Culture & History Flashcards
How do informal institutions affect formal institutions?
Informal institutions affect both enforcement and compliance with formal institutions
Examples of how informal institutions can undermine formal laws and thus affect development
Informal institutions can undermine compliance with formal laws and reinforce gender bias, harming development
- eg. sex selective abortions
Definition of informal institutions
Socially shared rules, usually unwritten, that are created, communicated, and enforced outside of official sanctioned channels
Examples of informal institutions (also known as social norms)
- Let people off the train before you get on
- Shake hands after a sports match
- Queuing
- Women should not be seen in public (“purdah” in some Muslim and some Hindu communities)
How can trust affect compliance with formal institutions?
Trust in the state is an informal institution that increases compliance with public health actions like vaccination
- eg. in Nigeria with covid vaccines
How can the enforcement of formal institutions depend on informal institutions
Enforcing “good” rules
- eg. professional norms among police, judges
- eg. norms of honesty ensure money in the government’s budget gets to schools
Ignoring “bad” rules
- eg. not firing a teacher who arrives one minute late
What/how informal institutions impacted learning outcomes in two regions of India?
Himachal Pradesh: “Deliberative” norms
- Policies adapted to local context
- Listening to local teachers and parents
- eg. allowing mother teacher associations to run schools
Uttarkhand: “Legalistic” norms
- Following the letter of the law
- Ignoring the messy challenges in reality
- eg. mother teacher associations banned because they broke the rules on the timing of classes
Why do developing countries struggle more with enforcement of formal institutions?
By definition, developing countries have fewer resources, worse infrastructure, less efficient public services
- Strict formal rules can’t solve problems outside of individuals’ control
- Worse, they can undermine trust in the state
- Informal institutions can help adapt
Definition of culture
A stable, coherent set of identities, beliefs, and informal institutions in society
What does modernization theory think about culture
Development is accompanied by a necessary shift in values, beliefs, and social norms
Parson’s pattern variables between tradtional and modern (modernization theory)
Traditional
- Affective
- Diffuse roles
- Particularistic
- Ascriptive
- Collective
Modern
- Neutral
- Specific roles
- Universal
- Meritocratic
- Individualist
How do some argue that culture explains why the Western world and East Asia developed first?
Protestantism, Confucianism
- A stronger “work ethic”
- “Ascetic compulsion to save”
Critiques of the idea that modernity developed due to culture (in West and East Asia)
- Modern culture is subjective
- Culture is too “broad” a concept
- Reverse causation: Culture is a product of institutions and development, not just its cause
Modern culture is subjective (critiques of modernization cause by culture)
- China’s “confucian” culture was blamed as “too backward” until 1979
- Do individualist or collectivist values matter?
- “Tradition” can be harnessed for development (Japan, Botswana, Rwanda’s Imihigo accountability practice)
Culture is too broad a concept (critiques of modernization cause by culture)
- Specific informal institutions matter, but are not limited to any particular culture
- Catholic France still had the norms to make institutions work for development
Reverse causation: culture is a product of institutions and development, not just its cause (critiques of modernization cause by culture)
- Formal rules anchor/signal what is acceptable
- Poverty and bad governance makes people untrusting and skeptical
- Accepting corruption may be the only option where institutions are weak
- eg. North vs South Korea
Should international development agencies promote or discourage aspects of traditional culture like village chiefs?
Modernization approach
- Traditional institutions are hierarchical, exploitative, and backwards
– eg. Tanzania’s villagization program in the 1970s
Informal institutions approach
- Traditional institutions are the foundation of key informal institutions like trust, conflict mediation, community identity
– eg. DFID supported the authority of traditional chiefs in Sierra Leone
Why was there a reversal of fortunes in the Americas since 1500?
- Colonialism
- Determined whether subsequent institutions were inclusive or extractive
How the local conditions in South America determined the institutions colonizers set up
- Extractive where they found natural resources and could exploit the local populations
- eg. the “Mita” system of forced labor in Peru and Bolivia
– Region where this took place now have weaker land ownership, fewer roads, poorer
How the local conditions in North America determined the institutions colonizers set up
- Inclusive where they settled and had to produce their own crops
– Not by the elite’s preferences; this was the only way to stop colonists running away (/ only way to get to work) - eg. the establishment of land rights and democracy in the American colonies
Definition of path dependency
The “lock-in” of initial choices that limits future changes
What causes path-dependency
- Informal institutions and culture adapting
- Inclusive institutions gain legitimacy and support
- Extractive institutions concentrate power and wealth, preventing change
What major event affected Africa’s development?
Slavery has limited development particularly Sub-Saharan Africa
- Four slave trades, ~18 million slaves
What is the correlation between the slave trade and current development?
Countries with more intensive slave trade are poorer today
- At least 30% of the income gap to other developing countries
– After “controlling” for geography
- Not just because they were poor in the past
- The wealthiest parts of Africa were the target of slave trading as they had the institutions to support trade (money, a government, etc.)
- Another “reversal of fortunes”
