Barriers to Political Analysis in Aid Bureaucracies: From Principle to Practice in DFID and the World Bank

Abstract

Politics has become a central concern in development discourse, and yet the use of political analysis as a means for greater aid effectiveness remains limited and contested within development agencies. This article uses qualitative data from two governance €œ"leaders" -€“ the United Kingdom Department for International Development and the World Bank -€“ to analyze the administrative hurdles facing the institutionalization of political analysis in aid bureaucracies. We find that programming, management, and training practices across headquarters and country offices remain largely untouched by a political analysis agenda which suffers from its identification with a small cross-national network of governance professionals