Lecture 13: Leadership and coalitions Flashcards
The fundamental problem of the politics of development
Where does the political will for accountability, collective action, and representation come from? Why would leaders implement change?
5 Structural arguments of development
- Geography
- History
- Geopolitics
- Existing socioeconomic conditions
- Formal and informal institutions
How are history and institutions path dependent, according to structural arguments? 3 points
- Winners from current institutions are powerful and can veto changes
- Informal institutions depend on expectations, being stuck in an equilibrium, with need for big push to change
- Agreeing on new institutions is a collective action problem itself
How does path dependency prevent accountability, collective action, and representation?
Accountability: once I’m in power, why help citizens hold me accountable?
Collective action: reporting corruption leads to social shaming
Representation: Leaders have no reason to change the rules that elected them in the first place
Definition: Agency
The capacity of agents to shape their environment
Agency encompasses the ability to do these 3 things
- Change institutions
- Enforce institutions
- Make institutions legitimate/respected
Definition: Critical junctures
Moments in time when the constraints of path dependency are alleviated, and agency has broader scope to alter institutional rules and outcomes in the future
2 examples of critical junctures
Natural resources running out; impending conflict
These 4 things can create critical junctures
- External imposition (e.g. Japanese post-war constitution made by the US)
- Revolutions - after war (constraints of former people in power gone) or democratization
- Economic shocks (oil shocks 1980s)
- Shifting ideas about institutions (fall of Berlin Wall -> democratization in Africa; Arab spring)
How do leaders use agency?
By forming coalitions
4 ways that forming coalitions is collective action
- Common goal to win and stay in power
- Each potential member wants to ‘free-ride’ on the concessions of others
- Leaders must get enough potential members to compromise and agree
- Both formal and informal coalitions
What was the great thing about Mandela’s coalition in South Africa?
He made everyone a winner from development
Which coalitions are pro-development is
Country-specific, depending on the relationship between political and economic elites
Definition: Developmental coalition
A broad coalition with concentrated enforcement power that directs rents to invest in development
Developmental coalition: Broad coalition
Key economic and political elites are part of the coalition to ensure:
- institutions are inclusive, not extractive
- more people have a stake in development
- losers are credibly compensated and don’t resist
Developmental coalition: Concentrated power
The leader can discipline members of the coalition so:
- Institutions are enforced
- Accountability limits corruption and clientelism to benefit the coalition as a whole
- Autonomy of bureaucrats is protected
- Leaders initiate collective action
Developmental coalition: Rents directed to investment
Directing rents toward developmental ends, not personal gains
Informal coalition ties provide ‘embedded’ autonomy
How can a developmental coalition improve development? 4 points
- Voters reward politicians for successfully creating development
- Emerging business elites provide electoral financing to politicians
- Business elites get favorable terms and investment opportunities, if they promote development
- Bureaucrats earn social praise from developmental success, not corruption
How has Rwanda achieved rapid development (strengthened institutional rules, centralized state, successful external aid, low corruption, limited resistance?
Through a developmental coalition!
- Broad with politicians, business elites, military leaders, Tutsis and moderate Hutus, women
- Concentrated power in Rwandan Patriotic Front as a dominant party, grounded in the military
- Directing rents to investment
How is development politically beneficial to the coalition in Rwanda?
Business investments received political protection, and electoral campaigns financed by business profits
Definition: Developmental patrimonial (Rwanda)
Developmental: Directing and disciplining resources for investment
Patrimonialism: centralized and personalized power, which is surprising given our theories
What 5 conditions permitted the emergence of a developmental coalition in Rwanda?
- A history of Weberian bureaucracy and indigenous state-building
- Disempowerment of large landowners (genocide)
- Dominant, cohesive elite
- External threats that align elite interests with development
- The agency of Kagame to forge a broad coalition, use concentrated power and enforce accountability, initiating collective action using social norms, increasing representation for pro-development groups, and effectively using aid
Which 5 things questions the sustainability of the Kagame regime in Rwanda?
- Dependent on Kagame
- Economic crisis may undermine coalition
- Reciprocal financing can easily become corruption
- Dominant parties lack credibility
- Violence discourages investment
What does the role of agency imply for the role of donors and external aid?
If the coalition is not developmental, limit support and finance civil society instead
If the coalition is developmental, support it with very few conditionalities