Reversing Poverty : The Role of Institutions, State Capacity and Human Empowerment

Description

The study explores the fundamental causes of poverty persistence, which remains a central challenge of the modern world. In theory, rising political participation operationalises checks on state predation and cultivates development-enabling state capacity. This did not materialise in post-colonial sub-Saharan Africa. The theoretical foundation of this premise is further brought into question by the development achievements of strong, capable non-democracies. The study uses a dynamic, panel-data model to explore a probabilistic development hypothesis that fuses broad institutionalism with modernisation and human empowerment. The model relies on regime-independent state capacity to trigger the transformational impetus of rising existential security, autonomy and individual agency. Ensuing shifts in societal value orientations towards emancipative mindsets then drive the progression towards prosperity. The results show that the poor-country deficit in human empowerment, represented by mind-broadening education and emancipative values, dwarfs the shortfalls in all other drivers of prosperity, including exports and investment. The findings rule against geography and democracy as direct drivers of prosperity. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / National Research Foundation (NRF) / Economics / PhD / Unrestricted

Links & Downloads

1. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/75486
2. Blackmore, S 2020, Reversing Poverty : The Role of Institutions, State Capacity and Human Empowerment, PhD Thesis, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd <http://hdl.handle.net/2263/75486>
3. S2020

Tags

Institutional Economics

Development Economics

Modernisation Theory

UCTD

Additional Fields

Identifer	oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:up/oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/75486
Date	31 July 2020
Creators	Blackmore, Sansia
Contributors	Wallace, Sally, [e-mail], Franzsen, R.C.D. (Riel), Van Eyden, Reneé
Publisher	University of Pretoria
Source Sets	South African National ETD Portal
Language	English
Detected Language	English
Type	Thesis
Rights	© 2019 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria.