This chapter examines the mounting unease regarding the project of public education. By the mid-1960s, technocratic, Afrocentric, and Marxist critiques articulated a growing sense of worldwide educational crisis. These critiques presented differently in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, but in both countries popular frustrations were palpable. In response, both states attempted to reform public schooling: by introducing manual training in Ghanaian middle schools and television sets in Ivorian primary schools. Both reforms failed spectacularly, ultimately confirming the state’s abdication of its promise that education would lead to a better future for all. Public education systems crumbled along with public faith in the state, creating space for the privatization of education. The erosion of the anticolonial development ideology helped pave the way for neoliberalism to take root.

The Conclusion first reiterates the three main arguments of the book. It then surveys changes and continuities in global education and development policies since the 1960s, while also touching on the present state of public education in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. It closes by reflecting on education’s double-edged nature as it relates to the problem of freedom: Does education emancipate, or oppress?

International economic law is a field of public international law that regulates cross-border transactions in goods, services, and capital, as well as monetary relations between states. This chapter focuses on the branches of international economic law that govern international trade, international investment, and international monetary law. This chapter sets out the historical background, fundamental rules, and dispute settlement systems in the areas of international trade law and international investment law, and it concludes by introducing international monetary law. International trade and international investment law share some fundamental principles, such as non-discrimination, although most favoured nation treatment and national treatment take somewhat different forms in the two bodies of law. This chapter covers the Bretton Woods institutions, namely the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as well as the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Chapter 5 focuses on Ghana, one of Africa’s most institutionalized democracies, and contrasts its relatively balanced allocation of development finance with the regional favoritism observed in Zambia. Ghana’s stable two-party system – dominated by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) – is characterized by cross-ethnic coalitions. While the NDC has traditionally drawn support from the Volta region and the Muslim North, and the NPP from the Akan-dominated Ashanti region, ethnic fragmentation has encouraged both parties to target swing regions through strategic resource allocation. Ghana’s political landscape is shaped by a commitment to ethno-regional balance in leadership and efforts to institutionalize regional equity, which curtail ethnic favoritism. Decentralization and broad-based representation further incentivize parties to compete in swing constituencies. Despite ongoing challenges such as rent-seeking and rising debt, Ghana’s independent institutions and vibrant civil society help constrain ethnic favoritism – offering a stark contrast to Zambia’s declining accountability during its democratic transition.

Chapter 4 explores Zambia’s transition to multiparty democracy and the consequent rise in political competition and regional favoritism, revealing a trend of diminishing accountability. Initially, under the United National Independence Party’s one-party rule led by Kaunda, favoritism was constrained by balanced leadership. However, the emergence of ethnic-based opposition post-1991 heightened pressures for patronage, leading to increased favoritism under subsequent regimes. Regional favoritism escalated under President Banda and peaked during the populist Patriotic Front (PF) government (2011–2021), which eroded checks and balances, appointed an ethnically imbalanced cabinet favoring Bembas and Nyanjas, and concentrated borrowed funds in strongholds. Legislative and judiciary institutions were also weakened, along with civil society organizations. Traditional financiers provided some constraints through conditionalities, while Chinese lenders aligned with elite interests, exacerbating the situation. Zambia demonstrates a case of democratization exacerbating ethnic patronage without sufficient accountability mechanisms.

This chapter lays the foundation for a theory that integrates external accountability (pressures from financiers and transparency regimes) and internal accountability (electoral competition and coalition maintenance) to explain the distributive politics of development finance. It also provides an overview of the data sources and mixed-methods research design employed in this book outlines the book’s core contribution, and offers a concise preview of the subsequent chapters to guide readers through the unfolding narrative.

This chapter analyzes the subnational allocation of development finance across forty-eight African countries from 2000 to 2021, drawing on cross-country data from Chinese, World Bank, and OECD-funded projects. It distinguishes between infrastructure-intensive and social sectors and tests how district-level political and ethnic characteristics shape allocation patterns. It also assesses whether these relationships vary by flow type-official development assistance (ODA) versus other official flows (OOF). In particular, it examines region’s electoral strategic value (stronghold, swing, or opposition), incumbent vote share, and ties to the leader’s ethnicity or birthplace. Comparing more accountable traditional financiers (World Bank and OECD donors) with less accountable Chinese financiers, the analysis finds that swing regions and coethnic or copartisan strongholds receive significantly more development finance – especially in hybrid regimes and liberal democracies – than opposition regions. Moreover, the disparity in allocation between coethnic and non-coethnic regions is largest in politically competitive environments.

Exploring the economic ramifications of climate change, this chapter features insights from financial experts such as Sara Jane Ahmed, Managing Director and V20 Finance Advisor of the CVF-V20 Secretariat. It discusses the adverse effects on GDP growth, inflation, debt, and credit ratings, particularly in vulnerable economies. The chapter highlights the crucial role of financial markets, insurance, and climate finance in addressing these challenges. Innovative financing solutions such as Green Bonds and pre-arranged and trigger-based financing, including loss and damage finance, are explored as means to build economic resilience. The importance of sustainable economic policies and international cooperation is emphasised, with case studies from countries successfully integrating climate resilience into their economic planning. The chapter calls for increased investment in climate adaptation and mitigation to safeguard economic stability and promote sustainable development.

When Roberto Dañino, former World Bank General Counsel, arrived in the institution, he found a department perceived to be at the verge of ‘marginalization’ – a dire state he diagnosed and soon attributed to the rigid ‘culture’ of legal practice. In tracing Dañino’s efforts to ‘make the department relevant again’, we get a glimpse of the situated, material, embodied institutional life of international law: the changes Dañino instilled were not manifested in formal legal sources but in the introduction of new cultural codes, professional prototypes (the ‘how to’ lawyer) and technical routines of risk management. In the domain of international institutional law – often oriented towards abstraction, comparison, or aspiration – such prosaic legal practices tend to be underplayed. This chapter signals two productive entry points for a turn to practice: (i) a focus on the shared and contingent criteria of competence – the ‘social grammar’ – that mark professional postures and performances, and (ii) a heightened attention for the practices of relationality, translation, and materiality through which law is composed – the string of ‘people and things’ that it assembles. This methodological orientation to professional scripts and material routines also offers a perspective on ‘critique’ that differs from familiar structuralist modes of analysis and intervention.

The fiscal burden of government interventions in the rural economy had created growth but led the economy to the brink of crisis. When India implemented full-blown economic reforms in 1991, many assumed these would sideline social policy. This chapter shows that liberalisation pushed social policy up the political agenda. Efforts to enable an ‘exit policy’ for ailing firms by loosening restrictions on retrenchment under chapter VB of the Industrial Disputes Act failed due to opposition from organised labour. The controversy created an opening to strengthen - or at least maintain - existing ‘social safety nets’ to support the project of economic transformation. The Government of India used a World Bank loan initially intended to support the ‘exit policy’ to maintain the rural social policies that had been introduced or expanded in the 1980s, as part of what Finance Minister Manmohan Singh described as macroeconomic adjustment with a ‘human face’. The chapter shows that political regionalisation and the intensification of multi-level electoral competition in the 1990s encouraged subnational social policy innovation and worked against the retrenchment of existing social policies.