The Politics of Development1
Fall Term 2014
Widner
T, Th 9:00-10:00
Preceptors: Brandon Miller de la Cuesta,
Marcus Johnson, Xander Slaski, and Vinay Sitapati
The political philosopher Thomas Hobbes once asked how humanity could escape
a world in which life was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (Leviathan, chapter
XIII, 1651). This quest lies at the core of the “political economy of development.”
Institutions have played a pivotal role in shaping human welfare and resolving—
or deepening—the dilemma Hobbes identified. Governments can help create a world
where people invest because they believe they will see the fruits of their labor and where
standards of living rise in consequence. But governments can also become predators or
bandits and perpetuate the infamous “war of all against all.” This course asks what shapes
institutional effectiveness and accountability—and what leaders can do to help societies
out of some of the governance traps that often sabotage development.
The initial lectures, precepts, and assignments consider what we mean by
development, entertain several explanations for divergent patterns, and assess the various
ways in which context may make the challenges of building effective and accountable
government especially difficult. We then ask each of you to put yourself in the place of a
leader who wants to improve the provision of public goods and serve an inclusive
political community: What can you do to promote institutional change—or does history
make a break with the past enormously difficult, as several scholars have recently
suggested? The assignments include biography, conceptual and theoretical readings, some
classic social science analysis, and practical case studies.
In addition to mastery of assigned reading selections, requirements include three
auto-graded exercises (5% each), one 6-page data paper from list A (may be prepared by
teams of up to three people, 15%), two 8 to10-page papers, one from list B and one from
list C (15% each), a final take-home examination (25%), and class participation (15%).
Note: Supplementary reading is completely optional unless you know the assigned
selections already.
Introduction: Patterns of Peace & Prosperity (September 11)
Reading
Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, “The Economic Lives of the Poor,” Journal of
Economic Perspectives, 21, 2 (Winter 2007): 141-167.
Amartya Sen (1990). Development as Capability Expansion. In Human
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This course draws partly on the syllabus Evan Lieberman developed for this course in previous years but it
diverges in several ways and includes new material. Feedback is welcome throughout the term.
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Development and the International Development Strategy for the 1990s. K.
Griffin and J. Knight. London, Macmillan: 41-58.
Angus Deaton, The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality.
Princeton University Press, 2013, chapters1 and 2 (pp. 1-56).
Familiarize yourself with the Millennium Development Goals at
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/
Explore data sources: World Bank World Development Indicators and United Nations
Development Program, The Human Development Report, 2013. Download the entire
report for reference http://hdr.undp.org/en/2013-report and read the Overview and
Introduction; and the technical note (200-204)
Supplementary
Hans Rosling TED Talk: Stats That Reshape Your World View,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w (if you like data
visualization, see the Gapminder site with more of the kind of analysis
Rosling offers: http://www.gapminder.org/ )
Cass Sunstein, “It Captures Your Mind,” review of Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar
Shafir, Scarcity, September 26, 2013.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/sep/26/it-captures-yourmind/?pagination=false
Precept: Please sign up for a precept if you have not done so
Explaining the Patterns (September 16)
Why Institutions Matter (September 18)
(Paper options A1 and A2 available, due by September 22 at 5:00 p.m.)
Reading:
Debate: Jeff Sachs, “Making the Investments Needed to End Poverty, chapter 13 in The
End of Poverty, Penguin Books 2005 and William Easterly. “Solow’s Surprise,”
chapter 3 in The Elusive Quest for Growth, MIT Press, 2002.
Douglass North, “Institutions,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 5 (1991): 97-112
only 97-102 required). (optional)
Mancur Olson. “The Logic of Power,” from Power and Prosperity, New York: Basic
Books, 2000 and “Iraq Insurgents Reaping Wealth as They Advance,” The New York
Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/21/world/middleeast/isis-iraq-insurgentsreaping-wealth-as-they-advance.html?_r=0
Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven: Yale
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University Press, pp. 1-32 and 59-71.
Supplementary:
Conflict, Security, & Development, 2011 World Development Report, chapter 1, pp. 5168.
Precept: Conceptualizing and measuring development
Part I: Predicaments
The Politician’s Dilemma/The Reformer’s Calculus (September 23)
Historical Legacies (September 25)
Reading
Acemoglu & Robinson, Why Nations Fail, chapters 1 through 4 and 9.
Atul Kohli, "Where do high growth political economies come from? The
Japanese Lineage of Korea's Developmental State." World Development
22 (9):1269-93.
Robert Jackson and Carl Rosberg. “Why Africa’s Weak States Persist: The Empirical
and the Juridical in Statehood,” World Politics, 35, 1 (October 1982).
Precept: Social science reasoning and the logics of state formation/state capacity
5-question auto-graded Exercise 1, self-scheduled
Global Orders (September 30)
Geography (October 2)
Reading:
Valenzuela and Valenzuela. "Modernization and dependency: Alternative perspectives
in the study of Latin American underdevelopment." Comparative Politics 10.4 (1978).
Read pp.543-550 (skim 535-543,550-556.)
Jeff Herbst, States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and
Control. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, chapter 5.
Jeff Sachs, A.D. Mellinger, and J.L. Gallup. 2001. "The geography of poverty
and wealth." Scientific American 284 (3):70-5.
Jared Diamond, Guns, germs, and steel: the fates of human societies. New
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York: W.W. Norton & Co, chapter 4.
Supplementary:
See also, exchange with William McNeill:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1997/jun/26/guns-germs-and-steel/
You might also read the exchange between Diamond and Acemoglu and
Robinson in the New York Review of Books:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jun/07/what-makes-countriesrich-or-poor/ and http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/aug/16/whynations-fail/.
Precept: Testing theories about geography: hypotheses, correlations/associations
Ethnic diversity (October 7)
Thresholds (October 9)
Reading:
Edward Miguel, "Tribe or Nation? Nation Building and Public Goods in Kenya
versus Tanzania." World Politics 56 (3):327-62.
Ashutosh Varshney, “Ethnic Conflict and Civil Society: India and Beyond”, World
Politics, April 2001.
Michael Kremer, “Making Vaccines Pay,” pp. 417-429 in William Easterly, ed.
Reinventing Foreign Aid, MIT Press, 2008 or/and Michael Kremer, “Pharmaceuticals
and the Developing World,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 16, 4 (fall 2002): 67-90.
Precept: Causal mechanisms: cultural diversity & public goods provision
Part 2: Generating political will
Why Political Leaders Don’t Always Seem to Care (Oct. 14)
Competition and Counter-pressures (October 16)
Reading:
Robert Bates, Markets & States in Tropical Africa (a very short book, which we treat as
a case and discuss in class)2
Supplementary (if you have read the Bates book, focus on these instead)
Anne Krueger, "Government Failures in Development,” Journal of Economic
Perspectives, 4, 3 (1990): 9-23.
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If you have taken African Politics with Professor Widner then we will use you as an advisor in this exercise.
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Joel Hellman, Geraint Jones, and Daniel Kaufmann, “Seize the State, Seize the Day,”
Journal of Comparative Economics, 31, 4 (2003).
Dani Rodrik, “Goodbye Washington Consensus, Hello Washington Confusion? A
Review of the World Bank’s Economic Growth in the 1990s: Learning from a Decade
of Reform, Journal of Economic Literature, XLIV(December 2006): 973-987.
Precept: Markets v administered systems, the pros and cons
Auto-graded Exercise 2, self-scheduled.
Elections, Incentives, & Performance (October 21)
Civic Engagement, Social Capital, and Development Outcomes (October 23)
(Paper options A3 and C1 available, due October 22 by midnight)
Reading
Robert Putnam, Making Democracy Work3
Supplementary (read these if you have already read Making Democracy Work):
Adsera, A., C. Boix, and M. Payne. 2003. "Are you being served? Political
accountability and quality of government." Journal of Law, Economics, and
Organization 19 (2):445.
Paul Collier, “Votes and Violence,” chapter 1 from Wars, Guns, and Votes: Democracy in
Dangerous Places, Harper Collins, 2009.
Precept: parsing the argument in Making Democracy Work
Fall Break (October 25-November 2)
Yes, this book is set in Italy. “Development” is not an issue that goes away once and for all as countries get
richer. The book introduces concepts and theories that feature in many discussions about development.
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Part 3: Making Government Work: A “Science of Delivery?”
(Paper Option C2 available, due November 5 by midnight)
The Reformer’s Dilemma (November 4)
Cardoso in Brazil (November 6)
Reading:
Acemoglu & Robinson, Why Nations Fail, 11 (just pp 332-4), 13, 14 (just pp
404-414), 15.
Innovations for Successful Societies video: Reformers speak (about 6 minutes;
accessible through Blackboard)
Fernando Henrique Cardoso, The Accidental President of Brazil, A Memoir
Supplementary
Audio Segment, Intro and “The Lie That Saved Brazil” From This American Life.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/423/the-invention-of-money
Helpful for understanding one part of the Cardoso story.
Interview with Cardoso: http://www.diplomaticourier.com/news/regions/brics/185interview-his-excellency-fernando-henrique-cardoso-former-president-of-brazil
ISS Case Study, “Strengthening Public Administration in Brazil, 1995-1998.”
Precept: path dependency and its sources, pressures for innovation
Creating single-agency turnarounds or pockets of effectiveness (November 11)
Short-route accountability (November 13)
(Paper Option B1 available, due November 10 by midnight; paper option B2 due
November 12 by midnight)
Reading:
John W. Pratt and Richard J. Zeckhauser. “Principals and Agents: An Overview,” pp.
1-22 (not the whole chapter), in Principals and Agents. Harvard Business School Press,
1991.
“Empowering Operational Staff: Land Registration in Sarawak, Malaysia, 2006-2009,”
ISS Case Study.
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“Promoting Accountability, Monitoring Services: Textbook Procurement and Delivery
in the Philippines, 2002-2005,” ISS Case Study
“Services for the People, by the People: Indonesia’s Program for Community
Empowerment, 2007-2012,” ISS Case Study
Ben Olken. “Monitoring Corruption: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia,”
Journal of Political Economy, 2007, v. 115, 2.
Supplementary:
Archon Fung, “Infotopia: Unleashing the Democratic Power of Transparency,” Politics
& Society, 14, 2 (June 2013) and Archon Fung with David Weil and Mary Graham,
“Targeting Transparency,” Science 6139 (June 2013).
Precept: Randomized controlled trials as a way to assess the effects of a policy
intervention (focuses on the Olken piece, which pertains to the ISS case on Indonesia)
Capability traps (November 18)
Norm coordination (November 20)
(Paper options B3 available, due November 17 by midnight)
Reading:
Bo Rothstein, “Reflections After a Long Day in Moscow,” Social Traps and the
Problem of Trust, Cambridge University Press, 2005.
“Conjuring and Consolidating a Turnaround: Government in Bogota, 1992-2003” ISS
Case Study And “From Fear to Hope in Colombia: Sergio Fajardo and Medellin, 20042007,” ISS Case Study.
Sebastian Mallaby, “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty,” The Atlantic
Monthly, July/August 2010 and/or Paul Romer TED talks: “Why the World Needs
Charter Cities” and “The World’s First Charter City?”
Supplementary:
On Mockus reforms: http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/03.11/01-mockus.html
and http://freakonomics.com/2012/06/21/riding-the-herd-mentality-a-newfreakonomics-radio-podcast/ (optional)
Sendhil Mullainathan, “Solving Social Problems With A Nudge,” TED Talk
http://blog.ted.com/2010/02/01/solving_social/
Precept: Social norms v. opinions and how to modify social norms
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Institutional traps & the high politics of reform (November 25)
Reading:
Robert Wade. “The Market for Public Office: Why the Indian State is Not Better at
Development,” World Development, 13, 4 (1985): 467-497.
“Inviting a Tiger into Your Home: Indonesia’s Anti-Corruption Commission Cuts Its
Teeth” and “Holding the High Ground with Public Support: Indonesia’s Anti-Corruption
Commission Digs In,” ISS Case Studies
or
“Saving a Sinking Agency: The National Port Authority of Liberia, 2006-2010,” ISS Case
Study.
Supplementary:
Joel Hellman, “Winners Take All: The Politics of Partial Reform in Post-Communist
Transitions,” World Politics, 50, 2 (1998)
Saumitra Jha on financial innovation as a way to create positive self-reinforcing
incentives on WWS YouTube
Precept: none this week (Thanksgiving break)
Auto-graded Exercise 3, self-scheduled
The resource curse (December 2)
Preserving forests (December 4)
(Paper Option C3 available, due December 3 by midnight)
Reading:
Macartan Humphreys, Jeffrey Sachs, and Joseph Stiglitz, “What is the Problem with
Natural Resource Wealth?” from Escaping the Resource Curse, chapter 1.
Paul Collier. The Plundered Planet: Why We Must—and How We Can—Manage
Nature for Global Prosperity. Oxford University Press, 2010. Selections TBA
“Controlling Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon,” ISS case study
Supplementary:
You may wish to visit the web pages for the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative,
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Revenue Watch, and the Kimberly Process.
Precept: The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative is a possible solution to a
global public goods problem. To work, it requires some muscle. What muscle does the
system employ? Are there other ways to induce compliance that are compatible with
democratic norms?
Learning & adaptation (December 9)
Institutional transformation & development (December 11)
(Paper Option C4 available. Due by December 18 at 5:00)
Reading:
Lee Kuan Yew, The Singapore Story (memoire).Times Editions/Marshall Cavendish
International (Asia) Pte Ltd, 2004, pp. 13-24, 315-327, 343-347, 556-569 and timeline
664-667. Also see Charlie Rose Interview with Lee Kuan Yew:
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11573
Joseph Stiglitz and Bruce Greenwald, Creating a Learning Society, New York:
Columbia University Press, 2014, chapters 1 and 2 (pp. 13-44)
Geoff Mulgan, “Positive Risks: Taking Innovation in the Public Sector Seriously,”
chapter 8 in The Art of Public Strategy, Oxford University Press, 2009.
Muhammad Yunus, Banker to the Poor, pp. vii-ix, 45-58, 61-83, 219-231
Supplementary:
Jonathan Morduch, “The Knowledge Bank,” chapter 13 in William Easterly, Ed.,
Reinventing Foreign Aid. MIT Press, 2008.
“Dubai, Once a Humble Refueling Stop, Is Crossroad to the Globe,” The New York
Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/19/business/international/once-a-humble-refuelingstop-dubai-is-crossroad-to-the-globe.html?_r=0
Precept: Where is institutional transformation most likely to occur? In-class data exercise
that pushes us to think about the conditions, circumstances, timing, and human elements
behind the rise of common interest states.
Course Goals:
This course tries to develop a basic vocabulary of concepts and theories, build
knowledge of a few iconic country cases and scholarly classics, provide some practical
orientation for those who may someday work in the field of development, and introduce
some current debates. Inevitably, there is an enormous amount of material left on the
cutting room floor. In assembling the syllabus, I have tried to limit duplication with other
courses and fill gaps I see in the offerings available at the university. Apologies in advance
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where I have misjudged! Those who have already taken African Politics with me may see
some conceptual overlap but with a different mix of reading material and some new
theories.
Expectations:
At the end of each week I will post some guidance for the next. These reading
notes provide a quick orientation so that you can focus your work more effectively.
Generally we ask that you complete assigned selections before your precept meets. If your
precept is early in the week, you will have to start a little earlier. During the second half of
the course we use case studies to evaluate key concepts and theories. The case studies
come from a Princeton research program, Innovations for Successful Societies. If you have
trouble finding a case or want to view other options on the same topic you may visit the
website directly.
Lectures vary in format. Some provide background or extend some of the ideas in
the reading. Others engage you in case discussion. Often we will look at data together.
Everyone is expected to participate although the instructor will not “cold call” anyone.
The precepts focus attention on a single question or problem raised in the reading
or the lectures. They are designed to amplify the lectures and foster creative thinking. All
precepts cover the same ground in substantially the same way. All require participation.
Each person has two “coast days”—allotted skips to handle illnesses and other
complications. Remember that precepts are also an important venue for raising questions.
Assignments and Exams
There are three types of assignments in this course, outside of the reading. Autograded 5-question exercises are experimental. They help us understand whether the course
is communicating key ideas. They help you lock in some of your knowledge as you read
and listen. And they are supposed to be fun. They are hard to design, though, and
sometimes we fail to write a question in a way that works. We adjust. The key is to
remember that these are experiments, they don’t count heavily, and they reward a spirit of
adventure.
Each person must submit three papers, one of which you may complete as a 2- to
3-person team project if you wish. There is a choice of topics and submission dates (see
below), but everyone must submit one paper from list A, one from list B, and one from list
C. The options help you tailor the course to your interests and your schedule. Because we
give you this flexibility, we do not accept late submissions. Just move on to the next option
in the list if you miss a due date.
Papers should be roughly 8 to 10 pages, with 1.5 line spacing, 12 point type, and 1
inch margins. Please submit papers through the Blackboard site. You may also email a
backup copy to your preceptor if you wish. Please review the course guidance on
originality and appropriate citation before you begin. For the data paper, please indicate
the names of all team members on the paper if you work with others.
The final take-home exam includes paired comparisons, a data question, and two
essays. It takes 3 hours. You may choose a 3-hour period between January 13 and January
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19 during which you will take the exam. You will check out the exam from Blackboard
and return it to Blackboard 3 hours later. We will provide review materials at the end of the
lecture period, in December.
Thinking
In this course we ask you to think like a social scientist and to engage a real world
problem in the light of reading assigned. Remember that any social science explanation has
a couple of standard parts:
 A theory always has a dependent variable (outcome), one or more independent
variables (possible causes of variation in the outcome), and a story line that specifies
the causal mechanism or shows by what means the dependent and independent
variables link to each other. Ask whether the story is plausible.
 The variables are indicators used to “tap” underlying concepts. Ask whether the
indicators are valid and reliable.
 A theory helps us frame expectations about the world around us. The observable
expectations that flow from a theory are hypotheses. Ask whether the author’s
hypotheses really follow from the theory (are they reasonable deductions from the
general claim)? Are there other hypotheses or propositions that might flow from the
same theory?
 Often the reading or lectures will refer to a test of a theory. We usually want to
know whether analysis of the data reveals the correlations or associations the theory
leads us to expect, or whether the anticipated correlations are absent (therefore
disconfirming the theory). We also want to know whether the proposed causal
mechanism is really active (hence case studies). What do the data say? Do you trust
the data source or the data collection strategy?
One of the nicer concise guides to common pitfalls recently appeared in a small
nutrition newsletter. You can find the neat chart in e-reserves under the title “Non-Trivial
Pursuit.” It’s a fun checklist of the ways studies can go wrong.
The course also requires you to think about how to break out of some of the
constraints that social scientists identify. You must think creatively as a manager and leader
but ground your ideas in ways that make sense to a social scientist.
Grading
The members of the teaching staff meet each week to agree on a plan for the next
week’s precept and to check uniformity in grading standards. We spell out the criteria for
papers in advance and mark accordingly, though we allow for flashes of brilliance that take
off in an unusual but interesting direction. We curve the grades for individual assignments
if necessary.
If you feel a grade is in error, please take up the issue first with your preceptor. The
teaching staff will discuss the matter as a group if necessary. If we re-grade, the evaluation
may go up or down. There is no guarantee that re-grading will lead to a higher grade.
Office Hours/Communicating
Professor Widner has office hours on Tuesdays from 2-4 at 441 Robertson Hall.
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Please sign up for time through the web at https://wass.princeton.edu/pages/login.page.php
Because of very heavy work commitments, it isn’t possible to meet at other times. To
accommodate those who cannot attend on Wednesday afternoons, Professor Widner also
has three alternative meetings during the term, TBA.
All of the instructors will try to reply to emails with questions that can’t be
answered by reading the syllabus or instructions. Please be judicious in your use of email,
however.
Paper Topics
List A, Concepts & Data
(Do one. You may complete this exercise as a 2- to 4-person team project.)
Option A1
Samuel Huntington’s classic, Political Order in Changing Societies, identifies several
characteristics institutions must possess in order to facilitate peaceful adaptation to
economic growth or economic change. Put yourself in the shoes of a social scientist who
wants to test Huntington’s theory using data currently available. Think about the concepts
behind the characteristics Huntington highlights. 1) How would you “operationalize” these
concepts? That is, which indicators from the datasets below best tap each characteristic and
why? If you cannot find indicators that suffice, explain why the available measures don’t
work and propose alternates. 2) Create an appendix that shows the values of these variables
for six countries to which we refer often in this course plus three comparison countries from
the developed democracies. Choose at least one from each of the following categories: a)
India, Indonesia, Brazil, South Africa, or Malaysia, b) Estonia, Mexico, Jordan, or
Morocco; c) Tanzania, Ghana, Albania, Georgia, or Colombia; d) Afghanistan, Liberia, or
Bangladesh—with the U.S., Denmark, and Spain as comparison countries. In your
discussion, explain the patterns you would expect your indicators to display if Huntington’s
theory is right or wrong. Note that there are a number of “right answers” to this question.
In order to answer this question, you will need to visit three websites.
Worldwide Governance Indicators (World Bank)
http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/index.aspx#home
Bertelsmann Transformation Index explanation http://www.bti-project.org/index/
and atlas http://www.bti-project.org/atlas/
Doing Business Indicators http://www.doingbusiness.org/data
Option A2
Samuel Huntington’s classic, Political Order in Changing Societies, offers a critique of a
theory of political development called “modernization theory.” Popular in the late 1950s
through the early 1970s, this type of explanation has had a lot of staying power. The basic
idea behind one popular form of this argument is that urbanization and industrialization
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encourage people to abandon ascriptive identities such as ethnicity in favor of economic
identities and ultimately increase support for democracy. The general form is
Industrialization/Urbanizationsocial mobilization/cultural changea higher probability
that democracy will emerge. If the theory has merit, we should see certain patterns in the
data over time. Explain the correlations (associations) we should anticipate. Then use the
data available under “assignments” in the course Blackboard site and the simple
instructions that accompany the data to assess whether those correlations are present or
absent. Report the results and explain what additional steps you would take to test the
theory that Huntington dismisses.
Option A3
Robert Putnam’s Making Democracy Work is famous partly because of its “independent
variable,” social capital. What is social capital and how can we best measure it? Is it the
same as political culture or is it something different? How does Putnam measure it? Does
his measure (measures) really capture/ “tap” the concept he sets forth? Discuss the pros and
cons of the measure or measures he chooses. Under “assignments” on our blackboard site,
visit the codebook for at least one recent survey. Choose three to five questions you think
might help us measure social capital. Assess the strengths and weaknesses of each as a way
to “operationalize” the concept in question here. Using excel, create a chart that shows the
mean, median, and standard deviation for of your variable for major sub-regions within the
country you have chosen.
List B Case study comparison (do one)
Option B1
This week we discuss some of the principal-agent problems that bedevil organizations
everywhere but are often harder to solve in resource-poor settings. Compare and contrast
two efforts to create solutions. Open your essay with a short description of the general issue
(find the quick description of a principal-agent problem in the week’s reading guidance).
Create a sub-heading for the Sarawak case, a sub-heading for another case from the list
below, and a sub-heading for a conclusion. For each case, identify a) the symptoms that tell
you a principal-agent problem exists, b) each change the reformers introduce to solve the
problem, and c) the result. In the conclusion, identify the similarities in the responses and
then point to at least one difference and explain how that difference arose from the
particular context of the case.
A Second Life for One-Stop Shops (Minas Gerais, Brazil)
Creating a Citizen-Friendly Department (Jordan)
Rejuvenating the Public Registry (Republic of Georgia)
Reworking the Revenue Service (South Africa)
Option B2
In class we discussed “short-route accountability.” One of the examples was communitydriven development in Indonesia. After the Bonn Conference that helped re-establish a
post-Taliban government in Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, then an adviser to the transitional
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authority, turned to the Indonesia example. The question was whether Afghanistan could
use community-driven development to produce similar results. Read the Afghanistan case.
Compare and contrast the two initiatives. Analyze how the incentive structures were the
same or different—and with what likely consequences.
Option B3
Arguably it is much easier to reduce the temptation to commit crime and to mobilize social
pressure to comply with positive social norms than it is to run a police service. Use the
preceding week’s discussion to analyze what makes policing especially prone to very tough
principal-agent problems and other challenges. Then identify, compare, and discuss some
of the possible solutions on trial in one of the case studies below.
Reclaiming the City (Mexico City)
Building Strategic Capacity in the Police (Sierra Leone)
Building the Police Service in a Security Vacuum (Kosovo)
List C Theory Focus (do one)
Option C1
Why Nations Fail and Making Democracy Work both employ the concept of path
dependence to account for persistent patterns in institutional quality and development
outcomes. What is path dependence? Briefly indicate the role it plays in these two works.
Introduce at least three “causal mechanisms” or reasons why path dependence might exist,
and then offer some general reasons why the extent of path dependence may be grossly
over-stated (that is, why leaders and societies are not nearly so bound to the past as the
theory suggests).
Option C2
Fernando Henrique Cardoso was first a social scientist and then a president. In the opening
of his book he expresses some uncertainty about whether Brazil will be able to sustain
promising improvements in development outcomes. Read the book, find the passage
indicated, and identify the sources of Cardoso’s concern. Relate these to ideas in Why
Nations Fail or to other concepts and theories in the course so far. End your essay with one
or more of Cardoso’s reasons why optimism may be justified.
Option C3
Read the assigned passages in Collier’s The Plundered Planet. Then turn to the case study
“Controlling Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.” In what ways does Brazil’s effort to
limit the rate of deforestation illustrate concepts and theories that Collier discusses? In other
words, identify the incentives built into Brazil’s policy and analyze the strengths and
weaknesses of the approach. If there are multiple enforcement strategies in play in this case,
use the web to find information you need to describe these. (Note that there is a difference
between “compliance” and “enforcement.” A person may comply with a rule voluntarily.)
Option C4
A number of scholars have singled out merit systems as the reason why some governments
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perform better than others. Yet the World Bank’s independent evaluation group says most
efforts to build such systems--the essence of much public management reform—have failed
miserably. Read Peter Evans and James E Rauch, “Bureaucracy and growth: A crossnational analysis of the effects of ‘Weberian’ state structures…” (available on e-reserves),
summarize the argument, and then offer a critique of the logic, drawing on real-world
examples. You may wish to refer to a case study of Cardoso’s attempted reforms in Brazil or
Mkapa’s reforms in Tanzania. (This paper is intellectually challenging, but students tell us
they like the Evans and Rauch article. Pursue at your own risk!)
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