Civil Service/Bureaucracy

The Institutional Diagnostic Project case study on Bangladesh and Mozambique is an attempt to explain the paradox of sustainability of the former and the disappointed hopes of the growth of the latter.

Outline of the presentation Objective, methodology and development of the project The synthesis volume and concluding chapters a) Identifying obstacles to development: economic perspective b) Identifying institutional obstacles: the role of politics c) Identifying institutional obstacles: state capacity and property…

Two central lessons can be drawn from the foregoing analysis. First, many institutional failures are traceable to the way politics functions. Therefore, any diagnosis or understanding of the impediments to a country’s long-term development that overlooks the country’s political economy…

After having examined the role of politics (in last chapter) in spurring or slowing down structural transformation and development, we are now ready to probe the issue of state capacity. This will complete our discussion of the role of governance-related…

In this chapter, the focus is on issues that involve politics. More specifically, we look at the role of political leadership and state autonomy in development. The institutions involved determine the quality of governance in a country, but they are…

Whether in the four case study countries or in the successful development stories of South Korea and Taiwan at the time when they were at a comparable level of income per capita, the issue of development consists of providing the…

This last part of the volume puts together the lessons learned from the in-depth case studies undertaken within the Institutional Diagnostic Programme (IDP), and the more cursory analysis of the success development stories of South Korea and Taiwan at about…

There are several reasons why development scholars should be interested in the case of Taiwan. As one author has written: ‘It once had a single dominant party following the Leninist model; it now has a competitive multiparty system. It was…

‘What would have been the conclusion of an institutional diagnostic of the development potential of South Korea conducted in the mid- or late-1970s, at a time when the country was still a low-income country, at roughly the same income level…

There are several reasons why Benin is an interesting country to study, and some of them have no doubt contributed to making it an aid darling for many donors. First, although it is made up of an extraordinarily varied mosaic…

At the core of the institutional diagnostic project is the idea that we can gain more knowledge about the role of institutions by undertaking in-depth country case studies than by carrying out broad quantitative exercises based on a large sample…

The preceding chapter defined the objective of the institutional diagnostics of each particular country and made explicit the concepts and analytical principles that need to be mobilised in order to conduct such an exercise. By providing a short description of…

The ‘institutions matter’ slogan appears today as a fundamental truth about development. Widely shared by the development community, including international organisations, it goes with the idea that the benefits of both market operations and state interventions are significantly conditioned by…

If there is absolutely no doubt that institutions matter for development, and for development policies and strategies in the first place, the crucial issue is knowing how they matter. After all, impressive economic development achievements have been observed despite the…

Authoritarian regimes often direct the course of electoral politics in ways that allow them to concentrate and consolidate power. This observation applies well to Pakistan and its three military regimes: Ayub, Zia, and Musharraf. The political reforms enacted by General…

The state, bureaucracy, and judiciary synthesis paper finds that the research conducted under this theme makes an important contribution to the literature discussing the issue that formal institutions cannot be created at will, and that they require a suitable cultural…

This paper provides micro evidence for one mechanism behind the dramatically different political responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, namely how an increase in the perceived risk of Covid-19 among individuals stemming from past exposure to similar health crises generates citizen demand for containment measures.

Experimental evidence from Ghana’s civil service Abstract: Organizational culture is an important driver of organizational performance, but evidence on how to improve performance-oriented organizational cultures is scarce – especially in the public sector. We partnered with Ghana’s Civil Service to…

Abstract: Most enlightenment philosophers argued that the separation between Church and State would prevent capture of resources by one state religion. We formalize and test a theory that addresses a different danger. We demonstrate that a reduction in the separation…

Abstract: Research on innovation in government often focuses on ideas introduced by senior leaders or managers, but ideas from public servants themselves are an important and underexplored channel for improving performance in government bureaucracies. We provide new evidence on the…

This EDI Research Insight publishes early stage results from a study designed to explore questions about  representation, accountability and performance among government officials in Sierra Leone. As in many developing countries, in Sierra Leone the process of selecting candidates often…

How effectively are government bureaucracies managed? How much variation is there in management practices across organizations? These are basic questions about the day-to-day bureaucratic processes of governance on which little systematic evidence exists, especially in low- and middle-income countries. And…

Tanzania Institutional Diagnostic Chapter 8: Synthesis This chapter provides a synthesis of information and arguments developed in the first seven chapters of the Tanzania Institutional Diagnostic. Chapter outline Part 1.  The basic institutional constraints on Tanzanian development The main challenges…

Tanzania Institutional Diagnostic Chapter 5: Decentralization and development Chapter outline Introduction The theory of central–local government relationships The evolution of local government in Tanzania Local and central governance in Tanzania today: a complex and confusing legal framework Fiscal decentralisation: the…

Tanzania Institutional Diagnostic Chapter 4: Civil Service Chapter outline Introduction The role and political context of the civil service in economic development The transitional phase, 1961–66 The socialist phase, 1967–85 The liberalisation phase, 1986 to date Constraints to effective civil…

Tanzania Institutional Diagnostic Chapter 3: Politics and business Chapter outline Introduction Theoretical framework and methodology The early independence period: 1961–66 The situation at independence Origins of the position of Asians Development initiatives in early post-independence period Continued concern over social…

Tanzania Institutional Diagnostic Chapter 1: Reflections on the political and economic development of Tanzania Chapter outline A short account of the political history of Tanzania The colonial era The German colonisation The British mandate on Tanganyika Independence Forging a nation: the…

A presentation by Kate Casey, Stanford GSB This presentation was part of the convening event hosted by CEGA at the University of California, Berkeley, in August 2018. Read a summary of the event.

This paper surveys the literature on the two-way relationship between development aid and the quality of institutions in developing countries. Aid may improve institutions, e.g. when conditionality succeeds, but it can also have unintended effects that are typically negative, e.g….