Reconsidering the aid relationship: International relations and social development

Recent rhetoric surrounding the contemporary aid relationship between donors and African states is couched in terms of a high level consensus between western and African political leaderships, a central pillar of which is adherence to liberal principles of governance and economic management. The paper argues that an analysis of the nature of this consensus and its prospects requires that we need to understand it as (i) encompassing specifically international-geopolitical dimensions (including state interests, bargaining and power); and (ii) social-developmental purposes and content. The paper uses Rosenberg's considerations on 'international sociology' and uneven and combined development to provide a framework for analysing the aid relationship. In doing this, the paper speaks to two related theoretical issues: conceptualisations of the relationship between the 'social developmental' and the 'geopolitical/international' within International Relations (IR); and the contemporary relevance or otherwise of the discipline of IR to analyses of Africa's place in the international system

Measuring the capability to raise revenue process and output dimensions and their application to the Zambia revenue authority

The worldwide diffusion of the good governance agenda and new public management has triggered a renewed focus on state capability and, more specifically, on the capability to raise revenue in developing countries. However, the analytical tools for a comprehensive understanding of the capability to raise revenue remain underdeveloped. This article aims at filling this gap and presents a model consisting of the three process dimensions ‘information collection and processing’, ‘merit orientation’ and ‘administrative accountability’. ‘Revenue performance’ constitutes the fourth capability dimension which assesses tax administration’s output. This model is applied to the case of the Zambia Revenue Authority. The dimensions prove to be valuable not only for assessing the how much but also the how of collecting taxes. They can be a useful tool for future comparative analyses of tax administrations’ capabilities in developing countries.Die weltweite Verbreitung der Good-Governance- und New-Public-Management-Konzepte hat zu einer zunehmenden Konzentration auf staatliche Leistungsfähigkeit und, im Besonderen, auf die Leistungsfähigkeit der Steuererhebung in Entwicklungsländern geführt. Allerdings bleiben die analytischen Werkzeuge für ein umfassendes Verständnis von Leistungsfähigkeit unterentwickelt. Dieser Artikel stellt hierfür ein Modell vor, das die drei Prozess-Dimensionen „Sammeln und Verarbeiten von Informationen“, „Leistungsorientierung der Mitarbeiter“ und „Verantwortlichkeit der Verwaltung“ beinhaltet. „Einnahmeperformanz“ ist die vierte Dimension und erfasst den Output der Steuerverwaltung. Das mehrdimensionale Modell wird für die Analyse der Leistungsfähigkeit der Steuerbehörde Zambias (Zambia Revenue Authority) genutzt. Es erweist sich nicht nur für die Untersuchung des Wieviel, sondern auch des Wie des Erhebens von Steuern als wertvoll. Die vier Dimensionen können in Zukunft zur umfassenden und vergleichenden Analyse der Leistungsfähigkeit verschiedener Steuerverwaltungen in Entwicklungsländern genutzt werden

How Does Institutional Change Coincide with Changes in the Quality of Life? An Exemplary Case Study

This paper provides a framework to assess correlations between the change of institutional functions (political centralization, plurality, rule of law, security of property, economic liberty, measured by 12 indicators) and improvements in human development (income, education, health) and violence limitations (conflict-related death tolls) to separate effective from ineffective institutional change. We apply this framework to a low-end institutional environment and provide a century case study of todays Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Major results are threefold: first, we provide a thick description of institutional development in the Congo in a colonial and post-colonial and hence long-run setting; secondly, we identify periods of institutional change with distinctly different degrees of effectiveness; and thirdly, we are able to provide qualitative information on the questions of perspective (we follow a non-elitist approach), institutional connections, and timing of effects. Finally we propose extension of the framework, especially with respect to in-depth studies of critical transition periods, and its application to comparative case studies

Explaining the Enhanced HIPC Initiative: A Response to Michaelowa (2003)

Michaelowa (2003, 2002) proposes a political-economy model to explain the re-design of the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) debt reliefinitiative in 1999. The principal assumption justifying the adoption of thisalternative approach is an alleged paucity, if not non-existence, of applied economic research on sustainable debt levels. This note challenges that assumption. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2004

Corruption fights back:Localizing transparency and EITI in the Nigerian “penkelemes”

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.This study explores how the global transparency norm is localized in the Nigerian extractive industry. Transparency is theorised as a process which can be analysed in terms of rules, interactions, power games and context. Nigeria is conceptualized as a ‘penkelemes’ – a concept which denotes how traditions, norms and practices are intertwined with a system of corruption, kinship and patronage networks. Three main insights emerge. First, the complex motives and ability of local actors to balance demands for transparency from the international community with participation in the corrupt local political system determines which international norms they adopt. Second, the struggle for power over the transparency process determines the local understanding of transparency. Third, the link between transparency and corruption is paradoxical. Corruption conditions the enactment of transparency but even this corrupted transparency is useful in fighting corruption. Thus, transparency becomes part of the problem as well as part of the solution