Goran Hyden

Governance and politics in Africa

Botswana, John Holm and Patrick Molutsi Burkina Fasso and Niger, Pearl Robinson Ghana, Naomi Chazan Kenya, Frank Holmquist et al Nigeria, Richard Joseph Rwanda, Catherine Newbury Senegal, Crawford Young and Babacar Kante Tanzania, Aili Mari Tripp Zaire, Janet MacGaffey.

Structural adjustment as a policy process: The case of Tanzania

Abstract Analyses of structural adjustment in developing countries have increasingly come to emphasize the importance of grounding reforms in the political realities of the countries concerned. While this approach is a step forward from the more “economistic” and prescriptive analyses that prevailed in the first part of the 1980s, we believe that the dynamics of structural adjustment is only fully captured by an approach that treats the policy context as an explicit and independent variable. On the basis of a case study of Tanzania, this article uses a policy process approach in which the notions of “ambiguity” and “conflict” in policy situations help us better understand the opportunities and constraints for action on structural adjustment issues.

Beyond Governance: Bringing Power into Policy Analysis

Abstract This article discusses how power may be fruitfully brought into policy analysis in order to make efforts to support development and poverty alleviation in developing countries. It begins by asking why power has been left out of development policy analysis for such a long time and proceeds by discussing what a power analysis entails. The third section provides a framework for how power can be brought into policy analysis as an independent and dependent variable. It concludes by demonstrating the usefulness of this approach and discussing the implications it has for the kind of data needed for development analysis and the kind of approach to adopt. This approach is shown to transcend the limitations of conventional diplomatic reporting on politics and regular macro-economic analysis, which is based largely on questionable national statistical information.

Culture, Administration, and Reform in Africa

Research on public administration in Africa has been prescriptive rather than analytical. Solutions have been provided in search of problems. Little, if any, attention has been paid to the role of local administrative cultures. This article problematizes public sector reform efforts on the African continent by identifying the cultural realities in which administration is being pursued and how the practices differ from the prescriptions offered by consultants. A principal distinction is made between a “civic” and an “affective” cultural model. The conclusion is that any reform efforts in the future need to start from what is on the ground rather than trying to impose something from outside that does not match existing administrative practices.

Mapping the politics of AIDS: Illustrations from east Africa

Despite comparatively weak technical and institutional infrastructure and differences between experts estimations of expected future mortality due to HIV and AIDS it is clear that AIDS will cause much death in sub-Saharan Africa over the 1990s. African governments have established national AIDS committees to coordinate prevention activities yet little urgency is expressed about HIV in most African countries. Political scientists have thus far also given little attention to the AIDS pandemic. One would think however that the serious spatial and temporal aspects of the pandemic would garner greater professional interest. The war against AIDS is far from merely scientific and merits scrutiny into whether prevention efforts remain on track how effectively resources are being mobilized and what future steps should be taken. How AIDS and many other important population and social issues are addressed are strongly influenced by the following political phenomena: how an issue gets onto an already crowded agenda; who decides which values enter the political arena for authoritative allocation; and the extent to which individuals feel free and competent to articulate their views on a given issue. In East African countries stronger public and individual commitments against AIDS are especially called for. Examples from Kenya Tanzania and Zambia are used to demonstrate how the central bureaucratic formation and control of public policy inhibit AIDS from entering public agendas; how the international community dominates the establishment of prevention efforts and incites calls of imperialism which impede the setting of local priorities; and how cultural inhibitions limit the effectiveness of campaigns against AIDS in East Africa.

Agencies in Foreign Aid

Full text can be accessed at the following link http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-349-14982-7

Where Administrative Traditions are Alien: Implications for Reform in Africa

Institutions are not independent of society but are a product of underlying social forces and structures. Knowing where institutions come from, therefore, becomes a necessary first task. Adopting such a position differs from approaches to the study of public administration that focus on technical or managerial issues internal to specific organizations. The technocratic way of approaching public sector reform in Africa has been dominant, leaving a trail of grey literature that continues to be the main source of interpreting public administration in the region. Although there are a few notable exceptions (for example, Adamolekun 1999), most of what is being written on public administration in Africa tends to be prescriptive rather than analytical. It pays no attention to how administrative and political legacies shape choice and behavior. Nor does it consider the conflicts that exist between norms that are indigenous to African societies, those that were introduced by the colonial powers, and the contemporary reform agenda with its inspiration from New Public Management.

Rethinking justice and institutions in African peacebuilding

This article argues that conflicts in Africa need to be understood in the context of local conceptions of justice, which differ from those of the liberal peace model. Justice in African society is based on the notion of reciprocity which, when practised, tends to lead to solutions that resemble prisoner dilemma games. Because agreements are more like truces than true peace agreements they are easily abandoned when the costs of adhering are higher. Bringing in these local conceptions are vital for peacebuilding in Africa but so is the need to reform them so that they become more sustainable.

The Ever-Changing Nature of Development Research: The Newest Challenge

Development is a moving target. Theories and practices keep changing, sometimes in response to major turns in politics, at other times because practice falls short of expectations. The move towards independence in Asia and Africa in the mid-twentieth century produced modernization theory; its insufficient delivery led to the theory of underdevelopment. So the saga has continued. This also means that research on development is continually in flux. The purpose of this overview is to take stock of where development research has been in the past 50 years and assess the current state of the field, including constraints and opportunities, as well as to point to what is the most recent challenge facing the development research community. Development research differs from conventional academic research in its ambition to be policy relevant. It is sandwiched between general theories, on the hand, and policy practice, on the other. It takes inspiration from both sides but, as Figure 1 suggests, the main sources of inspiration have changed over time. The evolution of development research may be traced along 2 axes. The vertical axis in this figure indicates that research has shifted between structural explanations and those based in the notion of the autonomy of human agency. The horizontal axis captures the movement between general theory and practice, the latter also recognizing the contextual nature of development. The figure suggests first that any paradigm in development research rarely survives longer than a decade. It is driven in parallel with changes in policy orientation. Development research, however, is not neutral but is a factor that also influences development policy. The arrows indicate the principal movements that have occurred since the 1960s. There is always a significant feedback from development research into politics and policy. The second observation is that the academic influences on development research were especially prominent in the 1960s and 1970s – the heydays of the Grand Theories.

The Problematic State

Students of American politics rarely, if ever, encounter the concept of the “state.” The separation of power that characterizes the American political system invites the use of a different terminology than the one associated with political systems that emerged in the Old World and the regions of the world colonized by these powers. The state, therefore, is a concept that is more prominent in the fields of comparative politics and international relations. Occasional efforts to avoid the use of the concept in comparative politics, for example, by the comparativists in the 1960s using a structural-functionalist approach, have never succeeded. It has always rebounded and continues to be prominent in the study of politics in all regions outside the United States. A state emerges in response to needs that groups in society have. These needs may emanate from problems with security, welfare, or resolving conflicting demands on scarce resources. Those who occupy positions in the state do so in ways that make them different from the public because their positions carry an element of authority whether that authority was delegated to them or grabbed in the course of dealing with the problem. States historically differ in complexity. Early historical states were quite rudimentary, often the mere extension of the household of a king. More recent examples, notably the welfare state in developed societies, are intricate creations in which citizens as a collectivity have delegated responsibility for much of their daily lives to officials whom they trust will act in their common interests.