THINKING WITH THE INSTITUTIONAL BYPASS (original) (raw)
Related papers
Institutional Bypass: An Alternative for Development Reform
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
Beginning in the 1990s, an institutional perspective on development has become increasingly prominent in development thinking, captured in the mantra, "Institutions Matter," or "Governance Matters." Based on the assumption that "institutions matter", there has been a massive surge in development assistance for institutional reform projects in developing and transition economies involving investments of many billions of dollars. However, these reforms have had mixed to disappointing results thus far. Against this backdrop, this paper identifies successful institutional reforms, and claims that they have one common feature: instead of trying to fix dysfunctional institutions, as most failed reforms do, they simply bypass them. For this reason, they will be called "institutional bypasses". Like a "coronary bypass" surgery, an institutional bypass creates new pathways around clogged or blocked institutions. Institutional bypass uses the same strategy: it does not try to modify, change or reform existing institutions. Instead, it tries to create a new pathway in which efficiency and functionality will be the norm. Understanding what is a bypass and how it works can provide answers to an important question in the law and development literature: how to reform dysfunctional institutions.
The Limits of Institutional Reform
The relationship between organizations and institutions in international development is a manifestation of the debate about the relationship between structure and agency: the extent to which actions are constrained or even determined by institutions which resist change; versus the extent to which actors, individually or as organizations, are free to intervene. The paper considers how the currently dominant form of organization theory – organizational institutionalism – understands institutions and the limits they place on agency. It suggests that this theoretical perspective cannot logically provide the basis for instruments of intervention by development actors, exemplified by ‘problem driven iterative adaptation’. It then considers alternative forms of organization theory that adopt an actor-centred approach. Without claiming that these are better or worse theoretically or as frameworks for research, it concludes that they offer a more practicable perspective for development agencies.
Policy and institutional reform: the art of the possible
2007
Poverty, hunger, gender inequality, and environmental degradation continue to afflict developing countries not because of technical failings but because of political and institutional failings. Current policies and institutional arrangements are often ineffective, and the challenges are increasing. Institutional reform is critical, but many reforms have had mixed outcomes at best.
Seek and Ye Shall Find!": Linking Different Perspectives on Institutional Change
Comparative Political Studies, 2001
Two theoretical schools-rationalist and constructivist approaches-dominate the literature on policy and institutional change. They tend to focus the debate on the ontological understanding of human behavior and hence the logic behind change. The authors note that another dimension of change-namely, its scope-is treated unsatisfactorily in the literature due to a neglect of the level of abstraction used as a point of departure by different studies. Hence, the literature is littered with "false debates" couched in the language of ontological disagreement. A regrouping of the literature into structure-and agency-based approaches will help to take for more systematic account of the levels of abstraction problem and therefore the varying measuring rods applied to assess the scope of change. The authors' analytical focus runs orthogonal to the question of ontology and complements the dominant debate by allowing for a separation of different analytical dimensions in the study of political change.
This article analyzes Poupatempo, a recent bureaucratic reform in Brazil. We argue that it offers insight into a potentially successful strategy to promote institutional reforms. After analyzing the design of the project and the obstacles to its implementation, we conclude that Poupatempo's most innovative feature was the fact that it did not try to reform existing institutions. Instead it created a new pathway around an inefficient bureaucracy. This type of reform — the institutional bypass — has not been considered by the academic literature on institutional change but, as the case of Poupatempo suggests, it should be further investigated and analyzed.
Significant restructuring of bureaucracies has occurred to facilitate joined-up working. This article draws on theories of new institutionalism to explore the rationale behind the use of structural change for the promotion of joined-up working. It argues that a strong institutionalized myth has emerged which has created isomorphic pressures in the public sector to instigate structural changes in the name of vertical integration. These combine with informal institutions in ways that can be both productive and unproductive, highlighting the need to find a balance between formal institutional change and informal institutionalized practices, which often go unacknow-ledged as a powerful influence on policy. This article makes two contributions to knowledge. First, it demonstrates the ways in which formal and informal institutions can disrupt one another to create dysfunction. Second, it shows that ideas regarding how institutions should be formally structured to address policy problems create powerful isomorphic pressures on the public sector.
The Making of Policy: Institutionalized or Not?
This article attempts to build bridges in the formal study of policymaking across polities of different degrees of institutional development. It explores the reasons why policymaking is fairly institutionalized in some polities but not in others. It suggests extending standard models of institutionalized policymaking to allow for a wider set of actions, including the threat of violence or of damage to the economy. It engages the discussion of institutions as rules and institutions as equilibria, delivering multiple equilibria with different degrees of institutionalization. The likelihood of institutionalized policymaking increases as the cost of alternative political actions increases, as the damage these alternatives cause decreases, and as the economy becomes wealthier. In cases in which the distribution of de jure political power is more asymmetric, it is more likely to observe use of alternative political technologies as well as low degrees of institutionalization.
When Do Institutions "Bite"? Historical Institutionalism and the Politics of Institutional Change
Comparative Political Studies, 2016
Historical institutionalist theories of endogenous change have enhanced our understanding of institutional development by providing a theoretical vocabulary for analyzing how institutions may be renegotiated over the long run by social and political actors. In these theories, however, the causal impact of institutions themselves on political outcomes, including their own change and reform, is less developed-a significant problem for an institutional research program. This article addresses this problem by proposing strategies that integrate historical institutionalism's insights into endogenous institutional change with a systematic analysis of the institutional conditions under which "bottom-up" processes of gradual change are likely to be counteracted. In particular, the institutionalization of cultural categories and the allocation of power over the timing of reform within institutional and policy configurations are important variables for understanding how preexisting institutions may enable institutional incumbents to channel, delay, or prevent institutional change altogether.
Comparative Politics, 2019
Over the past twenty-five years, countries throughout the world have passed national reforms that create participatory policymaking institutions: formal spaces that engage citizens or civil society groups in debating and deciding public policy. Latin America has emerged as a vanguard in the adoption of participatory institutions, with sixteen of the seventeen democratic countries in the region creating national frameworks for participatory institutions across a wide array of policy areas. 1 Yet many "mandatory" participatory institutions lack meaningful prerogatives or authority. In contrast, Brazil's national system of health councils is notable for its strong institutional design. A national legal framework mandates that all governments at the federal, state, and municipal levels implement health councils that engage health system beneficiaries, service providers, and workers in setting health policy and overseeing spending. Strong institutional design grants these councils extensive policymaking prerogative, which is backed by decision-making authority and enforcement mechanisms. Why and how do some participatory institutions, such as the Brazilian health councils, develop strong institutional designs to incorporate civil society actors into the policymaking process? I argue that bundling participatory institutions with substantive policy reforms can unleash a path-dependent process that results in the development of a strong institutional design. Brazil's health councils were created as part of a sweeping overhaul of the health sector that extended universal coverage to all Brazilians, eliminated existing state agencies, and decentralized the financing and administration of health policy. Bundled policy reforms, such as the Brazilian health reform, can create opportunities and incentives to build a strong institutional design. First, substantive policy reforms introduce shifts in the political opportunity structure that make it easier to pass the laws and regulations needed to establish a strong design. Second, these policy changes can create incentives for otherwise reluctant stakeholders to mobilize behind a participatory institution as an instrument to obtain their policy goals.