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2014 | Book

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Political Economy and the Aid Industry in Asia

Authors: Jane Hutchison, Wil Hout, Caroline Hughes, Richard Robison

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK

Book Series : Critical Studies of the Asia-Pacific

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" , Springer Professional "Technik"

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About this book

Adopting a distinctive structural political economy approach, this book uniquely explains the blind spots of alternative political economy approaches to international aid, and presents an original framework for evaluating likely reformers' strength of commitment and potential alliances with donors.

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Table of Contents

Frontmatter

Introduction

1. Introduction

Abstract

This book examines attempts made by policy-makers in development agencies and banks to understand how political economy shapes the way development programmes take root in developing countries and how it has defined their outcomes. It also seeks to explain why it had proven difficult to establish more recent ideas about political economy, such as the Drivers of Change approach and its outliers and successors, as the basis for new models of development practice and strategies for development effectiveness. Finally, the book proposes a different way of applying political economy approaches — on the basis of what we are calling ‘structural political economy’ — to development policies and aid programming.

Jane Hutchison, Wil Hout, Caroline Hughes, Richard Robison

Development Agencies and the Reality of Politics

Frontmatter

2. Realities of Political Economy: The Elephant in the Room

Abstract

The idea that the political landscape can be reordered in a technocratic way by means of market reform and institutional change has dominated thinking in the economic ministries and development agencies of the major Western countries since the early 1980s. It has been heavily influenced by the rational choice/public choice view of politics as a world of self-serving behaviour where vested interests accumulate wealth by mobilising political power and influence to undermine the market mechanism. This neoliberal view initially assumed that the imposition of markets and the ending of government intervention in the economy would be enough in themselves to neutralise the predatory raids on the state that defined the rent-seeking society. As this expectation evaporated, development strategy was switched from an emphasis on rolling out markets to that of building strong institutions to enforce the rule of markets, to insulate markets from the ‘ irrationalities’ of politics and to provide incentives for market-oriented behaviour. In essence, neoliberals sought to replace politics, as they saw it, with technocratic and managerial forms of authority and ‘good governance’ based on market principles and values.

Jane Hutchison, Wil Hout, Caroline Hughes, Richard Robison

3. Development Agencies and the Political Economy Turn

Abstract

As we showed in earlier chapters, donor agencies started to realise in the 1990s that development policy involves more than adherence to macroeconomic fundamentals, which had been the major precept of the Washington Consensus. The awareness that non-economic factors were important produced a wave of publications on the centrality of ‘governance’ and led to a focus on institutions.

Jane Hutchison, Wil Hout, Caroline Hughes, Richard Robison

4. Development as Collective Action Problems

Abstract

The discussion of various attempts at engaging with political economy analysis by development agencies in the previous chapter showed that such agencies have difficulty in engaging with politics, as a consequence of the understanding they have of their work, as well as their own institutional political-economic realities. This chapter turns to further attempts to operationalise political economy analysis within the broader development community and particularly to the idea that development can be understood as a set of collective action problems, wherein political action is necessary to obtain ‘development’ as a public good so the whole of society is made better off.

Jane Hutchison, Wil Hout, Caroline Hughes, Richard Robison

Applying Structural Political Economy

Frontmatter

5. Understanding the Development Problem

Abstract

In previous chapters we have critiqued the ways in which donors and associated researchers have attempted to incorporate political economy analyses into their approaches to development. In particular, we identified three assumptions which are prevalent among aid practitioners but which constrain the effectiveness of their political economy approaches: namely, the assumption that development is a public or common good; the assumption that correct development policies can be identified and implemented through experts and enlightened reformers working in partnership; and the assumption that failure by political elites to identify and implement such policies emerges from either information failures or perverse incentives, that is collective action problems. In this second part of the book, we offer a counter proposal to each of these assumptions, developed on the basis of structuralist political economy, and illustrated through reference to four case studies of aid projects in Southeast Asia. In this chapter, we elaborate on our understanding of development as a process of contested structural change, and the implications of this for aid programming.

Jane Hutchison, Wil Hout, Caroline Hughes, Richard Robison

6. Analysing Reform and Reformers

Abstract

In aid programming, working more politically is often taken to mean finding and supporting developmental reformers as agents of change. But given that everyone can claim to be a reformer when they talk with donor agencies, there is an urgent need for a form of analysis that can evaluate the commitment of actors involved. The reconceptualisation of development offered in the last chapter offers a basis for this. As aid programming is an intervention in ongoing development struggles, it is possible to gather significant information on how relevant actors conceive of and pursue their interests by analysing their stances in these struggles. Our analysis proceeds from the assertion that development actors differ in their conceptualisation of, and commitment to, particular reform goals, but they do so in a manner that is consistent with their broader interests and the ways they have pursued these over time.

Jane Hutchison, Wil Hout, Caroline Hughes, Richard Robison

7. Working Politically: Understanding Alliances

Abstract

Rethinking governance reform in the manner proposed in the preceding chapters suggests that, for donor agencies, ‘working politically’ requires a reconceptualisation of aid programmes as limited interventions in ongoing development processes, plus a more nuanced understanding of putative ‘partners’. How does this approach fit with, or depart from, the major shifts in international aid policy and practice articulated over the last ten years? This chapter addresses this question.

Jane Hutchison, Wil Hout, Caroline Hughes, Richard Robison

8. Conclusion: The Road to Nowhere?

Abstract

Our central purpose in this book has been initially to ask why political economy has emerged as a tool for policy analysis and planning within the major aid agencies and banks. These had for decades been resolutely opposed to consideration of the political and social contexts of development reform, clinging to the assumption that various policy and institutional fixes would be enough in themselves to steer development in the ‘right’ direction. Also, it has been our aim to explain the different ways in which political economy has been understood and applied by policy-makers. Thus, we have made a close analysis of rational choice political economy, institutional political economy and the more pluralist versions of political economy that do take into account factors of power and social relationships. We examine how these approaches have shaped different agendas for policy and strategy in more practical terms.

Jane Hutchison, Wil Hout, Caroline Hughes, Richard Robison

Backmatter

Title: Political Economy and the Aid Industry in Asia
Authors: Jane Hutchison
Wil Hout
Caroline Hughes
Richard Robison
Copyright Year: 2014
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK
Electronic ISBN: 978-1-137-30361-5
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-45420-4
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137303615

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