The Samaritan's Dilemma
The Political Economy of Development Aid
Published on 15. September 2005
Book
Hardback
288 pages
978-0-19-927884-8 (ISBN)
Description
What's wrong with foreign aid? Many policymakers, aid practitioners, and scholars have called into question its ability to increase economic growth, alleviate poverty, or promote social development. At the macro level, only tenuous links between development aid and improved living conditions have been found. At the micro level, only a few programs outlast donor support and even fewer appear to achieve lasting improvements.
The authors of this book argue that much of aid's failure is related to the institutions that structure its delivery. These institutions govern the complex relationships between the main actors in the aid delivery system and often generate a series of perverse incentives that promote inefficient and unsustainable outcomes. In their analysis, the authors apply the theoretical insights of the new institutional economics to several settings. First, they investigate the institutions of Sida, the Swedish aid agency, to analyze how that aid agency's institutions can produce incentives inimical to desired outcomes, contrary to the desires of its own staff. Second, the authors use cases from India, a country with low aid dependence, and Zambia, a country with high aid dependence, to explore how institutions on the ground in recipient countries also mediate the effectiveness of aid.
Throughout the book, the authors offer suggestions about how to improve aid's effectiveness. These suggestions include how to structure evaluations in order to improve outcomes, how to employ agency staff to gain from their on-the-ground experience, and how to engage stakeholders as "owners" in the design, resource mobilization, learning, and evaluation processes of development assistance programs.
The authors of this book argue that much of aid's failure is related to the institutions that structure its delivery. These institutions govern the complex relationships between the main actors in the aid delivery system and often generate a series of perverse incentives that promote inefficient and unsustainable outcomes. In their analysis, the authors apply the theoretical insights of the new institutional economics to several settings. First, they investigate the institutions of Sida, the Swedish aid agency, to analyze how that aid agency's institutions can produce incentives inimical to desired outcomes, contrary to the desires of its own staff. Second, the authors use cases from India, a country with low aid dependence, and Zambia, a country with high aid dependence, to explore how institutions on the ground in recipient countries also mediate the effectiveness of aid.
Throughout the book, the authors offer suggestions about how to improve aid's effectiveness. These suggestions include how to structure evaluations in order to improve outcomes, how to employ agency staff to gain from their on-the-ground experience, and how to engage stakeholders as "owners" in the design, resource mobilization, learning, and evaluation processes of development assistance programs.
Reviews / Votes
As an increasing portion of the development community now recognizes, sending oodles of money to poor countries does not make them rich and may even make them poorer. This important book explains why. The authors' discussion is clear, straightforward, and easy to understand * Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Academics, officials in aid agencies, and citizens interested in poverty and development issues
Illustrations
Tables and line drawings
Dimensions
Height: 241 mm
Width: 162 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
588 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-927884-8 (9780199278848)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Clark C. Gibson | Krister Andersson | The late Elinor Ostrom
The Samaritan's Dilemma
The Political Economy of Development Aid
Book
09/2005
Oxford University Press
€78.40
Shipment within 15-20 days
Persons
Clark Gibson is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the International Studies program at the University of California, San Diego. He is currently a member of the American Political Science Association Executive Committee. He has held positions at Indiana University and acted as a consultant for the World Bank, the United States Agency for International Development, and the Carter Center.
Krister Andersson has worked with development aid issues since 1991. He has served as an international civil servant and consultant for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the World Bank and non-governmental organizations in Bolivia, Costa Rica and Sweden. He served as a technical advisor on environmental conflicts in Ecuador's Ministry of the Environment in 1997-1998. A postdoctoral fellow at the Center for the Study of Institutions, Population and Environmental Change (CIPEC) at Indiana University, he studies the politics of international development and environmental governance in non-industrial societies.
Elinor Ostrom was Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, and the Center for the Study of Institutions, Population, and Environmental Change at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.
Sujai Shivakumar received his doctorate in Economics from George Mason University, specializing in Constitutional Political Economy, and later pursued post-doctoral research in the political economy of development at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University. He is currently an official with the US National Academies' Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy.
Krister Andersson has worked with development aid issues since 1991. He has served as an international civil servant and consultant for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the World Bank and non-governmental organizations in Bolivia, Costa Rica and Sweden. He served as a technical advisor on environmental conflicts in Ecuador's Ministry of the Environment in 1997-1998. A postdoctoral fellow at the Center for the Study of Institutions, Population and Environmental Change (CIPEC) at Indiana University, he studies the politics of international development and environmental governance in non-industrial societies.
Elinor Ostrom was Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, and the Center for the Study of Institutions, Population, and Environmental Change at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.
Sujai Shivakumar received his doctorate in Economics from George Mason University, specializing in Constitutional Political Economy, and later pursued post-doctoral research in the political economy of development at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University. He is currently an official with the US National Academies' Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy.
Content
INTRODUCTION ; 1. What's wrong with development aid? ; THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS ; 2. Laying the theoretical foundations for the study of development aid ; 3. Better development through better policy? Development aid's challenges at the collective-choice level ; 4. Sorting out the tangle: Incentives across action situations ; 5. A formal analysis of incentives in strategic interactions involving an international development cooperation agency ; 6. All aid is not the same: The incentives of different types of aid ; CASE STUDIES ; 7. Applying the IAD framework: The incentives inside a development agency ; 8. Incentives for contractors in aid-supported activities ; 9. Sida aid in electricity and natural resource projects in India ; 10. Sida aid in electricity and natural resource projects in Zambia ; CONCLUSION ; 11. What have we learned about aid?