Tools for Institutional, Political, and Social Analysis of Policy Reform: A Sourcebook for Development Practitioners

Analysis to inform policy formulation has long been the self‐proclaimed bailiwick of economists. Reforms have been conceived in terms of technical solutions where economic rationality is the currency of choice. Yet, the accumulated evidence shows that economics alone does not lead automatically to feasible policy solutions. In the field of international development, donor agencies, particularly the multilateral development banks, have demonstrated an organizational schizophrenia within their ranks: on the one hand acknowledging policy implementation failures while on the other continuing to design programs that aim for first‐best technical solutions based heavily on economic analysis.

This World Bank toolkit, assembled by a team of Bank staff with Jeremy Holland as the principal author, is a welcome antidote to the predominance of economics in policy design. The toolkit reflects an increased focus on the distributional and social impacts of development policies, and on poverty reduction as an explicit target of donor intervention. Tools for Institutional, Political, and Social Analysis of Policy Reform, referred to in the book as TIPS, offers an integrated policy analysis framework that looks at:

1. 1.

   institutions – formal and informal rules governing societal behaviors and interactions;

2. 2.

   politics – the structure and distribution of power, authority, and interest aggregation; and

3. 3.

   social relations – the patterns of socio‐cultural relationships, practices, and norms that shape how groups at various societal levels interact and exercise agency.

The framework distinguishes among three levels where TIPS analysis can be applied: macro (the country and reform context), meso (the actors and organizations with roles in policy implementation), and micro (the impacts of reforms on beneficiaries). Following the summary of the framework, the Sourcebook devotes a chapter to each of these levels, identifying particular tools and presenting one or more country examples. The tools include, among others, such widely used methods as stakeholder analysis, political mapping, network analysis, power analysis, “drivers of change,” and force‐field analysis. These tools are drawn from a variety of sources, for example, the UK's Department for International Development, Germany's GTZ, as well as the development policy and management literature. Of particular interest are the chapter that discusses mixed‐method approaches to policy impact assessment (the micro‐level), and the chapter on social risk analysis as a means of monitoring policy implementation progress.

The Sourcebook is a compendium of existing tools and analytic approaches, and while it does not break new analytic ground, it is nonetheless a worthwhile contribution to the international development literature for two reasons. First, it assembles in one convenient document (and a companion CD) a set of tools of proven utility in policy design, implementation, and management. Second, it serves as a reminder that policy reform requires not simply economic and technical solutions, but calls for in‐depth understanding of a country's institutions, politics, and social dynamics. This latter appears to be a lesson that donors perpetually need to relearn.

Jeremy Holland and his collaborators are to be commended for compiling a readable and accessible collection of analytic tools that hold the potential for improving the quality of policy design and implementation, and for achieving greater results from donor resources. Yet, tools are only as good as the information that feeds them, and as valuable as the fit between the policy prescriptions they lead to and country‐specific conditions. Hands‐on experience, in‐depth knowledge, inclusion of country stakeholders, and cultivation of policy champions are critical to effective policy design and implementation. TIPS analysis must be seen as a complement to these elements, not as a substitute for them. I suspect the Sourcebook authors would agree with me.