In Pursuit of Development

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enDecember 21, 2022

Contemporary state building and elite taxation in Latin America — Gustavo Flores-Macías

While many Latin American states have experienced severe public-safety crises in the context of fiscal duress, elite engagement in state building has taken place in some countries but not in others. Why is that the case?

In explaining the adoption of elite taxes for public safety, Gustavo Flores-Macías argues that the conventional crisis-centered explanations are insufficient. Whereas economic elites are generally reluctant to shoulder a greater tax burden, public-safety crises can soften this opposition – when they affect elites directly – and thereby open the door to negotiations with the government. However, the deterioration of public-safety conditions is not enough to elicit elite taxation. Rather, the resulting tax arrangement will depend on the strength of business–government linkages in the form of formal and informal collaboration mechanisms. When linkages are weak, elite taxation is likely to fail, if attempted at all. Stronger linkages will make elite taxation more likely.

Gustavo Flores-Macías is a Professor of Government and Public Policy and Associate Vice Provost for International Affairs at Cornell University. His latest book is Contemporary State Building: Elite Taxation and Public Safety in Latin America. Twitter @Gustavo_F_M

Key highlights

Introduction - 00:52
Contemporary state building in Latin America - 04.00
Economic elites in Latin America – 12.34
Elites as an obstacle to state building - 19.04
Determinants of fiscal reforms and elite taxation - 25.46
Differentiation of public safety from other public goods - 34.50
Taxing elites, the El Salvador case - 46.50
How to mobilise security tax for development and welfare – 52.26

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Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

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enDecember 14, 2022

The power of the Chinese state: Examination, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology — Yasheng Huang

Ever wondered why the state in China is so powerful? Yasheng argues that Keju — the Imperial civil service examination — has historically maximized a specific type of knowledge in the minds of the population such as memorization. It also reduced the scope of, or eliminated, alternative ideas. Keju made the state all powerful. The state was able to monopolize the very best of human capital. And in doing so, the state deprived society access to talent and pre-empted organized religion, commerce, and intelligentsia. While it is China’s blessing, Keju is also a curse as it decimated society.

Yasheng Huang is a Professor of International Management and Faculty Director of Action Learning at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His forthcoming book, which will be published by Yale University Press, is The Rise and the Fall of the EAST: Examination, Autocracy, Stability and Technology in Chinese History and Today. Twitter: @YashengHuang

Key highlights

Introduction – 00:52

Recent protests in China – 03:15

Protest strategies and logistical capacity – 13:25

Why is the Chinese state so powerful? – 19:35

The role of the civil service exam in China – 35:00

Meritocracy and the Chinese bureaucracy – 47:15

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Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

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enDecember 07, 2022

Show me the money: Why cash transfers matter for development — Ugo Gentilini

Cash transfer schemes have grown in popularity in many parts of the world in the past few decades. Numerous studies find that cash transfer programs can be one of the most effective social protection tools at our disposal in the fight against poverty. There is now also growing empirical evidence of how cash transfers can provide quick relief during major economic crises. In addition to economic effects, they may change gender hierarchies and improve the position of women in local society, increase school attendance, and improve nutrition. It is therefore no surprise that cash transfer programs have been warmly embraced by many civil society organizations and international agencies. But is it all win-win? What works and what does not, and how can cash transfers be made even more effective as a tool for global development?

Ugo Gentilini is an economist and the global lead for social assistance at the World Bank. He has worked extensively on the analytics and practice of social protection, including in relation to economic crises, fragility and displacement, and resilience and disaster risk management. He also writes a popular weekly newsletter and is my go-to-person on everything to do with social protection. In a new paper — Cash Transfers in Pandemic Times — Ugo combines analysis of large datasets with a review of about 300 pandemic papers, evaluations, and practical experiences and concludes with 10 lessons from the largest scale up of cash transfers in history. Twitter: @Ugentilini

Key highlights

Introduction – 0.48

Definition and understanding of cash transfers – 3.46

Increased interest in cash transfers – 6.15

Evolution of conditional and unconditional cash transfers – 14.38

Challenges and benefits of cash transfers – 19.33

What works, cash transfers and in-kind transfers - 25.36

Logistical and structural challenges of cash transfers - 31.00

How the pandemic has changed cash transfers – 40.10

Cash transfers going forward and advice for the future – 43.42

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Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

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enNovember 30, 2022

Crises of democracy — Adam Przeworski

Democracy is valued by many people because it enables us to achieve freedom and political equality in addition to numerous economic and social goals. But democracy also allows us to decide from time to time by whom we wish to be governed. Through elections, we can place in office those who we expect to like and also remove from office those we do not like.

Adam Przeworski argues that the essence of democracy is that it processes in relative liberty and peace whatever conflicts that arise in society. And elections are the main mechanism by which conflicts are managed. This is because elections generate temporary winners and losers designated by specific rules. Elections peacefully process conflicts when the losers do not find their defeat too painful and if they expect to have a reasonable chance of winning in the future. This also means that the winners do not inflict too much pain on the losers and do not foreclose the possibility of being removed from office.

Adam Przeworski is Emeritus Professor of Politics at New York University and one of the world’s foremost scholars on democracy. He has studied political regimes, democracy, autocracy, and their intermediate forms, the conditions under which regimes survive and change, as well as their consequences for economic development and income equality. His latest book is Crises of Democracy, where he discusses the political situation in established democracies, places this in the context of past misadventures of democratic regimes, and speculates on the future of democracy. Twitter: @AdamPrzeworski

Key highlights:

Introduction - 0:44

Definitions and understandings of democracy – 2:42

The distinction between democracy and freedom – 11:15

Democracy and minority rights – 17:54

Income and democracy – 30:08

Processing conflicts – 37:27

The future of democracy in Poland – 45:36

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Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

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enNovember 23, 2022

Silenced voices in global health — Address Malata

Global health organizations are mainly located in the global North and experts from low- and middle-income countries are underrepresented in global health leadership positions. Thus, it is unsurprising that there has been considerable criticism and heated debate on who should represent the underrepresented. According to our guest this week, it is crucial to ask: Who Speaks for Whom and About What?

Professor Address Malata is the Vice Chancellor of the Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST). She trained to be a nurse and is former President of Africa Honor Society of Nursing and former Vice President of International Confederation of Midwives. She has previously served as principal of the University of Malawi’s Kamuzu College of Nursing and is the recipient of numerous honors both at home and abroad.

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Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

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enNovember 16, 2022

The development bargain — Stefan Dercon

Development is a gamble because success is not guaranteed when benefits materialize in the long-term and a host of factors may undermine elite positions. Some countries are able to settle on elite bargains that favour growth and development, and others are unable to reach such settlements.

While elite bargains in China, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Ghana ended up being development bargains, the opposite was the case in Nigeria, DRC, Malawi and South Sudan.

Stefan Dercon is Professor at the Blavatnik School of Government and the Economics Department at theUniversity of Oxford, where he also directs the Centre for the Study of African Economies.

His latest book – Gambling on Development: Why some countries win and others lose– draws on his academic research and his policy experience across three decades. Twitter: @gamblingondev

Key highlights:

Introduction - 0:55

Bridging the gap between research and policy – 3:09

Why a general recipe for development is not very helpful – 11:22

Gambling for development: Key arguments – 28:38

The future of foreign aid – 45:13

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Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

Instagram: @GlobalDevPod

E-mail: InPursuitOfDevelopment@gmail.com

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enNovember 09, 2022

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Transforming our global food system — Gunhild Stordalen

Over 2 billion people in our world lack access to adequate food, and over 3 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet. Between 2014 and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of people going hungry and suffering from food insecurity had been gradually rising. The pandemic only made things worse. And the Ukraine war has further disrupted global supply chains. In 2021, 702-828 million people faced hunger. The gender gap in food insecurity has widened under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic and women are more food insecure than men in every region of the world.

Food is linked to almost all of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). And it is difficult if not virtually impossible to meet these global goals and the Paris Climate Agreement, without a radical transformation of the global food system.

Gunhild A. Stordalen is the founder and executive chair of EAT: the science-based global platform for food system transformation. She is a medical doctor and the recipient of the UN Foundation’s “Global Leadership Award”. Instagram: @gunhild_stordalen Twitter: @G_stordalen

The EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, Health

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Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo

Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

Instagram: @inpursuitofdevelopment

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enNovember 02, 2022

Why we fight — Chris Blattman

While there are millions of hostile rivalries around the world, only a fraction of these erupt into violence. It is easy to overlook the underlying strategic forces of war and to see war mainly as a series of errors and accidents. It is also easy to forget that war shouldn’t happen—and most of the time it doesn’t.

Chris Blattman is a Professor at the University of Chicago in the Harris School of Public Policy. He is an economist and political scientist who studies violence, crime, and underdevelopment. His most recent book is Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace, which shows that violence is actually not the norm; and that there are only five reasons why conflict wins over compromise. Twitter: @cblatts

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Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

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enOctober 26, 2022

Africa's right to development — Mo Ibrahim

Mo Ibrahim, a Sudanese-British entrepreneur, founded one of the largest mobile phone companies that operated on the African continent. In 2006, he established the Mo Ibrahim Foundation with the goal of fostering improved governance. The foundation publishes The Ibrahim Index of African Governance, which assesses governance performance in 54 African countries. It also awards the Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership (worth $5 million) to African leaders who have successfully delivered security, health, education, and economic development to their constituents and have democratically transferred power to their successors.

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Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

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enOctober 19, 2022

The pursuit of liberty and prosperity along a narrow corridor — Daron Acemoglu

In the bestselling book – Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (2012), Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson ask why some nations are rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine. They claim that it is neither culture, weather, nor geography. Rather, they argue that economic success depends on man-made political and economic institutions. In their latest book, The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty (2019), Daron and Jim show that liberal-democratic states exist in between the alternatives of lawlessness and authoritarianism. And while the state is needed to protect people from domination at the hands of others in society, the state can also become an instrument of violence and repression. Society’s default condition is anarchy (or the "Absent Leviathan"). The alternatives to chaos are despotism (the "Despotic Leviathan"), the powerless state (the "Paper Leviathan"), and the "Shackled Leviathan" (or state which equals the corridor between the Absent, Paper, and Despotic Leviathans). Thus, liberty originates from a delicate balance of power between state and society.

Daron Acemoglu is Institute Professor in the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

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Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

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enMarch 30, 2022

Can fixing dinner fix the planet? — Jessica Fanzo

A complex web of factors affects our ability not only to meet nutritional needs, but also our efforts to sustain biodiversity and protect the environment. As the world's agricultural, environmental, and nutritional needs intersect—and often collide—how can nations, international organizations and consumers work together to reverse the damage by changing how we make, distribute, and buy food? And do we have the right to eat wrongly?

Jessica Fanzo is the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Global Food & Agricultural Policy and Ethics at Johns Hopkins University. She has previously worked as an advisor for various organizations and governments including the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the Scaling Up Nutrition movement (SUN), the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition (UNSCN), and the World Health Organization (WHO). Her latest book is Can Fixing Dinner Fix the Planet?

Inextricably bound together by food (OECD forum)
It's Her Time: Jess Fanzo (Worldwildlife.org)
The Future of Food (video interview, CGTN)
Twitter: @jessfanzo

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Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

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enMarch 23, 2022

The Life You Can Save — Peter Singer

Peter Singer — one of the world’s most influential philosophers — is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. Peter has written several influential books, including Animal Liberation, The Expanding Circle: Ethics and Sociobiology, The Most Good You Can Do, Why Vegan? Eating Ethically and The Life You Can Save: How To Do Your Part To End World Poverty. He is one of the intellectual founders of the modern animal rights and effective altruism movements and has made important contributions to the development of bioethics. Twitter: @PeterSinger

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Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

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enMarch 16, 2022

Roadblock Politics — Peer Schouten

In many parts of the African continent, there are so many roadblocks that it is indeed very hard to find a road that does not have one. But what is the point of having so many roadblocks that are often viewed by travellers to cause considerable inconvenience?

In a brilliant new book — Roadblock Politics: The Origins of Violence in Central Africa – Peer Schouten maps over a thousand roadblocks in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic, in order to document how communities, rebels, and state security forces forge resistance and power out of control over these narrow points of passage.

Peer Schouten is Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies and Associate Researcher at the International Peace Information Service. Twitter: @peer_schouten

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Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

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Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order — Kathryn Stoner

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has already caused untold suffering to millions of people and upended the global order as we know it. The international community, apart from a few exceptions, has been largely united in its condemnation of this attack on a sovereign country’s ability to decide its own future. And several sanctions have thus far been imposed on Russia, many of which also target President Putin, senior Russian officials, and their rich financial backers. President Putin has tried, although without much success, to justify what he terms to be a military operation (and not an invasion). President Zelenskyy of Ukraine has refused to flee his war-ravaged country, and this, together with his regular morale boosting social media posts, has made him a household name in many parts of the world.

What kind of threat does Ukraine pose to Russia? How did we get to this point? Can President Putin withstand the backlash from this war? What is Russia’s role and purpose in a new global order, and how has it managed to develop an outsized influence in international politics even though it does not have the traditional means of power possessed by the United States or China?

Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). She is also a Senior Fellow the Hoover Institution and a professor of political science. She has conducted extensive research on contemporary Russia and has a new book: "Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order". Twitter: @kath_stoner

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Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

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enMarch 04, 2022

The power of ideas and metaphors in international development policy – Desmond McNeill

In global development, ideas have power and some ideas or concepts such as social capital, human development, the informal sector, and sustainable development have been highly influential. The development agenda also includes metaphors that can shape how we think and hence how we act.

Professor Desmond James McNeill has worked extensively on issues related to global governance, aid, and sustainable development and on the links between research and policy. He was director of the Centre for Development and the Environment at the University of Oslo from 1992 to 2001. And from 2001 and until a couple of years ago, he was Head of Research, and Director of the Centre’s Research School.

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Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

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enMarch 02, 2022

Breaking Bad: Understanding Backlash Against Democracy in Africa — Lise Rakner

There is a great deal of attention these days on the backlash against democracy around the world. In a forthcoming book, Democratic Backsliding in Africa? Autocratization, Resilience, and Contention, my guest Lise Rakner and her two co-authors (Leonardo R. Arriola and Nicolas van de Walle) conclude that the African continent’s democratic experience over the past two decades largely reflects status quo politics. Thus, there is neither substantial progress nor regression in the advancement of civil and political freedoms since the initial transitions to democracy in the early 1990s.

Lise Rakner is a professor of political science at the University of Bergen. She studies democratization and autocratization, focusing particularly on human rights, electoral politics, and political parties. Twitter: @li63ra

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Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

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enFebruary 23, 2022

A world of insecurity — Pranab Bardhan

Pranab Bardhan is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He has undertaken pioneering research on international trade, the political economy of development policies, decentralised governance, and the political economy of development in China and India. His latest book, A World of Insecurity: Democratic Disenchantment in Rich and Poor Countries, is scheduled to be published by Harvard University Press later this year.

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Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

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enFebruary 16, 2022

Do morals matter? — Joseph S. Nye

Joseph S. Nye is the University Distinguished Service Professor, Emeritus and former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

He is the author of numerous highly influential books, including:

Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (2004)
The Powers to Lead (2008)
The Future of Power (2011)
Is the American Century Over? (2015)
Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump (2020)

Joe Nye has also served in various capacities in the US government, as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, Chair of the National Intelligence Council, and Deputy Under Secretary of State for Security Assistance, Science and Technology.

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Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

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enFebruary 09, 2022

Globalization and Asian Geopolitics — Shivshankar Menon

As India’s stature across the globe increases, there is considerable interest in better understanding how its foreign policy is likely to evolve. In a new book – India and Asian Geopolitics: The Past, Present – Shivshankar Menon examines India’s foreign and security policy choices through history, with a particular focus on India’s responses to the rise of China and other regional powers.

Shivshankar Menon served as the Foreign Secretary from 2006 to 2009 and as the National Security Adviser to the prime minister of India from 2010 to 2014. He has previously authored Choices: Inside the Making of Indian Foreign Policy and is current a Visiting Professor at Ashoka University. Twitter: @ShivshankaMenon

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Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik @GlobalDevPod

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