Bureaucratic Pockets of Effectiveness in Ghana with Erin McDonnell

Today’s guest is Erin McDonnell, Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame. She joins us on the show to discuss her recent book Patchwork Leviathan, which looks at the emergence of bureaucratic pockets of effectiveness, or high performing groups, within otherwise weak state administrations with a particular focus on Ghana. We unpack Erin’s findings on the causes of these bureaucratic pockets of effectiveness, hearing Erin firstly sketch out what she calls the dual habitus brain. In the pockets of effectiveness Erin studied, she found that many of the participants shared an educational profile which they melded with their knowledge of local conditions. We consider other possible causes of pockets of effectiveness such as team dynamics, the ability to use discretion, systems for reward and the acceptance of failure, and human motives that are difficult to measure formally. We also consider some of the characteristics that keep these pockets of effectiveness robust, a particularly unexpected one being the characteristic of built-in redundancy. Other themes discussed are whether the recent discovery of oil poses a threat to Ghanaian pockets of effectiveness, Erin’s personal approach to effective bureaucratic management, and a whole lot more. So for an episode packed with personal anecdotes and local case studies from Ghana and beyond tune in today!    Key Points From This Episode: •  How bureaucracies are made up of human beings, not just rules. •  Erin’s experiences of Ghanaian culture; food, people, and her fieldwork. •  Perspectives on the idea that there is a lot of variation within states. •  Why Erin’s research began with identifying high-performing groups of the state. •  The common educational profile of people in Ghanaian pockets of effectiveness. •  Better transnational institutional transfer after melding foreign practices in a local context. •  How the idea of the ‘founding team’ factors into pockets