DLPPolicy and Practice for <strong>Developmental</strong>Leaders, Elites and CoalitionsDEVELOPMENTAL LEADERSHIP PROGRAM<strong>The</strong> <strong>Developmental</strong> <strong>Leadership</strong> <strong>Program</strong> (DLP)is an international policy initiative informed bytargeted research and directed by an independentsteering committee. DLP is supported by a globalnetwork of partners and currently receives its corefunding from the Australian aid program.<strong>The</strong> views expressed in this publication are thoseof the author(s) and do not necessarily representthose of the Australian Government or any ofDLP’s other partner organisations.
3Introduction 1Overseas aid appears to have made rather limited positive lasting impact on the most pressing developmentproblems in the Pacific. 1 In spite of the vast sums that have been dedicated to improvingconditions since the period of independence began in the 1960s, the countries of the region haveexperienced various on-going problems of political instability, violent conflict, ethnic tension, poverty,inequality and corruption (AusAID, 2003a: 1). 2Over the last ten years there has been a growing recognition in the development community that, inorder to be truly effective, aid programmes need to take account of and be informed by a thoroughunderstanding of the local political dynamics at work in aid-recipient countries (Wild and Foresti,2011: iv). 3 This is reflected in the proliferation of analytical tools that have been designed to informthe political dimension of aid programming; including ‘drivers of change’, ‘political settlements’ and thevarious ‘political economy’ frameworks.But to what extent has this trend towards politically engaged analysis influenced research and practicearound the development problems in the Pacific? Or do analysts and donor agencies assume thatpoverty, inequality and political instability in the region are problems that can be addressed adequatelythrough technical measures, such as building state capacity or working on the details of constitutionsor other formal institutions?This background paper surveys recent literature on the development problems in the Pacific and asks:i. Whether researchers have looked in detail at underlying political processes in trying to explaindevelopmental failures and successes in the region.ii. Whether aid programmes have been designed on the basis of a politically informed understandingof the conditions for positive developmental change.iii. What kind of research questions would follow from a more political, as opposed to a primarilytechnical, approach to these development issues? 41 I would like to thank Peter Larmour, Chris Wheeler, Sue Ingram, Ulla Keech-Marx and Adrian Leftwich for their vey helpful commentsand suggestions. I take full responsibility for any errors or shortcomings that remain.2 AusAID is the Australian Government’s overseas aid program.3 It is also important to remember that domestic politics in donor countries has a strong influence on the policies and programs oftheir aid agencies: it is not all strictly ‘evidence-based’.4 AusAID (2011d: 223) defines technical assistance as “the provision of expert consultants, or advisers, to partner countries to assistwith policies, programs and projects”. Broadly speaking, a technical approach understands development problems to be the resultof a lack of resources, capital, expertise, information, technology or appropriate formal institutions (for a detailed account of thebackground to and key assumptions of the technical approach, see Hudson and Leftwich, forthcoming 2013). By ‘political’ in thiscontext we refer to a more detailed focus on the structures, relations and configurations of actors, interests, ideas and especiallypower that interact politically to produce both institutional and policy outcomes and implementations. It is important to bear inmind that, rather than there being a strict division between technical and political approaches to development analysis, policy andpractice, there is a broad continuum and mixture of approaches that may include more or less ‘technical’ and ‘political’ approaches.And while a largely technical approach had characterized much development policy and practice from the 1960s to the end ofthe 20th century, there has been an increasing recognition in the 2000s that political processes play a fundamental part in shapingdevelopment outcomes and need to be understood and engaged with How to do so has been more problematical. For an excellentsurvey, see Carothers and de Gramont, 2013.
- Page 1: DLPPolicy and Practice for Developm
- Page 5 and 6: 501Background tounderstanding aid a
- Page 7 and 8: 7country of the region was Samoa (9
- Page 9 and 10: 9and compromise. 14Understand that
- Page 11 and 12: 1103Literature Review3.1 Introducti
- Page 13 and 14: 13formal institutions in place. Cha
- Page 15 and 16: 15with different and potentially co
- Page 17 and 18: 17improve state capacity, service d
- Page 19 and 20: 19within the political system: “A
- Page 21: 21AusAID’s (2012a) response to th
- Page 24 and 25: 244.7 Think about education and dev
- Page 26 and 27: 26ReferencesAusAID (2003a) Papua Ne
- Page 28 and 29: 28Grimm, S., Rank, R., McDonald, M.
- Page 30 and 31: 30Wild, L. & Foresti, M. (2011) “
- Page 32 and 33: 32Number 2003/2, Research School of
- Page 34 and 35: 34SamoaHuffer, E. & So’o, A. (200
- Page 36 and 37: “Between Hope and Resignation: Pe
Change language