Jennifer N. Brass

Why Do NGOs Go Where They Go? Evidence from Kenya

Using Kenya as a case study, this paper provides preliminary evidence of the factors influencing Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to choose their locations within a country. Interpreting the findings from a range of models evaluating 4,210 organizations in 70 districts, and drawing on in-country interviews with NGO leaders and workers, government officials, and politicians, it finds that sub-national NGO location corresponds to an area’s objective level of need, as well as the convenience of the location for accessing beneficiaries, donors, and elite goods. Contrary to dominant theories of African political economy, political factors like patronage appear to have little or no significant influence.

The Political Economy of Pro-Poor Livestock Policy Reform in Kenya

No abstract available.

The Political Economy of Livestock Policy: The Case of Djibouti

No abstract available.

Djibouti's unusual resource curse *

An extensive literature on the ‘resource curse ’ posits that abundant natural resources ‘curse ’ countries possessing them with negative economic, social and political externalities. Usually, scholars identify tangible resources like oil, diamonds or timber, rarely questioning whether other kinds of resources might have the same impact, and under what conditions. This paper examines how little-studied Djibouti’s non-tangible resources – geo-strategic location and aid-inspiring poverty – have produced ‘ curse ’ effects ; with an economy dominated by US and French military spending (and concomitant aid) and rents on trade passing to and from Ethiopia, tiny Djibouti suffers from this curse. It draws four conclusions. First, resource curse effects can derive from non-traditional sources. Second, leaders’ policy decisions matter at least as much as the presence or absence of resources. Third, advanced countries’ spending patterns in their less-developed allies often produce unintended consequences. Finally, even tiny countries can provide scholars and policy makers with new insights.

Democracy and the Distribution of NGOs Promoting Renewable Energy in Africa

Abstract Roughly 60 per cent of Africans lack access to electricity, negatively impacting development opportunities. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have started promoting distributed generation – small-scale, localised electricity generation – to change this situation. Despite widespread need, however, the dispersion of these distributed generation NGOs (DG-NGOs) is uneven, with high concentrations in a few African countries. Drawing on an original database and field research, we analyse location variation among DG-NGOs across the continent. We find that DG-NGOs are likely to operate in democratic settings with large populations that lack access to electricity. International DG-NGOs are also likely to operate where aid allocation levels are relatively high.

Scandals, Media and Good Governance in China and Kenya

Conventional wisdom holds that democratic governments listen to their populations, while authoritarian governments do not. This paper questions the extent to which this dynamic applies in cases of government scandals, using the illustrative cases of China and Kenya. We expect democratic countries with free media to be responsive and authoritarian states to ignore public pressure. Counter to this expectation, however, authoritarian China is more responsive to public pressure to clean up scandals than democratic Kenya. Using case studies and quantitative analysis, we argue that while democracy and free media are important for government responsiveness to scandal, they are neither necessary nor sufficient conditions. We assert that political will, state capacity to respond and high public expectations for state action are also necessary.

Global Renewable Electricity Policy: A Comparative Policy Analysis of Countries by Income Status

Abstract Although the drivers of renewable electricity (RE) are well-established among Western high-income countries, little is known about the factors that encourage RE development elsewhere. This paper analyzes an unprecedented, original dataset of 149 countries from 1990 to 2010 to compare the policy instruments and other factors that influence RE adoption across low-, middle-, and high-income countries. We find the factors driving RE development vary both across income group and between hydroelectric and non-hydro generation. Most notably for environmental concerns, non-hydroelectric RE generation is driven by feed-in-tariffs and renewable portfolio standards in high-income countries, feed-in tariffs alone in middle-income countries, and by subsidies in low-income countries. Non-policy drivers of RE also vary by country income level.

Context-based Instruction: What Traditional Social Science Disciplines Offer to Nonprofit Management Education

Abstract What can traditional social science disciplines offer to contemporary nonprofit management education? We argue that the focus on context provided by traditional disciplines contrasts with operations-oriented approaches common to management education. Drawing on a sample of 110 courses from 22 programs, we illustrate the operations-oriented focus of current nonprofit management programs and discuss the likely rationales behind that tendency. We argue that nonprofit management education would benefit from greater emphasis on context-based approaches and suggest how traditional social science disciplinary approaches can be used to create distinctive nonprofit management courses. We suggest ways to integrate such courses into nonprofit management programs and consider what it would take to move the field of nonprofit management instruction toward a more integrated model.

NGOs and Changing Patterns of Governance: Clear Roles or Growing Complexity?

This paper examines the impact of the explosion of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on governance in the world’s developing countries. Looking specifically at service provision in Kenya, it analyzes how the proliferation of NGOs has changed they way service allocation decisions are made, as well as how development policy is formulated and implemented. In so doing, it also explores shifting NGO-government relations over time. Counter to arguments that the opening of public space to private actors has created a clear division of labor between policy-making government and policy-implementing private actors, public administration in Kenya has become a complex and intertwined affair. NGOs sit on national policymaking committees, second government employees to their offices and send their employees to work in government, and even create projects that government implements. Through such changes, developing countries are witnessing a blurring of the lines between public and private. Indeed, NGOs extend the organizational form of the state beyond the civil service. As a result, governance in Kenya has become more democratic.