Author: Susanne Koch
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN: 1928331416
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 398
Book Description
With the rise of the knowledge for development paradigm, expert advice has become a prime instrument of foreign aid. At the same time, it has been object of repeated criticism: the chronic failure of technical assistance a notion under which advice is commonly subsumed has been documented in a host of studies. Nonetheless, international organisations continue to send advisors, promising to increase the effectiveness of expert support if their technocratic recommendations are taken up. This book reveals fundamental problems of expert advice in the context of aid that concern issues of power and legitimacy rather than merely flaws of implementation. Based on empirical evidence from South Africa and Tanzania, the authors show that aid-related advisory processes are inevitably obstructed by colliding interests, political pressures and hierarchical relations that impede knowledge transfer and mutual learning. As a result, recipient governments find themselves caught in a perpetual cycle of dependency, continuously advised by experts who convey the shifting paradigms and agendas of their respective donor governments. For young democracies, the persistent presence of external actors is hazardous: ultimately, it poses a threat to the legitimacy of their governments if their policy-making becomes more responsive to foreign demands than to the preferences and needs of their citizens.
The Delusion of Knowledge Transfer
Author: Susanne Koch
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN: 1928331416
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 398
Book Description
With the rise of the knowledge for development paradigm, expert advice has become a prime instrument of foreign aid. At the same time, it has been object of repeated criticism: the chronic failure of technical assistance a notion under which advice is commonly subsumed has been documented in a host of studies. Nonetheless, international organisations continue to send advisors, promising to increase the effectiveness of expert support if their technocratic recommendations are taken up. This book reveals fundamental problems of expert advice in the context of aid that concern issues of power and legitimacy rather than merely flaws of implementation. Based on empirical evidence from South Africa and Tanzania, the authors show that aid-related advisory processes are inevitably obstructed by colliding interests, political pressures and hierarchical relations that impede knowledge transfer and mutual learning. As a result, recipient governments find themselves caught in a perpetual cycle of dependency, continuously advised by experts who convey the shifting paradigms and agendas of their respective donor governments. For young democracies, the persistent presence of external actors is hazardous: ultimately, it poses a threat to the legitimacy of their governments if their policy-making becomes more responsive to foreign demands than to the preferences and needs of their citizens.
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN: 1928331416
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 398
Book Description
With the rise of the knowledge for development paradigm, expert advice has become a prime instrument of foreign aid. At the same time, it has been object of repeated criticism: the chronic failure of technical assistance a notion under which advice is commonly subsumed has been documented in a host of studies. Nonetheless, international organisations continue to send advisors, promising to increase the effectiveness of expert support if their technocratic recommendations are taken up. This book reveals fundamental problems of expert advice in the context of aid that concern issues of power and legitimacy rather than merely flaws of implementation. Based on empirical evidence from South Africa and Tanzania, the authors show that aid-related advisory processes are inevitably obstructed by colliding interests, political pressures and hierarchical relations that impede knowledge transfer and mutual learning. As a result, recipient governments find themselves caught in a perpetual cycle of dependency, continuously advised by experts who convey the shifting paradigms and agendas of their respective donor governments. For young democracies, the persistent presence of external actors is hazardous: ultimately, it poses a threat to the legitimacy of their governments if their policy-making becomes more responsive to foreign demands than to the preferences and needs of their citizens.
The Oxford Handbook of the Quality of Government
Author: Andreas Bågenholm
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191899003
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 881
Book Description
Recent research demonstrates that the quality of public institutions is crucial for a number of important environmental, social, economic, and political outcomes, and thereby human well-being. The Quality of Government (QoG) approach directs attention to issues such as impartiality in the exercise of public power, professionalism in public service delivery, effective measures against corruption, and meritocracy instead of patronage and nepotism. This Handbook offers a comprehensive, state-of-the-art overview of this rapidly expanding research field and also identifies viable avenues for future research. The initial chapters focus on theoretical approaches and debates, and the central question of how QoG can be measured. A second set of chapters examines the wealth of empirical research on how QoG relates to democratization, social trust and cohesion, ethnic diversity, happiness and human wellbeing, democratic accountability, economic growth and inequality, political legitimacy, environmental sustainability, gender equality, and the outbreak of civil conflicts. The remaining chapters turn to the perennial issue of which contextual factors and policy approaches—national, local, and international—have proven successful (and not so successful) for increasing QoG. The Quality of Government approach both challenges and complements important strands of inquiry in the social sciences. For research about democratization, QoG adds the importance of taking state capacity into account. For economics, the QoG approach shows that in order to produce economic prosperity, markets need to be embedded in institutions with a certain set of qualities. For development studies, QoG emphasizes that issues relating to corruption are integral to understanding development writ large.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191899003
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 881
Book Description
Recent research demonstrates that the quality of public institutions is crucial for a number of important environmental, social, economic, and political outcomes, and thereby human well-being. The Quality of Government (QoG) approach directs attention to issues such as impartiality in the exercise of public power, professionalism in public service delivery, effective measures against corruption, and meritocracy instead of patronage and nepotism. This Handbook offers a comprehensive, state-of-the-art overview of this rapidly expanding research field and also identifies viable avenues for future research. The initial chapters focus on theoretical approaches and debates, and the central question of how QoG can be measured. A second set of chapters examines the wealth of empirical research on how QoG relates to democratization, social trust and cohesion, ethnic diversity, happiness and human wellbeing, democratic accountability, economic growth and inequality, political legitimacy, environmental sustainability, gender equality, and the outbreak of civil conflicts. The remaining chapters turn to the perennial issue of which contextual factors and policy approaches—national, local, and international—have proven successful (and not so successful) for increasing QoG. The Quality of Government approach both challenges and complements important strands of inquiry in the social sciences. For research about democratization, QoG adds the importance of taking state capacity into account. For economics, the QoG approach shows that in order to produce economic prosperity, markets need to be embedded in institutions with a certain set of qualities. For development studies, QoG emphasizes that issues relating to corruption are integral to understanding development writ large.
Routledge Handbook of Public Policy in Africa
Author: Gedion Onyango
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000513947
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 912
Book Description
This Handbook provides an authoritative and foundational disciplinary overview of African Public Policy and a comprehensive examination of the practicalities of policy analysis, policymaking processes, implementation, and administration in Africa today. The book assembles a multidisciplinary team of distinguished and upcoming Africanist scholars, practitioners, researchers and policy experts working inside and outside Africa to analyse the historical and emerging policy issues in 21st-century Africa. While mostly attentive to comparative public policy in Africa, this book attempts to address some of the following pertinent questions: How can public policy be understood and taught in Africa? How does policymaking occur in unstable political contexts, or in states under pressure? Has the democratisation of governing systems improved policy processes in Africa? How have recent transformations, such as technological proliferation in Africa, impacted public policy processes? What are the underlying challenges and potential policy paths for Africa going forward? The contributions examine an interplay of prevailing institutional, political, structural challenges and opportunities for policy effectiveness to discern striking commonalities and trajectories across different African states. This is a valuable resource for practitioners, politicians, researchers, university students, and academics interested in studying and understanding how African countries are governed.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000513947
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 912
Book Description
This Handbook provides an authoritative and foundational disciplinary overview of African Public Policy and a comprehensive examination of the practicalities of policy analysis, policymaking processes, implementation, and administration in Africa today. The book assembles a multidisciplinary team of distinguished and upcoming Africanist scholars, practitioners, researchers and policy experts working inside and outside Africa to analyse the historical and emerging policy issues in 21st-century Africa. While mostly attentive to comparative public policy in Africa, this book attempts to address some of the following pertinent questions: How can public policy be understood and taught in Africa? How does policymaking occur in unstable political contexts, or in states under pressure? Has the democratisation of governing systems improved policy processes in Africa? How have recent transformations, such as technological proliferation in Africa, impacted public policy processes? What are the underlying challenges and potential policy paths for Africa going forward? The contributions examine an interplay of prevailing institutional, political, structural challenges and opportunities for policy effectiveness to discern striking commonalities and trajectories across different African states. This is a valuable resource for practitioners, politicians, researchers, university students, and academics interested in studying and understanding how African countries are governed.
States at Work
Author: Thomas Bierschenk
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004264965
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 454
Book Description
States at Work explores the mundane practices of state-making in Africa by focussing on the daily functioning of public services and the practices of civil servants.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004264965
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 454
Book Description
States at Work explores the mundane practices of state-making in Africa by focussing on the daily functioning of public services and the practices of civil servants.
Pockets of Effectiveness and the Politics of State-Building and Development in Africa
Author: Professor of Politics and Development Sam Hickey
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192864963
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-BC-ND 4.0 International License. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Why do certain parts of the state in Africa work so effectively despite operating in difficult governance contexts? How do 'pockets of bureaucratic effectiveness' emerge and become sustained over time? And what does this tell us about the prospects for state-building and development in Africa? Repeated economic and social crises have demanded that development thinkers and policy actors have had to engage with the critical role that states play in delivering development. Pockets of Effectiveness and the Politics of State-building and Development in Africa shows that politics is the driving factor that shapes how well state agencies perform their roles. It deploys a new conceptual framework DS the power domains approach DS to explore the shifting fortunes of key state agencies in five countries DS Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia DS over the past three decades. Our original research reveals when, how and why political rulers decide to build effective state agencies and enable them to deliver certain forms of economic development DS often through forming strategic coalitions with senior bureaucrats and with international support DS and also when this support falters and gives way to a politics of survival. Comparative analysis identifies two potential trajectories towards state-building in Africa, each shaped by different configurations of social and political power. The book critiques the role that international development agencies have played in (mis)shaping the state in Africa and suggests a new strategic agenda for building the state capacities required to deliver sustained development at the current juncture. The book closes with critical commentaries from two leading scholars in the field, to help place our work in context and establish the next steps for research and strategy in this increasingly important area of development theory and practice.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192864963
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-BC-ND 4.0 International License. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Why do certain parts of the state in Africa work so effectively despite operating in difficult governance contexts? How do 'pockets of bureaucratic effectiveness' emerge and become sustained over time? And what does this tell us about the prospects for state-building and development in Africa? Repeated economic and social crises have demanded that development thinkers and policy actors have had to engage with the critical role that states play in delivering development. Pockets of Effectiveness and the Politics of State-building and Development in Africa shows that politics is the driving factor that shapes how well state agencies perform their roles. It deploys a new conceptual framework DS the power domains approach DS to explore the shifting fortunes of key state agencies in five countries DS Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia DS over the past three decades. Our original research reveals when, how and why political rulers decide to build effective state agencies and enable them to deliver certain forms of economic development DS often through forming strategic coalitions with senior bureaucrats and with international support DS and also when this support falters and gives way to a politics of survival. Comparative analysis identifies two potential trajectories towards state-building in Africa, each shaped by different configurations of social and political power. The book critiques the role that international development agencies have played in (mis)shaping the state in Africa and suggests a new strategic agenda for building the state capacities required to deliver sustained development at the current juncture. The book closes with critical commentaries from two leading scholars in the field, to help place our work in context and establish the next steps for research and strategy in this increasingly important area of development theory and practice.
The Politics of African Industrial Policy
Author: Lindsay Whitfield
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107105315
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 357
Book Description
This book engages in the debate on growth versus economic transformation and the importance of industrial policy, presenting a comprehensive framework for explaining the politics of industrial policy. Using comparative research to theorize about the politics of industrial policy in countries in the early stages of capitalist transformation that also experience the pressures of elections due to democratization, this book provides four in-depth African country studies that illustrate the challenges to economic transformation and the politics of implementing industrial policies.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107105315
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 357
Book Description
This book engages in the debate on growth versus economic transformation and the importance of industrial policy, presenting a comprehensive framework for explaining the politics of industrial policy. Using comparative research to theorize about the politics of industrial policy in countries in the early stages of capitalist transformation that also experience the pressures of elections due to democratization, this book provides four in-depth African country studies that illustrate the challenges to economic transformation and the politics of implementing industrial policies.
The Human Factor in Governance
Author: W. McCourt
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230208304
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
This book explores the ways governments manage public employees in developing countries, and how this in turn impacts on the success of national development and governance strategies. It presents seven in-depth case studies from developing countries in Africa and Asia and proposes ways forward for Human Resource Management in developing countries.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230208304
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
This book explores the ways governments manage public employees in developing countries, and how this in turn impacts on the success of national development and governance strategies. It presents seven in-depth case studies from developing countries in Africa and Asia and proposes ways forward for Human Resource Management in developing countries.
International Handbook on Civil Service Systems
Author: A. Massey
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1781001081
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 393
Book Description
'This Handbook on civil service systems is truly international and comparative. It covers and compares countries from all continents. It also connects historical (Weberian) legacies to contemporary challenges such as coordination, the hollow state, and trust. Massey's Handbook does not avoid difficult issues for civil service systems such as ruined reforms, fiscal retrenchment, and cultural and political system shocks. Therefore this book is exceptionally rich and stimulating.' Geert Bouckaert, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium While there is no universally accepted definition of civil servant and civil service, this authoritative and informative Handbook compares and contrasts various approaches to organising the structure and activities of different civil service systems. Underpinning theories and frameworks provide a disciplinary perspective from which to explore recurring topics and themes, and international comparisons are made via case studies from Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, and North and South America. The expert contributors consider the historical and theoretical context of public administration and public sector management, encompassing issues such as the Weberian legacy, joined-up government and the hollowed-out state thesis. The debate between Anglo-American influenced systems versus the continental European approach to organising the civil service is also addressed.
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1781001081
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 393
Book Description
'This Handbook on civil service systems is truly international and comparative. It covers and compares countries from all continents. It also connects historical (Weberian) legacies to contemporary challenges such as coordination, the hollow state, and trust. Massey's Handbook does not avoid difficult issues for civil service systems such as ruined reforms, fiscal retrenchment, and cultural and political system shocks. Therefore this book is exceptionally rich and stimulating.' Geert Bouckaert, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium While there is no universally accepted definition of civil servant and civil service, this authoritative and informative Handbook compares and contrasts various approaches to organising the structure and activities of different civil service systems. Underpinning theories and frameworks provide a disciplinary perspective from which to explore recurring topics and themes, and international comparisons are made via case studies from Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, and North and South America. The expert contributors consider the historical and theoretical context of public administration and public sector management, encompassing issues such as the Weberian legacy, joined-up government and the hollowed-out state thesis. The debate between Anglo-American influenced systems versus the continental European approach to organising the civil service is also addressed.
Contemporary Journal of Education and Business (CJEB)
Author:
Publisher: NDALAHWA MUSA MASANJA
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 252
Book Description
The Contemporary Journal of Education and Business (CJEB) is bi-annual professional publication that publishes information, views, opinions and well- researched articles in contemporary issues in education and business. These scholarly articles are useful for scholars, students, researchers, business executives, educators and business practitioners. The articles published observe to high quality and context that the Editorial Board believes would be a significant contribution to the international community of scholars and readers.
Publisher: NDALAHWA MUSA MASANJA
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 252
Book Description
The Contemporary Journal of Education and Business (CJEB) is bi-annual professional publication that publishes information, views, opinions and well- researched articles in contemporary issues in education and business. These scholarly articles are useful for scholars, students, researchers, business executives, educators and business practitioners. The articles published observe to high quality and context that the Editorial Board believes would be a significant contribution to the international community of scholars and readers.
The Changing Role of Government
Author: R. Batley
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 023000105X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
Batley and Larbi examine how governments of developing countries are organized to deliver public services. The book is based on comparative international studies of four service sectors: Health care, urban water, business promotion and agricultural marketing. Governments everywhere are being driven to adopt an 'indirect' approach - managing, contracting and regulating public agencies or private partners, rather than providing services directly. It questions how governments are responding and whether this approach is appropriate to the capacities of developing countries.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 023000105X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
Batley and Larbi examine how governments of developing countries are organized to deliver public services. The book is based on comparative international studies of four service sectors: Health care, urban water, business promotion and agricultural marketing. Governments everywhere are being driven to adopt an 'indirect' approach - managing, contracting and regulating public agencies or private partners, rather than providing services directly. It questions how governments are responding and whether this approach is appropriate to the capacities of developing countries.