The Indirect Approach
Aid and conditionalities are the "carrots and sticks" of the conventional, direct approach to fostering economic development. The economic theory of agency is the most sophisticated treatment of the direct carrots-and-sticks approach to i...
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2014
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2000/08/693240/indirect-approach http://hdl.handle.net/10986/19801 |
| Summary: | Aid and conditionalities are the
"carrots and sticks" of the conventional, direct
approach to fostering economic development. The economic
theory of agency is the most sophisticated treatment of the
direct carrots-and-sticks approach to influencing human
behavior. Considering the outcomes of the conventional
approach, it might be worthwhile to explore alternative
indirect approaches that focus on enabling clients to act
more autonomously, rather than try for fuller control of
clients' actions (or "agents" behaviors) with
improved carrots and sticks. Are there inherent limitations
in the direct approach that will not be addressed with
better crafted "agency contracts" or closer
monitoring of the agents? The author traces the intellectual
history of indirect approaches from Socrates to modern
thinkers, such as Wittgenstein, Gandhi, and McGregor. One
theme of his survey is that constructivist and
active-learning pedagogies constitute an indirect approach
in which the teacher does not directly transmit knowledge to
the learner, through training, and instruction. These
pedagogies - translated into social and economic development
as learning writ large - from the basis for an alternative
indirect approach to fostering development. Actions have
motives, just as beliefs have grounds, concludes the author.
In the wide spectrum of human endeavor, there is only a
fairly small "bandwidth" in which motives can be
supplied by the carrots, and sticks of the direct approach
(including agency theory, and market-driven activities as
special cases of the direct approach to affecting behavior).
Outside that spectrum, trying to use direct methods in a
controlling manner, contradicts the motives for actions (and
the grounds for beliefs) - like trying to "buy
love." For higher activities, motives must come from
within. Helpers can at best use an indirect approach to
bring doers to the threshold; the doers have to do the rest,
which makes the results their own. |
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