Governance and development: new findings and CARE’s GPF

1. Governance and development: new findings and CARE’s GPF Sam Hickey, IDPM, University of Manchester 18 April 2011, Greenwich

2. Outline • The nature and drivers of the governance agenda • The decline of the usual suspects? • Democracy and development • Citizenship and civil society • Some new routes towards good governance • Key shifts • Implications for CARE’s GPF?

3. The nature & drivers of the governance agenda • The ‘perverse confluence’ post-1989 (Dagnino) • Progressive forces, north and south, challenge authoritarianism and promote democratisation and human rights • Neoliberal ideologies of the state create space for NGOs • Political conditionality; ‘west is best’ • Post-Washington Consensus: Development gets political? • Empowerment: social capital, the decentralised state; ownership • The diet-politics of ‘inclusive liberalism’ • A heavily ideological and contingent agenda, rarely driven by evidence concerning the politics of what works • Alternative possibilities now exist…

4. Democracy and ‘development’ • Developmental states show little/no correlation with ‘good governance’ or ‘democracy’ (Khan) • State capacities for (capitalist) development: restructure property rights for growth; assist technology acquisition; discipline capitalists; political stability • Developmental patrimonialism? Legalise rent-seeking? • Democracy and social services? e.g. Uganda • Young democracy strengthens clientelist not performance pressures • Democracy and empowering the poor? ‘trickle-down’? • So: • ‘Bad governance’ has structural drivers: not easy to dislodge • The governmental capacities required for development vary in relation to stage of progress regarding capitalist development • Democracy: a good thing but doesn’t lead swiftly to development

5. Citizenship & good governance • Participatory citizenship and accountable/effective governance? • WDR 2004 vs. Centre for Future State, Africa Power and Politics Programme • Individual approaches (e.g. scorecards) are time-intensive for citizens while being largely weak and ineffective • Collective action can do better although autonomy matters less than coalitions; may also exclude the poor • Voice not enough: top-down discipline in state matters more • Which parts of civil society matter most? • From voluntary associations to interest groups? • Political society usually matters more • Parties, elites, bureaucrats, brokers • e.g. participatory budgeting • From clientelism to citizenship? • Inclusive/negotiated/benevolent forms of clientelism

6. Some new routes to good governance? Theory and practice • Political settlements • The polity (rather than civil society) approach • State-led/state-society interactions • Taxation & state provisioning as key drivers of state accountability and capacity, citizenship and social contracts • Global incentives for bad governance/pro-poor politics

7. Political settlements: & social contracts? • “the forging of a common understanding, usually between elites, that their best interests or beliefs are served through acquiescence to a framework for administering political power” (Di John & Putzel ‘09: 4); • “‘political settlement’ refers to the balance or distribution of power between contending social groups and social classes, on which any state is based. Looking at the political settlement focuses attention on intra-elite contention and bargaining (political & economic elites etc), on contention and bargaining between elites and non-elites, inter-group contention and bargaining (gender, regional, ethnic/linguistic) and on contention and bargaining between those who occupy the state and society more widely” (op cit.). • Forms the basis of public authority: inclusive political settlements required for stability, state capacity and development to emerge • Helps explain changes in institutions and the politics of specific development strategies (ZA) and policies (SP)

8. Some key shifts In what we think we know: • Institutions matter  politics matters more • Civil society  political society • Formal governance  informal/practical hybrids • Democracy  developmental state; political settlements/contracts? • Material  discursive modes of state-building and politics And how this should shape practice: • Ideology  evidence • Good governance  good enough governance • Best practice/institutional mimicry  best fit (e.g. NGO support) • Make the world a better place  ‘do no harm’ Further frontiers/challenges • Local/national  the global? • Not just getting the politics right, also the political economy (not just playing both sides of the equation; citizenship is not enough)

9. Challenges for CARE’s GPF • The three domains (good to be holistic) • Empower citizens (challenging power relations needs action in spheres of political economy and culture not just politics; civil society?) • Make public authorities (inc NGOs?) more accountable (less about characteristics/indicators of good governance more about capacities and relations; what leverage do NGOs have to shift incentives?) • Open spaces between citizens and authorities (evidence for these working? Role of political society: elites, parties, brokers?) • Mind the gap! Good governance and actually existing politics • Do all good things come together? Development and democracy? • Strengthening rather than disciplining public authority? • Global level activities beyond aid? • May need to distinguish between outcomes and the capacities required to get there; also which capacities for which outcomes • Evidence on what INGOs can usefully contribute here? • Closer attention required to ‘doing no harm’ • Political economy analysis in specific contexts

10. More research forthcoming! • The Effective States and Inclusive Development and Research Centre (2011-16) • Political settlements and citizenship formation • Programmatic focus • Building Developmental States • Politics of What Works • University of Manchester with partners in Bangladesh, India, Ghana, Malawi and Uganda, also United States