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Development Strategies : Integrating Governance and GrowthA frontier challenge for development strategy is to move beyond prescribing optimal economic policies, and instead -- taking a broad view of the interactions between economic, political and social constraints and dynamics -- to identify entry points capable of breaking a low-growth logjam, and initiating a virtuous spiral of cumulative change. The paper lays out four distinctive sequences via which the different dimensions might interact and evolve over time, and provides country-specific illustrations of each. Each sequence is defined by the principal focus of its initial step: 1) State capacity building provides a platform for accelerated growth via improved public sector performance and enhanced credibility for investors; strengthened political institutions and civil society come onto the agenda only over the longer term; 2) Transformational governance has as its entry point the reshaping of a country's political institutions. Accelerated growth could follow, insofar as institutional changes enhance accountability, and reduce the potential for arbitrary discretionary action -- and thereby shift expectations in a positive direction; 3) For 'just enough governance', the initial focus is on growth itself, with the aim of addressing specific capacity and institutional constraints as and when they become binding -- not seeking to anticipate and address in advance all possible institutional constraints; 4) Bottom-up development engages civil society as an entry point for seeking stronger state capacity, lower corruption, better public services, improvements in political institutions more broadly -- and a subsequent unlocking of constraints on growth. The sequences should not be viewed as a technocratic toolkit from which a putative reformer is free to choose. Recognizing that choice is constrained by history, the paper concludes by suggesting an approach for exploring what might the scope for identifying practical ways forward in specific country settings.
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Organizing for Prosperity : Collective Action, Political Parties and the Political Economy of DevelopmentThe ability of citizens to act
 collectively plays a central role in major debates in the
 political economy of development, including the causes and
 consequences of democratization and clientelism. This essay
 uses two lines of research to underscore the importance of
 explicitly introducing the organization of collective action
 into these debates. Exhaustive research on the management of
 open access resources demonstrates that citizens'
 ability to act collectively depends on non-trivial
 organizational arrangements that allow leaders to sanction
 free-riding and allow members to replace leaders if they
 shirk. Other research demonstrates wide variability in the
 organization of political parties. In countries where
 political parties do not have these two organizational
 characteristics, public policies are less friendly to
 economic development. This evidence suggests that in future
 research on democracy, state-building and development,
 citizen organization should be a central object of analysis.
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eParticipation in the institutional domain: a review of research: analytical report on eParticipation research from an administration and political perspective in six European countriesThis deliverable of DEMO-net Project provides an analysis of existing research about eParticipation in the institutional domain. It includes a review of the empirical research about eParticipation in six European countries (Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden) and in the international research. This report also provides a comparative picture of national and international research, and outlines overall research findings and research gaps.