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Other Links
Deliberative
Democracy
"In its
simplest terms, deliberative democracy refers to a conception of
democratic
government that secures a central place for reasoned discussion in
political
life." Read more...
“Taken
as a model for how groups should make
collective judgments and decisions, the ideal of deliberative democracy
is
inherently ambiguous". Read more...
Decentralisation
Decentralisation
has positive effect on citizen participation and bureaucratic
efficiency. Read more...
Link between
decentralisation and poverty reduction is ambiguous. Read more...
"The
critical issue is not whether fiscal
decentralisation should occur -- it is happening and will continue to
happen..
The key is how to determine an appropriate level and how to structure a
reasonable balance between local autonomy and central control". Read more...
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Understanding the Resource Curse
Resource
curse refers to
the “inverse relationship between high natural resource dependence and
economic
growth rates”.
Although in early
60th scholars have argued the direct relationship
between resource abundance and economic development, empirical evidence
discarded these hypotheses: per capita incomes of resource-poor
countries grew
three times faster than that of resource-rich countries between 1960
and 1990;
per capita GNP in OPEC members decreased by 1.3% per year, whereas
non-oil
developing countries experienced an average 2.2% annual growth for the
period
from 1965 till 1998. This and other data have illustrated that resource
abundance per se does not lead to economic growth. Moreover, natural
resource
dependence may, actually, impede economic growth; it can also result in
increased inequality, decreased child welfare, and
greater vulnerability to economic and political shocks.
Early theories on
relationship between extractive industries and economic growth 
Covering Oil - a
Reporter's Guide to Energy and Development
"The Political Economy of the Resource
Curse" (and other
articles on resource curse)
Combating the Resource Curse
The resource
curse is
curable. A number of scholars attempted to explain the relative success
of some
countries in overcoming “resource curse”. These explanations can be
divided
into three groups. First set of arguments refers to conservative
macroeconomic
and fiscal policies when government accumulates foreign reserves, does
not
spend budget surplus on deficit, and tries to avoid external debt.
Second set
of explanations emphasises the role of privatising natural resources to
domestic businesses in tackling the resource curse. It is believed that
private
domestic ownership “would foster institutions that more effectively
constrain state leaders, encourage them to invest in institution
building, and
enable them to respond more successfully to commodity booms and busts”.
And, finally, the third set of arguments focuses on institutional
quality (rule
of law, bureaucratic quality, and the level of government corruption)
to
explain how some countries managed to avoid resource curse.
"Why
did Indonesia
overcome the resource curse?"
"Combating
the Resource Curse"
"Prelude to the Resource Curse"
"Beating the Resource Curse: the Case of
Botswana"
Participation,
Citizenship, Social Capital
“Democracy”
as a way of organizing the state has come to be narrowly identified
with
territorially based competitive elections of political leadership for
legislative and executive offices. Yet, increasingly, this mechanism of
political representation seems ineffective in accomplishing the central
ideals
of democratic politics: facilitating active political involvement of
the
citizenry, forging political consensus through dialogue, devising and
implementing public policies that ground a productive economy and
healthy
society, and, in more radical egalitarian versions of the democratic
ideal,
ensuring that all citizens benefit from the nation’s wealth”. Read more...
“The
study of citizenship began as the study of political rights and
democratic
governance within Western politics and philosophy. Today however, it
encompasses a broader sociological perspective highlighting that a
universally
shared concept of citizenship is further away from practical
articulation and
understandings of the concept than ever”. Read more…
“The
world contains multiple types of individuals, some more willing than
others to initiate
reciprocity to achieve the benefits of collective action. Thus, a core
question
is how potential cooperators signal one another and design institutions
that
reinforce rather than destroy conditions cooperation”. Read more…
Although
a very laudable
reorientation of development practice, participation has shown its
limitations,
especially in terms of its ability to avoid the shortcomings of
development
projects it was supposed to address. Many participatory projects ended
up
replicating the same errors as top–down projects. In particular, the
basic
problem of not being able to arouse popular participation plagues most
community initiatives. Understanding participation and its different
mechanisms
is essential to analyse the pitfalls of participatory projects, and to
improve
their design. Read more…
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