“Empowered patient” or “doctor knows best”? Political economy analysis and ownership

ABSTRACT

Efforts to incorporate “political thinking” into policy-making and practice in OECD-DAC development agencies have increasingly focused on the use of “political economy analysis” (PEA) frameworks and tools. While recognising the fundamental value of promoting politically informed programming, this article nevertheless highlights how contemporary efforts to this end have largely ignored another central development agenda: the ownership paradigm. Emphasising the highly donor-centric nature of PEA design and methodology, we explore critiques and justifications of this state of affairs, ultimately arguing that donors would benefit from embracing a more flexible and context-specific understanding of ownership.

Les efforts en vue d'incorporer la « réflexion politique » dans la formulation des politiques et les pratiques au sein des agences de développement du CAD de l'OCDE se sont de plus en plus concentrés sur l'utilisation de cadres et outils d’« analyse de l’économie politique » (AEP). Tout en reconnaissant la valeur fondamentale de la promotion d'une programmation éclairée, cet article souligne toutefois comment les efforts actuels fournis à cette fin ont largement ignoré un autre ordre du jour central du développement : le paradigme de l'appropriation. En mettant l'accent sur la nature extrêmement axée sur les bailleurs de fonds de la conception et la méthodologie de l'AEP, nous examinons les critiques et les justifications de cette situation et soutenons en fin de compte que les bailleurs de fonds tireraient profit de l'adoption d'une manière plus souple et plus spécifique au contexte de comprendre l'appropriation.

Los esfuerzos realizados en el sentido de incorporar el “pensamiento político” a la formulación de políticas y a las prácticas de las agencias de desarrollo pertenecientes a la ocde-cad [Comité de Ayuda al Desarrollo] se centran cada vez más en el uso de los marcos y las herramientas del análisis político-económico (ape). A pesar de que se reconoce el valor fundamental implícito en el fomento de la programación políticamente informada, el presente artículo resalta el hecho de que los esfuerzos actuales realizados en este sentido en gran medida han pasado por alto un tema de desarrollo importante: el paradigma de apropiación. A la vez que destacan el hecho de que quienes impulsan el diseño y la metodología del ape son sobre todo los donantes, los autores examinan las críticas y las justificaciones de la situación actual, sosteniendo básicamente que éstos se verían beneficiados si aceptaran una comprensión de la apropiación más flexible y más adaptada al contexto.

KEYWORDS:

• Aid – Aid effectiveness
• Development policies
• Civil society – Participation
• Governance and public policy
• Sub-Saharan Africa

Acknowledgements

Earlier versions of this article were presented at the University of Loughborough's Governance and Anti-Corruption Workshop, January 2013, the International Studies Association Annual Conference, San Francisco, April 2013, OECD-DAC's GovNET meetings, Paris, April and December 2013, the European Consortium on Political Research General Conference, Bordeaux, September 2013 and the World Bank, June 2014. We are very grateful for thoughtful feedback received at these events from participants, as well as for that received from Joel Barkan, Danielle Beswick, Jon Cloke, David Hudson, Rosalba Icaza, Paul Jackson, Jesper Johnson, Nicolas Lemay-Hebert, Claire Mcloughlin, Ceren Ozer, Sumedh Rao, and members of IDD's internal seminar series for staff and students.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Jonathan Fisher is Senior Lecturer in African Politics in the International Development Department (IDD), University of Birmingham. His research focuses on donor–recipient relations and the politics of aid and security in Africa.

Heather Marquette is Reader in Development Politics in IDD, University of Birmingham. She is also Director of Research in the Developmental Leadership Program (DLP) and Academic Director of the Governance and Social Development Resource Centre (GSDRC) – both based at the University of Birmingham.

Notes

1 A comprehensive list of political economy analyses outputs is not available for the reasons outlined above. This point is based on the authors’ observations from engaging with a large range of PEAs from across the donor community since the late 2000s and on interviews with current and former PEA consultants conducted since this time. An analysis of the 15 publicly available DFID DoC team documents produced between c. 2001 and 2007 which contain details of team composition/authorship, most available in Mcloughlin 2013, reveals that only one such team was led by a non-European (Kenya). Likewise, in only two instances were teams composed primarily of non-Europeans (Kenya and Malawi).

2 This post was removed soon after it went online on 28 June 2013 but was available at capacity4dev.ec.europa.eu/political-economy/blog/new-directions-eu-pea-0. We approached the post's author for comment but received no response.

Additional information

Funding

The research was supported by the IDD Research Fund and the University of Birmingham's North America Travel Fund as well as by ESRC Grants PTA-031–2007-ES/F024509/1 and PTA-026–27–2861.