Erin McDonnell's guest appearances

Erin McDonnell

Give Theory A Chance

Charter Cities Podcast

Alex Nowrasteh

Peter Zeihan

George Herbert

Chris Blattman

Alain Bertaud

Colin Campbell

Nic Cheeseman

Parag Khanna

Sebastian Mallaby

Erving Goffman

Balaji Srinivasan

Patri Friedman

Deborah Brautigam

Yuen Yuen Ang

Charles Taylor

OwlTail

Today’s guest is Erin McDonnell, Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame. She joins us on the show to discuss her recent book Patchwork Leviathan, which looks at the emergence of bureaucratic pockets of effectiveness, or high performing groups, within otherwise weak state administrations with a particular focus on Ghana. We unpack Erin’s findings on the causes of these bureaucratic pockets of effectiveness, hearing Erin firstly sketch out what she calls the dual habitus brain. In the pockets of effectiveness Erin studied, she found that many of the participants shared an educational profile which they melded with their knowledge of local conditions. We consider other possible causes of pockets of effectiveness such as team dynamics, the ability to use discretion, systems for reward and the acceptance of failure, and human motives that are difficult to measure formally. We also consider some of the characteristics that keep these pockets of effectiveness robust, a particularly unexpected one being the characteristic of built-in redundancy. Other themes discussed are whether the recent discovery of oil poses a threat to Ghanaian pockets of effectiveness, Erin’s personal approach to effective bureaucratic management, and a whole lot more. So for an episode packed with personal anecdotes and local case studies from Ghana and beyond tune in today!  Key Points From This Episode:•  How bureaucracies are made up of human beings, not just rules.•  Erin’s experiences of Ghanaian culture; food, people, and her fieldwork.•  Perspectives on the idea that there is a lot of variation within states.•  Why Erin’s research began with identifying high-performing groups of the state.•  The common educational profile of people in Ghanaian pockets of effectiveness.•  Better transnational institutional transfer after melding foreign practices in a local context.•  How the idea of the ‘founding team’ factors into pockets of effectiveness.•  What principal agent theory gets wrong when studying bureaucracies.•  Perspectives on agency autonomy and how it plays into cultivating pockets of effectiveness.•  How the charter city can become its own pocket of effectiveness.•  Examples of how discretion is a motivating force for people who are pro-socially minded.•  How systems of reward and acceptance of failure can drive motivation.•  Perspectives on the role of clustering and agglomeration in shaping new culture in cities and pockets of effectiveness.•  The role of redundancy in keeping pockets of effectiveness more stable.•  Whether the recent discovery of oil in Ghana poses a threat to pockets of effectiveness.•  The role of informal characteristics in accomplishing tasks in organizations and how these are measured.•  Contrasts and connections between ‘positive deviance’, ‘problem-driven iterative adaptation’, and pockets of effectiveness theories.•  Why Erin is skeptical about the idea of changing civil service codes in Ghana.•  Erin’s personal approach to effective bureaucratic management.  Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:Charter Cities InstituteCharter Cities Institute on FacebookCharter Cities Institute on TwitterCharter Cities Institute on LinkedInErin McDonnellUniversity of Notre DamePatchwork LeviathanEpisode 25 with Yuen Yuen AngSaskia SassenThe Weirdest People in the WorldElinor OstromChris Blattman

Today’s guest is Erin McDonnell, Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame. She joins us on the show to discuss her recent book Patchwork Leviathan, which looks at the emergence of bureaucratic pockets of effectiveness, or high performing groups, within otherwise weak state administrations with a particular focus on Ghana. We unpack Erin’s findings on the causes of these bureaucratic pockets of effectiveness, hearing Erin firstly sketch out what she calls the dual habitus brain. In the pockets of effectiveness Erin studied, she found that many of the participants shared an educational profile which they melded with their knowledge of local conditions. We consider other possible causes of pockets of effectiveness such as team dynamics, the ability to use discretion, systems for reward and the acceptance of failure, and human motives that are difficult to measure formally. We also consider some of the characteristics that keep these pockets of effectiveness robust, a particularly unexpected one being the characteristic of built-in redundancy. Other themes discussed are whether the recent discovery of oil poses a threat to Ghanaian pockets of effectiveness, Erin’s personal approach to effective bureaucratic management, and a whole lot more. So for an episode packed with personal anecdotes and local case studies from Ghana and beyond tune in today!  Key Points From This Episode:•  How bureaucracies are made up of human beings, not just rules.•  Erin’s experiences of Ghanaian culture; food, people, and her fieldwork.•  Perspectives on the idea that there is a lot of variation within states.•  Why Erin’s research began with identifying high-performing groups of the state.•  The common educational profile of people in Ghanaian pockets of effectiveness.•  Better transnational institutional transfer after melding foreign practices in a local context.•  How the idea of the ‘founding team’ factors into pockets of effectiveness.•  What principal agent theory gets wrong when studying bureaucracies.•  Perspectives on agency autonomy and how it plays into cultivating pockets of effectiveness.•  How the charter city can become its own pocket of effectiveness.•  Examples of how discretion is a motivating force for people who are pro-socially minded.•  How systems of reward and acceptance of failure can drive motivation.•  Perspectives on the role of clustering and agglomeration in shaping new culture in cities and pockets of effectiveness.•  The role of redundancy in keeping pockets of effectiveness more stable.•  Whether the recent discovery of oil in Ghana poses a threat to pockets of effectiveness.•  The role of informal characteristics in accomplishing tasks in organizations and how these are measured.•  Contrasts and connections between ‘positive deviance’, ‘problem-driven iterative adaptation’, and pockets of effectiveness theories.•  Why Erin is skeptical about the idea of changing civil service codes in Ghana.•  Erin’s personal approach to effective bureaucratic management. Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:<a href="https://www.chartercitiesinstitute.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Charter Cities Institute</a><a href="https://www.facebook.com/Charter-Cities-Institute-424204888015721/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Charter Cities Institute on Facebook</a><a href="https://twitter.com/CCIdotCity" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Charter Cities Institute on Twitter</a><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/charter-cities-institute/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Charter Cities Institute on LinkedIn</a><a href="https://sociology.nd.edu/people/erin-mcdonnell/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Erin McDonnell</a><a href="https://www.nd.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">University of Notre Dame</a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Patchwork-Leviathan-Bureaucratic-Effectiveness-Developing-ebook/dp/B07XKFC7YF" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Patchwork Leviathan</a><a href="https://www.chartercitiesinstitute.org/post/charter-cities-podcast-episode-25-chinas-development-evolution-with-yuen-yuen-ang" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 25 with Yuen Yuen Ang</a><a href="http://www.saskiasassen.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Saskia Sassen</a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/WEIRDest-People-World-Psychologically-Particularly-ebook/dp/B07RZFCPMD" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">The Weirdest People in the World</a><a href="https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Ostrom.html" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Elinor Ostrom</a><a href="https://chrisblattman.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Chris Blattman</a>

Bureaucratic Pockets of Effectiveness in Ghana with Erin McDonnell

In this episode we are joined by Erin Metz McDonnell, Kellogg Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame and author of the recently published Patchwork Leviathan: Pockets of Bureaucratic Effectiveness in Developing States. Erin introduces us to the “budgetary unit”–a powerful, but under-utilized Weberian term–and discusses how she expands Weber’s theorization of bureaucracy through her fieldwork in Ghana. Erin also offers valuable reflection on what it means to be engaging with texts that are now over a century old in both her research and her teaching.  In addition, Erin was kind enough to provide interested listeners with links to some of the readings mentioned in our conversation: From Weber himself: http://anthropos-lab.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Weber-Science-as-a-Vocation.pdf https://www.amazon.com/Economy-Society-Outline-Interpretive-Sociology/dp/0520035003 https://www.amazon.com/Protestant-Spirit-Capitalism-Routledge-Classics/dp/041525406X/ On Max, Marianne, and W.E.B. https://www.amazon.com/Spirit-vs-Souls-Scholarship-Intellectual/dp/0268106010 https://www.jstor.org/stable/41949541?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095269519801100204 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/026327691008003014 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12108-018-9368-2 … in which Howard Becker reports on interviewing Marianne https://www.jstor.org/stable/3483457?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents And from our guest: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0003122417705874 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/673295

In this episode we are joined by <a href="https://erinmetzmcdonnell.weebly.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Erin Metz McDonnell</a>, Kellogg Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame and author of the recently published <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/ebook/9780691200064/patchwork-leviathan" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Patchwork Leviathan: Pockets of Bureaucratic Effectiveness in Developing States</a>. Erin introduces us to the “budgetary unit”–a powerful, but under-utilized Weberian term–and discusses how she expands Weber’s theorization of bureaucracy through her fieldwork in Ghana. Erin also offers valuable reflection on what it means to be engaging with texts that are now over a century old in both her research and her teaching. <a href="https://thesocietypages.org/theory/files/2020/01/GTAC-flattened.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> In addition, Erin was kind enough to provide interested listeners with links to some of the readings mentioned in our conversation: From Weber himself: <a href="http://anthropos-lab.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Weber-Science-as-a-Vocation.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">http://anthropos-lab.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Weber-Science-as-a-Vocation.pdf</a> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Economy-Society-Outline-Interpretive-Sociology/dp/0520035003" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.amazon.com/Economy-Society-Outline-Interpretive-Sociology/dp/0520035003</a> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Protestant-Spirit-Capitalism-Routledge-Classics/dp/041525406X/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.amazon.com/Protestant-Spirit-Capitalism-Routledge-Classics/dp/041525406X/</a> On Max, Marianne, and W.E.B. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Spirit-vs-Souls-Scholarship-Intellectual/dp/0268106010" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.amazon.com/Spirit-vs-Souls-Scholarship-Intellectual/dp/0268106010</a> <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41949541?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.jstor.org/stable/41949541?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents</a> <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095269519801100204" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095269519801100204</a> <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/026327691008003014" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/026327691008003014</a> <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12108-018-9368-2" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12108-018-9368-2</a> … in which Howard Becker reports on interviewing Marianne <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3483457?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.jstor.org/stable/3483457?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents</a> And from our guest: <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0003122417705874" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0003122417705874</a> <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/673295" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/673295</a>

Erin McDonnell on Max Weber