Looking Like a State : Techniques of Persistent Failure in State Capability for Implementation

In many nations today the state has little capability to carry out even basic functions like security, policing, regulation or core service delivery. Enhancing this capability, especially in fragile states, is a long-term task: countries like Haiti or Liberia will take many decades to reach even a m...

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Main Authors:	Pritchett, Lant, Woolcock, Michael, Andrews, Matt
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	en_US
Published:	Taylor and Francis 2013
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/13374

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recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-133742021-04-23T14:03:08Z Looking Like a State : Techniques of Persistent Failure in State Capability for Implementation Pritchett, Lant Woolcock, Michael Andrews, Matt In many nations today the state has little capability to carry out even basic functions like security, policing, regulation or core service delivery. Enhancing this capability, especially in fragile states, is a long-term task: countries like Haiti or Liberia will take many decades to reach even a moderate capability country like India, and millennia to reach the capability of Singapore. Short-term programmatic efforts to build administrative capability in these countries are thus unlikely to be able to demonstrate actual success, yet billions of dollars continue to be spent on such activities. What techniques enable states to ‘buy time’ to enable reforms to work, to mask non-accomplishment, or actively to resist or deflect the internal and external pressures for improvement? How do donor and recipient countries manage to engage in the logics of ‘development’ for so long and yet consistently acquire so little administrative capability? We document two such techniques: (a) systemic isomorphic mimicry, wherein the outward forms (appearances, structures) of functional states and organisations elsewhere are adopted to camouflage a persistent lack of function; and (b) premature load bearing, in which indigenous learning, the legitimacy of change and the support of key political constituencies are undercut by the routine placement of highly unrealistic expectations on fledging systems. We conclude with some suggestions for sabotaging these techniques. 2013-05-10T20:16:09Z 2013-05-10T20:16:09Z 2012-12-03 Journal Article Journal of Development Studies 0022-0388 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/13374 en_US Journal of Development Studies;49(1) CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo/ World Bank Taylor and Francis Publications & Research :: Journal Article Publications & Research Haiti Liberia
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	en_US
geographic_facet	Haiti Liberia
relation	Journal of Development Studies;49(1)
description	In many nations today the state has little capability to carry out even basic functions like security, policing, regulation or core service delivery. Enhancing this capability, especially in fragile states, is a long-term task: countries like Haiti or Liberia will take many decades to reach even a moderate capability country like India, and millennia to reach the capability of Singapore. Short-term programmatic efforts to build administrative capability in these countries are thus unlikely to be able to demonstrate actual success, yet billions of dollars continue to be spent on such activities. What techniques enable states to ‘buy time’ to enable reforms to work, to mask non-accomplishment, or actively to resist or deflect the internal and external pressures for improvement? How do donor and recipient countries manage to engage in the logics of ‘development’ for so long and yet consistently acquire so little administrative capability? We document two such techniques: (a) systemic isomorphic mimicry, wherein the outward forms (appearances, structures) of functional states and organisations elsewhere are adopted to camouflage a persistent lack of function; and (b) premature load bearing, in which indigenous learning, the legitimacy of change and the support of key political constituencies are undercut by the routine placement of highly unrealistic expectations on fledging systems. We conclude with some suggestions for sabotaging these techniques.
format	Journal Article
author	Pritchett, Lant Woolcock, Michael Andrews, Matt
spellingShingle	Pritchett, Lant Woolcock, Michael Andrews, Matt Looking Like a State : Techniques of Persistent Failure in State Capability for Implementation
author_facet	Pritchett, Lant Woolcock, Michael Andrews, Matt
author_sort	Pritchett, Lant
title	Looking Like a State : Techniques of Persistent Failure in State Capability for Implementation
title_short	Looking Like a State : Techniques of Persistent Failure in State Capability for Implementation
title_full	Looking Like a State : Techniques of Persistent Failure in State Capability for Implementation
title_fullStr	Looking Like a State : Techniques of Persistent Failure in State Capability for Implementation
title_full_unstemmed	Looking Like a State : Techniques of Persistent Failure in State Capability for Implementation
title_sort	looking like a state : techniques of persistent failure in state capability for implementation
publisher	Taylor and Francis
publishDate	2013
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/13374
_version_	1764423349268643840

Looking Like a State : Techniques of Persistent Failure in State Capability for Implementation

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