GRANTS FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRY RESEARCHERS STUDYING POVERTY ISSUES

The Poverty and Economic Policy (PEP) Research Network
    announces a call for proposals for its 2010 competition for
    research grants with a total value of up to $CAN 50,000
    each.
   
    DEADLINE: January 6, 2010
    
    
    OBJECTIVES:
    
    PEP provides financial and scientific support to teams of
    developing country researchers studying poverty issues.
    Specific objectives are to:
    
    - Better understand the causes and consequences of poverty
    - Propose pro-poor policies and programs
    - Improve the measurement and monitoring of poverty
    - Strengthen local research capacity on poverty issues
    - Develop new concepts and techniques for poverty analysis
    
    To maximize capacity building, PEP favors teams composed of
    at least one senior researcher supervising a gender-
    balanced group of junior researchers. PEP especially
    encourages proposals from the poorest countries. Funding
    includes a core research grant of $CAN 20K, plus separate
    funding of up to $CAN 30K to participate in training
    workshops, PEP meetings, international conferences, study
    visits and other activities. All team members must
    originate from and reside in a developing country during
    the course of the project.
   
   
    GRANT PROGRAMS:
   
    Grants are awarded under four programs:
    
    - Community Based Monitoring Systems (CBMS): For the
      development and institutionalization of a community-based
      poverty monitoring system involving either: (1) the
      development and pilot-test of a CBMS, or (2) expansion
      and institutionalization of an existing CBMS.
    - Modeling and Policy Impact Analysis (MPIA): Analyzing the
      impacts of macroeconomic shocks and policies on poverty
      and income distribution (Priority themes: Inclusive
      growth, public spending and agricultural policies).
    - Policy Impact Evaluation Research Initiative (PIERI):
      Evaluations of the impacts of interventions that aim to
      increase human capital and alleviating poverty, e.g.
      child health, schooling, training and safety net
      programs.
    - Poverty Monitoring, Measurement and Analysis (PMMA):
      Monitoring, measurement and analysis of a wide range of
      poverty issues (Priority themes: Multidimensional
      poverty, public spending, intrahousehold allocation and
      poverty dynamics2).
    
    
    FURTHER INFORMATION/SUBMISSION PROCEDURE:
    
    For more information and to submit a proposal, please
    consult the "Call for Proposals" section on the PEP 
    website:
    
                   http://www.pep-net.org
    
    PEP is financed by the Australian Agency for International
    Development (AusAID), and by the Government of Canada
    through the International Development Research Centre
    (IDRC) and the Canadian International Development Agency
    (CIDA). 
    
    Decisions will be communicated by April 30, 2010 at the
    latest.

Symposium: The Future of Law and Development, Part I

The first installment of our blog symposium on the Future of Law and Development has been published by the Northwestern Law Review. Further installments will appear in the next one to two months. As a reminder, the first installment includes pieces by Tom Ginsburg (Chicago - Law), Salil Mehra (Temple - Law), Katharina Pistor (Columbia - Law), & Anna Gelpern (American - Law).

Courts in authoritarian regimes

Readers may know I have an occasional interest in the role of courts in authoritarian regimes. There is a wonderful quote in today's NYTimes from Iranian "opposition" leader Mehdi Karroubi, who has been threatened with trial at a special court for clergy. The concept of this special court is itself interesting: the court is used as a device to maintain cohesion within the dictatorial class, somewhat similar to Robert Barros' found in his study of the Chilean constitutional court. But Karroubi's quote, copied below, captures well the idea that because of their public nature, courts can be used to rally support for the opposition, even in cases that they lose. Karroubi says: "I am not only unworried about this court .... I wholeheartedly welcome it since I will use it to express my concerns regarding the national and religious beliefs of the Iranian people and the ideas of Imam Khomeini, and clearly reveal those who are opposed to these concerns.”

The Rule of Law Unplugged

A worthwhile read that just got posted on SSRN is the working paper The Rule of Law Unplugged by Mathew D. McCubbins, Daniel B. Rodriguez and Barry R. Weingast.

ABSTRACT: The 'Rule of Law' is a venerable concept, but, on closer inspection, is a complex admixture of positive assumptions, occasionally wishful thinking, and inchoate political and legal theory. While enormous investment has been made in rule of law reformism throughout the world, advocates of transplanting American-style legal and political institutions to developed and developing countries in the world are often unclear about what they are transplanting and why they are ambitiously doing so. Scholars clearly have more work to do in understanding the rule of law and designing institutions to realize the objectives for which this grand project is intended.

In this paper, we revisit the concept of the rule of law in order to help unpack the theoretical and operational assumptions underlying scholarship and reform efforts. We do so from the perspective of legal and positive political theory; and we interrogate various institutional devices (such as constitutionalism and the independent judiciary) in order to shed light on how the construct of the rule of law is being put into service on behalf of cross-national reform initiatives.