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Institutional monocropping and monotasking in africa
Mkandawire, Thandika
Mkandawire, Thandika
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n3833_PP_DGWB_1.pdf
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"The study of institutions is once again at the centre of development thinking in Africa. Early development economists were aware that institutions were the framework within which markets work, and the motors that can drive markets to perform differently from what would be expected by the simple extrapolation of their past performance. In fact, innovative institutional development would allow latecomers to move much faster and optimal arrangements would alter developmental trajectories. However, neoliberal policies were followed through facilitating the workings of the market, thereby removing distortions, in particular the negative role of the state. When it was found that the adjustment based on these policies had failed, policy failure and, subsequently, institutional weakness was blamed. Mkandawire argues that the upsurge of interest in institutions is welcome and long overdue. However, the new focus is marred by the tethering of institutions to a “one-size-fits-all” policy perspective, incorporated into neoliberalism with a focus on credibility and property rights. This has led to “institutional monocropping”: idealized versions of Anglo-American institutions being imposed on developing countries on the assumption that they would transcend national circumstances and cultures. According to the author, institutional reforms also suffer from the insistence on institutional “monotasking”, whereby institutions are reduced to servicing a standard set of often imposed policies or tasks, and from the endless experimentation on institutions that renders them highly unstable and unpredictable. Monocropping depends on an attachment to “rational choice institutionalism”, which has tended to focus on the restraining role of institutions and has ignored the developmental and transformative role that historical and sociological forms of institutionalism highlighted. And finally, it has been defined by a proliferation of tasks to be performed by highly restrained institutions. It is obvious that economic development requires good institutions. Outside the rarefied world of neoclassical economics, it has always been common knowledge that markets are embedded in complex social relations. The unresolved question is: which institutions are appropriate in a particular context to achieve a certain goal and perform a particular function?"(pg 3)
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2009-07
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With permission of the license/copyright holder