Abstract:

Decisions about “who gets what, when, and how” are perhaps the most important that any government must make. So it should not be remarkable that around the world, public officials responsible for public budgeting are facing demands—from their own citizenry, other government officials, economic actors, and increasingly from international sources—to make their public financial management more transparent and their decision-making around budgets more participatory. Surprisingly, rigorous analysis of the causes and consequences of fiscal openness is thin at best. Open Budgets seeks to fill this gap in existing knowledge by answering a set of key empirical questions: How and why do improvements in fiscal transparency and participation come about? How are they sustained over time? When and how do increased fiscal transparency and participation lead to improved government responsiveness and accountability? Theoretically, it seeks to examine the relationships between fiscal openness and democracy, development and the rule of law.

Speaker Bio:

Dr. Sanjeev Khagram is the holder of the $12million endowed John Parke Young Chair in Global Political Economy at Occidental College, and also currently a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. He was previously Professor and Director of the Center for International Development at the University of Washington, Visiting Professor at Stanford's Institute of International Studies, Wyss Visiting Professor at the Harvard Business School, and Assistant and Associate Professor at Harvard's JFK School of Government.  Khagram has published widely including authoring the award winning book, "Dams and Development," co-editing the volumes "Restructuring World Politics," and, "The Transnational Studies Reader," as well as writing numerous peer reviewed articles including, "Inequality and Corruption," in the American Sociological Review and, "Future Architectures of Global Governance," in Global Governance. In the world of practice, Khagram was Deputy Secretary General of the World Commission on Dams (where he authored the widely acclaimed Final Report of the Commission), Dean of the Desmond Tutu Peace Center, and Author of the UN Secretary General's Report on the Impacts of the Global Economic Crisis in 2009.  Most recently, Dr. Khagram was the Architect/Coordinator of the mullti-stakeholder Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency and Founder/Head of Innovations for Scaling Impact. He has worked with global networks, multi-stakeholder initiatives, international agencies, governments, corporations, civil society organizations, professional organizations and universities all over the world. Dr. Khagram received his BA, MA, PhD Minor and PhD all from Stanford University.

Abstract:

It is almost too obvious to state, but access to public services and the nature of governance varies hugely within countries, regions and cities. Nevertheless, most work on the “quality of government”, rule of law, corruption, etc. focuses on between-country comparisons. After providing some evidence that within-country variation belies any notion of a national “quality of government”, I lay out a framework for explaining why outcomes vary so much across localities within countries. I explore the usefulness of the framework by providing evidence from three ongoing projects. The first relies on surveys designed to examine the role of slum-level social and political networks in conditioning access to basic public services in Udaipur, India. The second project relies on four post-civil war settings to understand why authorities target some localities with electrification projects but not others.  The third project involves a field experiment embedded in an aid program that compares alternative means of improving accountability in Ghana’s district governments. I will conclude with some reflections on the costs and benefits of working with donors on governance programming.

Speaker Bio: 

Erik Wibbels is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Duke University. His research focuses on development, decentralized governance and other areas of political economy. He has also spent considerable time working with USAID's Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights and Governance in an effort to improve the quality of aid programs aimed at decentralized governance and service provision.

Abstract:

Professor Schuck's new book first identifies the endemic  ineffectiveness of much federal domestic policy as a major cause of public disaffection with Washington.  This disaffection has grown along with the size and ambition of federal programs and  now threatens the very legitimacy of our polity.  Synthesizing a vast amount of social science evidence and analysis,  he argues that this widespread policy failure has little to do with which party dominates Congress and the White house but instead reflects the systemic, structural, institutional obstacles to effective policy.  These deep obstacles to coherent policymaking include our political culture, political actors' perverse incentives, voters' collective irrationality, policymakers' poor information, the government's inherent inflexibility and lack of credibility, the effect of dynamic markets on policy coherence, the inherent limits of law as a policy instrument, a deviant implementation process, and a deteriorating bureaucracy.  Those policies that have succeeded help to explain why most policies fail. Professor Schuck proposes a variety of remedies to reduce government's failure rate.

Speaker Bio:

Peter H. Schuck is the Simeon E. Baldwin Professor of Law Emeritus at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.  He has held the Baldwin professorship since 1984, and also served as Deputy Dean of the Law School. Prior to joining the Yale faculty in 1979, he was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (1977-79), Director of the Washington Office of Consumers Union (1972-77), and consultant to the Center for Study of Responsive Law (1971-72).  He also practiced law in New York City (1965-68) and holds degrees from Cornell (B.A. 1962), Harvard Law School (J.D. 1965), N.Y.U. Law School (Ll.M. in International Law 1966), and Harvard University (M.A. in Government 1969). 

His major fields of teaching and research are tort law; immigration, citizenship, and refugee law; groups, diversity, and law; and administrative law. He has published hundreds of articles on these and a broad range of other public policy topics in a wide variety of scholarly and popular journals.  His newest book is Why Government Fails So Often, and How It Can Do Better (April 2014).  Earlier books include Understanding America: The Anatomy of An Exceptional Nation (2008) (co-editor with James Q. Wilson; Targeting in Social Programs: Avoiding Bad Bets, Removing Bad Apples (2006)(with Richard J. Zeckhauser); Meditations of a Militant Moderate: Cool Views on Hot Topics (2006); Immigration Stories (co-editor with David A. Martin, 2005); Foundations of Administrative Law (editor, 2d ed., 2004)  Diversity in America: Keeping Government at a Safe Distance (Harvard/Belknap, 2003); The Limits of Law: Essays on Democratic Governance (2000); Citizens, Strangers, and In-Betweens: Essays on Immigration and Citizenship (1998); and Paths to Inclusion: The Integration of Migrants in the United States and Germany (co-editor with Rainer Munz, 1998); Tort Law and the Public Interest: Competition, Innovation, and Consumer Welfare (editor, 1991); Agent Orange on Trial: Mass Toxic Disasters in the Courts (1987); Citizenship Without Consent: Illegal Aliens in the American Policy (with Rogers M. Smith, 1985); Suing Government: Citizen Remedies for Official Wrongs (1983); and The Judiciary Committees (1974). He is a contributing editor of The American Lawyer.