IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/fosoec/v42y2013i2-3p231-247.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Democracy, Development and Comparative Institutional Advantage in Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Geoffrey Schneider
  • Berhanu Nega

Abstract

Development in Africa has been stalled for decades in a vicious cycle of poverty, underdevelopment, corruption, and conflict. In this paper, we argue that donors should focus on democracy and accountability as a first priority in development aid. We use the theory of comparative institutional advantage to identify the key institutions that are most likely to facilitate economic development in communities in the modern world. These institutions include an efficient non-corrupt government sector. Subsequently, we discuss how a lack of democracy and accountability inevitably undermines development efforts and investment, referring especially to the Ethiopian experience but also considering the experiences of other African dictatorships. Finally, we discuss how donors, by emphasizing democracy and accountability along with other policies that support democratic institutions, have a greater chance of effectively contributing to African economic development.

Suggested Citation

  • Geoffrey Schneider & Berhanu Nega, 2013. "Democracy, Development and Comparative Institutional Advantage in Africa," Forum for Social Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(2-3), pages 231-247, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:fosoec:v:42:y:2013:i:2-3:p:231-247
    DOI: 10.1080/07360932.2013.782560
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/07360932.2013.782560
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/07360932.2013.782560?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rutherford,Malcolm, 1994. "Institutions in Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521451895.
    2. Marcel Fafchamps, 2004. "Market Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa: Theory and Evidence," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262062364, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Paolo Ramazzotti, 2015. "Theory, Power and the Project of a Neoliberal Society: An Introduction to the Special Issue," Forum for Social Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(2), pages 109-114, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sanktjohanser, Anna & Hörner, Johannes, 2022. "Too Much of A Good Thing?," TSE Working Papers 22-1327, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    2. Shilpi, Forhad & Umali-Deininger, Dina, 2007. "Where to sell ? market facilities and agricultural marketing," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4455, The World Bank.
    3. Bart Minten & Anneleen Vandeplas & Johan Swinnen, 2011. "Regulations, Brokers, and Interlinkages: The Institutional Organization of Wholesale Markets in India," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(7), pages 864-886, May.
    4. Jenna Burrell, 2014. "Modernity in material form? Mobile phones in the careers of Ghanaian market women," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(142), pages 579-593, October.
    5. Sanchez-Pages Santiago & Straub Stéphane, 2010. "The Emergence of Institutions," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-38, September.
    6. Alvaro Aguirre, 2017. "Contracting Institutions and Economic Growth," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 24, pages 192-217, March.
    7. Mauricio G. Villena & Marcelo J. Villena, 2004. "Evolutionary Game Theory and Thorstein Veblen’s Evolutionary Economics: Is EGT Veblenian?," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(3), pages 585-610, September.
    8. Sebastian Kunte & Meike Wollni & Claudia Keser, 2017. "Making it personal: breach and private ordering in a contract farming experiment," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 44(1), pages 121-148.
    9. repec:lic:licosd:28811 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Wood, Matthew S. & Bradley, Steven W. & Artz, Kendall, 2015. "Roots, reasons, and resources: Situated optimism and firm growth in subsistence economies," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 127-136.
    11. Marcel Fafchamps & Sanjeev Goyal & Marco J. van der Leij, 2010. "Matching and Network Effects," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 8(1), pages 203-231, March.
    12. Peter Boettke & Christopher Coyne & Peter Leeson & Frederic Sautet, 2005. "The New Comparative Political Economy," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 18(3), pages 281-304, December.
    13. Michael W. Hansen & Thilde Langevang & Lettice Rutashobya & Goodluck Urassa, 2018. "Coping with the African Business Environment: Enterprise Strategy in Response to Institutional Uncertainty in Tanzania," Journal of African Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(1), pages 1-26, January.
    14. Elias Khalil, 1999. "Institutions, Naturalism and Evolution," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(1), pages 61-81.
    15. Hagos, Hosaena Gebru & Holden, Stein T., 2013. "Reverse-share-tenancy and Marshallian Inefficiency: Landowners’ bargaining power and sharecroppers’ productivity," IFPRI discussion papers 1270, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    16. Robert Ekelund & Robert Tollison, 1997. "On neoinstitutional theory and preclassical economies: mercantilism revisited," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(3), pages 375-399.
    17. Poulton, Colin & Dorward, Andrew & Kydd, Jonathan, 2010. "The Future of Small Farms: New Directions for Services, Institutions, and Intermediation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(10), pages 1413-1428, October.
    18. Masahiko Aoki, 2011. "Linking Economic and Social-Exchange Games: From the Community Norm to CSR," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Lorenzo Sacconi & Giacomo Degli Antoni (ed.), Social Capital, Corporate Social Responsibility, Economic Behaviour and Performance, chapter 5, pages 129-148, Palgrave Macmillan.
    19. Alejandro Guarín, 2013. "The Value of Domestic Supply Chains: Producers, Wholesalers, and Urban Consumers in Colombia," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 31(5), pages 511-530, September.
    20. Fafchamps, Marcel & Gabre-Madhin, Eleni Z., 2006. "Agricultural markets in Benin and Malawi," African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, African Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 1(1), pages 1-28, November.
    21. Riadh Ben Jelili, "undated". "Firm Heterogeneity and Productivity: The Contribution of Microdata," API-Working Paper Series 1013, Arab Planning Institute - Kuwait, Information Center.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:fosoec:v:42:y:2013:i:2-3:p:231-247. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RFSE20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.