Political and Economic Interactions in Economic Policy Reform Evidence from Eight Countries

During the 1980s many developing countries undertook programs of far-reaching economic policy reform. Some have been very successful, some less so, and some have failed completely. In examining these episodes economists have focused upon the adequacy of economic policy changes but have paid little attention to their political impact. Likewise, political scientists have centered their attentions on the political reactions to reform while neglecting the economic aspects. These dissonant analyses produced a dilemma: what was good politics did not seem to be good economics and what was good economics did not seem to be good politics. From this dilemma a research project on the Political Economy of Policy Reform in Developing Countries emerged, led by Robert Bates and Anne Krueger. This volume is an analysis of the work carried out by eight research teams into policy reform in Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Egypt, Ghana, Korea, Turkey and Zambia. The teams each consisted of an economist and a political scientist who jointly analyzed the economic and political ingredients of their country's reform efforts. This important work will be valuable reading for scholars and policy-makers in the fields of development, international, and agricultural economics. These studies will be of compelling interest to political scientists as well, particularly those in the fields of comparative politics and development studies.