Rethinking state capacity in a post-aid world

• In Event: Reimagining the middle tier part I: Activating potential for implementing and scaling education innovations - Investigating roles and structures

Proposal

In a shifting global context, characterized by democratic backsliding and a collapse of previous forms of international cooperation, how should we reconceptualize the relationship between education systems and state capacity in low- and lower-middle-income country contexts? This presentation reviews different conceptualizations and theoretical approaches to state capacity, to identify problematic ways that international actors have defined and promoted state capacity in education over the past 20 years. Building on a rapid study of leadership and management capacity in three countries in Sub-Saharan Africa completed in 2024 for a global education organization, the paper and presentation closes by asking: what are the prospects for new approaches to state capacity and new kinds of transnational cooperation?

Author

• Karen Mundy, University of Toronto