Part of a series of lectures by Duncan Green, Head of Research at Oxfam GB on key issues raised in his book From Poverty to Power.

1. Power and Politics
Lecture given by Duncan Green
Head of Research at Oxfam GB
Notre Dame University, September 2009
Part of a series of From Poverty to Power lectures.

2. Main messages
 Rights and dignity are a crucial part of development
and well-being
 Achieving these requires involvement in power and
politics
 Ability to exercise rights requires access to essential
services, information and knowledge
 Active citizenship, including civil society
organization, is essential to development
 Democracy is beneficial on both intrinsic and
instrumental basis
 Effective states play a central role in development

3. And rights are about power - Picture
Development is about rights

4. Development is about rights
 Rights are long-term guarantees that allow right-
holders to put demands on duty bearers
 Capabilities = rights + ability to exercise them
 Involves crucial shift from treating poor people as
‘beneficiaries’ to seeing them as active agents
 Rights = lawyers and scholars; development =
economists and engineers

5. And rights are about power
 Power within: personal
self-confidence
 Power with: collective
power, through
organisation, solidarity,
and joint action
 Power to: the capability
to decide actions and
carry them out
 Power over: the power of
the strong over the weak

6. First build the people…
 Education, healthcare, water, sanitation and
housing are basic building blocks of a decent life
 Education: need improvements in both quality and
quantity (esp. for girls)
 Health: maternal mortality as example of gender
and wealth-based inequalities
 Control over fertility is both a rights and health
issue
 The state must be central to provision

7. Then ensure access to knowledge and
information
 Steady improvements in access to knowledge, e.g.
radio, mobiles, internet
 Technology holds enormous potential
 But current incentives bias R&D against the needs
of the poor
 And intellectual property rules act as a barrier to
technology transfer (pharmaceuticals, biopiracy)

8. And the right to organise
 Increasing range and complexity of civil society
organizations
 Role of CSOs as catalysts and watchdogs
 Intrinsic and instrumental benefits of CSO
involvement
 Civil society activism waxes and wanes
 Civil society is very involved in decentralization
processes

9. How change happens:
winning women’s rights in Morocco

10. How change happens:
winning women’s rights in Morocco
 2004: Moroccan parliament approves new Islamic
family code that strengthens women’s rights
 Changes driven by Union de l’Action Feminine,
working within Islam, e.g. quoting Koran
 Counterattack from conservative activists and
clerics
 Women’s movement used insider-outsider tactics -
petitions and marches to fend off conservatives
 King formed commission which led to law change

11. Property rights matter
 Property rights matter to poor people
 Women often excluded from full rights to property
 Many systems of property rights, e.g. customary
law
 Role of property rights in development: important
but not a panacea (de Soto) and can have negative
impacts

12. The importance of land reform to
equality and growth

13. Democracy works
 Spread of democracy was a feature of the 20th century
 Democracies
– Produce more predictable long run growth rates
– Produce greater short term stability
– Handle shocks much better
– Deliver more equality
 Democracy in many countries is ‘exclusionary’, with
flawed party systems and patronage politics
 But for most people remains the ‘least worst’ alternative

14. Democracies in the world
100
Start of Great Depression
90
80 End of World War II
70
60 Collapse of Berlin Wall
50
40
30
20
10
0
1800
1820
1840
1860
1880
1900
1920
1940
1960
1980
2000

15. Corruption is often linked to
natural resources
 Corruption is both a cause and effect of poverty
 Impact on development varies (10% v 100%)
 Active citizens can curb corruption, while rich countries
and corporations must also put their houses in order
 Natural resources can undermine the social contract
between state and citizen
 But some countries have managed natural resource
wealth well (e.g. Botswana, Malaysia)

16. States are at the heart of development
(and growing in importance)
 Nation states play a core role in providing essential services,
rule of law, economic stability and upgrading
 Weak or absent states are often worse than bad ones, but can
be turned around, often after a ‘shock’
 Looking at East Asian tigers, successful states:
– Govern for the future
– Promote growth
– Start with equity
– Integrate with the global economy, but discriminate
– Guarantee health and education for all
 Taxation is central to the citizen-state relationship
 Globalization and orthodoxy make building effective states
harder

17. Dilemma: are Effective States
ompatible with Active Citizens?

18. Dilemma: are Effective States
compatible with Active Citizens?
 Social Pacts between citizens and states are at heart of
many development success stories (eg Scandinavia,
Chile)
 But selection bias means we don’t think about states
that are now developed
 In early stages many nation builders are undemocratic
(e.g. East Asia, Germany)
 But autocrats often fail and society now is less tolerant
of ‘benevolent dictators’
 We need active citizens to exercise rights, effective
states for growth and services. Task is to combine them
as quickly as possible in a country’s development.

19. Further Reading on the Blog
 Fragile States and Paul Collier’s latest book, ‘War,
Guns and Votes’,
http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=326
 Taxation and State-Building,
http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=235
 How can effective states emerge in Africa?
http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=163
 Fixing Failed States (book review),
http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=47

20. Further Reading
 From Poverty to Power, Part 2
 Geoff Mulgan, Good and Bad Power, 2006
 Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom, 1999
 Hernando de Soto, the Mystery of Capital, 2001
 Matthew Lockwood, The State They’re In, 2005
 Publish What You Pay US is on
http://www.publishwhatyoupayusa.org/templates/S
ystem/default.asp?id=39924