Readings

The following is a list of all readings for this course. There are three readings by Professor Tendler that are available as PDFs.

“Introduction” from Good Government in the Tropics. pp. 1-20. (c) 1998 The Johns Hopkins University Press. (PDF - 1.2 MB) - Tendler, Judith. Reproduced with permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press
Rural Works Programs in Bangladesh: Community, Technology and Graft (PDF - 1.2 MB)
New Lessons from Old Projects: The Workings of Rural Development in North East Brazil (PDF) (PDF - 2.30 MB)

I: Introduction

II: Historical Advances in Developing and Developing Countries: Lessons for Planning

Chang, Ha-Joon. “Institutions and Economic Development: ‘Good Governance’ in Historical Perspective.” Chapter 3 in Kicking Away the Ladder? - Policies and Institutions for Development in Historical Perspective. London: Anthem Press, 2002, pp. 61-81, 99-123 (rest optional).

Hirschman, Albert O. “Unbalanced Growth: An Espousal.” Chapter 4 in The Strategy of Economic Development New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958, pp. 62-75.

Teaford, Jon C. “Trumpeted Failures and Unheralded Triumphs,” “Triumph with the Taste of Defeat.” In The Unheralded Triumph: City Government in America, 1870-1900. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1984, pp. 1-14, 307-314.

Tendler, Judith. “Introduction.” Chapter 1 in Good Government in the Tropics. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997, pp. 1-20.

III: Paths Toward Reform

Hirschman, Albert O. “The Contriving of Reform.” Chapter 5 in J_ourneys Toward Progress: Studies of Economic Policy-Making in Latin America_. New York: The Twentieth Century Fund, 1963, pp. 251-264 and 271-275 (rest optional).

Houtzager, Peter P. (2003). “Introduction: From Polycentrism to the Polity.” Chapter 1 in Changing Paths: International Development and the New Politics of Inclusion. Edited by Peter Houtzager and Mick Moore. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 1-31.

March, James G. “Model Bias in Social Action.” Review of Educational Research 42 (Fall 1972): 413-429.

Fox, Jonathan. “The Sandwich Strategy: Opening from Above Meets Mobilization from Below.” Chapter 6 in The Politics of Food in Mexico: State Power and Social Mobilization. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992, pp. 151-205.

Joshi, A. “A Third Narrative: Frontline Workers and the WBSFSA.” In Roots of Change: Front Line Workers and Forest Policy Reform in West Bengal. Ph.D. Dissertation, Cambridge, MA: Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2000, pp. 1-2 and 177-242.

Moore, Mick P. “Arguing the Politics of Inclusion.” Chapter 10 in Changing Paths: International Development and the New Politics of Inclusion. Edited by Peter Houtzager and Mick Moore. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003, pp. 260-279.

IV: Planning and The “Right” Technical Choice

IVA: Traits of Technology as Determinant: Constraining and Facilitating

Hirschman, Albert O. Development Projects Observed. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1967 (reissued 1995), Chapter 1 (pp. 1-8), Chapters 3 and 4 (pp. 86-159).

Tendler, Judith. Electric Power in Brazil: Entrepreneurship in the Public Sector. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968, Chapter 1 (pp. 1-6), Chapter 6 (pp. 175-209).

Ostrom, Elinor. “A Public Choice Approach to Metropolitan Institutions: Structure, Incentives, and Performance.” Social Science Journal 20 (July 1983): 79-96.

IVB: The Social Construction of Technical Choices

McGuire, Patrick, and Mark Granovetter. “Shifting Boundaries and Social Construction in the Early Electricity Industry, 1878-1910.” In Making Commercial Domains. Edited by Joseph Porac and Marc Ventresca, 1996.

Berlan, Jeane-Pierre, and Richard Lewontin. “The Political Economy of Hybrid Corn.” Monthly Review 38 (1986): 35-47.

V: How Organizations Behave (Government, Firms, NGOs)

Wilson, James Q. Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It. Basic Books: Harper Collins Publishers, 1986, Preface (pp. ix-x) and Part II (pp. 31-110); rest optional. (Available in paperback.)

Ayee, Joseph. “Survey of Environmental Health Officers (EHOs)”. CEPRESE, Accra, Ghana, 2003, pp. 1-3.

March, James. “Preface,” “Limited Rationality” (Chapter 1). In A Primer on Decisionmaking: How Decisions Happen. New York: The Free Press, 1994, pp. 1-35. (Available in paperback.)

DiMaggio, Paul J., and Walter W. Powell. “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organization Fields.” In The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. Edited by Walter W. Powell and Paul J. DiMaggio. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991, Chapter 3 (pp. 63-82).

Tendler, Judith. Inside Foreign Aid. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975, Chapters 1, 5, 8 (pp. 1-7, 54-72, 102-110), rest optional.

Pfeffer, Jeffrey, and Gerald R. Salancik. The External Control of Organizations. New York: Harper and Row, 1978, Chapters 1, 4 (pp. 1-22, 62-91).

Lawrence, Paul R., and Jay W. Lorsch. Organization and Environment: Managing Differentiation and Integration. Homewood, Illinois: Richard D. Irwin, 1969, Chapters 1 and 8 (pp. 1-22, 185-203).

VA: Service-Delivery Organizatons and Civil Servants: Front-line Workers/Street-level Bureaucrats, Professionals

Lipsky, Michael. Street Level Bureaucracy, Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1980, Chapters 1, 2, 11-13 (pp. 3-25, 159-179, 181-211).

Oorthuizen, Joost. Water, Works and Wages. New Delhi: Orient Longman Private Ltd, 2003, pp. 1-3 and Chapter 5 (pp. 164-202).

Justice, Judith. “The Invisible Health Worker: The Peon,” and “Sources of Information.” In Policies, Plans & People: Culture and Health Development in Nepal, Judith Justice. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1986, pp. 101-106.

Tendler, Judith. “Preventive Health: The Case of the Unskilled Meritocracy.” In Good Government in the Tropics. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press [published in Portuguese by Editora Revan and ENAP (Escola Nacional de Administraçno Pública) (Rio de Janeiro), 1998], 1997, pp. 21-45.

Teaford, Jon C. “The Professionals.” In The Unheralded Triumph: City Government in America, 1870-1900. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1984, pp. 132-173.

VI: What Works and What Doesn’t: Interpretations and Misinterpretations

Pollitt, Christopher. “Justification by Works or by Faith? Evaluating the New Public Management.” Evaluation 1, no. 2 (1995): 133-154.

Roe, Emery M. “Development Narratives, Or Making the Best of Blueprint Development.” World Development 19, no. 4 (1991): 287-300.

Jain, Pankaj J., and Mick Moore. “What Makes Micro-credit Programmes Effective? Fashionable Fallacies and Workable Realities.” (PDF) IDS Working Paper 177, Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, November, 2002. 

Joshi, A. “A Third Narrative: Frontline Workers and the WBSFSA.” In Roots of Change: Front Line Workers and Forest Policy Reform in West Bengal. Ph.D. Dissertation, Cambridge, MA, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, pp. 1-2 and 177-242.

VII: Working with Corruption

Ehrenhalt, Alan. “The Paradox of Corrupt Yet Effective Leadership.” The New York Times, September 30, 2000, p. A25.

Bunker, Stephan G. “Collaboration, Competition, and Corruption in Colonization Projects.” In Underdeveloping the Amazon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988, pp. 180-198.

Wade, Robert. “The Management of Irrigation Systems: How to Evoke Trust and Avoid the Prisoners’ Dilemma,” World Development 16, no. 4 (April, 1988): 489-500.

Hojman, David. “Rent-Seeking and Corruption in a Successful Latin American Country: Chile in the 1990s.” In Problems of Democracy in Latin America. Edited by Roberto Espindola. Stockholm: Stockholm University Institute of Latin American Studies, 1996, pp. 35-51.

Scott, James C. “Corruption, Machine Politics, and Political Change.” American Political Science Review 63, no. 4 (December 1969): 1142-1158.

Woodall, Brian. " Japan under Construction." In Corruption, Politics, and Public Works. Berkeley: University of California Press, Introduction and Conclusion, pp. 1-24, 124-148.

Davis, Jennifer. “Corruption in public service delivery: experience from South Asia’s water and sanitation sector.” World Development. 2003. (Forthcoming)

Tendler, Judith. Rural Works Programs in Bangladesh: Community, Technology, and Graft. For the Transportation Department of the World Bank. Executive summary, 1979, pp. iii-xix.

VIII: Traditional Institutions (Politics, Patronage, and Clientelism): Hinders, Helps, or Both?

Macro Politics and Local Programs

Gibson, Edward L. “The Populist Road to Market Reform: Policy and Electoral Coalitions in Mexico and Argentina.” World Politics 49 (April 1997): 339-370.

Nelson, Joan M. “Poverty, Equity, and the Politics of Adjustment.” In The Politics of Economic Adjustment. Edited by Haggard, Stephan, and Robert R. Kaufman. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992, pp. 221-261.

Schady, N. R. “The Political Economy of Expenditures by the Peruvian Social Fund (FONCODES), 1991-95.” American Political Science Review 94, no. 2 (2000): 289-304.

Tendler, Judith. “Why are Social Funds So Popular?” Chapter 17 in Companion Volume of the World Development Report 1999/2000. Edited by S. Yusuf, W. Wu and S. Evenett. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Traditional Local Institutions and Change

Piattoni, Simona. “‘Virtuous Clientelism’: The Southern Question Resolved.” In Italy’s ‘southern question: orientalism in one country. Edited by Jane Schneider. Oxford: Berg, 1998, Chapter 10 (pp. 225-245).

Krishna, Anirudh. “Structure and Agency: New Political Entrepreneurs and the Rise of Village-Based Collective Action.” Chapter 3 in Active Social Capital: Tracing the Roots of Development and Democracy. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003, pp. 32-54.

Ananth, Kripa Pur. “Interfaces in local governance in Karnataka.” Economic and Political Weekly, India (October 19, 2002): 4283-4287.

Gay, Robert. “Between Clientelism and Citizenship: Exchanges, Gifts & Rights in Contemporary Brazil.” Connecticut College, July 2001.

O’Gorman, Frank. “Patronage and the Reform of the State in England, 1700-1860.” In Clientelism, Interests, and Democratic Representation: The European Experience in Historical and Comparative Perspective. Edited by Simona Piattoni. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

IX: Implementation Experiences

IXA: Inter-agency Coordination, and Redundancy

Weiss, Janet A. “Pathways to Cooperation Among Public Agencies.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 7 (1987): 94-117.

Tendler, Judith. “Reinventing the Projects.” Executive summary and chapter 2 in New Lessons From Old Projects: The Workings of Rural Development in Northeast Brazil. A World Bank Operations Evaluation Study. 1993, pp. xix-xxvi and 14-33.

Landau, Martin. “Redundancy, Rationality, and the Problem of Duplication and Overlap.” Public Administration Review 29 (July-August 1969): 346-358.

Miranda, Rowan, and Allan Lerner. “Bureaucracy, Organizational Redundancy, and the Privatization of Public Services.” Public Administration Review 55, no. 2 (March/April 1995): 193-200.

Bendor, Jonathan. Parallel Systems: Redundancy in Government. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985.

IXB: Decentralization and Local Government

Crook, Richard C., and James Manor. “Democratic Decentralization and Institutional Performance: Four Asian and African Experiences Compared.” Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 33, no. 3 (November 1995): 309-334.

Tendler, Judith. “Decentralization, Participation, and Other Things Local.” In Good Government in the Tropics. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997 [published in Portuguese by Editora Revan and ENAP (Escola Nacional de Administraçào Pública) (Rio de Janeiro) 1998], pp. 142-163.

IXC: Mediating Inherent Disagreement and Conflict

Case study led by Prof. Xavier Briggs (Harvard JFKennedy School of Government / DUSP-HCED): double session.

Harvard Business School Publishing Online. “Supermarkets in Inner Cities.” BS Case #N1-796-145, 1996. Introduction and Harlem case study required; rest optional. (Harvard Business Online)

Sanyal, Bishwapriya, and Vinit Mukhija. “Institutional Pluralism and Housing Delivery: A Case of Unforeseen Conflicts in Mumbai, India.” World Development 29, no. 12 (December 2001): 2043-2057. (Science Direct Journals)

Ananor, Kojo, and David Brown. “Making Environmental Management More Responsive to Local Needs: Decentralisation and Evidence-based Policy in Ghana.” ODI [Overseas Development Institute] Policy Briefing, no. 3 (April 2003): 1-4. [See especially the box on p. 3 on charcoal]

Ayee, Joseph, and Richard Crook. “Toilet Wars: Urban Sanitary Services and the Politics of Public-Private Partnerships in Ghana.” Working Paper. CEPRESE, Accra, Ghana: Institute of Development Studies at Sussex, 2003.

IXD: Decentralization and Local Government (continued)

Fox, Jonathan, and Josefina Aranda. Decentralization and Rural Development in Mexico: Community Participation in Oaxaca’s Municipal Funds Program. La Jolla: University of California, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies. Monograph Series, 42, 1996. (F)

Olowu, Dele, and Paul Smoke. “Determinants of Success in African Local Governments: an Overview.” Public Administration and Development 12 (1992): 1-17.

Smoke, Paul. “Decentralisation in Africa: Goals, Dimensions, Myths, and Challenges.” In “Decentralisation and Local Governance in Africa,” Special issue of Public Administration and Development 23, no. 1, guest editor: Paul Smoke, 2003, pp. 7-16. (InterScience)

Baiocchi, Gianpaolo. Radicals in Power: The Workers’ Party and Experiments in Urban Democracy in Brazil. New York and London: Palgrave, 2003. Preface, Chapters 1 and 11 (pp. 12-48, 310-337).

X: Public-Private Synergy Between Government and Civil Society: Business Associations, NGOs, etc.

XA: Synergy

Evans, Peter B. “Introduction: Development Strategies across the Public-Private Divide,” and “Government Action, Social Capital and Development: Reviewing the Evidence on Synergy.” World Development 24, no. 6 (June 1996): 1033-1037, 1119-1132.

Schneider, Ben Ross. “Elusive Synergy: Business-Government Relations and Development.” Comparative Politics 31, no. 1 (October 1998): 101-122. [Expanded version published in Desarrollo Económico (Argentina) 39, 1999.] (Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences)

Houtzager, Peter, Adrián Gurza Lavalle, and Arnab Acharya. “Who Participates? Civil Society and the New Democratic Politics in São Paulo, Brazil.” IDS Working Paper, July 2003. Institute of Development Studies at Sussex.

IXB: Special Session: “Contested High Modernism: the Politics of Development Planning in Durban, South Africa.” Professor Patrick Heller and Bongani Ngqulunga (Brown University, Sociology Department); double session.

IXC: Synergy (continued)

James, Estelle. “Why Do Different Countries Choose a Different Public-Private Mix of Educational Services?” JHR-The Journal of Human Resources 28, 3 (Summer 1993): 571-592.

Tendler, Judith. “What Ever Happened to Poverty Alleviation?” World Development 17, no. 7 (1989): 1033-1044.

Overseas Development Institute. “The Impact of NGO Development Projects.” Briefing Paper 2, May 1996.

Vivian, Jessica. “NGOs and Sustainable Development in Zimbabwe: No Magic Bullets.” Development and Change 25, no. 1 (1994): 167-193.

Herring, Ronald J. “Authority and Scale in Political Ecology: Some Cautions on Localism.” In Biological Diversity: Balancing Interests Through Adaptive Collaborative Management. Edited by Louise Buck et al. Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press, 2003, pp. 187-205. (Forthcoming)

XD: What History Tells Us

Skocpol, Theda. “How Americans Became Civic.” In Civic Engagement in American Democracy. Edited by Morris Fiorina and Theda Skocpol. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1999, pp. 27-80.

Krishna, Anirudh. “Global truths and local realities: traditional institutions in a modern world.” In Development and Change. 2003. (Forthcoming)

Course Info

As Taught In
Fall 2003
Level