2801. Mythmaking in the Rule of Law Orthodoxy
- Author:
- Frank Upham
- Publication Date:
- 09-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- As governments and donor agencies struggle over questions of aid and international development, a growing consensus is emerging regarding the connections between poor governance and underdevelopment. An increasing number of initiatives, from the U.S. Millennium Challenge Account to the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), explicitly link improving governance with pursuing sustainable development and poverty alleviation. Lack of pluralism and transparency, inefficient bureaucracies, and underdeveloped public institutions contribute to corruption, reduce governmental responsiveness to citizens' needs, stifle investment, and generally hamper social and economic development. A frequent donor favorite on the laundry list of “good governance” reforms advocated for developing countries is rule of law reform. The new development model contends that sustainable growth is impossible without the existence of the rule of law: a set of uniformly enforced, established legal regimes that clearly lays out the rules of the game.
- Topic:
- Democratization, Development, and Government
- Political Geography:
- Africa and United States