Knowledge Policy And Power In International Development

This book presents an academically rigorous yet practical guide to efforts to understand how knowledge, policy and power interact to promote or prevent change. It offers a power analysis perspective on the knowledge-policy process, illustrated with rich empirical examples from the field of international development, combined with practical guidance on the implications of such an approach. It provides ways to identify and address problems that have hampered previous attempts to improve the space between knowledge and policy; such as difficulties in analysing political context, persistent asymmetric relationships between actors, ignorance of the contributions of different types of knowledge, and misconceptions of the roles played by intermediary organisations. Most importantly, the book gives readers the ability to develop strategies for negotiating the complexity of the knowledge-policy interface more effectively, so as to contribute to policy dialogues, influence policy change, and implement policies and programmes more effectively. The authors focus on the dynamics of the knowledge-policy interface in international development; offering novel theoretical insights and methodological approaches that are applicable to a broader array of policy arenas and their audiences, including academics, practitioners and students.

An illuminating look at the relationship between knowledge, policy, and power, this book scrutinizes the problems that hamper attempts to bring knowledge to bear on policy, such as difficulties in analyzing political contexts, persistent power imbalances between involved parties, ignorance of different types of knowledge, and misconceptions of the role of intermediaries. Most importantly, the authors provide strategies for negotiating this complex terrain, allowing readers to contribute to policy discussions, influence policy change, and implement policies and programs more effectively.

It offers a power analysis perspective on the knowledge policy process, illustrated with rich empirical examples from the field of international development.

Investigates the effects of research in the field of international development.. Examines the consequences of 23 research projects funded by Canada's International Development Research Centre in developing countries. Shows how research influence public policy and decision-making and how can contribute to better governance.

Knowledge-for-development is under-theorised and under-researched within development studies, but as a set of policy objectives it is thriving within development practice. Donors and other agencies are striving to improve the flow of information within and between decision-makers and so-called ‘poor and marginalized groups’ in order to promote economic and social development, including the empowerment of women. Gender, Power and Knowledge for Development questions the assumptions and practice of the knowledge-for-development industry. Using a qualitative, multi-site ethnographical study of a Northern-based gender information service and its ‘beneficiaries’ in India, the book queries the utility of the knowledge paradigm itself and the underlying assumption that a knowledge deficit exists in the Global South. It questions the value of practices designed to address this presumed deficit that seek to increase information without addressing the specific problems of the knowledge systems being targeted for support. After reviewing the evidence, the book recommends that international organisations, governments and practitioners move away from the belief that information intermediaries can employ progressive correctives to ‘tinker at the edges’ and thus resolve the shortcomings of on-going attempts to use knowledge alone as a driver of development. Gender, Power and Knowledge for Development will be of great interest to researchers, students in development studies, gender studies, and communication studies as well as INGOs, donor agencies and groups engaged in information for development (i4D), ICT for development (ICT4D), Tech4Dev, knowledge mobilization and knowledge-for-development (K4D).

This important collection presents a radical reconception of the place of knowledge in contemporary policymaking in Europe, based not on assumptions about evidence, expertise or experience but on the different forms that knowledge takes. Knowledge is embodied in people, inscribed in documents and instruments, and enacted in specific circumstances. Empirical case studies of health and education policy in different national and international contexts demonstrate the essential interdependence of different forms and phases of knowledge. They illustrate the ways in which knowledge is mobilised and resisted, and draw attention to key problems in the processing and transformation of knowledge in policy work. This novel theoretical framework offers real benefits for policymakers, academics in public policy, public administration, management studies, sociology, education, public health and social work, and those with a practical interest in education and health and related fields of public policy.

Politics from ODI with three authors combining a well-balanced book containing data information for the Overseas Development Institute.

Do governments seeking to collaborate in such international organizations as the United Nations and the World Bank ever learn to improve the performance of those organizations? Can international organizations be improved by a deliberate institutional design that reflects lessons learned in peacekeeping, the protection of human rights, and environmentally sound economic development? In this incisive work, Ernst Haas examines these and other issues to delineate the conditions under which organizations change their methods for defining problems. Haas contends that international organizations change most effectively when they are able to redefine the causes underlying the problems to be addressed. He shows that such self-reflection is possible when the expert-generated knowledge about the problems can be made to mesh with the interests of hegemonic coalitions of member governments. But usually efforts to change organizations begin as adaptive practices that owe little to a systematic questioning of past behavior. Often organizations adapt and survive without fully satisfying most of their members, as has been the case with the United Nations since 1970. When Knowledge Is Power is a wide-ranging work that will elicit interest from political scientists, organization theorists, bureaucrats, and students of management and international administration. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1990.