Political Economy & Institutions
Why the same policy succeeds in one country and fails in another. The incentives of states, not just markets — institutions, state capacity, collective action, and the political economy of reform, read for African contexts.
8
Modules
~6h 40m
Reading time
Intermediate
Level
Self-paced
Format
Syllabus
- 01→
What political economy adds to economics
Why 'good policy' is endogenous to who holds power: positive vs normative political economy, and the incentives of states rather than markets.
~45 minModule 01 - 02→
Institutions — the rules of the game
North's definition, formal vs informal institutions, Acemoglu-Robinson inclusive vs extractive, and the property-rights channel into growth.
~55 minModule 02 - 03→
The state — origins, capacity, and the monopoly on violence
Weberian bureaucracy, Tilly's 'war made the state', and fiscal capacity (Besley-Persson) — why some states can tax and deliver and others cannot.
~55 minModule 03 - 04→
Collective action and the logic of groups
Olson on free-riding, concentrated benefits vs diffuse costs, and why small organised groups routinely beat large unorganised ones.
~50 minModule 04 - 05→
Rent-seeking and the political market
Tullock and Krueger, directly-unproductive profit-seeking, and the deadweight cost of lobbying for the right to a rent.
~45 minModule 05 - 06→
Democracy, autocracy, and growth
The regime-and-growth debate, selectorate theory, and why institutions — not regime labels — do the explanatory work.
~50 minModule 06 - 07→
Clientelism, patronage, and the ethnic dimension
Vote-buying, distributive politics, and the African ethnic-favouritism literature — Burgess et al. on who gets the roads in Kenya.
~50 minModule 07 - 08→
Reform — why good economics loses
The political economy of reform: losers who are concentrated, gains that are diffuse, compensation, sequencing, and credible commitment.
~50 minModule 08
How to use this course
Start with module 01 if the material is new; skip ahead if you have prior exposure. Each module is self-contained but the arc is sequential — the projects in the final module assume the toolkit from modules 1-11. Every module ends with key takeaways and a curated further-reading list with primary sources.