Policy Practice Brief 1 - Tackling the Political Barriers to Development: The New Political Economy Perspective

The New Political Economy Perspective explores the links between political and economic processes, and their social, cultural and historical context. Some development agencies have begun to introduce elements of this approach in their analyses, a notable example being DFID’s Drivers of Change Studies. In this paper we review the lessons learned from these studies, their strengths and weaknesses and priorities for further research. We conclude that important progress has been made, but there is a need to improve, extend and deepen the analysis, and for development agencies to recognise more fully the implications of the approach for how they think about development and engage with their recipient country partners.