John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University Spring 2012 ped-308: Social Institutions and Economic Development
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John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University Spring 2012PED-308: Social Institutions and Economic DevelopmentInstructor Michael Woolcock, PhD Lead Social Development Specialist, Development Research Group, World Bank Lecturer in Public Policy, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Washington: 202-473-9258 Faculty Assistant Beth Tremblay Office: Rubenstein 310A Telephone: 617-496-0668 Course Assistants TBA Office hours and location TBA I. Description
III. Format PED-308 is a three-hour graduate-level survey course; it is an elective class for all HKS students (and cross-registrants) with a serious interest in development history, strategy, research and practice as it pertains to social institutions. I will give an interactive presentation for the first half of class on the topic of the week, which will be followed, after a short break, by a presentation and class discussion led by a small group of students. Their task will be to apply the general lessons emerging from the readings and class discussion to a particular social institutional problem in a low-income country, with a focus on how these lessons can be applied to understanding the factors shaping the design, implementation, and evaluation of a specific development project that engages with this problem. Remaining class time will be spent reflecting on the issues raised by the lecture, readings, and student presentation, and their implications for development theory and practice. In Week 9 we will have guest lecturers speak on the topic of program replication. IV. Expectations of Students As a graduate class in development theory, research, and practice, PED-308 assumes students bring a capacity to wrestle with abstract ideas, to marshal evidence from a variety of sources, and to apply these ideas and evidence to concrete and (often) complex policy problems in the developing world. It has no formal prerequisites, but students are expected to be conversant with the major theories, issues and policy debates in international development (at a level comparable to that outlined in PED-101) – these are needed to ensure that the significance of the issues we are discussing is fully apparent. Particular emphasis will be placed on integrating different methodological and theoretical perspectives from across the social sciences. Accordingly, students trained in a particular discipline (e.g., economics) are expected to be willing to be open to the insights and vocabulary (indeed, the ‘comparative advantage’) of alternative approaches. Students are expected to attend class each week (learning from each other, and harnessing our diverse backgrounds, is a key feature of the Kennedy School environment), to arrive on time, to have completed as much of the weekly readings as possible, to stay for the duration of the session, and to have cell phones and internet connections turned off; the default assumption should be that we gather in accordance with the standards of a professional meeting. Students should inform the instructor and one of the CAs if they know in advance that they will be absent from class. I also want to stress the importance of respect for the potentially very different views that will likely be voiced during the semester. Taking social institutions seriously means taking history, group biographies, religion, kinship systems and other such matters seriously, and given their centrality to our lives – our cultures, beliefs, identities and aspirations – it is likely that some of these views will be not only different but potentially strongly held, even controversial. If you have not encountered some of these views before you may find them unsettling, perhaps even a little disorienting. In addition to upholding professional norms of respect – for each other and for what the best evidence suggests is true – in the classroom, I want you to know that you can discuss any concerns with me privately at any mutually convenient time. Readings will be drawn from the works of scholars, journalists and practitioners, and students will be assessed on their capacity to respond to and communicate with the different audiences each represents. Most of the readings are of article length, but I have also chosen two books: one relatively short and ‘popular’ (by Wade Davis, an anthropologist), the other relatively long and scholarly (by Chris Bayly, a historian). The latter in particular is widely acknowledged to be a classic, and frankly, if you don’t read such books in graduate school you probably won’t ever read them (!). Every investment made in working through the Bayly text will, I hope, pay handsome intellectual dividends; if I ever have the privilege of visiting you later in life, I hope both of these books have shown their enduring worth by remaining in your collection… V. Grading Your final grade in PED-308 will be determined by the following:
Three essays:
For your individual essays, you are to select any three topics from the list of seven below and prepare, in sequence, a ‘short’, ‘medium’ and ‘long’ paper. The idea is that you select issues of concern to you and a particular audience you think need to be targeted in order for your issue to have great policy traction – this may entail writing for the general public, for development professionals, policymakers, or perhaps even researchers. (It is desirable that you write for different audiences over the course of your three papers; either way, you will need to clearly state who your audience is for each paper.) Separate handouts will provide further details of requirements and options for each paper. The seven general topics for your papers are:
Students—especially those for whom English is not their primary language—are strongly encouraged to use the CAs to help with the structure and content of their essays. I consider clear writing to be a vital professional skill, and will grade your papers accordingly. You should also work closely with the CAs to design the content and sequencing of material for your student presentation (see separate handout). The distribution of final grades will be awarded in accordance with the Dean’s guidelines. I.Length and Due DatesShort Paper: 1500 words, due Week 6 (Thursday March 1, 1pm), worth 15% Medium Paper: 2000 words, due Week 10 (Thursday April 5, 1pm), worth 20% Long Paper: 3000 words, due Week 14 (Friday May 4, 1pm), worth 30% Please use the ‘word count’ function to cite the length of your essay on the cover sheet. The acceptable length is within 10% of the stated limit (e.g., for a 1500 word essay the length should be between 1350 and 1650 words). VI. Books to Purchase Bayly, C.A. (2004) The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914 Oxford: Blackwell Davis, Wade (2009) The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in a Modern World Toronto: VII. Syllabus All readings are ‘required’, but are arranged by order of (my sense of their) importance. Part A: Hastening the Day The day is not far off when the economic problem will take the back seat where it belongs, and the arena of the heart and the head will be occupied or reoccupied, by our real problems — the problems of life and of human relations, of creation and behavior and religion. John Maynard Keynes, First Annual Report of the Arts Council (1945-1946) Week 1 (January 27): Introduction, Overview – The Best Time to be Alive, Ever Welcome. Defining social institutions; a brief intellectual history of how they have been understood by scholars and policymakers; a summary of contemporary debates as they pertain to social institutions and their policy manifestations; overview of key issues, questions and problems to be covered. Course expectations, logistics, assessment, etc. Invitation to embark on an ‘epic adventure’, to building a sound, supportable and implementable new approach to development Davis, Wade (2009) The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World Toronto: House of Anansi Press (chapters 1 and 2) Moore, Mick (1997) ‘Societies, polities and capitalists in developing countries: a literature survey’ Journal of Development Studies 33(3): 287-363 Woolcock, Michael (2007) ‘Higher education, policy schools, and international development studies: what should Masters degree students be taught?’ Journal of International Development 19(1): 55-73 Second half of class Outline and expectations of student presentations; selecting dates Part B: ‘The Epic Adventure of Development’ Over and above the overt purpose of my work—the analysis of development and the advice on policy—I came to see it as having the latent, hidden, but overriding common intent to celebrate, to “sing” the epic adventure of development—its challenge, drama, and grandeur. Albert Hirschman, Preface to Development Projects Observed Week 2 (February 3): Deep History – ‘The Sociological Equivalent of Splitting the Atom’ Sixty thousand years of human history in an hour, culminating in the invention of ‘organizations’ and ‘individuals’; and of social science, which tries to understand, harness and constrain these immensely powerful new forces Davis, Wade (2009) The Wayfinders (chapters 3, 4 and 5) Woolcock, Michael, Simon Szreter and Vijayendra Rao (2011) ‘How and why does history matter for development policy?’ Journal of Development Studies 47(1): 70-96 Bayly, C.A. (2004) The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914: Global Connections and Comparisons Oxford: Blackwell (Introduction) Other books/articles to know about and read sometime: Nicholas Wade (2006) Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors (Penguin); Pranab Bardhan (1993) ‘The economics of development and the development of economics’ Journal of Economic Perspectives 7(2): 129-42
Excerpts from The Incredible Human Journey (BBC, 2009). An overview will also be provided of requirements and expectations regarding written assignments. Week 3 (February 10): Entering the Modern World – Great Transformations and their Discontents Navigating the vicissitudes of economic, administrative, social, ideological and political change, at different speeds at different times and in different directions, generating in the process both wondrous creations and violent destruction. Are we paving paradise to put up a parking lot? Bayly, C.A. (2004) The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914 (Part I) Polanyi, Karl (1944) The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time Boston: Beacon Press. This excellent review essay by Anne Mayhew (2001) http://eh.net/node/2743 is perhaps the fastest way to get the essence of one of the 20th century’s great books on the ermgence of markets. Cynthia Taft Morris (1995) ‘How fast and why did early capitalism benefit the majority?’ Journal of Economic History 55(2): 211-26 Other ‘big picture’ books to know about and read sometime: Barrington Moore (1965) The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Beacon Press); Albert Hirschman (1977) The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism Before Its Triumph (Princeton University Press); Joyce Appleby (2010) The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism (Norton); Douglass North, John Wallis and Barry Weingast (2009) Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History (Cambridge University Press)
Bayly, C.A. (2004) The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914 (Parts III and IV, or as much as you can get through!) Pritchett, Lant, Michael Woolcock and Matt Andrews (forthcoming) ‘Looking like a state: techniques of persistent failure in state capability for mplementation’ Journal of Development Studies
Pritchett, Lant and Michael Woolcock (2004) ‘Solutions when the solution is the problem: arraying the disarray in development’ World Development 32(2): 191-212 Grindle, Merilee (2004) ‘Good enough governance: poverty reduction and reform in developing countries’ Governance 17(4): 525-548 Evans, Peter (2004) ‘Development as institutional change: the pitfalls of monocropping and potentials of deliberation’ Studies in Comparative International Development 38(4): 30-52 Rodrik, Dani (2008) ‘Second-best institutions’ American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 98(2): 100-104 Knaus, Gerald (2011) ‘The rise and fall of liberal imperialism’, in Rory Stewart and Gerald Knaus (2011) Can Intervention Work? New York: Norton, excerpt at pp. 171-192 Booth, David (2011) ‘Aid effectiveness: bringing country ownership (and politics) back in’ London: ODI Working Paper 336. Available at: http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/docs/6028.pdf
Collins, Daryl, Jonathan Morduch, Stuart Rutherford and Orlanda Ruthven (2009) Portfolios of the Poor: How the World’s Poor Live on $2 a Day Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
Others of interest (not required):
Wilson, Scott (1997) “The cash nexus and social networks: mutual aid and gifts in contemporary Shanghai villages” The China Journal 37: 91-112 Ostrom, Elinor (2000) “Collective action and the evolution of social norms” Journal of Economic Perspectives 14(3): 137-58 Fafchamps, Marcel and Bart Minten (2002) “Returns to social network capital among traders” Oxford Economic Papers 54(2): 173-206
Week 7 (March 9): Evidence of a Different Kind – ‘Bulls in China Shops, Hoses against Infernos, Firefox on DOS’ How orthodoxy (Big/small development) grapples with social institutions; how successes and failures in their respective projects are interpreted and ‘corrected’; making sense of the current debates around ‘community driven development’, ‘participation’, ‘empowerment’, ‘social capital’, etc; why reviews of the efficacy of ‘deliberative development’ projects will forever be “mixed”
SPRING BREAK Week 8 (March 23): Inference – ‘Lost Causes’ (or, ‘One Soft Cheer for Randomization’) What works? What might work? A brief intellectual history of causality; exploring a diversity of “rigorous-enough” strategies from across the social sciences, history, medicine and law for drawing valid causal inferences about the efficacy of interventions; rapid assessments and experiential learning as crucial feedback mechanisms; projects as learning platforms Woolcock, Michael (2009) ‘Toward a plurality of methods in project evaluation: a contextualized approach to understanding impact trajectories and efficacy’ Journal of Development Effectiveness 1(1): 1-14 Bamberger, Michael, Vijayendra Rao and Michael Woolcock (2010) ‘Using mixed methods in monitoring and evaluation: experiences from international development’, in Abbas Tashakkori and Charles Teddlie (eds.) Handbook of Mixed Methods in Social and Behavioral Research (2nd revised edition) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, pp. 613-641 Cartwright, Nancy ( OTHERS TO BE ADDED
Posner, Richard (1998) ‘Creating a legal framework for economic development’ The World Bank Research Observer 13(1): 1-11 Messick, Richard (2002) ‘The origins and development of courts’ Judicature 85: 175
Weeks 11 (April 13): What Any Would-be Alternative Must Do – ‘Enhance State Capability for Implementation’ Any would-be alternative to orthodoxy must facilitate the state’s capacity for implementation. Even in the most propitious of circumstances, however, certain tasks (such as ‘building the rule of law’) are likely to take decades (so political pressure must be sustained far beyond traditional electoral and administrative cycles); and various strategies, for good and bad reasons, will be deployed to sustain external resource flows despite little actual short-run improvement World Bank (2003) World Development Report 2004: Making Services Work for the Poor New York: Oxford University Press (Chapter 1). Available at: http://wdsbeta.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/IW3P/IB/2003/10/07/000090341_20031007150121/additional/310436360_20050005034925.pdf OTHERS TO BE ADDED Week 12 (April 20): Some Alternatives in Action, in New Dimensions, at Scale – ‘Building a New Operating System’ But development isn’t an iron cage; the camouflage can sometime be sabotaged; there are encouraging examples of individuals, organizations and initiatives seeking to show that Alternatives (plural) to orthodoxy are possible. What do they look like? How can more be encouraged? And why are they especially important for engaging with social institutions? READINGS TO BE ADDDED Part E: Conclusion – ‘Then May We Boast’ When it shall be said in any country in the world, ‘My poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive’—when these things can be said, then may that country boast of its constitution and its government. Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man Week 13 (April 27): Going Forward – ‘Miles to Go Before We Sleep’ A summary of the key messages and principles of PED-308; some concluding remarks; reconciling big pictures, sharp imperatives, blunt instruments, creative responses; on wearing your Harvard-ness lightly – on recognizing that courage, persistence, wisdom and teams, as much as individual intelligence and privilege, changes the world for the better Klitgaard, Robert (1990) Tropical Gangsters: One Man’s Experience of Development and Decadence in Deepest Africa New York: Basic Books, pp. 1-13 (Chapter 1: Giving and Receiving) OTHERS TO BE ADDED Scott, James (1998) Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 342-57 (Chapter 10: Conclusion) Course review and evaluation * * * * Directory: syllabus -> 2012 syllabus -> Catalog description syllabus -> MA180 and ma418 statistics, Fall 2012 syllabus -> Engineering Design and Sustainability syllabus -> Principles and Algorithms of Computer Vision 2012 -> 408ADialects 2 Units Fall 2012 Monday/Wednesday 10: 30 to 11: 20 a m 2012 -> 408ADialects 2 Units Fall 2012 9 a m. Monday/Wednesday 2012 -> Draft copy only 2012 -> Industry Structure, Strategy, and Public Policy Download 66.45 Kb. Share with your friends:
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