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It’s the State-Economy-Society stupid!

Contribution to seminar on rethinking state economy and societyTom De Herdt

Governance is good fordevelopment?

• Reflecting a respectable tradition on “gettingReflecting a respectable tradition on gettinginstitutions right”- To achieve pacification and build an effective

administration• Well functioning police and military• Linking the state and the citizens

- To re-establish funding

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• Efficient and transparent revenue collection

- To realise rule of law• To protect its citizens• To protect investors’ assets

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Development is good forgovernance

• But recent literature takes precisely a “relative” view on “rule of law”• Institutions are viewed as malleable – as the product of Institutions are viewed as malleable as the product of

ongoing conflict, negotiation, and compromise among powerful groups;

• “rolling agreements”

• Essentially because the state cannot discipline itself degree of state effectiveness is reflecting society and

economy

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eco o ygood governance as a by-product of socio-economic

interests strong enough to press for it

• Points of divergence: • “Leadership” vs LAO vs “political settlement”• Transitional or inevitable?

Leadership

• Booth: country ownership=“a leadership with a long-term development vision and p g p

some kind of machinery for managing well the rent generation and utilization which are central to early development processes” (Booth 2011)

Good governance may be by-product, development is not

Tension with democracy

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y<-> electoral incentives focused on short-term interests<-> elections to divert rents from productive destinations

Tension with pro-poor agenda: development builds on capital accumulation and elite

consensus

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Limited access orders (North)

• Development as by-product of individual efforts by leaders of contending organizations for not engaging in violence. in violence.

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- Importance of Peace Dividend- State’s first role to strengthen intermediary social groups

<-> “statist” approaches to state reconstruction

“Clientelist” Political Settlements

(Khan)

• “political settlement” = Modus vivendi, realised as long as the peace dividend is distributed more or lessaccording to the relative (perceived) holding power of each group

• “clientelist” = relative importance of ‘non-formalpower’

• Development implies a gradual increase in the i t f i d t i t f

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importance of economic resources as determinants of holding power increased importance of property rights & rule of law.But initially developmentalism must be compatible with a

settlement based predominantly on informal holding power

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Back to Weber?

• State law&institutions not as pre-condition for development Gradual disappearance of legal pluralism in favour of state Gradual evolution of state law&institutions in the interests Gradual evolution of state law&institutions in the interests

of the economy• Patrimonialism as one source of legitimate authority

• Besides others• In ordinary settings: a mixture.

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Back to Weber?

• State law&institutions not as pre-condition for development Gradual disappearance of legal pluralism in favour of state Gradual disappearance of legal pluralism in favour of state Gradual evolution of state law&institutions in the interests

of the economy• Patrimonialism as one source of legitimate authority

• Besides others• In ordinary settings: a mixture.

Patrimonialism compatible with developmentalism

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Patrimonialism compatible with developmentalismOur dealing with formal institutions is always evolvingNeed of a (local) political economy analysis:

rising to the concrete!