Collective-action Problems and Development Article Swipe
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· 2022
· Open Access
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· DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192848932.003.0003
· OA: W4283323291
This chapter takes a further step towards enhancing political settlement analysis’s formal rigour. It offers a framework that permits systematic inquiry into relationships between distributions of power, institutional evolution, and prospects for resolving a series of context-specific collective-action problems that often hinder inclusive development. Specifically, this chapter argues that economic and social development require resolving two types of collective-action problems: first-order problems of free riding and second-order problems of coordination and enforcement. Furthermore, political settlements address the most fundamental collective-action problem of development—preventing outright internal warfare—but do so in distinct fashions depending on their specific configuration. To illustrate, we introduce a new four-quadrant typology of political settlements based on two dimensions: the social foundation—the powerful groups included in the settlement—which can range from narrow to broad, and the power configuration among such groups, which can range from concentrated to dispersed. For each quadrant, we proceed to explore the accompanying collective-action problems, related developmental challenges, and the associated implications for elite commitment to, and state capacity for, economic and social development.
