Bridging political economy analysis and critical institutionalism: an approach to help analyse institutional change for rural water services

Abstract

This paper argues that approaches to understanding local institutions
for natural resource management based on “critical institutionalism” (Cleaver
2012), which emphasises the importance of improvisation and adaptation
across different scales, can be placed within broader political economy analysis
frameworks for assessing challenges in public services delivery from national to
local levels. The paper uses such an extended political economy analysis approach
to understand the role of the international NGO WaterAid and its partners in Mali in
relation to institutions for financing rural water services, drawing on collaborative
research undertaken in 2010 and 2011. The case study shows that WaterAid’s
approach can be understood through elements of both mainstream and critical
institutionalist thinking. At local government level, WaterAid primarily promotes
formal institutional arrangements, which exhibit the challenge of “reforms as
signals” (Andrews 2013), where institutional reforms appear to happen but lack
the intended function. However, the work of WaterAid’s partners at community
level supports processes of “institutional bricolage” through which they try to
gradually work with local actors to find ways of ‘best fit’ for financing rural water
services which adapt existing local practices into new arrangements.