Most editorial cartoons make a forceful point in a playful manner. I think the artful combination of wit and cheeky criticism explains their popular appeal and potential effectiveness, but also hints at a possible limitation. Historical studies of political cartoons (see Backer, 1996 and Neiman Reports, 2004) describe the ways in which Martin Luther in the 16th century, Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century, and people like Thomas Nast and Herb Block in the 19th and 20th centuries, respectively, satirized the political economies of their day through illustration.
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 A couple of weeks ago, I attended a viewing and panel discussion of a documentary film entitled Magic Radio: The FM Revolution in Niger at the World Bank headquarters in Washington, D.C. Mainly about the contribution of private FM radio toward enhancing grassroots democracy, the film also illustrates radio’s efficacy in publicly promoting development issues, particularly in the areas of health, education, and gender. The subsequent panel featured Mark Nelson, Tia Duer, and Ajay Tejasvi of The World Bank Institute (WBI), who expanded the scope of discussion to include the following points: the importance of carrying out tec
In development practice today, when you ask ‘How do you improve governance systems in developing countries in order to improve the lives of the poor?’ the so-called hard skills dominate the discourse. But what are these so-called hard skills? At their most mind-numbing these are number-crunching skills derived from a variety of quantitative social science disciplines. Beyond that these are skills in technical analysis and solution-finding. So, if you want to curb corruption in Country XYZ you find the technical experts on building world class procurement and other systems send in accountants and the like and so on. You design systems, set up an Anti-Corruption Commission. You deploy your notion of ‘best practice’ in the relevant technical field. All this is well and good but will that blow a corrupt public political culture away and with it the broader tolerance of corruption by the population at large? |
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For those of us who grew up in developing countries, political discourse about poverty is an everyday thing. Political campaigns in the Philippines, for example, place poverty upfront and center. Candidates for local posts, such as barangay (village) councilor, all the way up to the highest office in the archipelago invariably campaign on poverty issues. For instance, memorable slogans from relatively recent elections include "para sa mahirap" ("for the poor") and "pagkain sa bawat mesa" ("food on every table"). Not at all surprising in developing country contexts where poverty and inequality are so ubiquitous.
Tom Jacobson, Professor and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the School of Communications and Theater, Temple University. 
Caroline Jaine, 
Taeku Lee, Associate Professor of Political Science and Visiting Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley. 
