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Begin New Search Topic Education Political Geography Global Focus Content Type Working Paper

1. Affirmative action: meaning, intentions, and impacts in the big picture

Author:
Satu Kuitunen
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper provides a broad overview of the meaning of affirmative action and its intended and unintended impacts. The paper is a literature review and does not make any arguments specifically for or against affirmative action but describes the broad arguments and findings in the existing literature. Central to the definition of affirmative action is its proactive nature in rectifying horizontal inequalities and historical wrongdoing. Motivations can be ethical, economic, or political. The designation criteria and the scope of affirmative action also vary across countries, which affects how its effectiveness and value are measured. Affirmative action can have positive intended impacts as well as adverse unintended impacts, and the jury is still out on its overall effectiveness. Affirmative action has also been implemented on the grounds of conflict management, but the results have been mixed, and the evidence of affirmative action as a conflict management tool is limited.
Topic:
Education, Inequality, Literature Review, and Affirmative Action
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. Managing for Motivation as Public Performance Improvement Strategy in Education & Far Beyond

Author:
Dan Honig
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
People management has an important role to play in improving public agency performance. This paper argues that a ‘Route Y’ managerial approach focused on supporting the empowered exercise of employee judgment will in many circumstances prove superior to conventional reform approaches steeped in ‘Route X’ monitoring and incentives. Returns to Route Y are greater when employees are or can become more “mission motivated” – that is, aligned with the goals of the agency in the absence of monitoring and extrinsic incentives. Returns to Route Y are also greater when monitoring is incomplete or otherwise likely to unproductively distort effort, thus lowering the returns to using performance-linked rewards and penalties. I argue that education systems are one (but far from the only) setting where Route Y is a lever worth focusing on in efforts to improve public performance in the developed and developing world alike.
Topic:
Development, Education, Public Policy, Performance Evaluation, and Project Management
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. How Human Subjects Research Rules Mislead You and Your University, and What to Do About it

Author:
Gary King and Melissa Sands
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Universities require faculty and students planning research involving human subjects to pass formal certification tests and then submit research plans for prior approval. Those who diligently take the tests may better understand certain important legal requirements but, at the same time, are often misled into thinking they can apply these rules to their own work which, in fact, they are not permitted to do. They will also be missing many other legal requirements not mentioned in their training but which govern their behaviors. Finally, the training leaves them likely to completely misunderstand the essentially political situation they find themselves in. The resulting risks to their universities, collaborators, and careers may be catastrophic, in addition to contributing to the more common ordinary frustrations of researchers with the system. To avoid these problems, faculty and students conducting research about and for the public need to understand that they are public figures, to whom different rules apply, ones that political scientists have long studied. University administrators (and faculty in their part­time roles as administrators) need to reorient their perspectives as well. University research compliance bureaucracies have grown, in well­meaning but sometimes unproductive ways that are not required by federal laws or guidelines. We offer advice to faculty and students for how to deal with the system as it exists now, and suggestions for changes in university research compliance bureaucracies, that should benefit faculty, students, staff, university budgets, and our research subjects.
Topic:
Education, Science and Technology, Labor Issues, Bureaucracy, and Academia
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. A quarter century of ‘The Proper Scope of Government’: Theory and Applications

Author:
Oliver Hart
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
A quarter-century ago in a seminal paper, Hart, Shleifer, and Vishny (NBER1996, QJE1997) developed a theory of the ‘Proper Scope of Government.’ Oliver Hart, 2016 Nobel Laureate, reflects on that framework and its place in economics, as well as the inspiration for his more recent work on norms, guiding principles, and contracts as reference points. In discussion with Karen Eggleston, Hart answers questions posed by economists who have built upon Hart, Shleifer and Vishny (1997) and offers insights on how the theory applies to understanding public and private roles in healthcare, education, and other publicly-financed services.
Topic:
Education, Privatization, Political Theory, Governance, Health Care Policy, Social Services, and Public Service
Political Geography:
Global Focus

5. Let’s Take the Con Out of Randomized Control Trials in Development: The Puzzles and Paradoxes of External Validity, Empirically Illustrated

Author:
Lant Pritchett
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
The enthusiasm for the potential of RCTs in development rests in part on the assumption that the use of the rigorous evidence that emerges from an RCT (or from a small set of studies identified as rigorous in a “systematic” review) leads to the adoption of more effective policies, programs or projects. However, the supposed benefits of using rigorous evidence for “evidence based” policy making depend critically on the extent to which there is external validity. If estimates of causal impact or treatment effects that have internal validity (are unbiased) in one context (where the relevant “context” could be country, region, implementing organization, complementary policies, initial conditions, etc.) cannot be applied to another context then applying evidence that is rigorous in one context may actually reduce predictive accuracy in other contexts relative to simple evidence from that context—even if that evidence is biased (Pritchett and Sandefur 2015). Using empirical estimates from a large number of developing countries of the difference in student learning in public and private schools (just as one potential policy application) I show that commonly made assumptions about external validity are, in the face of the actual observed heterogeneity across contexts, both logically incoherent and empirically unhelpful. Logically incoherent, in that it is impossible to reconcile general claims about external validity of rigorous estimates of causal impact and the heterogeneity of the raw facts about differentials. Empirically unhelpful in that using a single (or small set) of rigorous estimates to apply to all other actually leads to a larger root mean square error of prediction of the “true” causal impact across contexts than just using the estimates from non-experimental data from each country. In the data about private and public schools, under plausible assumptions, an exclusive reliance on the rigorous evidence has RMSE three times worse than using the biased OLS result from each context. In making policy decisions one needs to rely on an understanding of the relevant phenomena that encompasses all of the available evidence.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Education, and Public Policy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

6. Job loss and household labor supply adjustments in developing countries: Evidence from Argentina

Author:
Matias Ciaschi
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies (CEDLAS)
Abstract:
Using longitudinal data for Argentina, this paper measures the labor supply reaction of different household members to a breadwinner’s job loss. Firm events and local unemployment shocks are exploited as exogenous sources of variation to estimate the causal effect. Our main findings show that job loss by the male household head has a significant and substantial effect on the labor supply response of other household members, both at the extensive and intensive margin. While we do not find any effect on daughters, female partners and sons increase their labor market participation. The latter are also more likely to drop out from the educational system. These results are stronger among economically vulnerable households.
Topic:
Development, Education, Labor Issues, and Employment
Political Geography:
Global Focus

7. Gender Gaps in Education: The Long View

Author:
David Evans, Maryam Akmal, and Pamela Jakiela
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Many countries remain far from achieving gender equality in the classroom. Using data from 126 countries between 1960 and 2010, we document four facts. First, women are more educated today than fifty years ago in every country in the world. Second, they remain less educated than men in the vast majority of countries. Third, in many countries with low levels of education for both men and women in 1960, gender gaps widened as more boys went to school, then narrowed as girls enrolled; thus, gender gaps got worse before they got better. Fourth, gender gaps rarely persist in countries where boys are attaining high levels of education. Most countries with large, current gender gaps have low levels of male educational attainment. Many also perform poorly on other measures of development such as life expectancy and GDP per capita. Improving girls’ education is an important goal in its own right, but closing gender gaps in education will not be sufficient to close critical gaps in adult life outcomes.
Topic:
Education, Gender Issues, Labor Issues, Inequality, Feminism, and Equality
Political Geography:
Global Focus

8. The Limits of Accounting-Based Accountability in Education (and Far Beyond): Why More Accounting Will Rarely Solve Accountability Problems

Author:
Dan Hoing and Lant Pritchett
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Accountability is rightly at the center of the conversation regarding how to improve governance systems, particularly health and education systems. But efforts to address accountability deficits often focus primarily on improving what can be counted and verified—what we term “accounting-based accountability.” We argue that introducing greater accounting-based accountability will only very rarely be the appropriate solution for addressing accountability problems. We illustrate this by exploring the role of Accountability ICT in (not) improving education system performance. Strengthening “real” accountability is not the same as improving data systems for observation and verification, and often attempts at the latter undermine the former. The development discourse’s frequent semantic misunderstanding of the term “accountability” has pernicious real-world consequences with real effects on system reform efforts and ultimately global welfare.
Topic:
Education, Governance, Accountability, and Welfare
Political Geography:
Global Focus

9. What We Learn about Girls’ Education from Interventions that Do Not Focus on Girls

Author:
David Evans and Fei Yuan
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Despite dramatic global gains in access to education, 130 million girls of school age remain out of school. Among those who do enter, too many do not gain the essential skills to succeed after they complete their schooling. Previous efforts to synthesize evidence on how to improve educational outcomes for girls have tended to focus on interventions that are principally targeted to girls, such as girls’ latrines or girls’ scholarships. But if general, non-targeted interventions—those that benefit both girls and boys—significantly improve girls’ education, then focusing only on girl-targeted interventions may miss some of the best investments for improving educational opportunities for girls in absolute terms. This review brings together evidence from 270 educational interventions from 177 studies in 54 low- and middle-income countries and identifies their impacts on girls, regardless of whether the interventions specifically target girls. The review finds that to improve access and learning, general interventions deliver gains for girls that are comparable to girl-targeted interventions. At the same time, many more general interventions have been tested, providing a broader menu of options for policy makers. General interventions have similar impacts for girls as for boys. Many of the most effective interventions to improve access for girls are household-based (such as cash transfer programs), and many of the most effective interventions to improve learning for girls involve improving the pedagogy of teachers. Girl-targeted interventions may make the most sense when addressing constraints that are unique to girls.
Topic:
Education, Children, Women, and Feminism
Political Geography:
Global Focus

10. Educational Accountability or Social Accountability in Education? Similarities, Tensions, and Differences

Author:
Felipe J. Hevia and Samana Vergara-Lope
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Accountability Research Center (ARC), American University
Abstract:
This article addresses the relationship between the concepts of Social Accountability and Educational Accountability. The analysis of the similarities, differences and tensions between these two different concepts can strengthen citizen participation for educational improvement by identifying the full range of actors and processes in decision making that influence the success or failure of educational policy beyond of the teachers. We encounter two distinctive features involving social accountability mechanisms in the field of education: (1) There are many actors who participate in education, making it difficult to identify precisely who is responsible for key decisions, and (2) In education policy one encounters the concept of educational accountability, which refers to a series of mechanisms to hold schools and teachers accountable for educational outcomes by adopting standardized tests on a widespread basis to motivate change and steady improvement. Are the approaches of social accountability and educational accountability compatible? What are their differences and similarities? What are the effects of these differences when it comes to formulating solutions to the crisis in education? Through a comparative analysis, and looking at the Mexican case in depth, it becomes clear that we have to examine more than the tip of the iceberg. The educational accountability perspective is insufficient and at times counterproductive for educational improvement because it has a series of biases that are centered on the symptoms more than the causes of the structural problems related to low education levels. These biases include (1) Reducing the criteria for assessing the success of education policies to the outcomes of standardized tests, (2) Identifying teachers as the main actors responsible for educational outcomes, without considering other associated factors, such as student characteristics and socio-economic factors, (3) The concentration of negative consequences in the last chain of interaction—teachers and schools—which disproportionately affects students and teachers, and (4) Difficulties in mobilizing citizens around the demand for a better education. The school and the teachers are the main providers of educational services, but their performance is not the only cause of educational outcomes. This is why we need to construct an expanded vision of social accountability in education, based on a human rights perspective all of the actors assume our responsibility inside and outside the schools, to facilitate: (1) The generation of broad and fair criteria of success for evaluating education policy, using various evaluation methodologies and the results to generate formative feedback; (2) To better identify those responsible and their responsibilities, focusing on those factors that improve equity and quality, increase students’ motivation to learn, reduce the burden of the socioeconomic inequalities, and help produce more supportive schools and teachers, and (3) The involvement of citizens to achieve better learning, build relationships based on mutual trust, and complement access to local information with policy monitoring throughout the chain of decision-making.
Topic:
Education, Human Rights, Accountability, Equity, and Community Engagement
Political Geography:
Global Focus

11. Theories of Democratic Change Phase III: Transitions from Conflict

Author:
Jennifer R. Dresden, Thomas E. Flores, and Irfan Nooruddin
Publication Date:
03-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of International Education (IIE)
Abstract:
The notion that robust democracy and violent conflict are linked is commonplace. Many observers of international politics attribute violent conflict in contexts as diverse as Myanmar and Syria to failures of democracy. Conversely, most agree that continuing political violence undermines any effort to build strong democratic institutions in Libya or South Sudan. As a matter of policy, democratization has often been promoted not only as an end in itself but as a means toward building peace in societies scarred by violence. Development professionals tackle these challenges daily, confronting vicious cycles of political violence and weak democratic institutions. At the same time, scholars have dedicated intense scrutiny to these questions, often finding that the interrelationships between conflict and democracy belie easy categorization. This report, the third in a series on democratic theories of change, critically engages with this literature to ask three questions: Under what circumstances do democratic practice or movement toward democracy quell (or exacerbate) the risk of different kinds of violent conflict? Under what circumstances do the risk and experience of violent conflict undermine democratic practice? How can external interventions mitigate risks and capitalize on opportunities inherent in transitions to democracy and peace? To answer these questions, a research team at George Mason University and Georgetown University spent eight months compiling, organizing, and evaluating the academic literature connecting democratic practice and violent conflict, which spans the fields of political science, economics, peace studies, anthropology, sociology, and psychology. This work was funded by USAID’s Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance (the DRG Center), under the Institute of International Education’s (IIE’s) Democracy Fellows and Grants Program. Beginning in May 2018, the authors organized a team of three research assistants, who read and summarized more than 600 journal articles, books, reports, and newspaper articles. The resulting White Paper was the subject of an August 2018 workshop with representatives from USAID and an interdisciplinary group of eight scholars with expertise in conflict and democracy. Based on their feedback, the authors developed a new Theories of Change Matrix and White Paper in October 2018. This draft received further written feedback from USAID and another three scholars. The core team then revised the report again to produce this final draft. This report’s approach to the literature differs from past phases of the Theories of Democratic Change project. While past reports detailed the hypothesized causes of democratic backsliding (Phase I) and democratic transitions (Phase II), this report focuses on the reciprocal relationship between democratic practice and conflict. The report therefore organizes hypotheses into two questions and then sub-categories within each question.
Topic:
Democratization, Development, Education, Democracy, Conflict, Political Science, and USAID
Political Geography:
Libya, Syria, North America, Myanmar, South Sudan, Global Focus, and United States of America

12. Creative Destruction or Idiot Winds: Schumpeterian Theory Meets the Educational Sector in Developing Countries

Author:
Mark H. Moore
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
This is one of a series of working papers from “RISE"—the large-scale education systems research programme supported by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Topic:
Development, Education, Governance, and Developing World
Political Geography:
Global Focus

13. Teacher Professional Development around the World: The Gap between Evidence and Practice

Author:
Anna Popova, David Evans, Mary E. Breeding, and Violeta Arancibia
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Many teachers in low- and middle-income countries lack the skills to teach effectively, and professional development (PD) programs are the principal tool that governments use to upgrade those skills. At the same time, few PD programs are evaluated, and those that are evaluated show highly varying results. In this paper, we propose a set of indicators—the In-Service Teacher Training Survey Instrument—to standardize reporting on teacher PD programs. Applying the instrument to 33 rigorously evaluated PD programs, we find that programs that link participation to career incentives, have a specific subject focus, incorporate lesson enactment in the training, and include initial face-to-face training tend to show higher student learning gains. In qualitative interviews, program implementers also report follow-up visits as among the most effective characteristics of their professional development programs. We then use the instrument to present novel data on a sample of 139 government-funded, at-scale professional development programs across 14 countries. The attributes of most at-scale teacher professional development programs differ sharply from those of programs that evidence suggests are effective, with fewer incentives to participate in PD, fewer opportunities to practice new skills, and less follow-up once teachers return to their classrooms.
Topic:
Development, Education, Labor Issues, Academia, and Teaching
Political Geography:
Global Focus

14. From Brain Drain to Brain Circulation and Linkage

Author:
Gi-Wook Shin and Rennie Moon
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
The development community has increased its focus on higher education over the past two decades, recognizing that education can contribute to building up a country’s capacity for participation in an increasingly knowledge-based world economy and accelerate economic growth. The value added by higher education to economies—job creation, innovation, enhanced entrepreneurship, and research, a core higher education activity—has been highlighted by an important body of literature. Yet experts remain concerned that investing in higher education in less-developed countries may lead to a “brain drain”--highly educated students and professionals permanently leaving their home countries. In the 2016 Kauffman report on international science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) students in the United States, for instance, 48 percent among a randomly sampled survey of 2,322 foreign doctoral students in the United States wished to stay there after graduation, with only 12 percent wanting to leave and 40.5 percent being undecided. In fact, high percentages of foreign students in the United States with doctorates in science and engineering continue to stay in the United States, creating a brain drain problem for the sending countries. Because students tend to move from developing to developed countries to study, brain drain is more problematic for developing countries. In addition, given accelerated talent flows around the world and the increasing integration of less-developed countries into global value chains, the negative impact of brain drain could be further amplified. As demonstrated by the studies reviewed in this paper, the migration of high-skilled professionals from developing countries may indeed create brain drain for them, but at the same time can significantly enhance the social and economic development of their home countries, regardless of whether or not they decide to return home, thus complicating what used to be seen as a straightforward case of brain drain. From Brain Drain to Brain Circulation and Linkage examines how brain drain can contribute to development for the sending countries through brain circulation and linkage. It provides an overview of the conceptual framework to map out high-skilled labor flows, identifies empirical cases and policies in Asia that demonstrate high-skilled migrant professionals actually make significant contributions to their home countries (beyond monetary remittances), summarizes key social and economic enabling factors that are important in attracting and motivating migrant high-skilled professionals to return or engage with their home countries, and concludes with policy implications and suggestions for further research based on these findings.
Topic:
Development, Education, Higher Education, and Socioeconomics
Political Geography:
Global Focus

15. Toward data driven education systems

Author:
Samantha Custer, Elizabeth M King, Tamar Manuelyan Atinc, Lindsay Read, and Kabir Sethi
Publication Date:
02-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
Today, 650 million children around the globe are at risk of being left behind as they fail to learn basic skills. Inequitable access to education is part of the problem, but even when children are in school, they may not be learning. In Uganda, for instance, barely half of grade 6 children read at a grade 2 level (Uwezo, 2016). In India, just one in four children enrolled in grade 5 can read a simple sentence or complete simple division problems (ASER Centre, 2017).
Topic:
Education and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Global Focus

16. Two-Stage Examinations: Can Examinations Be More Formative Experiences?

Author:
Dan Levy, Mae Klinger, and Theodore Svoronos
Publication Date:
09-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
Two-stage examinations consist of a first stage in which students work individually as they typically do in examinations (stage 1), followed by a second stage in which they work in groups to complete another examination (stage 2), which typically consists of a subset of the questions from the first examination. Data from two-stage midterm and final examinations are used to assess the extent to which individuals improve their performance when collaborating with other students. On average, the group (stage 2) score was about one standard deviation above the individual (stage 1) score. While this difference cannot be interpreted as the causal effect of two-stage examinations on learning, it suggests that individuals experienced substantial performance gains when working in groups in an examination. This average performance gain was comparable with the average difference between the top performer of the group in stage 1 and the group’s stage 1 average, and was equivalent to about two-thirds of the difference between the “super student” score (i.e. the sum of the maximum score for each question in stage 1) and the group’s stage 1 average. This last result suggests that group collaboration takes substantial (albeit partial) advantage of the aggregate knowledge and skills of the group’s individual members. Student feedback about their experience with two-stage examinations reveal that that these types of examinations are generally perceived to be more helpful for learning and are less stressful than traditional examinations. Finally, using data on group gender compositions, we investigate the potential role of gender dynamics on group efficiency.
Topic:
Education, Gender Issues, Collaborative Learning, and Collaborative Efficiency
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

17. The Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index: A New Global Ranking of Governments Based on What They are Doing to Tackle the Gap Between Rich and Poor

Author:
Max Lawson and Matthew Martin
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
In 2015, the leaders of 193 governments promised to reduce inequality as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Without reducing inequality, meeting the SDG to eliminate poverty will be impossible. Now Development Finance International and Oxfam have produced the first index to measure the commitment of governments to reducing the gap between the rich and the poor. The Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index uses a new database of indicators covering 152 countries, which measures government action on social spending, tax and labour rights – three areas found to be critical to reducing inequality. This first version of the CRI Index is work in progress, and DFI and Oxfam welcome comments and additions. We find that there is an urgent need for coordinated global investment to significantly improve the data on inequality and policies to reduce it, and much greater concerted action by governments across the world to reduce the gap between rich and poor.
Topic:
Education, Health Care Policy, Inequality, Sustainable Development Goals, Tax Systems, and Land
Political Geography:
Global Focus

18. Trending Conditional Cash Transfers in Girl’s Education

Author:
Jessica Ruch
Publication Date:
04-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on Human Rights Education, University of Denver
Abstract:
Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) in health and education programs have been rapidly growing over the past two decades. They’ve expanded to over 40 countries and are increasingly used to target and improve girl’s education. The volume of CCTs in development projects worldwide raises the question: can they address the greatest barriers to equal education? According to Dr. Michelle Morais de Sae Silva, CCTs have sought to adapt to “identify the ideal balance between cash incentives and conditions that would maximize the kind of behavior that is believed to enhance poor families’ human capital.”(1). Unlike social welfare programs and unconditional cash transfers, CCTs’ conditionalities were established to break intergenerational transmissions of poverty by investing in human capital (2). Analysis of Latin American CCTs illustrate positive impacts: increased educational outcomes (enrollment and attendance), decreased child labor, small improvements to short-term poverty and a shift from agricultural labor to non-agricultural employment (3).
Topic:
Education, Gender Issues, Poverty, and Welfare
Political Geography:
Global Focus

19. The Untapped Potential of English Teaching

Author:
Megan Metrick
Publication Date:
04-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council of American Ambassadors
Abstract:
Public Diplomacy (PD) at the State Department shows signs of going through a serious rethink. The push to be more strategic in our programming has taken off. Public Diplomacy officers can rattle off the Integrated Country Strategy goals with the best of them. More rigorous program planning and evaluation may be coming to a cloud platform near you soon (see the excellent article by my colleague Carissa Gonzalez in the previous issue of The Ambassadors Review). Social media regulations are in the Foreign Affairs Manual. EducationUSA and American Spaces have slick branding, unified looks, and centralized websites. These new strategies and tools are great, and in many cases, long overdue. However, as we redesign Public Diplomacy for the 21st century (albeit we are already well into that century), we should go back to the basics for a moment, and remember why we’re here.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Education, and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

20. The Pillars of Governance. A Macro-Quantitative Analysis of Governance Performance

Author:
Gregor Walter-Drop, John Wiesel, and Melissa Lee
Publication Date:
05-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 700
Abstract:
State building is seen as the central tenet of many present-day development efforts. This rests on a global normative script that emphasizes the modern state’s role in providing governance services from security to education to health. However, the relationship between statehood and governance outcomes is not well understood. We use a macro-quantitative approach to analyze state performance in various governance dimensions including security, health, education, economic subsistence, infrastructure, and the environment. We test for the power of statehood in explaining the variation in governance outcomes while controlling for various other factors prominent in the respective debates in political science, economics, and development studies. The analysis yields three interesting results. First, statehood does not have a consistent significant relationship with governance outcomes. It matters more for some outcomes than for others. Second, we find that statehood sometimes performs better at predicting subjective (survey-based) evaluations than at predicting objective measures of governance outcomes (which confirms the ubiquity of the normative script). Finally, we find that the degree of domestic female empowerment performs consistently strong at explaining the variation in governance outcomes. This result is consistent with the policy community’s emphasis on women’s roles in development.
Topic:
Security, Education, Health, Infrastructure, Governance, and State Building
Political Geography:
Global Focus