Symbolic Public Goods and the Coordination of Collective Action
Symbolic Public Goods and the Coordination of Collective Action

Author: Vijayendra Rao

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 26

ISBN-13:

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"Most economists think of common property as physical-a body of water, a forest-and as bounded within geographic space. In this paper, building on work in social theory, the author argues that common property can also be social-defined within symbolic space. People can be bound by well-defined symbolic agglomerations that have characteristics similar to common property. He calls these "symbolic public goods" (SPGs) and make the case that such constructs are central to understanding collective action. He illustrates the point by contrasting how conceptions of nationalism in Indonesia and India created SPGs that resulted in very different strategies of local development ... " -- Cover verso.

Symbolic Public Goods and the Coordination of Collective Action
Symbolic Public Goods and the Coordination of Collective Action

Author: Vijayendra Rao

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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Most economists think of common property as physical-a body of water, a forest-and as bounded within geographic space. In this paper, building on work in social theory, the author argues that common property can also be social-defined within symbolic space. People can be bound by well-defined symbolic agglomerations that have characteristics similar to common property. He calls these "symbolic public goods" (SPGs) and make the case that such constructs are central to understanding collective action. He illustrates the point by contrasting how conceptions of nationalism in Indonesia and India created SPGs that resulted in very different strategies of local development. Indonesia emphasized collective action by the poor that resulted in a form of regressive taxation, enforced by the ideology of svadaya gotong royong (community self-help) that was both internalized and coercively enforced. India emphasized democratic decentralization through the panchayat system driven by the Gandhian ideology of gram swaraj (self-reliant villages). This has resulted in an unusual equity-efficiency tradeoff. Indonesia has delivered public services much more efficiently than India did, but at the cost of democratic freedoms and voice. The author argues that the challenge for these countries is not to undermine their existing SPGs but to build on them. Indonesia should retain the spirit of svadaya gotong royong but channel it in an equitable and democratic direction, while India should build the capacity of the panchayat system by giving it fiscal teeth, while promoting underutilized institutions such as Gram Sabhas (village meetings) that encourage accountability and transparency.

Cooperation and Collective Action
Cooperation and Collective Action

Author: David M. Carballo

Publisher: University Press of Colorado

Published: 2012-12-15

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 1457174081

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"[Cooperation research] is one of the busiest and most exciting areas of transdisciplinary science right now, linking evolution, ecology and social science. . . this is the first major work or collection to address linkages between archaeology and cooperation research."—Michael E. Smith, Arizona State University Past archaeological literature on cooperation theory has emphasized competition's role in cultural evolution. As a result, bottom-up possibilities for group cooperation have been under theorized in favor of models stressing top-down leadership, while evidence from a range of disciplines has demonstrated humans to effectively sustain cooperative undertakings through a number of social norms and institutions. Cooperation and Collective Action is the first volume to focus on the use of archaeological evidence to understand cooperation and collective action. Disentangling the motivations and institutions that foster group cooperation among competitive individuals remains one of the few great conundrums within evolutionary theory. The breadth and material focus of archaeology provide a much needed complement to existing research on cooperation and collective action, which thus far has relied largely on game-theoretic modeling, surveys of college students from affluent countries, brief ethnographic experiments, and limited historic cases. In Cooperation and Collective Action, diverse case studies address the evolution of the emergence of norms, institutions, and symbols of complex societies through the last 10,000 years. This book is an important contribution to the literature on cooperation in human societies that will appeal to archaeologists and other scholars interested in cooperation research.

We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For
We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For

Author: Peter Levine

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 0190464429

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"In September 2011, two leading civic engagement advocacy organizations headed, respectively, by Robert Putnam and Peter Levine released a joint report showing that a region's level of civic engagement was a strong predictor of its ability to recover from the Great Recession. This finding confirms what advocates of civic engagement have long hypothesized: that strengthening the networks between government and civil society and increasing citizen participation results in better government and better community outcomes. However, citizens concerned about the economic crisis need more than just deliberation or community organizing alone to achieve these outcomes. What they need, according to Peter Levine, is a movement devoted to civic renewal. Deliberative democracy-the idea that true democratic legitimacy derives from open, inclusive discussion and dialogue rather than simple voting-has become an extremely influential concept in the last two decades. In We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For, Peter Levine contends that effective deliberative democracy depends upon effective community advocacy. Deliberation, he shows, is most valuable when talk and debate are integrated into a community's everyday life. To illustrate how it works, Levine draws lessons from both community organizing and developmental psychology, and uses examples of successful efforts from communities across America as well as fledgling democracies in Africa and Eastern Europe. By engaging in this type of civic work, American citizens can meaningfully contribute to civic renewal, which, in turn, will address serious social problems that cannot be fixed in any other way"--

The Search for Empowerment
The Search for Empowerment

Author: Anthony Bebbington

Publisher: Kumarian Press

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1565492153

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* Exploration of the nature of bureaucracy and bureaucratic change * Comprehensive examination of debates about social capital within the World Bank * Contributors include both long-time Bank insiders as well as external analysts and observers of the Bank’s development policies The contributors to this collection examine the vast bureaucracy of the World Bank and explore the possibilities of internally generated change. The book focuses on the debates within the Bank about the efficacy of social capital concepts for the encouragement of more participatory and empowering forms of development. These debates reach to the heart of the bank and its mission. Indeed, the debate over social capital is less an argument about definitions, and more a struggle between competing paradigms of development. The Search for Empowerment is simultaneously a fascinating account of the concept of social capital, a powerful ethnography of a huge development organization, and a profoundly insightful exploration into the nature of bureaucracy and organizational change. Other contributors: Julie Van Domelen, Michael Edwards, Jonathan Fox, John Gershman, Jeffrey Hammer, David Lewis, Deepa Narayan, Martien Van Nieuwkoop, Lant Pritchett, M. Shameen Siddiqi, and Jorge Uquillas.

Comparative Constitutional Design
Comparative Constitutional Design

Author: Tom Ginsburg

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2012-02-27

Total Pages: 407

ISBN-13: 1107020565

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Assesses what we know - and do not know - about comparative constitutional design and particular institutional choices concerning executive power and other issues.

Empowerment and Local Level Conflict Mediation in Indonesia
Empowerment and Local Level Conflict Mediation in Indonesia

Author: Christopher Gibson

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 36

ISBN-13: 5090810443

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"The notion of empowerment has been more often deductively claimed than carefully defined or inductively assessed by development scholars and practitioners alike. The authors define and assess empowerment through an in-depth examination of the extent to which a large community development project in rural Indonesia empowers participants (especially members of marginalized groups) through building their capacity to manage local conflict. Although the project induces conflict through its deployment of a competitive bidding process, the authors argue that, when well implemented, it can also enable otherwise unequal groups to more peacefully, equitably, and effectively engage one another. Using a mixed methods approach, they compare cases from otherwise similar treatment and control villages to shed light on the chief components of villagers' capacity to manage local conflict ..."--Page 2 of cover.

World Development Report 2006
World Development Report 2006

Author: Francisco H. G. Ferreira

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2005-01-01

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 082136250X

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Inequality of opportunity, both within and among nations, sustains extreme deprivation, results in wasted human potential and often weakens prospects for overall prosperity and economic growth, concludes the 2006 World Development Report. To correct this situation and reduce poverty more effectively, Equity and Development recommends ensuring more equitable access by the poor to health care, education, jobs, capital, and secure land rights, among others. It also calls for greater equality of access to political freedoms and political power, breaking down stereotyping and discrimination, and improving access by the poor to justice systems and infrastructure. To level the playing field among countries, and thereby reduce global inequities that hurt the poor in developing countries, the report calls for removal of trade barriers in rich countries, flexibility to allow greater in-migration of lower-skilled people from developing countries, and increased -- and more effective -- development assistance.

Resistance to Multilateral Influence on Reform
Resistance to Multilateral Influence on Reform

Author: Witold J. Henisz

Publisher:

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 64

ISBN-13:

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Coercive isomorphism is a prominent source of institutional change. r The literature to date has emphasized how actors that are powerful and legitimate (for example, a national government) may coerce the adoption of reforms by dependent actors (for example, state governments and other organizations whose activities are governed by the federal government). The authors observe that an actor's power alone may be sufficient to promote reform, regardless of the actor's legitimacy. But such reforms are more susceptible to subsequent change than those that emerge from processes not subject to the influence of external actors whose sway derives from their power alone. They develop and test their arguments in the context of the worldwide electricity provision industry by analyzing countries' adoption of reforms in response to conditional lending practices by multilateral organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The authors find that reforms adopted in response to coercive pressures exerted by these organizations encounter much greater resistance, and that the incidence of financial and economic crises, the absence of checks and balances in established political institutions, and the inexperience of investor coalitions dramatically increase the predicted level of resistance.