William D. Ferguson – författare

Few concepts have captured the imagination of the conflict and development community in recent years as powerfully as the idea of a 'political settlement'. At its most ambitious, 'political settlements analysis' (PSA) promises to explain why conflicts occur and states collapse, the conditions for their successful rehabilitation, different developmental pathways from peace, and how to better fit development policy to country context. Yet not all is well in the world of PSA. Rival definitions of the term abound, there are disagreements about its scope and the way it should be used, a growing schism between conflict specialists and economists, basic concepts are ambiguous and little progress has been made on measurement. Political Settlements and Development consequently has three main aims: to argue for a revised definition of a political settlement, capable of unifying its diverse strands, and opening new opportunities for the analysis of conflict and development; to put the concept on a more solid theoretical and scientific footing, providing a method for measuring and categorising political settlements, while using new data to analyse the relationship between political settlements and development; and finally, to examine the implications for policymakers.This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

In Collective Action and Exchange: A Game-Theoretic Approach to Contemporary Political Economy, William D. Ferguson presents a comprehensive political economy text aimed at advanced undergraduates in economics and graduate students in the social sciences. The text utilizes collective action as a unifying concept, arguing that collective-action problems lie at the foundation of market success, market failure, economic development, and the motivations for policy.Ferguson draws on information economics, social preference theory, cognition theory, institutional economics, as well as political and policy theory to develop this approach. The text uses classical, evolutionary, and epistemic game theory, along with basic social network analysis, as modeling frameworks. These models effectively bind the ideas presented, generating a coherent theoretic approach to political economy that stresses sometimes overlooked implications.

In Collective Action and Exchange: A Game-Theoretic Approach to Contemporary Political Economy, William D. Ferguson presents a comprehensive political economy text aimed at advanced undergraduates in economics and graduate students in the social sciences. The text utilizes collective action as a unifying concept, arguing that collective-action problems lie at the foundation of market success, market failure, economic development, and the motivations for policy.Ferguson draws on information economics, social preference theory, cognition theory, institutional economics, as well as political and policy theory to develop this approach. The text uses classical, evolutionary, and epistemic game theory, along with basic social network analysis, as modeling frameworks. These models effectively bind the ideas presented, generating a coherent theoretic approach to political economy that stresses sometimes overlooked implications.

Why do well-meaning developmental policies fail? Power intervenes. Consider the recent collapse of the peace agreement between the Colombian government and FARC guerillas. Achieving inclusive development entails resolving collective-action problems of forging cooperation among agents with disparate interests and understandings. Resolution relies on developing functional informal and formal institutions. Powerful agents shape institutional evolution-because they can. This Element outlines a conceptual framework for policy-relevant inquiry. It addresses the concept of power-noting sources, instruments, manifestations, domains of operation, and strategic templates. After discussing leadership, following, and brokerage, it addresses institutional entrepreneurship. Institutional entrepreneurs develop narratives and actions to influence incentives and interpretations of social norms and identities: foundations of strategic interactions that shape institutional evolution. This approach facilitates inquiry into the roots and consequences of context-specific developmental dilemmas: background for developmental policy analysis. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

Why do well-meaning developmental policies fail? Power intervenes. Consider the recent collapse of the peace agreement between the Colombian government and FARC guerillas. Achieving inclusive development entails resolving collective-action problems of forging cooperation among agents with disparate interests and understandings. Resolution relies on developing functional informal and formal institutions. Powerful agents shape institutional evolution-because they can. This Element outlines a conceptual framework for policy-relevant inquiry. It addresses the concept of power-noting sources, instruments, manifestations, domains of operation, and strategic templates. After discussing leadership, following, and brokerage, it addresses institutional entrepreneurship. Institutional entrepreneurs develop narratives and actions to influence incentives and interpretations of social norms and identities: foundations of strategic interactions that shape institutional evolution. This approach facilitates inquiry into the roots and consequences of context-specific developmental dilemmas: background for developmental policy analysis. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.