Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.
Log in
- Convenor:
-
Vidya Pancholi
(Compound13, Mumbai)
- Stream:
- C: Development cooperation and Humanitarianism
- Location:
- D1
- Start time:
- 28 June, 2018 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 3
Short Abstract:
The session aims at discussing poicy translation into reality. The specific aim is to learn from the ethnographies of development policies that can help explain the complexity of policy as institutional practice; the social life of projects; and practices that policy legitimises as social processes.
Long Abstract:
The session aims at discussing how development policies translate into reality within the Global south. The aim is to specifically look at ethnographies of development policies such as housing, slum redevelopment, basic services/utilities, mobility, health, and education and discuss mechanisms/ processes through which policies become reality. Ethnographies, it is believed, can help explain the complexity of policy as institutional practice; the social life of projects; and practices that policy legitimises as social processes (Mosse, 2005). In order to understand the complexities associated with the implementation of development policies, it is important to pay attention to how policies travel at various levels/scales. Such a focus may reveal complexities associated with the everyday practices in the policy space such as informalities (Roy, 2009; McFarlane, 2012; Paller, 2015) and transversalities (Holston, 2008; Cladiera, 2016), to name a few. The session would specifically aim at understanding policy translations into reality and mechanisms through which such realities are arrived. These mechanisms may range from everyday bureaucratic practices (Mathur, 2016), to engaging skilled brokers - consultants, fieldworkers, community leaders, as well as politicians - for the purpose of policy translation (Mosse, 2005), through to collaboration as well as dealing with contentious political episodes (McAdam et al., 2001; Tilly and Tarrow, 2006) for achieving reputation, legitimacy, and claims to success within policy. The session therefore aims at learning critical insights on shifting power relations between state and society using policies as a discursive space.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
The main objectives of this chapter are to understand how and why institutions arrangements under the NCWSP appear differently from actual policy design.What practices do water actors engage in to navigate through challenges encountered from the pressure of institutional and technological change
Paper long abstract:
The Water Sector Reform in Ghana, National Community Water and Sanitation Programme (NCWSP) seek to ensure access and sustainable management of the water facilities.
Implementations, however, have not been in accordance with desired expectations. This study argues that mismatch between local social and institutional context and principles guiding the NCWSP are the reasons for the differences between policy and actual practices. To resolve the conflicts -that is to reduce the tensions arising as result of the mismatch; local water engages in different practices to find ways around challenges in implementing policies.
In this paper, we use insights from translation to explain the processes of translation of the NCWSP and implementation. Finding in this paper shows that implementing actors are, more likely to change institutional arrangements for managing the water systems. If faced with the following; inadequacy of institutional capacity, access to information, and knowledge of the programme, leadership support and commitment, and ambiguities in policies and programme. Consequently leading to practices and implementation in contrast with institutional arrangements provided in the NCWSP. Using six communities in Central, Ashanti and Northern Regions of Ghana an in-depth study is made to explore the processes of institutional change and how that impact on users access to water and sustainability of small town water systems. By this, the study will be contributing to developing a systematic explanation and convincing arguments which enable us to understand why actual implementation differ and relevant multisectoral approaches and practices towards navigating through challenges faced in implementing the NCWSP.
Paper short abstract:
Understanding how frontline actors translate policy into practice is central to understanding how public services function and hence might be improved. This paper explores the ways in which Malawi's water policies are (re)produced, contested and normalised through everyday actions and interactions.
Paper long abstract:
Over the last two decades, significant progress has been made expanding water services in the global south. Nonetheless, many rural Africans still lack access to clean water for basic needs (WHO/UNICEF, 2015). Evidence also suggests that, where water points have been constructed, many break down prematurely or provide inadequate or poor quality water (e.g. Bonsor et al., 2014; Haysom, 2006; Rietveld et al., 2009; RWSN, 2009). Whilst proximate causes of service failure may be techno-managerial in nature, several authors point to underlying political-economic factors that make failure more or less likely (e.g. O'Neil et al., 2014; Chowns, 2014). However, few have given adequate attention to the agency and practices of state actors operating 'on the ground', at the interface with service users.
Understanding how actors on the frontline of service delivery translate national policies into practice is central to understanding how public services actually function and hence might be improved or transformed (de Herdt and de Sardan, 2015; Lipsky, 1980). In this paper I explore the "dissonance between formal rules and real practices" (de Sardan, 2015: p19) in Malawi's rural water sector, viewing translation as the heterogeneous ways in which in policies are (re)produced, contested and normalised through everyday discourses, actions and interactions (Clarke et al., 2015). Insights are drawn from my ethnographic fieldwork in one district, using material from my field diaries, interviews and participant diaries. I employ concepts from both the critical governance literature and emerging practice theories to make sense of diverse local experiences.
Paper short abstract:
The paper highlights the limitations of the state in claiming legitimacy and success in development scheme. Through the example of a slum redevelopment scheme in Mumbai, the paper claims the important role of transversalities in making the policy 'real'.
Paper long abstract:
The paper presents the important role of negotiations as well as contentions in policy translation within global South. Li (1999, cited in Mosse 2004, p.645), for instance, highlights that "since success is fragile and failure, a political problem, hegemony has to be worked out not imposed; it is 'a terrain of struggle' (ibid.; p.316)". With a specific focus on the scale of community, the paper discusses the implementation of the Basic Services for the Urban Poor (BSUP) scheme in Kalyan-Dombivli (KD), a sub-city to Mumbai, India. The BSUP scheme was implemented in the KD city during the 2005-2017 period. The analysis draws from semi-structured interviews with the settlers across two settlements that took part in the scheme as well other key actors in the scheme. The paper finds that the implementing agency i.e. the local government in KD, engages a variety of actors and mobilizes a variety of things in making the policy 'real'. These actors use meaningful narratives for generating interests amongst the slum settlers regarding the scheme. However, at the scale of community, the settlers engage in the scheme in often transversal ways (Holston, 2008). Such transversalities are best captured under the dualities of collaboration-compromises (involving negotiations between the state/ its agencies and the policy subjects) and repression-contention (acts of contentious politics by the policy subjects challenging the state's policy model). The transversalities that surfaced in making the BSUP scheme real, highlight the limitations of the state in claiming legitimacy and success in the scheme.
Paper short abstract:
Between 2014 and 2017, a national program for local development in indigenous communities in Chile was redesigned using a bottom up methodology. This approach had tangible consequences by recognizing indigenous communities' worldviews regarding own communities' development processes.
Paper long abstract:
One of the main challenges for development in Latin America is related to the welfare of indigenous communities. In particular, it is necessary to promote policies that generate empowerment processes to improve their quality of life, considering their own ideas of development. In this article we present a detailed study-case, with a focus on policy design from the implementation perspective. We argue that the mechanisms used for policy design have impacts on the policy itself, but also in the relationship between the state and citizens.
Between 2014 and 2017, a national program for local development in indigenous communities in Chile was redesigned using a bottom up methodology. More than a hundred workshops were conducted, and 2,100 indigenous leaders were consulted, an unprecedented way in Chile of working between state and indigenous people, and with citizens in general. This approach had consequences by recognizing indigenous communities' agency, as well as their worldviews regarding their own communities' development processes. Our results explain how the emphasis placed in co-responsibility over this program's resources translated into a more significant participation of the beneficiaries in the decisions involved, making them active agents in the development process of their communities.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines how women-centric development policies become central to the Indian state's counterinsurgency strategy against Maoist rebels in eastern India. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, it delves into poor women's responses to state-directed development in a counterinsurgency context.
Paper long abstract:
Since 2011, the Indian state has planned and implemented special rural development programmes for regions where the Maoist insurgency has been active. These programmes especially target poor rural women through subsided micro-finance loans. This paper draws on ethnographic fieldwork conducted on the everyday practices of one such programme in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal.
I found that poor women, even those who had earlier aligned with the Maoists, shifted allegiances, participated enthusiastically in the state-directed development programmes, and sought to build sustained relations with actors who represented the state. Despite having rebelled against the state earlier, they now actively sought it out. Participation in state-directed development programmes not only opened up the possibility of gaining access to public goods, but also provided women with an opportunity to step out of their households, carve a space for themselves in the local public sphere, and make claims on officials to support new livelihood options. For these women, among whom I conducted my fieldwork, the state mediated their socio-economic aspirations and enabled them to challenge existing gender norms in village society.
This paper thus argues that development policy in a counterinsurgency context, far from being a top-down imposition, becomes a space of mediation between ordinary women and the state.
Paper short abstract:
What happens when you combine an attempt at direct democracy with community level development initiatives? Focusing on the intersection of government programs at the ground level, the impact of community level politics on the implementation of development programs will be examined.
Paper long abstract:
This paper is an ethnographic exploration of the Citizens Power Council (CPC) in Nicaragua in relation to its role in the implementation of community-level development initiatives. An example of the 'new democratic spaces' emerging across the globe in a political move to increase citizen engagement and participation; the CPC was installed in communities throughout Nicaragua in 2007. Drawing on a year of anthropological research conducted in a rural community in Northern Nicaragua and several years of development work in the community, this paper critically examines the role of the CPC in the implementation of two of the government's signature development programs, Zero Hambre and Plan Techo. In order to understand how government policies translate to action at the ground level, three primary topics will be examined: the creation of the CPC in the community, the selection of recipients and distribution for materials for Plan Techo, and the shifting role of the CPC in the Zero Hambre program. The paper concludes with the argument that based on participation in the CPC and the distribution of government resources within the community, the implementation of the CPC has led to increased nepotism and political patronage.
Paper short abstract:
This paper analyses the interactions between policy relevant actors at the local level as a way to understand the deep politics of social protection. Using the case of social cash transfers in Zambia, it argues that SCTs have the potential to stimulate important changes in the local welfare regime.
Paper long abstract:
Recent years have witnessed the nationwide scale-up of social protection interventions in many developing countries. This trend has been accompanied by an increasing academic interest in the politics of social protection. However, most existing and emerging studies assume a top-town view on the policy process and focus on the interactions of international and national decision-makers in shaping social protection policies. Yet we know that policies are negotiated and re-negotiated by multiple actors at different levels of governance and at different times of the policy process (Lipsky, 1980; Sabatier, 2007). This means that the 'real' policy outcomes hinge on the 'final' negotiations of the shape of the policy, namely the negotiations between the actors at the bottom. Therefore, this paper focuses on the interactions between policy relevant actors at the bottom as a way to comprehend the deep politics and the transformative potential of social protection.
The paper analyses how power relations have changed at the local level following the implementation of Social Cash Transfers in rural Zambia. Specifically, it looks at how poor people's perceptions and voices are influenced and mediated by more powerful actors. The answers will be based on the analysis of over 30 key informant interviews with policy-relevant actors at the bottom level as well as a purposeful analysis of relevant secondary data. The paper concludes that the implementation of SCTs in rural Zambia has stimulated important changes in the local welfare regime and thus in the relationships of poor people.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines entrepreneurship as a poverty alleviation policy through the notion of moral economy. Using ethnographic data from rural Bangladesh it analyses why and how development institutions 'embed' entrepreneurship in local social institutions.
Paper long abstract:
This paper interrogates entrepreneurship as a modernizing policy. Building on a renewed interest in 'moral economy', it explores how the spread of entrepreneurship sits with the social institutions of Northern rural Bangladesh. Key findings evidence that the moral economy of entrepreneurship rests on the diffused idea of moral entrepreneurial idols and on traditional inter-personal networks of gendered obligations within households. Individuals participate to avoid risks and conform to traditional social institutions. I conclude that the imagined modernizing effect of entrepreneurship, the promised revolution, has been aborted by the very structures that support its expansion.
Paper short abstract:
This paper investigates the dynamisms behind the Malagasy land policy reform and the difficulties in translating it into reality. Assemblages of proponents and opponents have been constituted. These use various forms of power to resist, gain force and consolidate their own ideas and practices.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper, I examine the complexities in translating policies into reality through the example of Malagasy land tenure policy reform that is on-going since 2005. By recognising rights to land based on its current appropriation and use, the policy placed the security of tenure of farmers on the foreground and questioned state control over land. Its development was initiated by civil society, and international and national 'experts'. It benefitted from Ministerial and donor support during its early days. Its implementation, however, has faced difficulties due to institutional power battles, resistance of the state administration rooted to bureaucratic ideas, weak demand on the ground and political changes.
The paper builds on field work conducted in Madagascar in 2016 which combined ethnographic observations in various policy arena and interviews with global, national and local players. These enable to investigate the complexities of interactions between levels, players, ideas and practices. Relying on the concept of assemblage, I show how assemblages of proponents and opponents have been constituted around the reform. Yet, these are not homogenous groups of players, but interaction exist between, and divergent ideas and practices emerge inside of them. Furthermore, players use similar forms of visible and invisible power to resist, gain force and consolidate their positions. The analysis underscores the importance of paying attention to the way in which policy processes are led, managed and controlled as a way of creating legitimacy and ownership over ideas and practices.