Tag Archives: Albert Hirschman

Breaking the Spell: From Polarization to Renewal

May 6, 2026 By in democracy, USA through a South African lens Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

How can we break the spell of a toxic downward spiral? In a piece recently published in Persuasion, I draw out “Lessons in Combating Polarization”by reflecting on the USA’s current crisis through the lens of South Africa’s successful reversal of two  polarization-driven downward spirals. This companion blog post has two purposes. First, it situates the Persuasion analysis within a broader framework that explores  what it takes for a downwardly spiraling trajectory of rage first to be interrupted, and then  transformed into a virtuous spiral of renewal.  Second, building on that broader framing, it lays out five propositions that  summarize and extend  the analysis in the Persuasion article. 

Until a decade ago, my focus had been on the tension between a technocratic search for ‘best practices’ and a pragmatic effort to find ‘with the grain’, incremental ways forward.  That work focused primarily on how to make incremental progress in messy, constrained contexts. But  at moments of discontinuous change the constraints themselves shift abruptly – sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. At such times something more than incrementalism is called for.  

I have long drawn inspiration from the work of the great twentieth century social scientist Albert Hirschman. My research on incrementalism was in the spirit of his classic analyses of development in Latin America. In the 1970s, though, the spirit of a “Bias for Hope”  collided with what Hirschman described as being   “mugged by [the] reality” of 1970s Latin America’s turn to authoritarianism. His response was to turn his attention to the drivers  of discontinuous change. Here is a flavor of his approach. (Note that  while Hirschman highlights ‘tolerance for inequality’ as the driver of change, the implicit  framework is more general):

“Tolerance for inequality is like a credit that falls due at a certain date. It is extended in the expectation that eventually the disparities will narrow again…. Non-realization of the expectation that my turn will soon come will at some point result in my ‘becoming furious’ that is, in my turning into an enemy of the established order.  No particular outward event sets off this dramatic turnaround.”

Paralleling Hirschman, I also was mugged by reality. Throughout the 2010s, I divided my time between the USA and South Africa – and in each I was witness to a hijack of the institutions of constitutional democracy, with both hijacks characterized by an insidious interpenetration of  rage-evoking ethno-populism and predatory state capture. In an effort to surface some parallels in what had happened across the two countries, I again turned to Hirschman, but now with a focus on his insights into discontinuous change.

For all of the power of Hirschman’s insights, what he did not do – and what is especially central in responding skillfully to the USA’s immediate crisis – was to carefully unbundle the causal mechanisms that drive change. To do so, it is useful to distinguish between  three questions, each addressing a different phase of the journey:

  • Once a downward spiral has taken hold, what does it take to break the spell?
  • Having achieved a pause in the downward spiral of polarization, what does it take to set a journey of renewal in motion?
  • How to sustain that journey once the initial burst of momentum has dissipated?

The Persuasion article focuses on  the first question. (See here and here for some initial exploration of the second and third questions.)

Here is the first of the five propositions that summarize and extend the Persuasion article’s argument:

  • While leadership matters, it only comes into play once the ground  has been prepared – and this happens through the interplay of civic activism and elite response.

In both of the South African episodes, the spell of us/them polarization was broken via a sequence that began with resistance, and was followed by a reset by a strategically important ‘middle group’ of elites—neither early resisters nor unshakably loyal to the incumbents—who saw where things were heading and became increasingly willing to try and move things in a different direction. Then came a hinge moment where the combined efforts of civic mobilization, action by these semi-insider elites, and leadership unleashed a far-reaching cascade of positive change.

The second proposition applies the first one to the US context:

  • The contrast is stark between the response of South African and American elites – so far a crucial subgroup of American elites largely has been missing from action.  

What does it take for a middle group of ambivalent-but-hitherto-acquiescent elites to reset its calculus as to the benefits and costs of inaction, and act accordingly? The American Purpose piece details when, how and why this middle group stepped forward in South Africa.  But in the USA, even in the face of an ongoing, relentless attack on the impersonal, rule-based economic and political institutions that have long underpinned a thriving economy and free, open and (mostly) stable society, a  middle group of corporate elites, wealthy individuals, and right-of-center political insiders has chosen to interpret what is unfolding as politics as usual.  Will this group continue to sleepwalk its way into disaster?

The third proposition locates the USA’s immediate challenge within  a longer time-frame:

  • Breaking the spell is an early step in a much longer journey from rage to renewal – and  what is needed is very different at each phase of the journey.

The USA’s current crisis did not arise from nowhere—any durable reset will require grappling with far-reaching imbalances and frontier challenges that have accumulated over decades. But before any of the deep-seated structural issues can be addressed, the downward spiral needs to end. Keeping the phases of the journey distinct helps clarify –  both analytically and for purposes of  activism – both the  immediate challenges  and what must follow if any initial gains are to prove durable.

Thinking in time is especially crucial  for civic activists. As the fourth proposition highlights:

  • Civic mobilization is key to reshaping the broader societal calculus – especially among ambivalent elites – in a way that  sets in motion a journey of renewal. This will require a ‘big tent’ approach centered around building broad-based alliances.

Addressing economic and social imbalances will not be easy – but for that exploration to be a journey of hope, the spell of a  downward spiral of polarization must first be broken.  Resistance that seeks to  fight fire with fire would almost by definition accelerate polarization, further weaken the center –  and  risk nudging ambivalent elites towards acquiescing to so-called “strongmen” promising stability.  (The Persuasion article illustrates using the example of early 1930s Weimar Germany.)  What is called for from the start – and throughout –  is an inclusive approach to activism, one that skillfully balances urgency and hope.

Fifth, and finally: a critical juncture is fast approaching in the USA:

  • The upcoming USA midterm elections offer a focal point for breaking the spell.

The midterms matter not only as an electoral contest, but as a potential focal point around which expectations, behaviors, and elite calculations can shift. As we have seen in country after country, when those who fuel polarization also control the levers of state power, electoral contestation can all-too-readily be accompanied by an accelerating downward spiral of efforts to  undermine the election – subverting access to the polls, disputing the results, and  fueling street violence. And all of this could culminate in the siren song of a call for decisive state action to restore order.   But (as Hungary’s recent election has revealed) an opposite outcome – an electoral escape route from the downward spiral – is also possible, if  a critical mass of hitherto ambivalent-but-acquiescent elites put their weight behind free and fair midterm electoral processes, and voters go on to decisively repudiate us/them politics.

To be sure,  as South Africa’s difficult experience in recent years reveals,  even after the spell is broken,  many challenges lie ahead.  But South Africa also teaches that first things need to come first. The immediate task is to break the spell of polarization. Across America’s political spectrum, there is a choice to make:  pay the price of letting go of comfortable illusions now—or pay a far greater price later. Which is it to be?

Reframing democratic development — vision, strategy and process

April 7, 2015 By in democracy, development, governance, inclusion, institutions, Uncategorized, Working with the Grain Tags: , , , , , 15 Comments

no_easy_walk_to_freedom How,  in today’s complex and uncertain times, can those of us working at the interface between governance and development sustain  what the great twentieth century development economist, Albert Hirschman, called  “a bias for hope”?

In two recent blog posts (click HERE and HERE)  I took stock of the evidence as to the extent of governance improvement between 1998 and 2013 among 65 democratic countries (the large majority of which made their initial transition to democracy subsequent to 1990). The results left me feeling even more skeptical than when I wrote Working with the Grain as to the practical relevance of maximalist “good governance” agendas. We need an alternative approach.

To tease out an alternative, it is useful to begin with the classic three-part tripod for orchestrating change – clarifying the vision, developing a strategy for moving towards the realization of that vision,  and delineating step-by-step processes for facilitating implementation. Using this lens, the classic ‘good governance’ discourse turns out to be all vision, empty of strategic content, and counterproductive vis-à-vis process.

‘Good governance’ generally directs attention to the destination, to   how a well-functioning democratic society is supposed to work — and seeks to motivate by cultivating dissatisfaction with the gap between the destination and the way things are. Yes – electoral accountability, a strong rule of law, a capable public sector, robust control of corruption, and a ‘level playing field’ business environment are all desirable.  But the institutional underpinnings for many of these are demanding – and advocates generally stop short of laying out any practical program for getting from here to there. With no proactive agenda for action, the all-too-common result is to end up fuelling  disillusion and despair, rather than cultivating hope.

There is, though, an even deeper problem with maximalist advocacy: it sells democracy short. In its essence, what democracy offers – and authoritarian alternatives do not – is an invitation to citizens to work to shape their own lives and to participate peacefully in the shaping of their societies, according to their distinctive visions of freedom and justice.  This journey is a challenging one – with much democratic ‘messiness’, and corresponding disappointment along the way. But no matter how challenging the journey, once the invitation to engage has been embraced, the personal dignity it offers cannot be taken away. This invitation, not empty guarantees of success,  is at the core of the democratic vision — its inspiration, its source of sustainability.

This brings us to process —  the second pillar of the change tripod. In the later stages of his career, Albert Hirschman turned his attention from trying to understand strategies for economic development, to trying to understand  how we thought and spoke about them. His  purpose, he asserted, was: “…. to move public discourse beyond extreme, intransigent postures of either kind, with the hope that in the process….participants engage in meaningful discussion, ready to modify initially held opinions in the light of other arguments and new information..”

 The renowned Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, points to why the quality of discourse matters greatly.  “Peace”, he suggested  “is every step: “Freedom is not given to us by anyone; we have to cultivate it ourselves…. here and now, in ourselves and in everything we do and see…. (in) every breath we take, every step we take….. The question is whether or not we are in touch with it. We need only to be awake, alive in the present moment.” Insofar as democracy is an affirmation of dignity, its promise is not accessible only when some distant destination is reached. Its potential is also here and now — realizable through a process that, in and of itself, is an affirmation of that dignity.

Dignity also is central  to the third leg of the tripod for the orchestration of change –a strategy for democratic development which has the affirmation of human dignity at its heart. As an alternative to what one might call ‘Big-G’ reforms of governance systems,   Working with the Grain (Oxford, 2014) lays out a ‘small-g governance’ strategy for deepening democracy among countries which have formally embraced democratic forms, but whose practices fall far, far short of a normative ideal. A ‘small-g’ strategy focuses on a search for concrete gains vis-à-vis specific problems – and emphasizes the pursuit of these gains through active citizenship, through participation and engagement among equals.

The immediate goal of a  ‘small-g’ strategy is to nurture “islands of effectiveness” — to identify entry points for focused engagement among a variety of stakeholders with high-powered incentives to see the outcomes achieved.  Working with the Grain explores in depth a variety of potential entry points:

  • Public entrepreneurs at multiple layers of government can foster ‘islands of effectiveness’ even within a broadly dysfunctional public service —   focusing on achievement of a very specific public purpose (better schools, better infrastructure, less stifling regulation), and endeavoring to build within their domain both a team with the skills and commitment to achieve that purpose, and the network of external alliances needed to fend off opposition.
  • Civil society groups can forge a middle path of engagement —   neither locking-in to confrontational action, nor surrendering principle in search of the next donor- or government-funded contract, but rather focusing on the quality of service provision, both partnering with providers and holding them accountable for how public resources are used.
  • Northern activists can seek eyes-wide-open partnerships with globalized firms – anchored in collectively designed and transparent, mutually monitored commitments to, say, rein in bribe-giving, or to target exploitative practices vis-à-vis environmental protection, labor standards, and the extraction of natural resources.
  • Scholars and practitioners can monitor governance in ways that encourage a long view – foreswearing overheated rhetoric in the face of year-to-year changes in indicators of corruption, the rule of law, or government effectiveness, and using monitoring to provide a platform for nurturing constructive dialogue on trends, identifying lagging areas, and exploring how they might be addressed.

Gains from any individual initiative might initially seem small, but individual islands can pull a wide variety of related activities in their wake, adding up over time into far-reaching economic , social and political change – while affirming, at each step along the way, the positive promise of democratic development.

Vision, process and strategy become a mutually reinforcing pathway of democratic development. The vision brings the promise of dignity to center stage;  the process is one that systematically affirms that dignity; and the ‘small-g’ strategy  offers ample opportunity for the practice of ‘active citizenship’ for engagement among equals. Taken together, these elements perhaps indeed offer a new basis for sustaining Albert Hirschman’s ‘bias for hope’ — but in a different intonation from that usually evoked by democracy’s advocates.

The usual intonation of democracy advocacy is a drumbeat of exhortation, of a world on the march to some more perfect destination on the horizon. But, as per Albert Hirschman and Thich Nhat Hanh, hope can also come in a quieter pitch: softer voices, calming rather than raising the temperature, searching, encouraging deliberation, reflection, co-operation.  Over the past two decades, democracy advocates have been sobered by the messy complexity of what it takes to get from here to there. Perhaps going forward, it is not in the drumbeat of exhortation but in hope’s softer, quieter intonations that we will find our inspiration – and our staying power.

Doing development differently — the rebirth of ‘the science of muddling through’

December 16, 2014 By in corruption, development, governance, institutions, Working with the Grain Tags: , , , , , 1 Comment

doing development differentlyIt is a commonplace that the pendulum of economic development scholarship and practice swings back and forth from one set of (faddish) ideas to another.  But beneath this back-and-forth cycling is another, longer cycle —  the tension between a search for grand, seemingly scientifically-grounded solutions, and an approach to problem-solving which self-consciously is more pragmatic, incremental. In recent decades, this long-cycle pendulum has swung powerfully in the direction of  scientism. There are, though, some striking signs that it may be swinging back. As a next step in crafting a way forward, a rapidly growing group of eminent scholars and practitioners have signed on to a “Doing Development Differently” manifesto.  I explore this swinging pendulum, and make the link to some of the earlier  intellectual roots of the DDD movement, in a blog post on the Oxford University Press website. You can access the full post by clicking here. (…..but before you go, though, do go to my blog home page, and sign up to receive email updates of future blog posts……..)