#Magic bullet looks 2014 how to
#Magic bullet looks 2014 drivers

When development agencies decided to adopt governance as a priority, they initially sought to transplant the institutions and best practices of Western democracies into developing country contexts. Without clear reform examples to emulate, governance advocates have had to improvise. Political economy studies of developing countries tend to have the opposite limitation, describing the myriad ways governments fall short of developmental ideals but not how they can overcome these obstacles. The best-known cases of effective governance draw on European and Asian experiences and often point to the importance of particular historical trajectories and structural factors not present in most low-income countries.

#Magic bullet looks 2014 how to

Reform advocates largely know what good governance looks like, but much less about how to get there. These efforts cover a vast array of issues, from macroeconomic management to the quality of public service delivery and new spaces for citizen participation in development decisionmaking.ĭespite all of this attention and investment, there is still remarkably little understanding of how governance progress actually occurs in developing countries. International agencies have spent billions of dollars promoting better governance in poor countries in the belief that effective and responsive states are critical to socioeconomic development. Domestic as well as transnational civil society groups focused on governance issues have multiplied throughout the developing world. Scholars attribute development “miracles,” such as the cases of South Korea and Singapore, to particularly effective governments and often blame persistent development failures on incompetent or predatory rule. Over the past two decades, governance has moved to center stage in international development discussions. Both models rely to differing degrees on political commitment and a capable state. In other contexts, however, exclusive public-private relationships have helped advance developmental policies. Public participation and civil society advocacy are associated with governance improvements in some countries. Productive state-society relations can be exclusive or inclusive. Flexible approaches to reform implementation, the creation of technocratic enclaves, and managerial efforts to raise civil service morale and accountability, among other strategies, can yield positive results. This requires the right incentives and a significant role for ideas and leadership abilities.īureaucratic effectiveness can be improved even where patronage politics are widespread. For change to occur, key actors must recognize a serious problem or threat and decide that governance reform is an advantageous and feasible response. Individual political champions or external incentive structures alone are not sufficient to produce political commitment. This can lead to apparent vicious cycles of low commitment, low capacity, and unproductive state-society relations, but substantial progress can also be made on all three elements relatively simultaneously.

Political commitment, bureaucratic capacity, and state-society relations are deeply interdependent. Enclaves of bureaucratic excellence similarly require political support to maintain their independence.ĭiane de Gramont was a nonresident research analyst in Carnegie’s Democracy and Rule of Law Program. Political champions, for example, usually fall short without effective allies in government and civil society.

The success of each of these approaches relies on supporting conditions.

Governance advocates have subsequently turned to other solutions, such as finding individual political champions, encouraging citizen demand for good governance, establishing technocratic enclaves within bureaucracies, and devising flexible context-specific reform strategies.

Initial donor efforts to transplant Western institutions and best practices into developing countries largely failed.

It is nevertheless possible to identify common trends and emerging lessons. Multiple factors shape each of these pillars and they can emerge in very different forms.

Reform prospects rely on the interactions among three governance pillars: political commitment, bureaucratic capacity, and state-society relations.

#Magic bullet looks 2014 drivers

A close examination of governance successes in the developing world indicates that effective advocacy must move beyond a search for single-focus “magic bullet” solutions toward an integrated approach that recognizes multiple interrelated drivers of governance change. Reform strategies that work well in some places often prove disappointing elsewhere.

Yet there is still remarkably little understanding of how governance progress actually occurs in these contexts. Domestic reformers and external donors have invested enormous energy and resources into improving governance in developing countries since the 1990s.