Background
The task of state consolidation remains incomplete in a number of developing countries (Migdal 2001, Migdal et. al. 2004, Jomo and Khan 2000). As a consequence, the goals of legitimacy, stability and development remain far from being accomplished in these countries. The failure of state consolidation has impaired the ability and capacity of developing country states to provide effective governance for their citizens. The mainstream reformist agenda as well as the academic literature has sought to explain state failure in terms of the architecture of the de jure structures of state and society, with an emphasis on a rule-based bureaucracy, an independent judiciary, programmatic political parties, non-government and community based organizations and a free media. Building state capacity to overcome state failure, according to this view, is about reforming de jure structures that define key accountability relations between:
- Citizens/clients and politicians/policy makers
- Politicians/policy makers and organizational service providers
- Organizational service providers and frontline providers
- Frontline providers and citizens/clients
This ‘dominant' paradigm encapsulated in the ‘good governance' framework underpins policy advice and policy conditionalities regarding state capacity building put forth by donors in a range of developing countries.
Objectives
The central research question of the programme is to analyze how the interaction between formal (state) and informal institutions impacts decision making on public affairs in the arenas of: access to resources; dispute resolution; and effective delivery of basic public services. The research programme is interested in self-governance by informal institutions to the extent that this impacts the interaction between formal and informal institutions.
The research programme asks:
- How pervasive is the role of informal institutions in each of these arenas?
- What are the processes through which informal institutions impact decision making over public affairs?
- What range of impacts do informal institutions have in terms of state-society outcomes?
- To what extent does the role and impact of informal institutions vary with:
(i) Their type and nature? (ii) Their internaction with local level socio-economic structures?, and (iii) The history of centraland sub-natinal state development.
Methodology
This project will also analyze the process and outcome impacts of the interaction between formal and informal institutions along the following dimensions:
- Functionality/effectiveness of public service delivery, access to resources and dispute resolution.
- Equality of access of different citizen groups, in particular the marginalised and the poor, to public services, resources and mechanisms of dispute resolution.
- The extent to which different groups, especially the marginalized and the poor, participate in, are aware of and are represented in bodies that impact decisions regarding public service delivery, access to resources and dispute resolution.
Interactions between formal and informal institutions impact decision making over public affairs in each of these arenas by among other things:
- Influencing the processes of citizen voice aggregation in the political and electoral sphere
- Coordinating the flow of information between citizens and service providers
- Structuring the processes of demand aggregation
- Strengthening or eroding procedures of citizen-based planning and citizen participation
- Defining the access of different groups of citizens to the political sphere and to the bureaucracy
- Access and control over economic and social assets
Researchers
Dr Kripa Ananthpur, Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS) India
Professor Ali Cheema, Lahore Institute of Management Sciences (LUMS) Pakistan
Sanjay Lodha,
Department of Political Science, Mohan Lal Sukhadia University, India
Shandana Mohmand, Lahore Institute of Managment Sciences (LUMS)
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