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- Convenors:
-
Sam Hickey
(University of Manchester)
Giles Mohan (The Open University)
Farwa Sial (University of Manchester)
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- Formats:
- Papers Mixed
- Stream:
- Policy and practice
- Sessions:
- Thursday 1 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
To explore the changing global politics and practices of policy transfer in an unsettled world through a range of case-studies, highlighting south-south and south-north flows of ideas as well as north-south. To include the spread of different responses to the pandemic across time and space.
Long Abstract:
Most processes of policy transfer within 'international development' have tended to flow from north to south and to re-enforce uneven relations of power between wealthy and poorer nations and raise concerns around issues of sovereignty and ideological bias. However, the rise of new powers has introduced the possibility of new forms of agency and policy transfer within an age of 'global development'. Potential examples include the spread of cash transfers from Latin America, new approaches to the green revolution and agricultural development and models of urban development. In all cases, epistemic communities (involving researchers, policy entrepreneurs and officials of inter-governmental, governmental and non-governmental organisations) have been critical in both formulating and promoting new policy agendas.
This panel welcomes a broad range of studies that talk to both the old and new global politics of policy transfer and which seek to unpack the actual practices of policy transfer across multiple levels and how these might lead to unintended consequences. It will include cases of western-driven cases of policy transfer as well as newer forms of south-south and south-north policy learning. Of particular interest are studies of how responses to the pandemic have travelled between different locations and also across time (in relation to earlier pandemics) and how policy lessons on green energy transitions might be generated and spread. The focus of submissions should be less about the substantive policy area and more about the ways in which the global politics and practice of policy transfer is changing in an unsettled world.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 1 July, 2021, -Debjani Dasgupta (University of Sheffield)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the implicit tensions underpinning policy prescriptions of global aid agencies on ‘good governance’, and finds out to what extent these are responsible for changing institutional values at the local level, based on the case of local governance structures in West Bengal, India.
Paper long abstract:
The characteristics of the global ‘good governance’ agenda range from those emphasising human rights and democratic accountability (e.g. DFID) to the World Bank’s more functional focus on administrative efficiency and service delivery. Local governance structures provide a key terrain for such global agendas to operate and interact with local political agendas. They emerge as contentious sites between top-down, technocratic approaches of reshaping state processes and the struggle for assertion of active citizenship rights through everyday practices. This paper tries to explore the implicit tensions underpinning the policy prescriptions of the global aid agencies on good governance, and find out to what extent (if at all) these are responsible for changing institutional values at the local level.
The Indian state of West Bengal has a history of nurturing local government institutions (panchayats) since 1978 and witnessed a change in political regime in 2011. It was also the preferred site for implementation of two separate donor-sponsored programmes – one by DFID-UK, and the other by World Bank. This makes West Bengal panchayats a strategic site for operationalising global discourses of ‘good governance’ which might then be re-interpreted by the local political dynamics. Findings of this research indicate that global ideas and resources do play an important role in transforming the institutional culture at the local level, but it is not a straightforward process. The process is complex and multi-layered with key state actors (in the recipient countries) playing a major role in contesting / reinforcing / facilitating the course of institutional change.
Sam Hickey (University of Manchester) Giles Mohan (The Open University) Farwa Sial (University of Manchester)
Paper short abstract:
Describes the creation of a 'best-practice' agenda on oil governance by IFIs, bilaterals, CSOs and academics and its promotion to new producers in the global South. Critically explores the agenda's ideological and institutional biases and how it has interacted with national political settlements.
Paper long abstract:
New oil producers in the global South have adopted a remarkably similar range of 'good governance' reforms, including transparency and accountability mechanisms, the separation of commercial and regulatory functions and other aspects of the so-called 'Norway model'. Elsewhere, we have shown that this model has sometimes undermined the capacity of new producers to govern oil and has involved a bias against resource nationalism in favour of more neoliberal modalities. Here we trace the origins of this agenda and the transnational epistemic community that emerged to articulate it and hold it in place. We show how the agenda was shaped not only by the ideological preferences of the actors involved but also the institutional and national self-interest of different players, most notably Norway and the World Bank and IMF, whilst also being both informed and legitimised by specific international NGOs and leading academics. Drawing on interviews with the leading players involved, this paper suggests that transnational processes of policy transfer in the C21 remain heavily influenced by western ideas and actors, tending to reflect the old paradigm of 'international development' as opposed to a new paradigm of 'global development' heralded in part by the rise of new powers. Nonetheless, the extent to which this agenda has actually been adopted and implemented by different governments in sub-Saharan Africa has been closely shaped by the national political agency, most notably the ideas and incentives of ruling elites operating within particular political settlements.
Olly Owen (Oxford University) Ifeanyichukwu Aniyie (Federal Inland Revenue Service)
Paper short abstract:
Nigeria is amid transition from oil-reliance to non-oil tax-based revenue. New policies and initiatives have been developed, advocated, refined. This paper traces pathways via which these models travel, highlighting modes of design and innovation which go beyond technical/political binaries.
Paper long abstract:
Nigeria is an often-cited example of an oil state, but now amid a transition away from oil-revenue-reliance to non-oil-based taxation-based revenue; and a Federal state in which tax powers are split between the national (Federal) government and the constitutent States. Therefore amid this transition, a number of different tax policies and initiatives have been developed, advocated, taken up and refined. This paper traces the different pathways via which these innovated models travel, ranging from the formal governmental dissemination structures, to peer-to-peer learning, to transmission via private-sector partners and third-party advocates. It contrasts a number of intentional purposive advocacy and policy transmission mechanisms with others based in political and commercial networks of ‘affiliated technocrats’, and in doing so highlights a mode of policy design and innovation which goes beyond the technical/political binary. The paper particularly uses insights from four years of engagement via a research engagement programme, and from work with Nigeria’s Federal and State tax bodies.