The Long Term Politics of Pro-Poor Policies

1. The 2000/1 World Development Report presents a challenge to those who work on the politics of development.2 Instead of criticising, they are invited to specify how they can add value. But “adding-on” a political analysis may involve more than just minor adjustments to the pre-existing World Bank intellectual stock in trade. This paper is a preliminary attempt to respond to the challenge. It offers a long-term political approach to the analysis of development policies, which we distinguish from a short-term technocratic approach, and illustrates the implications of alternative perspectives by use of a case study. It aims to broaden the discussion of how to think comparatively about the success or failure of “pro-poor” development strategies. The discussion can be usefully broadened by directing attention to the long-term process by which the poor can be constituted as more effective and participatory collective actors engaged in promoting their own interests. There may be some tension between this and the more conventional and parsimonious approaches, but there may also be creative tension. Neither needs displace the other.