Agricultural Policy Choice: Interests, Ideas and the Scope for Reform

Published

Booth observes that political economy provides a rich source of understanding of the difficulties African countries face in getting the agricultural policies they need to help turn economic growth into economic transformation. He review trends in the literature literature on this subject. In particular, he highlights the recent shift towards more focused case studies of subsectoral success and failure, which add to the broad analysis of political incentives working for or against an adequate provision of relevant public goods. He notes that, more often than not, the findings from these case studies are sobering, pointing to structural conditions that constitute an obstacle to development. Booth, however, argues that pessimism may not be justified for two reasons. First, Southeast Asian comparisons and African experience in other policy fields suggest a role for changing policy ideas that is not captured by most political-economy diagnostics. Second, there is evidence that social and economic reforms can be achieved ‘against the odds’ when local actors are empowered to pursue a politically smart, entrepreneurial approach.