid agencies have so far failed to shift their aid modalities in response. The problem lies in an inadequate conceptualisation of ‘politics’. Most donors continue to see development as a public good, rather than as the focus of contestation in a context of societal struggle, and consequently fail to take oppositional forces sufficiently seriously. This facilitates the misapplication of terms such as ‘partnership’ and ‘ownership’, contributing to failures in efforts to promote reform. A more truly political analysis of aid intervention entails two innovations: the use of structural analysis to distinguish between interests in reform; and the use of this distinction, in turn, to inform the practice of taking sides in political struggles. Case studies of international aid programmes in Cambodia and the Philippines illustrate how the failure of donors to take sides with particular reformers has resulted in lost opportunities to achieve concrete outcomes from development projects.     

The Anti-Politics of Development: donor agencies and the political economy of governance

This article discusses the attempt undertaken by several development aid agencies since the turn of the century to integrate political economy assessments into their decision making on development assistance. The article discusses three such attempts: the Drivers of Change adopted by the UK's Department for International Development, the Strategic Governance and Corruption Analysis (sgaca) developed by the Dutch Directorate General for International Cooperation and the new thinking on political economy analysis, policy reform and political risk advanced by the World Bank. On the basis of a political-economic interpretation of development agencies, two main factors are found to hinder the successful application of political economy assessment. In the first place, the agencies' professional outlook leads them to see development in primarily technical terms. In the second place, the nature of incentives for development professionals leads them to resist the implementation of political economy analyses.     

Public administration in Marshall Dimock's textbooks

This article examines the relationship between Marshall Dimock's positive, broad-based concept of public administration and his approach to writing undergraduate textbooks. Analysis shows that both Dimock's American government and public administration textbooks provide a different slant on public agencies than that available in most current introductory volumes. In particular, his American government textbook is more positive in tone about agencies than are its modern counterparts. The public administration textbook has comparative material that rarely appears in introductory-level textbooks.

This article analyzes how Marshall Dimock's conception of public administration as an important area of study with links to policy and leadership anchored his textbook writing. In the 1950s Dimock co-authored two popular textbooks for basic undergraduate courses, one in American government and the other in public administration.⁽¹⁾

Scholars still debate what textbooks in either field should teach students about public agencies. Cigler and Neiswender argue that current American government textbooks portray administration in a negative light. All authors see bureaucracy as a problem of some sort, few explain the role administrators play in shaping policy and none discuss reasons to enter the public service.⁽²⁾ Cigler and Neiswender suggest that American government textbooks must change to aid accurate perceptions of the administrative role. In particular, they believe the texts must add material on the public service as a profession and compare American agencies with those in other nations.

Since public administration textbooks are a key way that majors in the field learn material, debate ensues on what material they should contain. Recent articles explore how textbooks define key terms such as policy and how they integrate the work of various theorists.⁽³⁾

While all widely-used textbooks deal with both the political environment and internal agency functions (e.g., personnel, finance), no consensus exists on how to allocate space between political and managerial concerns nor on exactly which subtopics should be covered. No consensus exists on how much space should be devoted to policy making and policy analysis with some textbooks covering this topic and others skimming it lightly.

One often cited problem with contemporary texts is the lack of a comparative focus and a concomitant need to internationalize the curriculum.⁽⁴⁾ The thrust of current proposals is that students need a more broad-based education to prepare them for global leadership.

Interestingly, Dimock's approach to public administration led him to write textbooks that in some ways surpass what is available today. While the majority of the topics he presents (and their ordering) are similar to current efforts, he offers unique emphases that deal with the above mentioned criticisms. Far from being an exercise in academic nostalgia, examining Dimock's textbooks is a useful way of giving current writers new insights.

To appreciate Dimock's approach to textbook construction we first have to identify the core concepts behind his approach to public administration education. Afterwards, we can analyze the treatment of public agencies in American Government in Action, relating it to Cigler and Neiswender's critique of contemporary textbooks, and -examine how various editions of Public Administration conceptualize the field.     

Executing priority national development in indonesia: Program innovation of the junior minister

In the process of Indonesia's administrative reform and conduct of its planned development efforts, several innovative measures evolved in its executive structure. One of these was the use of temporary organizational entities to expedite the achievement of development goals where sectors/programs of the national development plan encompass two or more executive agencies and/or levels of governments. In organizational design, the executive problem is the reconciliation between responsibility and authority with the purpose of achieving maximum technical efficiency in the execution of priority development programs. As an organizational device to deal with this problem, the offices of six junior ministers were established. By employing the technique of executive authority in rank, these ministers, heading temporary agencies organized in terms of program responsibility as specified in the development plan and as approved by the cabinet, have become the organizational means by which to integrate all of the disparate project activities vested in the executive line agencies in productive organizational cores. Should this organizational innovation prove successful, it will be one of the more important organizational contributions in recent years to the execution of centrally planned development programs in a developing society.     

Aid and Gendered Subjectivity in Rural Guatemala

Development discourse has focused on gendered dimensions of poverty, demonstrating how parastatal poverty alleviation programmes target women as aid recipients while devaluing their productive and reproductive work. However, seldom analysed is how privatisation of social services and proliferation of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have impacted women. We explore this in a Guatemalan community where we find that although NGOs discursively commit to ‘alternative’ development approaches, on the ground they reproduce elements of a neoliberal subjectivity akin to parastatal programmes. NGOs additionally configure aid disbursement as gift giving, requiring beneficiaries to assume affective postures of gratitude, and facilitating intrusion into women’s lives.     

Network Governance of Private Sector Development Policy Implementation in Singapore

The discussion examines private sector development policy implementation in Singapore, examining the new role of the government's economic development agencies from the point of changing relationships among public and non-state actors in the policy arena. Singapore's model of private sector development consists of an exclusive network of partnerships among economic development agencies and between these agencies and private sector actors, such as business and organized labour, as integral policy stakeholders. As Singapore has moved within the past 15 years towards its articulated goal of becoming a knowledge-based economy and an industrial hub in the Asia Pacific region, the country's model of network governance is undergoing a gradual reconfiguration to include a greater role for local enterprises in the policy process. The changing institutional mechanics of network governance surrounding the new model of private sector development in Singapore are examined, along with the highlights of some implications surrounding this shift.     

Notes on contributors

‘Women's empowerment’, as used by international development organisations, is a fuzzy concept. Historical textual analysis and interviews with officials in development agencies reveal its adaptability and capacity to carry multiple meanings that variously wax and wane in their discursive influence. Today a privileging of instrumentalist meanings of empowerment associated with efficiency and growth are crowding out more socially transformative meanings associated with rights and collective action. In their efforts to make headway in what has become an unfavourable policy environment, officials in development agencies with a commitment to a broader social change agenda juggle these different meanings, strategically exploiting the concept's polysemic nature to keep that agenda alive. We argue for a politics of solidarity between such officials and feminist activists. We encourage the latter to challenge the prevailing instrumentalist discourse of empowerment with a clear, well articulated call for social transformation, while alerting them to how those with the same agenda within international development agencies may well be choosing their words with care, even if what they say appears fuzzy.     

The application of a reconnaissance strategy for identifying long-term problems for a Tanzanian farming systems project

Africa’s population is growing faster than its locally produced food supply. While some regions of the world wallow in production surpluses, neither the Green Revolution nor other production boosting strategies have sunk deep roots in Africa. As a result, there is an increasing food production shortfall and an ever larger dependence on outside food aid. In response, international development agencies are developing new strategies for tackling the seemingly intractable problems of African agriculture. One of these strategies is called the farming systems research and extension approach. This approach starts with the understanding that “African agriculture has probably been less affected by technology change in the past twenty years than agriculture on any other continent” (A.I.D., 1985). It continues by developing technical interventions which are advantageous within particular “recommendation domains” defined by both social and environmental conditions.     

Third World Military Spending

This article critically examines the concept of 'partnership', ubiquitous in contemporary development aid discourses. It investigates whether the language of 'partnership' signifies a change in aid relations away from the stark exertion of power characteristic of the conditionality decades of the 1980s and 1990s, or, conversely, whether 'partnership' is merely the latest guise behind which power-based relations continue to operate. A conceptual framework facilitates the deconstruction of the recently established 'Partnership for Governance Reform' in Indonesia, posited as a co-operative venture between national stakeholders and the international community. Elements of partnership or of power are sought through an examination of decision-making structures and activities. Findings are of the largely rhetorical and instrumental use of 'partnership' by international actors. Although there is nominal control by Indonesian actors, decision-making bodies are constructed in a manner which ensures that the reform agenda of international agencies remains relatively unchallenged, both in terms of what is included and excluded. Contrary to the official discourse of partnership as encouraging locally formulated reform strategies, the notions of 'partnership' and 'local ownership' simultaneously disguise and legitimise the interventions of international agencies in domestic reform processes, serving to mystify power asymmetry.     

In search of an anti‐terrorism policy: Lessons from the reagan era

Abstract

During the 1980s, terrorist activities became a real threat to Americans at home and abroad. The Reagan administration's policy response to this threat was encumbered by several factors, both of commission and omission. Dominant anti‐communist ideological perceptions in the administration at times blurred the disparate causes of international terrorism and the varied motives of terrorist groups. The administration was unable to back up its words with consistent, resolute policy action. And U.S. intelligence operations were not able to detect or prevent several terrorist strikes against U.S. facilities, especially in the Middle East.

The U.S. air raid on Libya served notice that the United States would strike militarily at state sponsors of terrorism. It also called into the question the Reagan administration's willingness to adhere strictly to international law in its efforts to prosecute certain governments who aid and abet terrorist groups. There is no policy panacea for terrorism; terrorism can only be countered by a resolute policy which combines protection, prevention, and prosecution, including military retaliation if it is necessary and can be carried out proportionate to the aggrieved terrorist offense. The lessons gleaned from the Reagan administration's anti‐terrorist experience are both constructive and instructive. However, only if more deliberate efforts are made to integrate these lessons into policy considerations will they become utilitarian assets to counter terrorist activities, at home and abroad.     

Globalisation with Growth and Equity: can we really have it all?

The purpose of US foreign assistance has shifted in the wake of 2001, and Washington has resurrected practices previously associated with police aid during the Cold War. In particular, the Bush administration has broadened the remit of the United States Agency for International Development (usaid) in such a way as to make it a quasi-security agency. The consequences of this could be significant for both usaid and democratic-style police assistance programmes more generally, for today's threat-driven policies are part of a trend which in the past has had worrying consequences. Using the critical variable of public policing (which is illustrated by reference to developments in Kenya), I argue that using usaid to improve the counter-terrorist capacity of Africa's police in the pursuit of US national security objectives is a seriously flawed strategy.     

THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF EU AGENCIES: AGENCIES AS ‘MINI COMMISSIONS’

A stream of reviews that take stock of EU governance trends shows that the EU's governance agenda produces mixed results. EU agencies are part of the EU's search for new governance mechanisms. They have not proven to be a break with EU policy‐making processes – underpinning administrative stability rather than reform. This article explores the institutionalization of EU agencies. Using the case of the EU's human resources (HR) policy, it concludes that administrative details are important in order to understand the development of EU agencies turning into institutions. The influence of the EU's institutional environment on their operations is so strong that they must operate as ‘mini Commissions'. This tight control hinders their institutionalization.     

The road not taken: international aid's choice of Copenhagen over Beijing

A decade after the United Nations conferences on gender equality and social development, this paper explores their policy origins and discusses their differential impact on international aid since 1995. The author draws on her direct experience to consider why Copenhagen led to Poverty Reduction Strategies and the first Millennium Development Goal, whereas Beijing has become largely invisible in the mainstream world of aid. She argues that the powerful influence of economic rational choice theory associated with bureaucratic modes of thought has meant that the central debate in development policy has remained that of growth versus equity. Beijing's agenda of societal transformation offered another paradigm of development that has remained marginal. The paper concludes with a proposal. If international aid policy could handle more than one paradigm and thus be more open to different ways of thinking about economy, society and politics, aid agencies would be better able to support transformative processes for social justice.     

Evaluating Public Management Reform: Designing a'Joined Up' Approach to Researching the Local Government Modernisation Agenda

This article examines the major programme of research on the'Local Government Modernisation Agenda' which is currently being funded by the UK's Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. It argues that this heralds a new approach to government-funded research which seeks to address some of the weakness of previous evaluations. In particular it involves longer-term studies than have been conducted in the past and an attempt to achieve a much greater degree of collaboration between research teams. It is also trying to ensure effective application of the learning derived from evaluations. This new approach raises a number of practical and methodological problems, including in particular the need for effective data sharing among research teams and with other agencies. If this can be achieved there is though a real prospect that the research will provide useful insights that help to inform current and future policy and practice at both national and local levels.     

Development assistance on the brink

The international aid regime is currently faced with a major paradox. On the one hand, officials in bilateral and multlateral agencies increasingly agree that 'aid matters' and can contribute significantly to development. This confidence has been reinforced by the fact that, after a decade dominated by the objective of structural adjustment, the much less controversial one of sustainable development has taken over as the new mantra of aid policies. On the other hand, development assistance appears to be a declining priority for foreign policy-makers in the developed countries. The generosity of donors has diminished to the point that aid reached an all-time low in 1997. The aim of this article is to make sense of this paradox. After examining the grounds for optimism within the aid community, the article then explains why there is reason to doubt that foreign assistance can effectively foster sustainable development over the course of the next generation.     

Legitimacy dilemmas: the IMF's pursuit of country ownership

There can be little doubt that the International Monetary Fund is currently facing a serious challenge to its legitimacy. Such criticisms echo similar debates that have surrounded other international organisations, including the World Bank, the United Nations and the World Trade Organization. As these different institutions seek to respond to this challenge, the Fund's efforts to respond to its critics provide a number of interesting lessons and warnings. In this article I examine the Fund's response to challenges to its legitimacy by focusing on one of the often overlooked aspects the institution's recent reforms: the IMF's efforts to change its relationship with borrowing countries by revising its conditionality guidelines and pursuing greater domestic ‘ownership’ over the reforms that it requires. While this response helps to resolve a number of legitimacy gaps that have emerged in the past decades, this strategy has also produced a number of new legitimacy dilemmas that raise questions about the sustainability of the IMF's current reform efforts. Chief among them is the limit to the Fund's ability to obtain the deeper political legitimacy that it seeks by using the same narrowly technical economic strategies that it has relied on in the past.     

From ‘gender equality and ‘women’s empowerment’ to global justice: reclaiming a transformative agenda for gender and development

The language of ‘gender equality’ and ‘women’s empowerment’ was mobilised by feminists in the 1980s and 1990s as a way of getting women’s rights onto the international development agenda. Their efforts can be declared a resounding success. The international development industry has fully embraced these terms. From international NGOs to donor governments to multilateral agencies the language of gender equality and women’s empowerment is a pervasive presence and takes pride of place among their major development priorities. And yet, this article argues, the fact that these terms have been eviscerated of conceptual and political bite compromises their use as the primary frame through which to demand rights and justice. Critically examining the trajectories of these terms in development, the article suggests that if the promise of the post-2015 agenda is to deliver on gender justice, new frames are needed, which can connect with and contribute to a broader movement for global justice.     

The World Bank and India's irrigation reform

The decisions to be taken on canal irrigation in India during the next five years will have repercussions well into the next century, and the World Bank's role in those decisions will be substantial. Yet the Bank's approach to improving existing canal systems and designing new ones fails to match the components of the approach with their environments. This paper suggests that in a wide range of social and physical environments the Bank's proposals are likely to give little net benefit compared with alternatives. An alternative way of thinking about irrigation improvement programmes would emphasise operational procedures and the information ‘system’.     

WHY PERCEIVED SIZE MATTERS FOR AGENCY TERMINATION

Agency size is generally assumed to be positively correlated with survival: the bigger an agency, the less likely it is to be terminated. Yet, recent research finds a very small effect of size on survival. The reason, we argue, is that it only addresses size in terms of overall operating budget – what this article calls objective size. By contrast, we use an interpretive historicist approach to show how perceived size – the meanings and beliefs of key actors concerning an agency's size – affects termination. Drawing on a case study of Australia's independent aid agency, AusAID, which endured a tumultuous history of cuts, reorganizations and rebirths, culminating in termination, we show how perceptions of the agency's size mattered. These findings both support and extend recent research showing that adaptation and reputation are critical to the survival of government agencies.     

Afghans have their memories: A reflection on the recent experience of assistance in Afghanistan

As the international community re-engages in Afghanistan, there is an opportunity to make good on commitments to the Afghan people in a principled and transparent manner. But Afghanistan comes with a history, and unless this history is understood and taken into account, both the political process and reconstruction are likely to end in failure. This article looks at the legacy of the way in which the donors and aid organisations operated in the past, and the manner in which they dealt with both the Mujaheddin and Taliban administrations. It examines how, in a period characterised by progressive hardening of political positions, accompanied by increasing aid conditionality, efforts to achieve greater coherence between political and aid strategies and to establish 'principled' positions often led to conflict and contradictions and at times seemed to undermine the impartiality of the international community. It then explores the extent to which the present pace and nature of international support for political and reconstruction activities are enabling--or not--the emergence of an administration in Kabul that has domestic legitimacy and can effectively manage reconstruction.