The project orthodoxy in development: Re-evaluating the cutting edge

This paper takes a broad critical posture towards the project as an instrument of development. It addresses the multidimensional features of what has become the project orthodoxy in development management, and some of the attending effects. It suggests that some of the virtues of the project have been offset by a number of negative consequences as it has become institutionalized in the procedures of both donor agencies and national governments in developing countries. An attempt is made to distinguish between those kinds of activities in which the project mode is most useful, and those for which its basic features and attendant trappings have great limitations. The argument concludes with a reassertion of the need for better linkages with programme management and the sources of policy.     

Reviews

E. Comisso and L. D'Andrea Tyson eds. Power, Purpose and Collective Choice. Economic Strategy in Socialist States. Cornell University Press: Ithaca and London, 1986, 422 pp. $43.45 h/b, $16.45 p/b.

Dietrich Andre Loeber ed. Ruling Communist Parties And Their Status Under Law. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1986, xxi + 550 pp. £101.50 h/b.

E. S. Williams, The Soviet Military: Political Education, Training and Morale. London: Macmillan, 1987, xv + 203 pp. £27.50.

John Erickson, Lynn Hansen and William Schneider, Soviet Ground Forces: An Operational Assessment. London: Croom Helm & Westview, 1986, xix + 267 pp. £25.00.

Kurt M. Campbell, Soviet policy towards South Africa. London: Macmillan, 1986, xii + 223 pp. £27.50.

David A. Korn, Ethiopia, the United States and the Soviet Union, London: Croom Helm, 1986, 199 pp. £19.95.

Samuel M. Makinda, Superpower Diplomacy in the Horn of Africa, London: Croom Helm, 1987, 241 pp. £22.50.

Ivan Volgyes, Politics in Eastern Europe. Chicago: Dorsey Press, 1986, xvii + 368 pp. $20.00.

Olga A. Narkiewicz, Soviet Leaders: from the Cult of Personality to Collective Rule. Brighton: Wheatsheaf, 1986, ix + 256 pp. £18.95.

Simon Bergstrand and Rigas Doganis, The Impact of Soviet Shipping. London: Allen & Unwin, 1987, xvi + 184 pp. £30.00.

Martin Kitchen, British Policy towards the Soviet Union during the Second World War. London: Macmillan, 1986, viii + 309 pp. £29.50.

Alexandre Popovi?, L'lslam balkanique. Les Musulmans du sud‐est européen dans la période post‐ottomane, Osteuropa‐Institut an der Freien Universitat Berlin, Balkanolo‐gische Veröffentlichungen, edited by Norbert Reiter, vol. 11, Berlin, in conjunction with Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 1986, xii + 493 pp.

Bernard Lory, Le Sort de l'Héritage Ottoman en Bulgarie; l'Exemple des Villes Bulgares, 1878–1900. Published at the initiative and with the help of the Institut Français d'Etudes Anatoliennes d'Istanbul and l'Association pour le Développement des Etudes Turques, Paris, Editions Isis, Istanbul, 1985, viii + 235 pp.

Shirin Akiner, Islamic Peoples of the Soviet Union. 2nd ed. London: KPI, 1986. xiii + 462 pp.

Bruce W. Watson and Susan M. Watson, eds., The Soviet Navy: Strengths and Liabilities, Westview Press/Arms and Armour Press, London, 1986, xv + 333 pp. £19.95.

Robert Conquest, ed., The Last Empire: Nationality and the Soviet Future. Hoover Institution Press, Stanford, Calif, (distributed in UK by Clio), 1986, xiv + 406 pp. £23.45.

Jeffery Simon and Trond Gilberg, eds. Security Implications of Nationalism in Eastern Europe, Westview Press. Boulder, Colorado and London, 1986 xvi + 327 pp. £27.75.

K. R. M. Short, ed., Western Broadcasting over the Iron Curtain, Croom Helm, London, 1986, 274 pp. £22.50.

John Bushnell, Mutiny amid Repression: Russian Soldiers in the Revolution of 1905–1906. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985, ix + 334 pp. £24.50.

Roger Woods, Opposition in the GDR under Honecker 1971–85. Macmillan, London, 1986, x + 257 pp. £27.50.

Yury Boshyk, ed., Ukraine during World War II— History and its Aftermath. Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, Edmonton, 1986, xix + 219 pp. no price quoted.

Peter Beilharz, Trotsky, Trotskyism and the Transition to Socialism, London: Croom Helm, 1987. 197 pp. £25.00.

A. Buick & J. Crump, State capitalism: the wages system under new management. Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1987, ix + 165 pp. £25.00 h/b, £8.95 p/b.     

The role of political parties: An analysis based on transaction costs

This paper explores the proposition that political parties reduce the ‘transaction costs’ of electoral participation. Political parties provide a low cost signal of a candidate's policies and personal characteristics and, in this way, reduce voters' information costs. With reference to ‘transaction cost economics’, political parties offer an ‘implicit contract’ between voters and politicians and thereby reduce the scope for opportunism by politicians. This impact on transaction costs is important in any evaluation of public policy towards political parties.     

Political Equilibrium and the Provision of Public Goods

This paper treats interest groups – peoplein their role as consumers of a public goodand people in their role as taxpayers – asthe unit of account for representativevoting. Each group is allowed to make aneffort to support its preferred candidateand, at the margin, the effort-benefitratio is the political price the group iswilling to pay to secure an additionaldollar of benefits.

Under reasonable assumptions, a uniqueequilibrium is assured and itscharacteristics are quite intuitive. Inparticular, the marginal political benefit(from consumers) of the last unit of outputmust equal the marginal political cost(from taxpayers). Alternatively, the rateat which the politician can transformtaxpayer income into consumer surplus mustequal the ratio of their political prices. The result will be optimal only on the rareoccasion when the effort-benefit ratios ofthe two groups are equal.

Since political goals are themselves ``public goods'' for thetwo interest groups,they face all the normal free riderproblems. Moreover, even small differencesin the effort-benefit ratios of the twogroups lead to large welfare losses.

How bad can things get? Each group has anincentive to try to overcome free-riderproblems and divert resources from privatesector activities to politics. And anyincrease in political effort is alwaysrewarded. However, (1) the marginal returnis always higher for the group with thesmaller effort-benefit ratio; (2) thedifferential return between the two groupsgrows the further we stray from optimality;and (3) both groups face diminishingreturns. These incentives may act asnatural checks on political outcomes –placing some limit on the amount of wasteand inefficiency democracy is likely toproduce.

The influence of a producer (of the publicgood) group that collects a rent increasesthe likelihood that public goods will beoverproduced. In fact, it is conceivableto have a good with no value to consumersproduced, solely because of the influenceof producers. Comparative static analysisreveal that the political system willrespond to changes in market conditions ina way similar to economic markets. Themagnitude of these shifts differs fromeconomic markets, however. For goods thatare being overproduced, the politicalmarketplace overresponds to changes indemand and underresponds to changes incosts. The converse is true for goods thatare being underproduced.

     

Developing and Testing a Composite Model to Predict Local Fiscal Distress

One of the thorniest issues of intergovernmental fiscal relations is state oversight of local fiscal affairs. States have oversight responsibility and must take action when local governments run afoul of responsible fiscal behavior. Less accepted is how states can detect local financial difficulties before they become emergencies that require state takeover. Research in the 1970s provided some assistance to states wishing to recognize local financial emergencies. But the time has come to look at this issue anew, particularly with an eye toward predicting local financial problems before they become serious. This article describes a 10-point scale that predicts these problems and tests the scale to predict local fiscal stress in a sample of Michigan local governments.