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Confronting the Informal in Good Governance: The Case of Decentralised Education‐System Reform in Guinea
Author(s) -
SwiftMorgan Jennifer
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
development policy review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.671
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1467-7679
pISSN - 0950-6764
DOI - 10.1111/dpr.12061
Subject(s) - technocracy , realm , corporate governance , constructive , argument (complex analysis) , decentralization , citizen journalism , political science , public administration , service delivery framework , service (business) , sociology , economics , management , politics , process (computing) , economy , biochemistry , chemistry , computer science , law , operating system
For twenty years, technocratic planning and management approaches have dominated good‐governance reforms in developing countries. This is true even for newer ‘participatory’ and ‘citizen‐driven’ reforms that still struggle to engage with powerful informal forces affecting public service delivery. This article presents evidence from a case study of decentralised education‐system reform in Guinea, revealing a wide range of influential dynamics outside the technical realm. These corroborate the argument for ‘good‐fit’ alternatives to traditional governance approaches and concrete measures to better capture the constructive and disable the destructive effects of informality on development.