Understanding Policy Change: How to Apply Political Economy Concepts in Practice

How does the social and political context in which decision-makers find themselves in affect their ability to realize their reform goals? How does this context facilitate or inhibit specific reform agendas and projects? How can we operationalize and evaluate these risks and opportunities in order to decide what reforms and projects are feasible given the circumstances?

This book provides the reader with the full panoply of political economy tools and concepts necessary to understand, analyze, and integrate how political and social factors may influence the success or failure of their policy goals. Starting with the empirical puzzle of why corruption, rent seeking, and a lack of good governance emerge and persist in a host of countries and sectors the book reviews how collective action problems and the role of institutions, as well as a host of ancillary political economy concepts can affect the feasibility of different projects. However, the book is not just a one stop shop of political economy concepts, but also provides practical advice on how to organize and use this information via the introduction of stakeholder mapping tools and the development of an actionable political economy toolkit.

In other words researchers, graduate students, and policy practitioners interested in understanding, the what, the why and the how of policy reform will find this book an essential tool.