The Political Economy of Poverty Alleviation
POL-GA.3400.005
Politics Department, NYU
Fall 2012
W 12:00-1:50 Room 432
O. Gokce Baykal
gokce.baykal@nyu.edu
Office: 19 West 4th St., Room 303
Office Hours: W 2:00-4:00
Course Description:
Poverty is not a new phenomena, however the increasing rates and visibility of poverty,
not only in rural areas, but also in the heart of urban cities make it onto the emerging
agenda of states, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international organizations
as well. Meanwhile, poverty-alleviation programs, conducted by different actors, become
the new means of a “noble” end-- eradicating poverty. They have grown and diversified
to meet the needs of poor people. Therefore, this course has two goals: 1-to understand
how the political and institutional context affect “fighting against poverty”. 2-to examine
the impacts of poverty-relief strategies on political participation of poor people,
especially in terms of clientelism, citizenship and their social inclusion/exclusion into the
society.
We will precede in four steps:
First, we are going to go over conceptualization of poverty, debates about the
measurement of the concept, and problematizing poverty related to portrayal of
development as “westernization”. The history of political economy of neoliberal
transition and its impacts on conceptualization of poverty is also provided to complement
these debates.
The second part will cover institutional context of “governing” poverty within the
broader framework of how different political actors-such as states, NGOs, World Bank,
etc.- take part in making/pushing policy reforms, allocating/implementing these projects
targeting the poor in developing countries. We will also deal with more specific questions
such as the relation between different political regimes and their impact on poverty
alleviation and development. Are democracies better fighting at poverty? Do institutions,
geography, history has a say in explaining variation in poverty around the developing
world?
In the third part, we will investigate politics of poverty alleviation in terms of clientelism
and citizenship. The role of electoral incentives in promoting poverty alleviation projects
and its consequences on the ways of poor people’ participation into politics will be
discussed.
Finally, the last part will be devoted to review case studies, large-N studies and
ethnographic accounts of poverty through the poor people’ experiences. Empirical
evidences will be drawn from recent experiments in the Global South--Latin America,
Middle East, Africa and South Asia.
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Requirements
Weekly Electronic Response Paper: Participants are expected to post a single page
(300-400 word) response papers to the weekly assigned readings on blackboard every
Tuesday before 1 pm. You need to submit eight out of ten classes from week 2 through
week 12. You are free to choose which weeks to skip and there is no reading comments
assigned for the first and the last week.
Please don’t simply summarize the readings. On the contrary, they should include: a
paragraph devoted to find out a common theme across reading pieces, another paragraph
will be on problematic aspects of readings, in which you can come up with possible
research topics that emerge from the week’s readings and the last part should be related
to questions that you may want to discuss during the lecture.
Active participation: Having done with the readings before the class and being engaged
into discussions and stayed focused is an opportunity for you to comprehend the course
materials & enjoy the course more. Attendance is mandatory for your best to gain most
out of this course.
Presentation:
You are expected to do two presentations during the semester. One of them is to pick a
book from the reading list (you can also suggest one-should be related to course interests)
and write 2 pages book review include: the author’s basic argument/ authors’ research
design/connections with previous works we discuss/big question at the conference. In the
end, one of my professor said “Books don’t fall from heaven”. The purpose of this
assignment, therefore, is to get you to “reverse engineer” the books we read, to figure out
how they were made, and why they were made the way they were.
Second presentation will be on draft version of your proposal. You will present it and
there are also two readers assigned for the proposal-to criticize, give you feedbacks. This
will be your chance to make it better before submission. The point of your presentation is
not to answer all these questions; it is to raise them.
Research Proposal: There is no term paper for this class. Instead, I will ask you to
write/submit a research proposal related to theme of the lecture. The topic of your
proposal should be submitted for approval of the course instructor by week 5.
The research proposal should include: statement of research problems and goals of the
research, theoretical framework (literature review and expected contributions),
hypothesis, research design/plan (how you plan to answer your research questionsmethodology), a research schedule and bibliography. The proposal should be between 6-8
pages. Due date is the last day of the class (Wednesday, December 19).
The Art of Writing Proposals by Adam Przeworski and Frank Salomon can be useful for
those, who need more guideline about how to write a research proposal. Here is the link
below:
http://www.ssrc.org/workspace/images/crm/new_publication_3/{7a9cb4f4-815fde11-bd80-001cc477ec70}.pdf
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Grading:
Keep deadlines—It really is that important. No late response/final papers are accepted.
Late work will be downgraded. Reading response papers will receive no credit if turned
in after the start of a week’s class session. Your grade will be based on attendance and
active participation, weekly reading response posts, presentation and a proposal paper.
Class Attendance and Active Participation
Weekly Reading Responses
Book Review
Presentations
Proposal (Final paper) (8-10 pages)
15 points
25 points
10 points
20 points
30 points
Readings:
All of the books have been placed on reserve at Bobst Library. If you wish, books may be
purchased through the NYU Bookstore, other bookstores such as Strands or ordered
online via amazon, etc. The required articles—most of the readings have been scanned
into the system as pdf. Files- can be accessed through Blackboard’s e-reserve system.
To log onto Blackboard, you will need a NYU email address and be registered for this
course. To log in, go to http://login.nyu.edu and type in your NetID and email password.
Then, click the Academics tab and then click the course link in the list provided. If you
need further information, please visit http://www.nyu.edu/its/blackboard/#access
I. Introduction and Mapping the Field
Week 1 (September 5)
Why we should study poverty and the ways of alleviation?
Introduction (What to expect and what not to) and course/requirements overview
—no readings assigned for this week.
 UC Atlas of Global Inequality
http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/income.php (check out this webpage for an introduction)
II. Conceptualization and Operationalization of Poverty
Week 2 (September 12)
What is Poverty? What is Development?
 Sen, Amartya (1983). “Development: Which Way?”. Economic Journal, 99, pp.
745-762.
 Sen, Amartya (1999). Development as Freedom, New York: Anchor Books.
Chapter 4 “Poverty as Capability Deprivation”, pp. 87-110.
 Geremek, B (1994) Poverty: A History, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 1-18
 Sachs, Jeffrey (2005), The End of Poverty, New York: Penguin Press, 2005
Chapters 1, 2 and 3. pp. 1-73
 Geremek, B. (1994) Poverty: A History, Oxford: Blackwell, pp: 1-18
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 Gonzalez de la Rocha, Mercedes; Perlman, Janice; Safa, Helen; Jelin, Elizabeth;
Roberts, Bryan R.; Ward, Peter M. “From the Marginality of the 1960s to the
“New Poverty” of Today: A LARR Research Forum” Latin American Research
Review;2004, Vol. 39 Issue 1, p183 which can be accessed through
http://lasa-2.univ.pitt.edu/LARR/prot/fulltext/vol39no1/Gonzalez.pdf
ON “Measurement” of Poverty
 UNDP. Human Development “Calculating Human Development
Indices”—with an inclusion of Human Poverty Index (HPI). Technical
Notes
to
the
HDR
in
2007
http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_20072008_Tech_Note_1.pdf
 Deaton, Angus. “Measuring Poverty”. In Understanding poverty / edited
by Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee, Roland Bénabou, Dilip Mookherjee.
Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. pp. 3-15.
Week 3 (September 19)
Problematization of Poverty and Development
 Escobar, Arturo (1994) Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of
the Third World, Chapter 2 “The Problematization of Poverty: The Tale of Three
Worlds and Development” pp.21-55
 Ferguson, James. “Modernity, Development, and Reading Foucault in Lesotho”,
Theory Talk #34. http://www.theory-talks.org/2009/11/theory-talk-34.html
 Mitchell, Tim (2002) Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity,
Chapter 7 “The Object of Development”, pp.209-243
 Wallerstein, Immanuel “Development: Lodestar or Illusion,” in Unthinking Social
Science, pp. 104-124.
 Easterly, William. 2001. The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ Adventures
and Misadventures in the Tropics, MIT Press, Ch.1 pp. 5-19
Week 4 (September 26)
Historical Foundations/Processes:
 Polanyi, Karl (1957) The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic
Origins of Our Time, chps. Foreword, 7, 11, 14, (Speenhamland; Man, Nature,
and Productive Organization; Market and Man.
 Geremek, B (1994) Poverty: A History, Oxford: Blackwell, pp.230-247.
 Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson (2001). “The Colonial
Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation,” American
Economic Review, December, 91, 5, 1369-1401
 Stiglitz, Joseph (2002). Globalization and its Discontents, New York: W.W.
Norton&Company. Chapter 1 “The Promise of Global Institutions” Chapter 2
“Broken Promises”, Chapter 3 “Freedom to Choose?”, pp. 3-89
 Harvey, David (2005). A Brief History of Neoliberalism. New York: Oxford
University Press. Chapter 1 “Freedom’s Just Another World” Chapter 2 “The
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Construction of Consent”, pp.5-63.
Recommended:
 Boas, Taylor and Gans-More, Jordan. “Neoliberalism: From New Liberal
Philosophy to Anti-liberal Slogan”, Studies of Comparative International
Development,
(Optional—In order to clarify what scholars mean by
“neoliberalism”, I have recommended this article to make a common sense out of
this often-used term.)
II. Institutional Determinants of Poverty
Week 5 (October 3)
Political Regimes—Which regimes are better at fighting poverty?
 Przeworski, Adam and Limongi, Fenando. “Political Regimes and Economic
Growth,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 7, 3 (1993): 51-69.
 Ross, M. “Is Democracy Good for the Poor?” American Journal of Political
Science, Vol. 50, No. 4, October 2006, pp. 860–874
 Varshney, Ashutosh. 2000, “Why Have Poor Democracies Not Eliminated Poverty?
A Suggestion”, Asian Survey, 40,5: 718-736
 Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson and James Robinson “Understanding Prosperity
and Poverty: Geography, Institutions, and the Reversal of Fortune”—which can
be accessed through http://ces.univparis1.fr/membre/Poncet/SciencesPo/AJRreversal.pdf
 Iversen and Soskice “Electoral Institutions and the Politics of Coalitions: Why
some countries redistribute more than others?”, American Political Science
Review, 100 (2), 165-81.
Week 6. (October 10)
State—Expanding OR Retreating in the area of Poverty-Reliefs?
 Gøsta Esping-Andersen, The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1990; pp.18-54; 230-243.
 Stiglitz, Joseph. 1997. “The Role of Governments in the Economies of
Developing Countries” in Edmond Malinvaud et al. Development Strategy and
the Management of the Market Economy, Volume 1.
 Maurizio Ferrera, “The ‘Southern Model’ of the Welfare State in Europe” Journal
of European Social Policy (1996), pp: 17-37
 Alesina, Alberto, Edward Glaeser and Bruce Sacerdote, “Why Doesn’t the United
States Have a European-Style Welfare State?” Brookings Papers on Economic
Activity Vol. 2001, No. 2 (2001), pp. 187-254
 Stephan Haggard and Robert R. Kaufman, Development, Democracy and Welfare
States “Introduction,” and chp. 1 (pp. 1-78).
Week 7 (October 17)
The World Bank “The Superman is There to Save Us”
 Goldman, Michael (2005) The Imperial Nature: The World Bank and Struggles of
Justice in the Age of Globalization, Yale University Agrarian Studies Series,
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Chapter 1 “Understanding World Bank Power” and Chapter 7 “Can It be Shut
Down?” pp. 1-46, 272-293
Berkman, Steve (2008) “The Economists Manager” in The World Bank and Gods
of Lending p.19-34
Mitchell, Tim (2002) “Introduction” and “Can Mosquito Speak?” in Rule of
Experts, pp: 1-53
Burkett, P., “Poverty Crisis in the Third World: The Contradictions of World
Bank 194 Policy”, Monthly Review, 42 (7), pp.20-32.
Cammack, P., 2004, “What the World Bank Means by Poverty Reduction and
Why It Matters”, New Political Economy, 9 (2), pp.189-211.
Week 8 (October 24)
The Role and Impacts of Non-State Actors in Alleviating Poverty
 Cammett, Melani and MacLean, Lauren Morris eds. Special issue of Studies in
Comparative International Development on “Non-State Actors, States and
Citizens and the Provision of Social Welfare in the Global South.” 46, no.
1(Spring 2011).
 Yunus, Muhammed. “Poverty Alleviation: Is Economics Any Help? Lessons from
the Grameen Bank Experience,” Journal of International Affairs, vol.52, no.1,
1998, pp. 47-65.
 Julia Elyachar, “Empowerment Money: The World Bank, Non-Governmental
Organizations, and the Value of Culture in Egypt”, Public Culture, vol. 14, no.3,
pp. 493-513.
 Cammett, Melani and Issar, Sukriti. “Bricks and Mortar Clientelism: The Political
Geography of Welfare in Lebanon.” World Politics 62, no. 3(July 2010).
 Clark, John. 1995. The State, Popular Participation, and the Voluntary Sector.
World Development, vol.23, No.4, pp, 593-601.
Recommended:
 Alexander Cockburn: “The Myth of Microloans,” The Nation, 6
November 2006.
 Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Lecture, 10 December, Oslo.
III. Poor People’s Politics
Week 9 (November 7)
Exploring the “missing link” between alleviation of poverty and the poor: A
citizenship issue
 Marshall, T.H. “Citizenship and Social Class,” Chapter. 4 in Class, Citizenship,
and Social Development.
 Mataradze, Teona (2011) “Is the state social or computer inhuman? Claims for state
support and citizenship in post-socialist Georgia”, Citizenship Studies, 15:3-4,
pp.471-484
 Yalcin-Heckmann, Lale (2011) “Introduction: Claiming Social Citizenship”,
Citizenship Studies, 15:3-4, pp.433-439
 Mettler and Soss (2004) “The Consequences of Public Policy for Democratic
Citizenship: Bridging Policy Studies and Mass Politics”, 2:1, 55-73
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 Bugra, Ayse “Poverty and Citizenship: An Overview of Social Policy Environment
in Republican Turkey”, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 39(2007):
pp.33-52.
Recommended:
 Das, Veena (2011) “State, citizenship and the urban poor”, Citizenship Studies,
15:3-4, 319-333
 R. Lister, “Citizenship and Changing Welfare States” in J. G. Andersen and P. H.
Jensen, Changing Labour Markets, Welfare Politics and Citizenship, Bristol:
Policy Press, 2004.
 C. Wong and K. Wong, “Expectations and Practice in Social Citizenship: Some
Insights from an Attitude Survey in Chinese Society”, Social Policy and
Administration, 39 (February 2005): 19-31.
Week 10 (November 14)
From What to Get to How to Get it: The Role of Electoral Incentives in Delivering
Poverty-Relief Programs

Stokes, Susan C. 2009. “Pork by any other name. Building a conceptual scheme
of distributive politics,” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American
Political Science Association,
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1449057
 Kitschelt, Herbert and Steven I. Wilkinson. 2007. Patrons, clients, and policies.
Patterns of democratic accountability and political competition. New York:
Cambridge. Chapter: “Citizen–politician linkages: an introduction”—read pages
1-23 only.
 Thachil, Tariq. “Embedded Mobilization: Nonstate Service Provision as Electoral
Strategy in India”, World Politics 63, no.3, (July 2011), 434-69.
 Brusco, Valeria, Marcelo Nazareno ,and Susan C. Stokes. 2004. "Vote buying in
Argentina", Latin American Research Review 39(2): 66-88.
Recommended:
 “De La O, Ana. “Do Conditional Cash Transfers Affect Electoral Behavior?
Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Mexico” Forthcoming, (American
Journal of Political Science)- http://www.yale.edu/leitner/resources/PMFpapers/delao_progresa_finalb.pdf
 Zucco, Cesar. “ Conditional Cash Transfers and Voting Behavior: Redistribution
and Clientelism in Developing Democracies”, (the work in progress)http://www.princeton.edu/csdp/events/Zucco0021011/Zucco021011.pdf
Week 11 (November 21)
Listening to the Voices of the Poor: Ethnographic Accounts of Poor People’s
Political Participation

Auyero, Javier. 2000. “The Logic of clientelism in Argentina: An ethnographic
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account, Latin American Research Review 35(3): 55-81.
Krishna, Anirudh. 2006. “Poverty and Democratic Participation Reconsidered:
Evidence from the Local Level in India.” Comparative Politics, 38 (4), 439-58.
Bayat, Asef. 1996, “Cairo’s Poor: Dilemmas of Survival and Solidarity”, in
Middle East Report No 202, Cairo.
(https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/11852/12_606_024.pdf?s
equence=1)
P. Chamberlayne, M. Rustin and T. Wengraf, Biography and Social Exclusion in
Europe: Experiences and Life Journeys, Bristol: Policy Press, 2002: 1-21.
Narayan et al (1999) Global Synthesis: Consultations with the Poor, Draft for
Discussion, September 20, Poverty Group World Bank-http://www.fes.de/cotonou/DocumentsEN/ThematicFocus/Poverty%20Reduction/
GobalSynthesis_ConsultationsWithThePoor.pdf
Recommended:
 Auyero, Javier and Joseph, Lauren. “ Introduction: Politics Under the
Ethnographic Microscope”, In ed by Joseph, Lauren Mahler, Matthew and
Auyero, Javier New Perspectives in Political Ethnography, pp:1-14
 Auyero, Javier. “Patients of the State. An Ethnographic Account of Poor People's
Waiting”, Latin American Research Review 46 (1):5-29
 A. Bayat, “Activism and Social Development in the Middle East”, International
Journal of Middle East Studies 34 (2002), 1-28.
IV. Empirical Evidences from Different Regions
Week 12 (November 28)
Latin America/ East Asia
 Lomelí, Enrique Valencia “Conditional Cash Transfers as Social Policy in Latin
America: An Assessment of their Contributions and Limitations,” Annual Review
of Sociology (2008): 475-93.
 Pribble, Jennifer “Women and Welfare: The Politics of Coping with New Social
Risks in Chile and Uruguay,” Latin American Research Review (June 2006): 84107.
 C. Wong and K. Wong, “Expectations and Practice in Social Citizenship: Some
Insights from an Attitude Survey in Chinese Society”, Social Policy and
Administration, 39 (February 2005): 19-31.
 Rajasekhar, D. “Where Local Organizations Don’t Work: Problems of Poverty
Reduction in Tamul, India” In the name of the poor: contesting political space for
poverty reduction / edited by Neil Webster and Lars Engberg-Pedersen. London;
New York: Zed Books; New York: Distributed in the USA exclusively by
Palgrave, 2002. pp. 183-208.
Week 13 (December 5)
Middle East/ Africa
 Massoud Karshenas and Valentine M. Moghadam. “Social Policy in the Middle
East: Introduction and Overview.” In Social Policy in the Middle East: Economic,
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Political, and Gender Dynamics, edited by Karshenas and Moghadam. New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, pp. 1- 30.
Asef Bayat. “The Political Economy of Social Policy in Egypt.” In Karshenas and
Moghadam, op. cit., pp. 135-156.
Janine Clark. Islam, Charity and Activism: Middle Class Networks and Social
Welfare in Egypt, Jordan and Yemen. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
2004, chs.1, 3.
Bugra, A and Keyder, C. Turkish Welfare Regime in Transformation”, Journal of
European Social Policy 16, no. 3(2006): 211-228.
Adésín, Jìmí O., “Social Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Glance in the RearView Mirror.” International Journal of Social Welfare (2009): pp. S37-51.
Lauren M. MacLean, “State Retrenchment and the Exercise of Citizenship in
Africa,” Comparative Political Studies (2010): 1-29.
Wednesday, December 12-Legislative day-No Class
Week 14 (December 19)—Final Proposal Submission Deadline
What have we learned?
Final Evaluation of the Class: Which books did you like best and why? Least and why?
Which week’s readings/theme-topic were the most interesting and important? How might
the course as a whole be organized better? Readings: Too light? Too heavy? O.K.? Does
this seminar serve a unique function in the graduate program (other than purely
substantive)?
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