The document discusses new thinking on the politics of development beyond mainstream approaches. It summarizes insights from a seminar presentation on Uganda's political economy given by Sam Hickey from the Effective States and Inclusive Development Centre. Some key points: 1) Mainstream approaches focus too much on material incentives and fail to consider the role of ideas and discourse. 2) Uganda has seen shifts toward a more programmatic and less clientelistic political settlement, though patronage persists. 3) Achieving structural economic transformation will require aligning political, policy, and social coalitions behind a new development strategy focused on ideas of modernization and equality, not just incentives.

1. 2-5-2012
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 Manchester
Co‐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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2. 2-5-2012
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
institutional economics” (di John and Putzel 2009: 6)
l ” (d h d l )
– ‘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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3. 2-5-2012
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 actors
p 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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4. 2-5-2012
Materialism/incentives vs. ideas
• Khan: elites as rational actors intent only on securing and
maintaining power. Ideology important only in keeping ruling
gp gy p y p g g
coalitions 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’
– ““…states are not only the product and realm of bureaucrats, policies
l h d d l fb li i
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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5. 2-5-2012
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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7. 2-5-2012
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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8. 2-5-2012
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
• Transnational
– World Bank Country Memo (2007): gains traction amongst
some leading technocrats
– Financial crisis further undermines neoliberalism
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9. 2-5-2012
A new convergence?
• ‘As economic tectonic
plates have shifted,
paradigms must shift too’
di t hift t ’
• ‘This is no longer about the
Washington Consensus’
• ‘Securing transformation’
– Robert Zoellick, WB President
(Sept 2010)
• Th ‘
The ‘new structural
l
economics’
– Justin Lin, Chief Economist
• BUT: an idea without
agency on the ground
Will the NDP be implemented?
INITIAL
CONDIT IDEOLOGY & DISCOURSE
‘Transformation’ displaces PWC (growth &
IONS POLITICAL
poverty) but lacks agency in policy circles
??
New oil ECONOMY
finds;; Oil & rising powers
declinin displace trad donors
g food
POLITICAL COALITIONS DEVELOPMENT
security; Growth creates new SETTLEMENTS AND PACTS* STRATEGY
rising constituencies In transit: pro- Transformation?
cost of
Ruling coalition poor pact (aid, Jobless growth?
living;
narrowing, MoF & CSOs) Social protection?
rising
reduced broken
youth C&C
unemplo legitimacy?
New deals &
yment DELIVERY
Remains highly actors required
MECHANISMS
INSTITUTIONAL clientelistic for new strategy
Declining PS
FORMS not yet in place
performance
f
Presidentialist Districtisation
‘Multiparty’ politics
Subord groups
disorganised
Corruption Feedback
UNDERLYING CONDITIONS FOR PROXIMATE CONDITIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT
DEVELOPMENT
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10. 2-5-2012
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
margins
• 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
epa e o e a o a e e op e
Department for International Development
• 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
Management (IDPM) and the B k W ld P
M (IDPM) d h Brooks World Poverty
Institute (BWPI), University of Manchester,
• CEO: David.Hulme@manchester.ac.uk
• Research Directors: Sam.Hickey@manchester.ac.uk;
Kunal.Sen@manchester.ac.uk
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 questions
What kinds of politics can help secure inclusive
development & how can these be promoted?
1. What capacities do states require to help deliver inclusive
development?
2. What shapes elite commitment to delivering inclusive
h h l d l l
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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12. 2-5-2012
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 Recognition
g
• 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
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