**WE'RE SORRY--THIS EVENT IS NOW FULL**
Featuring
Jeremy Weinstein
Assistant Professor of Political Science, Stanford University
with discussant
Steve Radelet
Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development
Moderated by
Vijaya Ramachandran
Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
3:30pm--5:00pm
at
Center for Global Development
1800 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Third Floor, Washington, DC
Abstract: Can brief, foreign-funded efforts to build local institutions have positive effects on local patterns of governance, cooperation, and wellbeing? Prior research suggests that such small-scale, externally-driven interventions are unlikely to substantially alter patterns of social interaction in a community, and that the ability of a community to act collectively is the result of a slow and necessarily indigenous process. We address this question using a randomized field experiment to evaluate the impact of a community-driven reconstruction (CDR) project carried out by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in northern Liberia. The project attempted to build democratic, community-level institutions for making and implementing decisions about local public goods. We find powerful evidence that the program was successful in increasing social cohesion, some evidence that it reinforced democratic political attitudes and increased confidence in local decision making procedures, but only weak evidence that material wellbeing was positively affected.
