Publication

Many reform initiatives in developing countries fail to achieve sustained improvements in performance because they are merely isomorphic mimicry. In addition, the flow of development resources and legitimacy without demonstrated improvements in performance undermines the impetus for effective action to build state capability. This dynamic facilitates "capability traps" in which state capability stagnates, or even deteriorates, over long periods of time. To escape these traps authors propose an approach, Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA), which is based on four core principles, each of which stands in sharp contrast with the standard approaches and could be combined into a new way of doing development and state building.