A Network Based Approach to Evaluate Participatory Policy Processes: An Application to CAADP in Malawi

This chapter proposes a network-based framework to analyze and evaluate participatory and evidence-based policy processes. Four network based performance indicators are derived by incorporating a network model of political belief formation into a political bargaining model of the Baron–Grossmann–Helpman type. The application of our approach to the CAADP reform in Malawi delivers the following results: (i) beyond incentive problems, i.e. the lack of governmental accountability and government capture, political performance is limited due to a lack of adequate political knowledge and lack of political ownership. (ii) Changing participation structures implies a trade-off between different aspects of political performance, for example, we found a trade-off between political ownership and the use of political knowledge, shifting constitutional power from the government to the parliament in Malawi. Analogously, increasing political influence of donors implies a more efficient use of political knowledge but results in a simultaneous decrease of political ownership. (iii) There is no blueprint model for designing effective participation structures, hence, the identified causal relationships between structure and performance depend on the specific social, political and economic framework conditions found in Malawi.