Many reform initiatives in developing countries fail to achieve sustained improvements in performance because they are merely isomorphic mimicry — that is, governments and organizations pretend to reform by changing what policies or organizations look like rather than what they actually do. In...

The welfare of the poor turns in large measure not only on technocratic development quot;policiesquot;, but the effective delivery of key public services, core elements of which require thousands of face-to-face discretionary transactions (quot;practicesquot;) by service providers. The...