Pockets of effectiveness and the politics of state-building in Africa

This collection explores the critical role of the state and processes of state-building in delivering development through a focus on high-performing state agencies in Africa. It offers the most systematic investigation into the phenomenon of ‘pockets of effectiveness’ (PoEs) to date, with a particular focus on examining the political, organizational, and international factors that shape state capacity and state performance. A new ‘power domains’ framework, which combines political settlements and policy domains analysis, is applied to fifteen organizational case studies drawn from the realm of economic governance in Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia. A mixture of within-case process tracing and between-case comparisons helps identify two main pathways through which PoEs emerge and retain their effectiveness over time, depending on the type of political settlement. This has important implications for the future of both political and economic development in Africa, as shaped by the often-tense relationships between state-building, democratization, and the politics of survival. The book also explores the powerful influence of international development in shaping the pattern of state capacity and performance in Africa and argues for a shift away from investments in the ‘agents of restraint’ associated with neoliberal governance towards building the capabilities required to achieve structural transformation. The volume closes with two critical commentaries from leading experts in the field, each of which appraises the book’s contribution before suggesting ways forward for the wider field of studies into PoEs and state-building in the Global South.