Mind sets and methods: poverty strategies and the awkward potential of the enabling state

Abstract

PurposeThis purpose of this conceptual paper is to provide a framework for understanding anti‐poverty strategies in public policy when effective, enabling, governance is recognised to be the outcome of multiple agencies (public, civil society and private).Design/methodology/approachCultural theory – providing the methodological approach – suggests that individualist, hierarchical and group biases underlie market thinking, bureaucratic thinking and the thinking of civil society institutions and are, in essence, incompatible. Each kind of thinking can be linked to ideologies of development (or “modernisation”) yet enabling strategies (and New Labour's “Third Way”) require state, market and civil society to work collaboratively, across boundaries.FindingsThe main finding is that the interface between types of organisation will always be awkward; the point at which transaction costs mount up and “partnerships” falter.Practical implicationsFor central agencies the practical implication is that an enabling role requires an understanding of other mind sets or, failing that, a willingness to find a standard, pre‐negotiated hybrid formula that works, as evident in some well‐known instances of developing country programmes or projects that depend upon effective links between “incompatible” systems.Originality/valueFor both public policy strategists and practitioners the paper may throw new light on age‐old problems in poverty alleviation and public policy implementation.