Corruption and Mismanagement in Botswana: a Best-Case Example?

1994 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 499-521 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Good
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Expert Advice ◽  
The Political ◽  
Central State ◽  
High Level ◽  
Governmental System

Independent Botswana has developed on three main pillars: rapid and sustained economic growth (over the decade to 1992, for example, at 8.4 per cent a year, third-highest among all developing countries, and far in excess of any other in Africa); multi-party or liberal democracy; and an efficient central state, the main features of which have been identified and praised by observers. With growth, an accompanying build-up of a relatively strong governmental system took place, with activities especially focused on finance and planning. The civil service was maintained at a high level, according to Ravi Gulhati, by avoiding rapid localisation, by providing high compensation for officials, and by keeping well-defined lines of authority and accountability. Able people were placed in key positions and kept there for extended periods. The political elite fairly consistently sought expert advice from leading bureaucrats, and the two groups have displayed a closeness and mutuality of interest built upon their common involvement in cattle and commerce, and the not uncommon tendency for cabinet ministers to arise from the ranks of the senior bureaucracy.

Productive Capacities, Economic Growth and Economic Growth Volatility in Developing Countries: Does Structural Economic Vulnerability Matter?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sena Kimm Gnangnon
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Economic Vulnerability ◽  
Global Shocks ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
Environmental Shocks ◽  
High Level ◽  
Sustainable Economic Growth ◽  
Growth Volatility

Recent years’ global shocks (e.g., the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic) and environmental shocks — such as natural disasters — have heightened the vulnerability of developing countries to future shocks, and can compromise their development prospects. International institutions and researchers have advocated that the strengthening of productive capacities in these countries would help enhance the resilience of their economies to shocks, and promote sustainable development. This paper has examined the effect of productive capacities on economic growth and economic growth volatility in developing countries, in particular when they face a high level of structural economic vulnerability. The analysis covers 117 developing countries over the period of 2000–2018. It shows that productive capacities not only promote economic growth, but also reduce economic growth volatility. On the other hand, structural economic vulnerability reduces economic growth (in particular when it exceeds a certain level), and induces greater volatility of economic growth. Interestingly, productive capacities promote economic growth and reduce economic growth volatility in countries that face a high degree of structural economic vulnerability. These findings support the recommendation by international institutions and researchers that if they were to enhance the resilience of their economies to shocks, and promote sustainable economic growth, developing countries (in particular the poorest ones) should strengthen their productive capacities.

Permeation and Independent Labor

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Bevir
Keyword(s):  
Political Elite ◽  
Expert Advice ◽  
Socialist Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Strategies ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
Labor Party ◽  
Fabian Society

This chapter discusses George Bernard Shaw's and Sidney Webb's respective political strategies and their roles in inspiring Fabian policy. The Fabians did not share a commitment to permeating other parties in order to promote incremental measures of socialism. For a start, Shaw would have liked an independent socialist party, but for much of the 1880s and 1890s he did not think that such a party was possible. Moreover, insofar as the leading Fabians came to agree on “permeation,” they defined it differently. Shaw thought of permeation in terms of luring Radicals away from the Liberal Party in order to form an independent party to represent workers against capitalists. In contrast, Webb defined permeation in terms of giving expert advice to the political elite. The response of the Fabian Society to the formation of the Independent Labor Party reflected the interplay of these different strategies.

Re-Thinking the Role of Institutions in Neoliberalism From New Institutional Economics Perspective

2020 ◽  
pp. 25-40
Author(s):  
Ilke Civelekoglu ◽  
Basak Ozoral
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Institutional Economics ◽  
New Institutional Economics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Formal Institutions ◽  
Fertile Ground

In an attempt to discuss neoliberalism with a reference to new institutional economics, this chapter problematizes the role of formal institutions in the neoliberal age by focusing on a specific type of formal institution, namely property rights in developing countries. New institutional economics (NIE) argues that secure property rights are important as they guarantee investments and thus, promote economic growth. This chapter discusses why the protection of property rights is weak and ineffective in certain developing countries despite their endorsement of neoliberalism by shedding light on the link between the institutional structure of the state and neoliberalism in the developing world. With the political economy perspective, the chapter aims to build a bridge between NIE and political economy, and thereby providing fertile ground for the advancement of NIE.

scholarly journals Deals and Development

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Linear Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Behaviour ◽  
Government Relations ◽  
Political Dynamics ◽  
Economic Trends ◽  
New Framework

When are developing countries able to initiate periods of rapid growth and why have so few of these countries been able to sustain growth over decades? Deals and Development: The Political Dynamics of Growth Episodes seeks to answer these questions and many more through a novel conceptual framework built from a political economy of business–government relations. Economic growth for most developing countries is not a linear process. Growth instead proceeds in booms and busts, yet most frameworks for thinking about economic growth are built on the faulty assumption that a country’s economic performance is largely stable. Deals and Development explains how growth episodes emerge and when growth, once ignited, is maintained for a sustained period. It applies its new framework to examining the growth of countries across a range of institutional and political contexts in Africa and Asia, using the examples of Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Ghana, Liberia, Malawi, Rwanda, and Uganda. Through these country analyses it demonstrates the explanatory power of its framework and the importance of feedback cycles in which economic trends interact with political behaviour to either sustain or terminate a growth episode. Offering a lens through which to analyse complex scenarios and unwieldy amounts of information, this book provides actionable levers of intervention to bring around reform and improve a country’s chance at achieving transformative economic growth.

scholarly journals Mass Poverty in Pakistan: Some Preliminary Findings

1973 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 317-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. M. Naseem
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Income Distribution ◽  
Development Strategy ◽  
Present Author ◽  
Growth Strategy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Conference ◽  
Political Demand ◽  
Future Growth

The disillusionment of many developing countries with past policies which paid exclusive attention to the rate of growth has, in recent years, led to a some¬what belated interest in the problems of unemployment, income distribution and mass poverty. Pakistan/perhaps, has the unique, if dubious, distinction of being one of the first developing countries both to adopt and, later, to reject growthmanship as a national creed.1 Although serious doubts about the assumptions and implications of the official strategy of economic growth in Pakistan began to be expressed in 1968, the issues were clouded by the political demand for the autonomy, and later the separation of the eastern wing of the country. At the recent Pakistan Economic Conference, held in February 1973, some of the basic issues of Pakistan's development strategy were discussed hi detail in various papers [1], [7], [14], [25]. The focus of these papers was on income distribution and employment and their implications for the future growth strategy. The present author in his paper [14] at the Conference, presented some tentative estimates of mass poverty and unemployment in West Pakistan. The present paper is designed to give more systematic estimates of the extent of mass poverty in Pakistan.

scholarly journals Democratic Stability: A Long View

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-75
Author(s):  
Federica Carugati
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Ancient Athens ◽  
Democratic Stability ◽  
Developed Nations ◽  
Shared Norms

What are the sources of democratic stability? The evidence from three modern waves suggests that stability rests on economic growth, strong states, and liberal institutions. But can we secure democratic stability beyond liberalism? This question is relevant to those developing countries that have little hope, and perhaps little interest in liberal democracy. But it is also increasingly relevant to those developed nations where the achievements of the twentieth-century liberal order are being eroded. This article takes a fresh look at democratic stability by reviewing the evidence from the last two and a half millennia. Particular attention is devoted to the case of ancient Athens, which highlights the importance of alignment between shared norms and appropriately designed institutions. Athens’ case suggests that goods that we usually associate with modern liberal democracy do not necessarily rely on a given set of values and do not have a unique institutional manifestation.

scholarly journals “Towards a Beautiful Country”: The Nationalist Project to Transform Japan

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-92
Author(s):  
Matthew David Boyd
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
National Level ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Japanese Government ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
The Political ◽  
Grassroots Organizing ◽  
Organizational Goals ◽  
Government Organizations

Japan is often regarded by scholarship as an example of what a healthy East Asian liberal democracy ought to look like. Despite its reputation for pacifism and liberal democracy, Japan has demonstrated a remarkable shift in political culture in the last decade, as successive governments have embraced decidedly nationalist policy choices. As the Abe Administration continues to push ahead with its plan for Constitutional Revision, a goal long advocated for by nationalist groups, Japan seems poised to enter a period of renewed nationalist discourses and policymaking. Existing scholarship presents these shifting political trends as having been facilitated by the political elite, and many scholars argue that elite driven, or top-down nationalism, is the driving force of political change in the modern Japanese political system. This paper challenges these assertions, instead arguing that resurgent nationalism in Japanese politics can be traced to the grassroots of society. Through a study of two non-government organizations, Nippon Kaigi 日本会議and Jinja Honchō 神社本庁, this paper clearly demonstrates the critical impact that grassroots organizing through non-government organizations has had on driving nationalist policymaking at the national level. The political success of these lobbying groups has been clearly evidenced in their presence at the highest level of Japanese government, as well as the remarkable similarities between their organizational goals and the political goals of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. This paper demonstrates that the relationship between grassroots nationalist organizations and the Japanese government is one of influence and pressure, rather than a coincidental alignment of political ideals.

Political Settlements and Immiserizing Growth Episodes

2019 ◽  
pp. 85-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kunal Sen
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
High Growth ◽  
The Political ◽  
Poor Growth ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Growth Deceleration ◽  
Political Settlement

Economic growth in developing countries is an ‘episodic’ phenomenon, with countries undertaking discrete shifts from periods of low to periods of high growth and vice versa. Not all growth acceleration episodes lead to reductions in poverty, and there is wide variation in the relationship between growth and poverty across episodes of growth of the same magnitude or duration. This chapter shows that several cases of growth acceleration episodes may be defined as episodes of immiserizing growth, in that poverty either increases or remains roughly the same across the duration of these episodes. Similarly, the chapter shows that not all growth deceleration episodes lead to increases in poverty. A political economy explanation is presented for episodes of immiserizing growth, focusing on the nature of the political settlement, and in particular on the distribution of power. We find that settlements with dispersed vertical power can lessen the likelihood of immiserizing growth episodes. We also find that dispersed horizontal power is not necessarily conducive to pro-poor growth episodes.

scholarly journals Mother Tongue and the Origins of Nationalism

2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (1-2 (2)) ◽  
pp. 123-131
Author(s):  
Armen Ayvazyan
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Cultural Awareness ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
National Language ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Settings ◽  
High Level

The article offers a comparative analysis of the data in Armenian, English, French and Russian sources trying to comment on the political and social settings in which a native language becomes a subject of nationwide love and pride. The author concludes that it happens when an ethnic group, which has already attained a high level of cultural awareness, adopts consistent and stable features typical of a nation. Later, with the support of the political elite, the intelligentsia carries out the further elaboration of the national self-consciousness which, in its turn, aims to analyze the elements of the national identity (including the national language) and to give theoretical and ideological explanations substantiating their necessity and efficiency.The author of the article states that as far back as the 5th century the Armenian intelligentsia highly regarded the cultural and political and strategic significance of the Armenian Language. Following the observations made by Pavstos Byuzand, Movses Khorenatsi and Yeghishe, the author comments on the clarity of the Armenian national self-consciousness and the high level of ideologization of the Armenian political thought. *  This is an abridged version of the study with the same title that was originally published by the author in Armenian as Mayreni lezun yev azgaynakanutian skzbnavorume. haykakan yev yevropakan skzbnaghbyurneri hamematakan knnutiun (Yerevan, Matenadaran: Artagers, 2001, the updated 2nd ed. was published in 2004).

scholarly journals Social Mobility and Political Regimes: Intergenerational Mobility in Hungary, 1949–2017

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paweł Bukowski ◽  
Gregory Clark ◽  
Attila Gáspár ◽  
Rita Pető
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Market Economy ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
Free Market Economy

AbstractThis paper measures social mobility rates in Hungary during the period 1949 to 2017, using surnames to measure social status. In those years, there were two very different social regimes. The first was the Hungarian People’s Republic (1949–1989), which was a communist regime with an avowed aim of favouring the working class. The second is the modern liberal democracy (1989–2017), which is a free-market economy. We find five surprising things. First, social mobility rates were low for both upper- and lower-class families during 1949–2017, with an underlying intergenerational status correlation of 0.6–0.8. Second, social mobility rates under communism were the same as in the subsequent capitalist regime. Third, the Romani minority throughout both periods showed even lower social mobility rates. Fourth, the descendants of the eighteenth-century noble class in Hungary were still significantly privileged in 1949 and later. And fifth, although social mobility rates did not change measurably during the transition, the composition of the political elite changed rapidly and sharply.

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