Person:
Woolcock, Michael
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Social development,
Research methods,
Institutions,
Poverty,
Community Driven Development,
Governance,
Conflict
Degrees
ORCID
External Links
Departments
Development Research Group
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
June 24, 2023
Biography
Michael Woolcock is the lead social scientist in the Development Research Group at the World Bank, where he has worked since 1998. For 14 of these years he has also taught (part-time) at Harvard Kennedy School, with periods of leave spent at the University of Cambridge (2002) and the University of Manchester (2007–09). In 2015-17 he also helped establish the World Bank’s first Knowledge and Research Hub, in Kuala Lumpur. His current research focuses on strategies for enhancing the effectiveness of policy implementation, extending work addressed in his recent book, Building State Capability: Evidence, Analysis, Action (with Matt Andrews and Lant Pritchett; Oxford University Press, 2017). Michael is a co-recipient of the American Sociological Association’s awards for best book (2012) and best article (2014) on economic development.
Publication Search Results
1 - 3 of 3
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Publication
Local Conflict and Development Projects in Indonesia : Part of the Problem or Part of a Solution?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-04)Drawing on an integrated mixed methods research design, the authors explore the dynamics of the development-conflict nexus in rural Indonesia, and the specific role of development projects in shaping the nature, extent, and trajectories of "everyday" conflicts. They find that projects that give inadequate attention to dispute resolution mechanisms in many cases stimulate local conflict, either through the injection of development resources themselves or less directly by exacerbating preexisting tensions in target communities. But projects that have explicit and accessible procedures for managing disputes arising from the development process are much less likely to lead to violent outcomes. The authors argue that such projects are more successful in addressing project-related conflicts because they establish direct procedures (such as forums, facilitators, and complaints mechanisms) for dealing with tensions as they arise. These direct mechanisms are less successful in addressing broader social tensions elicited by, or external to, the development process, though program mechanisms can ameliorate conflict indirectly through changing norms and networks of interaction. -
Publication
Empowerment and Local Level Conflict Mediation in Indonesia : A Comparative Analysis of Concepts, Measures, and Project Efficacy
( 2005-09)The notion of empowerment has been more often deductively claimed than carefully defined or inductively assessed by development scholars and practitioners alike. The authors define and assess empowerment through an in-depth examination of the extent to which a large community development project in rural Indonesia empowers participants (especially members of marginalized groups) through building their capacity to manage local conflict. Although the project induces conflict through its deployment of a competitive bidding process, the authors argue that, when well implemented, it can also enable otherwise unequal groups to more peacefully, equitably, and effectively engage one another. Using a mixed methods approach, they compare cases from otherwise similar treatment and control villages to shed light on the chief components of villagers' capacity to manage local conflict. They discuss the interdependencies of two major analytical realms-routines of inter-group collaboration, and sources of countervailing power-and their relation to local conflict processes and outcomes. -
Publication
Alternative Paths to Public Financial Management and Public Sector Reform: Experiences from East Asia
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2018-06-26)Reforming public-sector organizations--their structures, policies, processes and practices--is notoriously difficult, in rich and poor countries alike. Even in the most favorable of circumstances, the scale and complexity of the tasks to be undertaken are enormous, requiring levels of coordination and collaboration that may be without precedent for those involved. Entirely new skills may need to be acquired by tens of thousands of people. Compounding these logistical challenges is the pervasive reality that circumstances often are not favorable to large-scale reform. Whether a country is rich or poor, the choice is not whether, but how, to reform the public sector--how optimal design characteristics, robust political support, and enhanced organizational capability to implement and adapt will be forged over time. This edited volume helps address the “how” question. It brings together reform experiences in public financial management and the public sector more broadly from eight country cases in East Asia: Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Thailand, and Vietnam. These countries are at different stages of reform; most of the reform efforts would qualify as successes, while some had mixed outcomes, and others could be considered failures. The focus of each chapter is less on formally demonstrating success (or not) of specific reform, but on documenting how reformers maneuvered within different country contexts to achieve specific outcomes. Despite the great difficulty in reforming the public sector, decision-makers can draw renewed energy and inspiration, learning from those countries, sectors, and subnational spaces where substantive (not merely cosmetic) change has been achieved, and they can identify what pitfalls to avoid.