Few concepts have captured the imagination of the conflict and development community in recent years as powerfully as the idea of a 'political settlement'. At its most ambitious, 'political settlements analysis' (PSA) promises to explain why conflicts occur and states collapse, the conditions for their successful rehabilitation, different developmental pathways from peace, and how to better fit development policy to country context. Yet not all is well in the world of PSA. Rival definitions of the term abound, there are disagreements about its scope and the way it should be used, a growing schism between conflict specialists and economists, basic concepts are ambiguous and little progress has been made on measurement. Political Settlements and Development consequently has three main aims: to argue for a revised definition of a political settlement, capable of unifying its diverse strands, and opening new opportunities for the analysis of conflict and development; to put the 
concept on a more solid theoretical and scientific footing, providing a method for measuring and categorising political settlements, while using new data to analyse the relationship between political settlements and development; and finally, to examine the implications for policymakers.\nThis is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

Political Settlements and Development: Theory, Evidence, Implications

Business & Money

Levy, Brian

Ferguson, William D.

Kelsall, Tim

Schulz, Nicolai

vom Hau, Matthias

Hickey, Sam

Economics

Oxford University Press

Chasin' the Sound: Learning Jazz Improvisation through Historical Models

Arts & Photography

Waters, Keith

Music

Working with the Grain: Integrating Governance and Growth in Development Strategies

The development discourse has long been dominated by best practices prescriptions for reform, but these are not a useful way of responding to the governance ambiguities of the early 21st century. Working with the Grain draws on both innovative scholarship and Brian Levy's quarter century of experience at the World Bank to lay out an alternative-a practical, analytically grounded, "with-the-grain" approach to reducing poverty and addressing weaknesses in governance. Best practice prescriptions confuse the goals of development with the journey of getting from here to there. A strong rule of law, capable and accountable governments, and a flexible, level playing field business environment are indeed desirable end points. But the ability to describe well-governed states does not conjure them into existence. If the only available actions are all or nothing, then efforts at change will almost certainly fall short, leading to disillusion and despair. By contrast, this book takes as its point of departure the realities of a country's economy, polity and society, and directs attention towards the challenges of initiating and sustaining forward development momentum. The book: -- distinguishes among four broad groups of countries, according to whether polities are dominant or competitive, and whether institutions are personalized or impersonal -- identifies alternative options for governance and policy reform-top down options which endeavor to strengthen formal institutions, and options supporting the emergence of "islands of effectiveness" -- explores how to identify entry points for change where there is a good fit between divergent country contexts and alternative options for reform. Sometimes the binding constraint to forward movement can be institutional, making governance reform the priority; at other times, the priority can better be on inclusive growth. Taking the decade-or-so time horizon of practitioners, the aim is to nudge things along-seeking gains that initially may seem quite modest but sometimes can give rise to a cascading sequence of change for the better.

Groundbreaking recipes for real desserts--sweetened entirely by fruit and other natural, unexpectedly sweet ingredients--from a pastry cook who's worked at acclaimed restaurants in New York and France. Brian Levy spent years making pastries the traditional way, with loads of refined sugar and white flour, at distinguished restaurants, inns, and private homes in the United States and Europe. But he discovered another world of desserts--one that few bakers have explored--where there's no need for cane sugar or coconut sugar, for maple syrup or honey, or for anything like stevia. When Levy succeeded in making a perfect mango custard, harnessing only the natural sweetness of fruit with no added sugar, it was a breakthrough that inspired years of experimentation converting other desserts into nutritious indulgences. &nbsp; In Good & Sweet, Levy stretches this experiment across 100 recipes that ingeniously deploy fruit (dried, juiced, and fresh), nuts, grains, dairy, and fermented products to create sweet treats whose flavor is enriched by whole-food, feel-good ingredients. Every recipe offers substitutions for dietary restrictions and includes a flavorful sweetener that exceeds cane sugar, from freeze-dried sweet corn to coconut cream and apple cider. A Pistachio-Studded Peach Galette gets its wings from fresh fruit, dried apricots, and orange juice; chestnuts, golden raisins, and dried apples perform a pas de trois in Chestnut Ricotta Ice Cream; and dates, milk powder, and a touch of miso paste make for a dense, caramely Sticky Toffee Pudding Cake. With sweets like these--ones that nudge you toward mindful eating but don't compromise flavor--you'll never have to give up dessert. &nbsp; &nbsp;

Good & Sweet: A New Way to Bake with Naturally Sweet Ingredients: A Baking Book

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Baking

Avery

Fulfilling the Export Potential of Small and Medium Firms addresses the question, `How can economic policy contribute to a strong export performance by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries?' In today's increasingly integrated world economy, such a performance can make a significant difference to the growth, employment creation and income distribution of many developing countries. The study uses information from specifically designed surveys of SME exporters in Japan, Indonesia, Korea and Colombia, together with a range of evidence from other sources, to ascertain what types of support within the areas of technology, marketing and finance are most useful to SME exporters and how such support can best be provided to them. The quality of the support systems is found to vary widely among the four countries. Finally, a number of policy conclusions are put forward.

Fulfilling the Export Potential of Small and Medium Firms

Berry, Albert

Nugent, Jeffrey B.

Springer

Developing the Private Sector World Banks Experience and Approach: The World Bank's Experience and Approach

Rueda-Sabater, Enrique

World Bank Country Economics Dept

Accounting

World Bank

Developing-country governance and its monitoring have risen to the top of the development agenda. This mounting interest is in response to compelling evidence that links governance to development performance-policy quality, public service provision, the investment climate, and the extent of corruption. 'Governance Reform: Bridging, Monitoring, and Action' lays out a broad framework for analyzing and monitoring governance in developing countries. It identifies fourteen core indicators for governance monitoring―both broad measures of overall patterns and specific 'actionable' measures that can be used to guide reforms and track progress. The book also summarizes good practices for reforming public bureaucracies and checks and balances institutions (including parliaments, the justice system, media and information, and local governance); highlights improvements in transparency as a relatively low-cost and low-key way of deepening government accountability to civil society; and suggests ways to complement top-down reforms with approaches that focus directly on improving service provision and the investment climate (such as strengthening the bottom-up accountabilities of service providers to communities, firms, and citizens). 'Governance Reform' has no universally applicable trajectory of change. Rather, the aims are: to find country-specific entry points for reform which have development impact in the short-term; to address binding public management constraints, and to help build momentum for further change.

Governance Reform: Bridging, Monitoring, and Action

World Bank Publications

Fulfilling the Export Potential of Small and Medium Firms addresses the question, `How can economic policy contribute to a strong export performance by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries?' In today's increasingly integrated world economy, such a performance can make a significant difference to the growth, employment creation and income distribution of many developing countries. The study uses information from specifically designed surveys of SME exporters in Japan, Indonesia, Korea and Colombia, together with a range of evidence from other sources, to ascertain what types of support within the areas of technology, marketing and finance are most useful to SME exporters and how such support can best be provided to them. The quality of the support systems is found to vary widely among the four countries. Finally, a number of policy conclusions are put forward.

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