The role of bureaucratic ‘pockets of effectiveness' (PoEs) in driving development is generating renewed interest within development studies and, to an extent, development policy. Existing research on PoEs emphasises that politics plays a leading role in shaping the emergence and sustainability...

Ghana's Ministry of Finance (MoF) has been identified as a ‘pocket of effectiveness', both in relation to other state agencies and in terms of delivering on its mandate. However, this effectiveness has not been constant over the post-independence period, which requires us to explain how and...

The Rwandan Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MINECOFIN) is recognised as the most effective organisation in the Rwandan state. The objective of the paper is to understand the organisational and political factors influencing MINECOFIN's performance since the genocide and link them to...

Zambia experienced a decade of strong economic growth from 2004 to 2014, averaging 7.4 percent a year. This growth has been linked, first and foremost, to the rise of copper prices and international debt relief, but also to the relatively high bureaucratic performance under President Mwanawasa's...

The pockets of effectiveness (PoEs) debates and political settlements literature are rooted in particular forms of political economy analysis. At one level, this is a positive contribution to the mainstream development policy literature, and allows us to characterise political systems and their...

Uganda's impressive levels of economic growth over most of the past three decades have often been linked to the performance of its economic technocracy, particularly the government's high-powered Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning and Development (MFPED). This paper argues that MFPED (or...