Understanding the relationship between governance and violence at the local level

Michael WoolcockProfessor of Social Science and Development PolicyUniversity of ManchesterResearch Director, BWPI (on leave from the World Bank)

World Bank, 7 April 2009

Outline

• Development is change, change brings conflict, conflict can lead to violence orinstitutional renewal– How do we know?– What are the mechanisms?– Why do we so often fail to recognize this?

• What should be done? By whom?– How to get less violence, more renewal?

• Getting ‘good governance’ revisited

Nothing short of great political genius can save a sovereign who undertakes to relieve his subjects after a long period of oppression. The evils which were endured with patience so long as they were inevitable seem intolerable as soon as a hope can be entertained of escaping from them. The abuses which are removed seem to lay bare those which remain, and to render the sense of them more acute; the evil has decreased, it is true, but the perception of the evil is more keen...

Alexis de TocquevilleThe Old Regime and the French Revolution

Three claims

1. Development is change– Roads, schools, health clinics, irrigation,

credit … all seek to change a given situation• Higher growth, less poverty, more empowerment

Three claims

1. Development is change– Roads, schools, health clinics, irrigation,

credit … all seek to change a given situation• Higher growth, less poverty, more empowerment

2. Change brings conflict– Because powerful interests prefer status quo– Because prevailing rules systems inadequate

to new, more complex, diverse challenges

Three claims

1. Development is change– Roads, schools, health clinics, irrigation,

credit … all seek to change a given situation• Higher growth, less poverty, more empowerment

2. Change brings conflict– Because powerful interests prefer status quo– Because prevailing rules systems inadequate

to new, more complex, diverse challenges3. Conflict can lead to violence or

institutional renewal

How do we know?What are the mechanisms?

• Political history– Every major innovation spawned violence– ‘Birth of the Modern World’ (Bayly, Banning)– Development as “history in a hurry” (Coatsworth)

How do we know?What are the mechanisms?

• Political history– Every major innovation spawned violence– ‘Birth of the Modern World’ (Bayly, Banning)– Development as “history in a hurry” (Coatsworth)

• Social theory– Revolutions occur when conditions improve– Change realigns power, classes, social relations– Change via ‘punctuated equilibriums’, J-curves

How do we know?What are the mechanisms?

• Political history– Every major innovation spawned violence– ‘Birth of the Modern World’ (Bayly, Banning)– Development as “history in a hurry” (Coatsworth)

• Social theory– Revolutions occur when conditions improve– Change realigns power, classes, social relations– Change via ‘punctuated equilibriums’, J-curves

• Legal anthropology– Legal pluralism to ‘rule of law’– ‘Customary’ systems often overwhelmed, inequitable

Why do we so often overlook the conflict-development nexus?

• Organization imperatives– Conflict as ‘exception’, in ‘failed states’– Conflict as technocratic problem

• Driven by ‘risk factors’, solvable by ‘best practices’

Why do we so often overlook the conflict-development nexus?

• Organization imperatives– Conflict as ‘exception’, in ‘failed states’– Conflict as technocratic problem

• Driven by ‘risk factors’, solvable by ‘best practices’

• Disciplinary monopoly– Economics rules (and certainly has its place)

• But monopolies, of all kinds, are inefficient• North (2005): need paradigm shift

Why do we so often overlook the conflict-development nexus?

• Organization imperatives– Conflict as ‘exception’, in ‘failed states’– Conflict as technocratic problem

• Driven by ‘risk factors’, solvable by ‘best practices’

• Disciplinary monopoly– Economics rules (and certainly has its place)

• But monopolies, of all kinds, are inefficient• North (2005): need paradigm shift

• Poorly articulated alternatives– Non-economists (vastly) underplay their hand

What should be done? By whom?• Concede that institutional change is not

something “we” (development professionals), or anyone else, knows how to do, or will ever know how to do– Some technical elements, yes, but mostly the

wheel literally needs to be reinvented each time, in each place, in its own way

• Legitimacy and equity of the change process is key– So that conflict has constructive outlet– Help make ‘play field’ a little more level

Getting ‘good governance’ revisited• Development as “good struggles”• Policy priority: Help craft ‘interim institutions’ to

take next supportable, implementable step• Focus much less on institutional ‘form’ (what

institutions look like) and much more on institutional function (what they do)– Encouraging institutional isomorphism is bad history,

bad theory, bad practice• ‘Good governance’ will emerge where there are

good contests over means and ends– Conflict is normal; needs to be harnessed