Democratic Accountability and International Human Development : Regimes, Institutions and Resources.
- 1st ed.
- 1 online resource (279 pages)
- Routledge Explorations in Development Studies .
- Routledge Explorations in Development Studies .
Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Table of Contents -- List of tables -- List of abbreviations -- Preface -- 1 The centrality of the human development approach -- 2 Traversing the known: potential determinants of public spending and performance -- 3 Democratic accountability and public spending on human development: a theoretical construction -- 4 What really drives human development spending and outcomes? Regression analysis: methods and data -- 5 Why governments differ in spending on human development -- 6 From increased democratic accountability to better human development outcomes -- 7 Pakistan and India: of military ballads and popular ballots -- 8 Botswana: a miracle of institutions -- 9 Argentina: a tale told by taxation -- 10 Conclusion: ending a story to begin another -- Appendix I. Subsets of states: Phase-I and Phase-II analysis -- Appendix II. Subsets of states: Phase-III analysis -- Appendix III. Subset of states: life expectancy analysis -- References -- Index.
This book significantly expands the human development approach. It concentrates on public spending for human development and shows how the broader paradigm of public accountability -- extending beyond democratic accountability to also include bureaucratic and judicial institutions as well as modes of tax and resource mobilisation -- can best explain how states allocate public resources for human development. In this sense, as this book finds, enhancing human capabilities requires not only effective party competition and fair elections, but also a particular nesting of public organisational structures that are tied to taxpaying citizens in an undisturbed chain of accountability. This volume offers some critical lessons for institutional design and the way we approach the question of human development, particularly in the less developed states.