Panel 58: Rediscovering Governance for Development in Africa
Panel organsier: David Booth (Overseas Development Institute, UK)
Contact: d.booth@odi.org.uk
| For twenty years, policy ideas about governance for development in Africa have been dominated by concepts which claim to be universal but are not. Possibilities for constructing better governance using the raw materials and institutional creativities contained in Africa’s own experience have been systematically neglected. In the Africa Power & Politics Programme, researchers are addressing this gap, investigating systematically the institutional arrangements that have failed and those that have succeeded in a range of Anglophone and Francophone states. We want to engage fellow researchers in discussion around the theoretical ideas that are emerging from this work, which include distinguishing between more developmental and less developmental forms of neopatrimonialism, anchoring institutional initiatives more deliberately in local realities and searching out institutionally less harmful forms of development assistance. |