12/10/2011
SYLLABUS
FOR LAW AND DEVELOPMENT
Instructors: Robert B. Seidman and Ann Seidman
Office: Room 1120B
Phone: 617-353-3140
e-mail: rseidman@bu.edu
Spring, 2012
PART 1
-oOo-
Class Sessions:
Wednesdays, 2:10-4:10
INTRODUCTION TO THE SEMINAR
In general: As its subject matter, this seminar focuses on the
potential use of law to facilitate the project of ‘Development’ in the poor
four-fifths of the world. These
countries suffer from a myriad of social problems. At the root of those problems lies poverty
(see the reading for our first class).
That poverty affects the vast majority of the inhabitants, not only of
those who live in the world’s least developed countries, but also the
impoverished minority living in the developed-countries.
How best to address the problems of the poor countries of the world
remains highly contested. How to use law
in aid of that project perhaps remains the even more fiercely contested. This course focuses on the problems and
possibilities of using Law in aid of Development.
In the 59 years in which we have studied the problems of Development,
we have come to have strong ideas about what ‘Development’ means, and how best
to use the law to facilitate efforts to achieve it. We denote our theory and methodology for
designing and drafting legislation the Institutional Legislative Theory and
Methodology, or ‘ILTAM.’ (We first tried to encapsulate those ideas in our Legislative Drafting for Democratic Social
Change: A Manual for Drafters (2001) – and have
been developing them along with our students ever since. The Manual
has been translated and published in Chinese, Russian, Arabic, Indonesian,
Vietnamese, Ukrainian, Macedonian, Sinhalese, and several other languages.)
In this seminar, we ask that you test ILTAM by using it as a guide for
structuring a Research
Report that uses evidence, logically organized, to justify the provisions of a
bill likely to help alter or eliminate an institutional obstacle to
people-oriented development. The Manual, pp. 118 et seq., includes a detailed outline for a Research Report. For purposes of this seminar, in writing your
term paper, do try to adhere to that outline.
Only by using ILTAM can you
assess whether its four-step problem-solving theory and methodology can
usefully serve as a guide for designing and justifying evidence-based legislation.
We teach this seminar in two ‘streams:
’
The term paper: A
research report to justify a bill’s detailed provisions for altering
dysfunctional “institutions”. Over the years we
have worked with colleagues throughout the world (see www.ICLAD-law.org), building on roots
deeply embedded in law, social science, and educational literature, to develop ILTAM
as a theory and methodology to guide those seeking to translate policy into evidence-based, effectively implemented law. In this seminar, you should write a
substantial term paper: essentially a research report using ILTAM as a guide to organize the available evidence to justify
a bill’s detailed provisions aimed at resolving a social problem of your choice
of as it appears in a developing or transitional country which you may also
choose. ILTAM’s instutionalist
legislative theory, together with its four-step problem-solving methodology purport
to guide drafters in gathering and structuring the available relevant evidence
to demonstrate that the resulting bill will likely prove effectively
implemented and achieve the desired social impact.
In using ILTAM to guide
your own research and structuring your
‘research
report’, you will have an opportunity to test its utility as a guide to
research of this sort, and discover whether ILTAM will likely prove useful for
drafting effective laws in the future.
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NOTE ON THE SUBJECT OF YOUR RESEARCH REPORT: As the subject of your term paper, you may
write a research report that provides the available evidence as the basis of a
bill to help resolve a social problem which has arisen in a developing or transitional
country you have selected. (In our second class session,
we discuss the options you may consider for your choice at greater length.) As it happens, we (that is, Ann and Bob) have
been retained by the United Nations Development Program ('UNDP') as consultants
on the proposed new Somali Constitution.
One of our tasks requires that we draft laws to govern the nine constitutionally-mandated
Independent Commissions (for example, an Electoral Commission and a Human Rights
Commission).
To contribute to achieving that task forward, we
invite any of you who so desire to draft a research report presents the
relevant evidence, logically organized, as a basis for conceptualizing
a law proposed in the draft
Somali Constitution to establish one of the following 9 independent Somalian commissions:
1. Implementation
Commission;
2. Electoral Commission;
3. Human Rights Commission;
4. Civil Service Commission;
5. Judicial Service Council
(Art 136 & Art 69);
6. Boundaries and Census
Commission (Art 136 & Art 69):
7.
Land & Property Disputes Commission (Art 36);
8. Finance Commission (Art 157);
9. Independent Federal
Audit Commission/Auditor-General (Art.
158).
(We will discuss these, as well as additional
social problems on which you decide you would like to prepare a research report,
in class next week).
END OF NOTE.
=============================================================
Before our next class, you
should evaluate the following proposition: By providing the evidence required
to justify a proposed bill’s detailed provisions, a research report, structured
pursuant to ILTAM’s guidelines. constitutes
a potentially valuable quality control
for designing and drafting a bill. It
enables interested policy-makers, law-makers, and community leaders to critique
and, if possible, find additional evidence which the report may claim
undergirds the bill’s detailed provision.
For the first half of the
semester, for roughly half the weekly class time, we will discuss issues raised
by using ILTAM as a guide to logically structuring your research reports. In the second half of the semester, we will
divide the class into what we have come to call ‘Editing’ or ‘Critique’ Groups.
Each group will consider a draft
research reports submitted by one or two of its members each week. We will spend the entire class time assessing
and suggesting improvements in the research reports scheduled for that week.
2.
Around the world, the
subject matter of Law and Development (‘LND’) seminars or courses differ widely. On one
extreme, some teach a series of discrete substantive subjects – usually, one
subject per class – that the lawyer for a multi-national corporation seeking to
do business in Booga-Booga (a mythical developing
country) needs to know: Laws on currency exchange, on foreign worker permits,
on WTO controls, on patent and copyright, on local tax issues, and the
like. Another set of LND syllabi teaches
the political economy of development – and if law creeps into the discussion,
that’s good too. Is an import-substitution policy better for a developing
country than a free market? Should a
country hold an open door to foreign capital, or should it accept foreign
capital only under constraints? A third set (within which we place ourselves) focuses
on assessing the social impact of the several ways that various countries (and
the relevant aid agencies) use or might use law to facilitate development.
We plan to focus
a portion of class time devoted to the subject around the readings for the
week. For these classes we ask that
participants in the seminar sign up a week in advance to serve as an ‘author’s
advocate’ in the following week’s discussion.
The author’s advocate reads the assigned reading carefully, prepares a five-minute in-class presentation of the
author’s position and, as if in a debate, argues in support of that view. As you would in a formal debate, make the
best argument you can in support of your author – and never mind whether or not
you agree with the article you defend. (Do not fear
that you cannot ‘boil down’ a complex reading to a five-minute, one PowerPoint
slide presentation. The great medieval rabbi, Maimonides, reportedly summarized
the essence of the Law and the Prophets while standing on one foot. He recited the Golden Rule. If he
can do that, you can present any of these readings in five minutes!) You may
want to prepare a short Power Point presentation for your talk. In any event, please prepare a one-page
summary for distribution in class.
A further note on the course readings.
They will be available either on the course website, for purchase at
FedEx/Kinko’s, or through the link provided in this syllabus. Due to copyright restrictions, we may have to
put two or three copies on reserve in Pappas Law Library
Grading. We grade 50% on the term paper and 50% on classroom
performance – especially your performance in your various stints as ‘author’s
advocate’ – and in the ‘editing’ sessions.
Upper Class Writing Requirement. Your term paper in this
seminar qualifies for satisfying the Upper Class Writing Requirement. You must sign up for that with the Registrar.
COURSE OUTLINE
PART A
AN
INTRODUCTION TO LAW AND DEVELOPMENT
1. The social
problem of underdevelopment: The ‘Fatal Race.’
Today,
law constitutes a government’s primary tool for achieving people-oriented
development and good governance. By
definition, ‘law’ here includes all forms of rules promulgated and implemented
by government, from municipal ordinances, through regulations formulated and
administered by a government agency, to legislative acts adopted by an elected
representative legislature, and decisions of courts.
Historically, colonial
rulers everywhere imposed laws that today still shape the economies of many if
not most the former colonies. (In the
course of a 2004 consultation in Indonesia, we were asked to work on a law to
prevent to rapid despoliation of Indonesia's tropical hardwoods forests We discovered that the Dutch colonial
rulers had enacted the Forestry Law in 1912; it remained in force in 2004.)
A simple model helps to explain why most of the people in
those former colonies remain among the 4/5 of world’s people who receive only
20% of global GDP. (A fifth of the
world’s population, mainly in the world’s industrialized countries, reaps about
80% of global GDP.)
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Sue: Please insert (attached) diagram from p. 1 of the Concept Paper, (see also 2011 syllabus for last fall’s drafting clinic on Black Board 7attached) here….
Thanks! a&b
After World War II,
independence came to the colonial world, country
by country, in a grand sweep. Its
supporters thought that, after the dark night of colonial oppression,
independence heralded a new dawn.
Freedom and human dignity would reign.
The colonial flags came
fluttering down. The future spread bright and shining before the newly
independent countries. (One day in
A strange new era had
begun. In the seats of political power
sat the leaders of the independence movement.
In the course of our twelve years in African universities, we met many
of them – among others, Nkrumah in
The world around, in most
countries, the elites who run the economy intertwine with the elites who hold
governmental power. (Not by accident,
some half the members of the U.S. Congress are millionaires.) At
Thus began the ‘Fatal
Race.’ Who would change whom first? Would the new governors, almost all
non-white, change the institutions that exploited local labor unmercifully,
and, rather than reinvesting their profits in the former colony, shipped them
out of the country? Or would the
expatriate, white, former colonialists co-opt the new leadership? Who would win?
In many, perhaps most, of
the developing countries, sadly the new governors lost that Fatal Race. Those new governors had come to power because
they had remarkable leadership qualities and political savvy, they stood up to
violence, torture, frequently had excellent qualifications as street fighters,
and remarkable endurance to succeed in the decades-long independence
struggle. Nothing in that list of
qualifications spoke to their competence to use state power through law to
achieve not only political but also economic freedom. In time they abandoned the struggle. Many substituted a search for their own
economic advantage – with corruption heading the list of pathways to wealth.
Today, a half century and
more since most colonies won independence, 20% of the world’s population still receives
80% of the world’s income. The majority
of the world’s people still live on $1.00 US per day – or less.
That constitutes the
central problem that ‘Development’ proposes to ameliorate. That constitutes the problem we study in this
seminar.
2. The function of institutions in creating and maintaining
under-development. Note that the model
purports on its face to model the resource allocations of the constituent
countries. It reaches further than
that. Resources do not allocate
themselves. Inevitably, what looks like
a model of resource allocation also models the institutions that do allocate the world’s resources.
What do you understand by the
word ‘institution’? Some
suggestions:
a. Merriam-Webster’s
Collegiate Dictionary 606 (10th ed. 1999) ([‘Institution’ means] a
significant practice . . . in a society or culture.”);
b. The Random House Dictionary of the English Language 988 (2d
ed. 1983) (“[A] well-established and structured pattern of behavior or of
relationships that is accepted as a fundamental part of culture, as marriage:
the institution of the family.”);
c. Wikipedia (“An institution
is any structure or mechanism of social order and cooperation
governing the behavior of a
set of individuals within
a given human community….The term "institution" is commonly applied
to customs and behavior patterns important to a society, as
well as to particular formal organizations of government and public service) At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institution;
visited 10 October, 2010. Accord: George Caspar Homans, The Nature of Social Science 50-51 (1967);
Norman Uphoff, Local Institutional Development
9 (1986).
d. Sven-Erik Sjostrand, “On Institutional Thought in the Social and
Economic Sciences,” in Institutional Change 9-12 (Sven-Erik Sjostrand ed., 1993). (“Institution” means “a human mental
construct for a coherent system of shared (enforced) norms that regulate
individual interactions in recurrent situations;” “institutionalization” means
“the process by which individuals subjectively approve, internalize and
externalize such a mental construct.”
3. In the study of law and development, why a
concern with institutions? Compare
and contrast Sjostrand’s definition with the others
suggested. For our purposes in Law and
Development, which seems more useful?
Why?
a. Discuss: “Changing
problematic institutions constitutes the core task of the Development
project?” Why or why not?
b. Discuss: ‘“Social
problem’ means a problematic institution, i.e., a set of repetitive patterns of
problematic behaviors. ‘Social change’
means a change in those problematic behaviors.”
If true, what significance does that proposition have for the practice
of Law and Development?
4. A thumbnail
history of Law and Development. Trubek and
The second ‘moment’
lasted from about 1970 to about 1986.
That was the period of the ‘Washington Consensus,’ when economists
galore preached the virtues of the market unleashed. The function of law became law, order, and
dispute settlement – that is, the function of law in the ‘night-watchman
state.’ Funding for Law and Development
dried up – the World Bank-funded various development projects – but law was not
on the beneficiary list.
The third ‘moment’ began
in 1986, and is still evolving. Dismayed
at some of the practices of some of the developing countries, the World Bank
wanted to add, as a condition of making a loan, a requirement that the
recipient country enact a specified law – for example, a law requiring the
titling of real property, on the theory that without clear laws designating thine and mine, no market could exist. The World Bank
charter, however, forbade the Bank from interfering in the government of a
country. Requiring a country to enact a
specified law to us ordinary folk surely looks like interference in the
country’s government. The Bank’s General
Counsel, Ibrahim Shihata, however, thought
otherwise. Laws, he wrote, constituted
part of a country’s system of ‘governance’
not ‘government.’ He approved of the Bank requiring a
country to enact general laws in terms that sounded like a first-year law
school student’s notion of what the Rule of Law requires. The third moment began with the proposition
that a government could use the law to rectify market failures – a notion that
nestled comfortably with the new doctrines that Coase
was teaching about social cost, and Posner, about Law and Economics.
Morphing out of the third
moment, the fourth ‘moment’ began sometime early in this millennium. Aid for ‘Rule of Law’ programs slowly but
perceptibly increased, a movement still in progress. These programs aim, however, principally at
courts, not legislatures. If a
legislature adopted a law that met Shihata’s
criteria, and independent, impartial and skilled judges decided cases arising
under those laws, the market would clear itself of imperfections. Market failures would disappear – or some so
claimed.
Other scholars and even
some practitioners expanded the meaning of ‘development.’ Shortly into the 21st Century, new
notions arose. Increasing a country’s
net worth, some argued, was not the sole goal of Project Development. These debates about the purposes of
‘development’ we glance at briefly next week.
PART B
DEFINING THE SOCIAL PROBLEM THAT YOUR
PROPOSED BILL WILL ADDRESS
Prepare for next week’s
class: Draft a one page description of the social problem to help
resolve which you propose to draft a bill. (If you propose to draft a research report
to justify one of the 9 bills requested to support establishment of a Commission proposed in the new
draft Somali Constitution, describe the social problem to that Commission seems
likely to aim to resolve).
DISCUSS: By what
criteria ought you to choose a social problem which you would like to draft a research
report for your term ;aper?
1. In general. Methodologies for
developing law in aid of ‘development,’ however defined, roughly fall into two
main categories. One begins with a ‘vision;’ practitioners frequently actually
hold workshops in how to develop a ‘vision statement.’ Others begin with a precise statement of a
presently-existing social problem, and build from there. (Much more on this in future classes.)
In this seminar we ask
that you use Institutional Legislative Theory and Methodology (or ‘ILTAM’) as a
guide in formulating your research report.
ILTAM takes an uncompromisingly pragmatic position. It starts with a statement of the social
problem the proposed bill will address.
In choosing a subject matter for your paper, do not begin with a
statement of your objective or ‘vision.’
Begin with a statement of an existential social problem for which your
research report will
seek resolve through law.
2. ILTAM's problem-solving methodology
ILTAM purports to provide
a methodology that serves two purposes.
First, it guides the drafter in designing a bill. Second, it justifies a bill to a rational skeptic reader – that is, rational
skeptic reader who reads a justification for a bill, which justification
follows ILTAM's methodology, and who hjas no netter evidence in opposition, must agree
ILTAM's methodology consists of
four basic steps, as follows:
Step 1(a). State the superficial
appearance of the social problem the bill addresses.
Step 1(b). Describe the behaviors
that constitute that social problem.
Step 2. Explain (i.e., state the causes) of those
behaviors.
Step 3. Describe the provisions of the bill that address
those explanations.
Step 4. Monitor and evaluate the implementation of the
bill.
Discuss:
(1). ILTAM claims that, absent new evidence, a rational skeptic reader of a
research report that follows ILTAM's methodology must agree that the bill will 'work'. Do you agree?
Why or why not?
(2). ILTAM means "Institutional Legislative Theory
and Methodology." Explain why it is called "Institutional Legislative Theory and
Methodology."
3. Criteria for
selecting a topic.
Development,
however defined
a. Structural change. In choosing the subject
matter of your term paper, do choose one that addresses the institutional structures that perpetuate the
miseries of the poor majority. In
general, these consist of two major, overarching problems. One constitutes the problem posed by
dysfunctional institutions that perpetuate economic dependency portrayed in the
model of economic dependency described above. The other consists of the abysmal
levels of government institutions that remain prevalent in many poor countries.
For example, if you
decide to focus on the problem of trafficking in women and children in
Or, as another example,
you might decide to focus on one of the many problems of poor governance which
led to
In tackling either of
these examples, ILTAM suggests you should begin with Step 1, formulating
descriptive hypotheses (ie educated guesses) as to
(a) the nature and
scope of the problem, and
(b) since
law can only resolve social problems by changing the problematic behaviors that
comprise them (ie, by definition the relevant
institutions).
In both cases, you would
have to begin by conducting research to find the available relevant evidence,
and structuring it logically to demonstrate that your hypothesized description
of the problem and the behaviors that comprise it seem consistent with that
evidence.
For Step2, ILTAM offers a
guide to formulating explanatory hypotheses as to the causes of each set of
problematic behaviors. In turn, those
hypotheses tell you what evidence you need to find to prove those hypotheses
consistent with the facts.
That lays the basis for
Step 3, the design of your proposed bill’s detailed provisions that, logically,
seem likely to alter or eliminate the existing problematic behaviors and induce
new ones likely to help resolve the problem.
Either because your
research at each Step failed to provide sufficient evidence or because the ‘world
out there constantly changes, Step 4
calls for including in the bill’s provisions a requirement for monitoring and evaluating
a) the effectiveness of the bill’s implementation; and b) its social impact.
In deciding on a topic, do
try to find one (like the rural poverty, or good governance issues
mentioned above) that requires using law to change the institutions that foster the conditions of
underdevelopment. (In short: For
this seminar, whatever topic you decide to address, you probably will find it
more interesting to focus not on the criminal law issue, but rather on the
poverty or the good governance issues.)
b. Narrow topic. Like so many Russian dolls, social problems nestle
the one inside the other. Take the problem of trafficking in women in
c. Availability of research materials. Before finally deciding on a topic, do a quick
search on the web and elsewhere to see what evidence seems available to
describe the present situation on the ground with respect to your chosen topic.
Week
2
January 19, 2011
Required
Reading
A-2: Joseph E. Stiglitz,
Book Review: Friedman, The Moral Consequences of
Economic Growth, 84 Foreign Aff. 128 (2005).
http://www.heinonline.org.ezproxy.bu.edu/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/fora84&id=1&size=2&collection=journals&index=journals/fora.
Reading A-3: Dr. Jan
Edward Garrett,
“Amartya Sen's Ethics of
Substantial Freedom,” (2001). Dr. Garrett is a Professor at
Reading B-1: Seidman, Seidman and Abeysekere, Legislative
Drafting for Democratic Social Change: A Manual for
Drafters, (2002), pp. 10-17, 86-93; and scan pp. 115-125 (consider
especially pp. 118-119). (This large
file is on the course website, but students also have the option of purchasing
the Manual for $25.00. See our administrative assistant Sue Morrison
in
Recommended
Reading A-4: Dasho Karma Ura,
“Gross National Happiness: Explanation
of GNH Index,” The Centre for
http://www.grossnationalhappiness.com/gnhIndex/intruductionGNH.aspx
PART A
AS APPLIED TO THE POOR NATIONS OF THE WORLD,
WHAT DO YOU UNDERSTAND BY ‘DEVELOPMENT?’
DISCUSS: Complete
the following sentence, and justify your answer:
a. As used in the phrase, ‘Law and Development,’ ‘Development’ means,
in its general sense, ‘a principal objective of government policy.’ More precisely, complete the following
proposition: “As a general proposition, in title of ‘Development’ a developing
country ought to ….” Give reasons for
your answer.
b. In commenting on the discussion issue mentioned in (a) just above,
consider the implications of that definition for the development project.
PART B
DEFINING THE SOCIAL PROBLEM THAT YOUR
PROPOSED BILL WILL ADDRESS
Prepare for next week’s
class: Draft the first three items of a possible Introduction to a Research
Report justifying your proposed bill, conforming to the following outline:
II. A brief
statement of the social problem your bill will address, its explanation and the
barebones outline of a possible bill addressing that social problem. THREE SENTENCES MAXIMUM!
III. A brief description of the larger context in which your proposed bill
would function; and how the proposed, narrowly-defined
bill might fit into a legislative program of related bills directed to
altering other aspects of related dysfunctional institutions.
Be
prepared to discuss your topic in class, and to explain why your proposed bill
addresses an issue related to Project Development.
Class discussion:
In today’s discussion,
focus on two issues: First, the
advantages and disadvantages of the problem-solving methodology, compared with
other methodologies for making a judgment of practical reason—ie what we ‘ought’ to do; and, second, the subject matter
of the Introduction.
1. Three Possible
Alternative Methodologies for Exercising Practical Reason
The Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy defines that term ‘practical reason’ as “the general human
capacity for resolving, through reflection, the question of what one is to
do.” In those terms, making a law
constitutes an act of practical reason.
Here we briefly discuss three methodologies for making a judgment of
practical reason: ends-means, incrementalism and problem-solving. Institutional Legislative Theory and
Methodology – the theory and methodology put forward in the Manual that constitutes this seminar’s
basic text – puts forward a problem-solving methodology. Here we ask that you discuss the relative
advantages and disadvantages of those three methodologies.
a. Discuss: “ILTAM’s evidence-based version of problem-solving is
nonsense. A law
constitutes a value proposition. One cannot use ‘facts’ to prove or
disprove a value proposition. The only
way to design a bill consists of the ‘ends-means’ methodology. State your vision for your proposed law’s
consequences. Consider alternative means
of realizing your vision. From among the
various alternative means of achieving that vision select the one that will
likely produce the most benefit for the least cost.”
b. Discuss: “Both ends-means and problem-solving are
nonsense. Both assume the ‘S-M-R’
model. That model supposes that the
legislature constitutes the pilot of the ship of state. It passes a law and
sends that law through various channels to its addressee. Both those who
transmit the law and those who receive it, they suppose, transmit and receive
exactly the law as the law-makers formulated it. They further assume that the law’s targets
act in strict obedience to the new law.
They assume that we human beings can thus engineer large-scale social
change. Nonsense! When we do try that,
we bring catastrophe down on us all.
(Remember Mao’s Great Leap Forward?)
Better to legislate in small increments; if the law fails, it causes
only small damage. (Call that the ‘incrementalist’
methodology.) The rule to follow: The smallest
step in the direction you want to follow constitutes the best and wisest
step.”
c. Discuss: “Ends-means rests on nothing more than a
subjective intuition of what law might produce what change. Incrementalism
moves so slowly that it would do little or nothing to repair the broken
institutions that produce the poverty and poor governance of the poor
four-fifths of the world.
Problem-solving best guides the practitioner to make judgments of
practical reason resting on facts and logic.
It produces evidence-based
legislation. Unless she has better
facts or better logic, a rational skeptic must
agree with a bill’s proponent who justifies the bill in terms of the
problem-solving methodology, and who supports each of its steps with evidence.
If the parties on both sides of the aisle agree with a bill’s justification,
that bill must be in the public interest.”
In the remainder of this course we will
amplify each of these steps.)
2. The Introduction to the Research
Report: The ‘Larger Context’
a. A frequent criticism of a bill goes like this: “Why did you address that teeny-weeny
problem? Don’t you know that the real
problem is thus-and-so? (For example:
“Why address the problem of corruption between brothel keepers in
You can defend against
that criticism by stating early in your research report that, yes, you acknowledge
that your bill addresses only a small part of the larger problem, that a
legislative program is needed to address all the issues connected with that
larger problem. Nevertheless, for the moment, your research report concentrates
on the problem that your bill addresses.
(That usually appears in the Research Report as the ‘Context’ section of
the Introduction. See Manual, p. 119.)
Week
3
January 26, 2011
Required
Reading B-1:
Reading B-2:
Reading B-3:
Recommended
Reading A-2: id., Chapter 3.
Reading A-2: id., Chapter 4.
Reading A-2: id., Chapter 5.
Reading A-2: id., Chapter 6.
The Easterly book will be
on reserve in the Pappas Law Library.
PART A
ECONOMIC
STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPMENT
Easterly lists several
strategies that to one or another economist at one or another time became the
North Star that leads to that bright
Robert Solow played a
riff on the ‘investment’ strategy. Not
merely increased investment, but improved technology,
he held, would prove the key to development. More capital invested in buildings
or low-tech machines added little to increase per worker productivity, and
hence little to per capita income. Many
poor countries improved their capital investment at the same rate as some
countries that did break through the development barrier (for example, the East
Asian ‘tigers’) – but nevertheless remained poor. Some variable other than
capital investment or improved technology seemed required.
Many economists turned to
education and ‘human capital’ as an alternative. Across the globe, in the poor countries,
educational levels improved dramatically. That did not work either: An educated
Indian more likely tries to immigrate to the
Popular and expert
attention early on turned to population control as a key factor in Project
Development. That strategy broke no new ground; Malthus had previously plowed
that field. Population, these experts argued, causes “famine, water shortages,
massive unemployment, and other disasters.” (Easterly, p.
91). Aid for contraceptives became a major item in the international aid
budget. “The general wisdom among economists,“
however, “is that there is no evidence one way or another that population
growth affects per capita [economic] growth.” (Development itself turns out to
be the best contraceptive. Wealthier
countries have lower rates of population growth than poor countries.)
None of these panaceas
proved the key to unlock development’s door. All of them found their actual
expression in law, broadly conceived.
Laws a-plenty held out the open hand to capital, to better educational
opportunities, and to reducing population growth. Foreign aid helped, in some countries
generously. Nothing seemed to work.
a. Discuss: Divide
into small groups. In light of the ‘fried-egg’ model of underdevelopment, each
group should assess the theoretical justification for one of the ‘magic
bullets’ aimed at the Underdevelopment Monster.
A group spokesperson (who earlier signed up to read the relevant
recommended reading) will present a five-minute argument to justify the use of
the specific ‘magic bullet’ as a potential solution to underdevelopment.
b. Discuss: As Easterly shows, none of these solutions
actually worked. What general
explanation might one advance to explain that general failure?
PART B
STATING THE PROBLEM: WHOSE AND WHAT BEHAVIORS CONSTITUTE
THE SOCIAL PROBLEM YOUR BILL WILL ADDRESS?
Prepare for next week’s
class: Recall
that Step 1 of the problem-solving methodology consists of two moves. In Step
1(a), describe the superficial appearance
of the social problem your bill will address. In Step 1(b), describe in as much
detail as possible whose and what behaviors constitute that social
problem. Draft a (very preliminary) version of Step 1(b) of your Research Report
(i.e., your term paper) – a couple of pages or so – using whatever information
you have at hand.
Class discussion:
In describing whose and
what behaviors constitute the social problem addressed, imagine a documentary
film concerning the social problem. Describe what you see on the screen. Do not include either any explanations for
those behaviors, or your proposed solution for the specified problem. Reserve
those for their proper places in the problem-solving agenda, that is, in ILTAM’s Step 2 and Step 3.
a. Discuss: What function does Step 1(b) have in the logic of the problem-solving agenda?
b. Discuss: How might you research the behaviors that
constitute the social problem that your bill will address?
c. Discuss: “Resolved:
The key to the all-too-frequent failure of laws seeking development lies
with the implementing agencies. Mostly,
countries have good laws – but poor implementation.”
End of Syllabus Part 1