Political systems

Part of DFID's strategy for “making government work for poor people” is to build political systems that provide opportunities for all, including the poor, to organise and influence state policy and practice. This has wide implications such as ensuring equal access to information, enabling strong representation for all and establishing robust accountability structures.

Much is written on how to shape political systems so that they promote poverty reduction. This topic guide contains general resources on political theory as well as more practical material on the 'mechanics' or more 'administrative' aspects of political system design.

This topic guide complements the Drivers of Change guide. The Drivers of Change approach facilitates in-depth, political economy analysis in order to identify the opportunities, incentives and blockages to pro-poor change in a particular country. This topic guide provides a wider backdrop to those studies, offering a broad understanding of political systems and the role they can play in development.

This topic guide was prepared by Zoë Scott. The GSDRC appreciates the contributions of Professor Brian Smith, Department of Politics, University of Exeter. Comments, questions or documents for consideration should be sent to Zoe Scott.

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