Can Aid Bureaucracies Think Politically? The Administrative Challenges of Political Economy Analysis (PEA) in DFID and the World Bank

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Yanguas ◽  
David Hulme
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
World Bank ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Economy Analysis ◽  
Economy Analysis

scholarly journals All the King’s Horses and all the King’s Men: International anti-corruption discourse, political economy analysis and assemblage theory

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Howard Staveley
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Complexity Science ◽  
International Organisations ◽  
Assemblage Theory ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Economy Analysis ◽  
Social Entities ◽  
Economy Analysis

<p>Corruption emerged as a key issue area in international relations and development in the 1990s. However, efforts to control corruption have, to date, been relatively unsuccessful. This has prompted international organisations, like the World Bank, to acknowledge that corruption is a political issue as much as it is an economic one. This shift has led to an increasing use of political economy analysis to inform the anticorruption and governance reform operations of international organisations. This thesis examines political economy analysis as a feature of the expertise housed in the World Bank. It argues that because anti-corruption and governance expertise is essential to the legitimate authority of the organisation, there are risks to that authority if World Bank experts are unable to provide more than highly conventional recommendations for tackling corruption in developing countries. Commentators on development practice have suggested that integrating concepts from complexity science into political economy analysis and adopting an “upside-down” approach to development might be useful to help generate new ideas for controlling corruption. However, this thesis argues that in order to do so, it is necessary to address the philosophical implications of complexity science for mainstream anti-corruption discourse, which is dominated by the positivist assumptions of neo-classical economics. To this end, the thesis argues that Manuel DeLanda’s assemblage theory offers a social ontology in which the relevance of complexity science concepts for social analysis can be developed, and a way of thinking that emphasises how social entities emerge from “the bottom up” without reducing causal explanations to individual human beings and their interests. Social networks, institutional organisations, and cities are examples of social assemblages, real emergent entities with causal power in the world. Mapping social assemblages in political economy analysis, and understanding the relations between social entities and different spatial scales, may reveal new ways of addressing corruption and the intensification of elite domination it enables.</p>

scholarly journals All the King’s Horses and all the King’s Men: International anti-corruption discourse, political economy analysis and assemblage theory

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Howard Staveley
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Complexity Science ◽  
International Organisations ◽  
Assemblage Theory ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Economy Analysis ◽  
Social Entities ◽  
Economy Analysis

<p>Corruption emerged as a key issue area in international relations and development in the 1990s. However, efforts to control corruption have, to date, been relatively unsuccessful. This has prompted international organisations, like the World Bank, to acknowledge that corruption is a political issue as much as it is an economic one. This shift has led to an increasing use of political economy analysis to inform the anticorruption and governance reform operations of international organisations. This thesis examines political economy analysis as a feature of the expertise housed in the World Bank. It argues that because anti-corruption and governance expertise is essential to the legitimate authority of the organisation, there are risks to that authority if World Bank experts are unable to provide more than highly conventional recommendations for tackling corruption in developing countries. Commentators on development practice have suggested that integrating concepts from complexity science into political economy analysis and adopting an “upside-down” approach to development might be useful to help generate new ideas for controlling corruption. However, this thesis argues that in order to do so, it is necessary to address the philosophical implications of complexity science for mainstream anti-corruption discourse, which is dominated by the positivist assumptions of neo-classical economics. To this end, the thesis argues that Manuel DeLanda’s assemblage theory offers a social ontology in which the relevance of complexity science concepts for social analysis can be developed, and a way of thinking that emphasises how social entities emerge from “the bottom up” without reducing causal explanations to individual human beings and their interests. Social networks, institutional organisations, and cities are examples of social assemblages, real emergent entities with causal power in the world. Mapping social assemblages in political economy analysis, and understanding the relations between social entities and different spatial scales, may reveal new ways of addressing corruption and the intensification of elite domination it enables.</p>

From Prebendalism to Predation: the Political Economy of Decline in Nigeria

1996 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
The Political ◽  
Adjustment Programme ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Early Results ◽  
The World ◽  
Democratic Rule ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

Upon taking power in August 1985, General Ibrahim Babangida promised a decisive course of economic and political change for Nigeria. Alongside a phased transition to democratic rule, the new President outlined far-reaching reforms intended to alleviate major distortions in the economy, to resolve a lingering impasse with external creditors, and to reduce a mounting burden of debt. Within a year, a comprehensive structural adjustment programme (SAP) was launched, incorporating key policies advocated by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and yielding significant early results in stabilising the economy and arresting decline.

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