RCTs – not so new, after all?

by | May 19, 2011 | Economics and development, Influence and networks

Quiz time.  Who said that policy makers should be ready for:

…an experimental approach to social reform, an approach in which we try out new programmes designed to cure specific social problems, in which we learn whether or not these programmes are effective, and in which we retain, imitate, modify or discard them on the basis of apparent effectiveness on the multiple imperfect criteria available

and went on to advocate:

the general ethic, advocated here for public administrators as well as social scientists, is to use the very best method possible, aiming at ‘true experiments’ with random control groups

The answer, RCT fans, is Donald T. Campbell, a Prof at Northwestern University, writing in 1969, before many of the current crop of ‘randomistas’ were even born.  The full article, a masterpiece of intelligent writing on policy relevant research, is here. 

H/t John Appleby

Unsolicited career advice for Michael Ignatieff

by | May 18, 2011 | Conflict and security, Global system, North America

I have a short piece over at The Mark today about what Michael Ignatieff should do, now that running Canada is off the cards:

Michael Ignatieff, off to teach at the University of Toronto, is returning to the world of ideas at the perfect moment. This is not only because his bruising tenure in the Liberal party was so plainly over. Nor is it because, in his words, “the only damn thing that I can do that’s any use to anybody is to teach kids what I learned and what mistakes I made.”

It’s because some of the biggest issues he addressed in his pre-Ottawa days – when and how to intervene in foreign wars to save lives – are back at the top of the global agenda.

Ignatieff’s writings on the Balkans in the 1990s helped to shape the case for humanitarian intervention. He was a prominent member of the international commission that launched the idea of a “responsibility to protect” the vulnerable from slaughter in 2001. Even as Ignatieff lost Ontario, ideas he advocated were being implemented by NATO pilots with a UN mandate over Libya. But the Libyan war may leave those ideas in poor shape.

What can be done about this?

At this moment of strategic uncertainty, there is a need for robust new thinking about the basic strategic arguments for liberal interventionist policies and whether they still work.

This is where Michael Ignatieff could come (back) in. Readdressing interventionism would be a natural segue back into academia. He may be able to take this up in the congenial surroundings of the University of Toronto. But given the urgency of the crises involved, more may be required. Ban Ki-moon could, for example, appoint Ignatieff and a non-western statesman, such as former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, to lead a study on developments in crisis management and new models for humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping, mediation, and the use of force.

As I point out in the full article, there have been a lot of important reports on aspects of this problem recently (including the World Bank’s World Development Report and UN’s Civilian Capacity Review). But Ignatieff may be the public intellectual best able to draw the lessons from all those reports together into a coherent, resonant narrative about interventionism and conflict management day. We internationalists missed you, Mike.

Liam Fox’s leaked letter

by | May 18, 2011 | Economics and development, UK

Here in the UK, there’s a big media hoo-ha underway about a leaked letter from Defence Secretary Liam Fox to the Prime Minister about the UK’s foreign aid budget (see this Mail article for the full text). In it, Fox argues that the government should execute a U-turn on the promise that it made on aid spending in its coalition agreement (pdf), which said that:

We will honour our commitment to spend 0.7% of GNI [Gross National Income] on overseas aid from 2013, and to enshrine this commitment in law.

Fox, on the other hand, now argues in his leaked letter that the government should not go ahead with a Bill as proposed in the coalition agreement, as such a Bill could

…limit HMG’s ability to change its mind about the pace at which it reaches the target in order to direct more resources towards other activities or programmes rather than aid.

I’d be the first to concede that development advocates need to do a much better job of explaining why we should be spending so much on DFID (c.f. this post in March), and I also agree with the view that while Fox’s leaked letter will doubtless win him plaudits from his party’s right wing, it won’t help David Cameron’s larger agenda of ‘detoxifying’ the Conservative brand on development – where, to give credit where it’s due, Andrew Mitchell has done a genuinely good job.

(It’s also worth noting, incidentally, that by no means all opinion formers on the Tory right are with Fox on his scepticism about UK aid: Iain Dale was surprisingly supportive of DFID on LBC last night, and Conservative Home’s Tim Montgomerie noted yesterday that “I’ve witnessed first hand how British aid is saving lives.”)

But I think the “sources close to the Defence Secretary” who’ve been briefing so assiduously over the last few days make a miscalculation in framing the implicit question as a zero sum choice between aid and defence – i.e. ‘why are we spending so much in Africa when we’re slashing the armed forces even as British forces are deployed in both Afghanistan and Libya’.

As David Steven and I argued in Organising for Influence (pdf), the report on UK foreign policy that we did for Chatham House just after the election, that’s the wrong way to look at it. Instead, in an era characterised by global risks, the UK should be looking to upgrade all aspects of its international work – development, defence and diplomacy – which account between them for well under 10% of UK government spending.

Liam Fox clearly doesn’t see it this way. But it’s striking that his erstwhile US counterpart, recently retired Defense Secretary Robert Gates, manifestly does:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates called the Senate Budget Committee chairman at home to lobby for more money — but not for a bigger defense budget. Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., revealed Monday that Gates called to ensure the broad 2010 federal budget included more State Department funding [which includes the budget for foreign aid – ed.]. 

Conrad said he was ready to propose a $4 billion reduction in international relations and foreign aid in the belief that spending money on domestic programs was more important. “They were a little unhappy or disappointed that I was cutting,” Conrad said.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called to ask Conrad to change his mind, which is nothing unusual. But Gates’ call was something new, Conrad said. “I have never before in my 22 years on the budget committee had the secretary of defense call me to support the budget for the State Department,” Conrad said.

Gates said it was in the Pentagon’s interest to have a healthier foreign aid budget, Conrad said.