DV3165 Development management
Syllabus
Part 1: Theoretical background
Institutional theories:Institutions, organisations and development management; the importance of managing the transformation from less to more effective institutions.
Part 2: Governance
Public order and theories of the State: The origins and role of the state; Leviathan vs. social contract approaches; political accountability, order, and public policy-making in conditions characteristic of less-developed countries.
Democracy and decentralisation: Fiscal architecture, hierarchical relations within government, and government responsiveness; residual power; interest groups vs. civic groups, organisation and voice, and political representation.
International aid and international governance: Aid, conditionality and national sovereignty; the concept and limitations of 'global governance'; its effects on trade and aid flows; their ultimate effects on countries' development prospects.
Part 3: Private provision: The market and beyond
Hierarchy, co-operation & incentives in private firms: Pure market exchange; the theoretical origins of firms; the role of hierarchy in efficiency and coordination.
Real firms, small firms: microentrepreneurs and the informal sector: Theory of the firm applied to real, third-world market conditions; the origins of the informal sector; prospects for its development.
Common resources and private solutions for collective action: The economic characteristics of common property resources; the pervasiveness of Tragedies of the Commons and environmental degradation in LDCs; implications for efficiency; possibilities for private solutions and collective action; empirical examples from LDCs.
Part 4: Empirical studies of transformation and decomposition
Institutions vs. geography vs. values: Why are some countries rich and others poor? Competing theories of the determinants of development; empirical evidence for each.
Analytical narratives on development failure: Why do some countries 'de-develop'? The cases of Venezuela, Zimbabwe and Pakistan; cross-country evidence of development failure.
Analytical narratives on development success: Why do some countries succeed? Can their success be replicated? The cases of China and Botswana; cross-country evidence of development success.
Towards a theory of development management: A synthesis of the theory of parts 1 and 2 with the empirics of part 3; the determinants of development success; successful management of the transition to a rapid development process.
