M. A. Thomas

Govern Like Us: U.S. Expectations of Poor Countries M. A. Thomas

Marc Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index. Review Quotes: Thomas is critical of our policy - rightly so - but refrains from relativism and from bombast. She provides a useful contrarian perspective that is difficult to ignore--Michael Johnston, Colgate UniversityBiographical Note: M. A. Thomas is a lawyer and political economist who has worked as a governance specialist for foreign aid donors in some of the world's poorest countries. From 2005 until 2014, she was associate professor of international development at The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at The Johns Hopkins University. Her articles have appeared in " Foreign Affairs," the "American Interest," "Policy Review," "International Affairs," the " Journal of Modern African Studies," the "European Journal of Development Research," "Development and Change," and the "Defense Acquisition Research Journal."Review Quotes: In recent years, there has been a broad recognition in rich countries that poor government is a leading cause of poverty, and have undertaken vast programs to stem corruption and dysfunctional politics. In "Govern Like Us," Thomas exposes the illusions that have undergirded this effort, and shows why the vast sums invested in places like Afghanistan and Iraq have yielded such meager results. This book should be required reading for anyone in the development field.--Francis Fukuyama, Stanford UniversityPublisher Marketing: In the poorest countries, such as Afghanistan, Haiti, and Mali, the United States has struggled to work with governments whose corruption and lack of capacity are increasingly seen to be the cause of instability and poverty. The development and security communities call for good governance to improve the rule of law, democratic accountability, and the delivery of public goods and services. The United States and other rich liberal democracies insist that this is the only legitimate model of governance. Yet poor governments cannot govern according to these ideals and instead are compelled to rely more heavily on older, cheaper strategies of holding power, such as patronage and repression. The unwillingness to admit that poor governments do and must govern differently has cost the United States and others inestimable blood and coin. Informed by years of fieldwork and drawing on practitioner work and academic scholarship in politics, economics, law, and history, this book explains the origins of poor governments in the formation of the modern state system and describes the way they govern. It argues that, surprisingly, the effort to stigmatize and criminalize the governance of the poor is both fruitless and destabilizing. The United States requires a more effective foreign policy to engage poor governments and acknowledge how they govern.