Implementing Inequality

The Invisible Labor of International Development

By Rebecca Warne Peters

Rutgers University Press

Implementing Inequality argues that the international development industry’s internal dynamics—between international and national staff, and among policy makers, administrators, and implementers—shape interventions and their outcomes as much as do the external dynamics of global political economy. Through an ethnographic study in postwar Angola, the book demonstrates how the industry’s internal social pressures guide development’s methods and goals, introducing the innovative concept of the development implementariat: those in-country workers, largely but not exclusively “local” staff members, charged with carrying out development’s policy prescriptions. The implementariat is central to the development endeavor but remains overlooked and under-supported as most of its work is deeply social, interactive, and relational, the kind of work that receives less recognition and support than it deserves at every echelon of the industry. If international development is to meet its larger purpose, it must first address its internal inequalities of work and professional class.

This is a timely and well-judged analysis of the ‘internal inequalities’ that exist at the heart of the project of international development. In a thoughtful and highly readable account of a governance program in Angola, Rebecca Warne Peters combines original theoretical insight with careful empirical analysis. David Lewis, author of Non-Governmental Organizations, Management and Development

Implementing Inequality is a rare book that comes alive in the best tradition of ethnographic description while building solid theory. Peters' rich account humanizes people in the 'implementariat' and their daily challenges, struggles, and decisions. Ultimately hopeful, Implementing Inequality reminds us that frontline workers are already policymakers whose experience can guide a still-possible transformative development. Mark Schuller, author of Humanitarian Aftershocks in Haiti

Applying currently fashionable concepts with a modicum of theoretical baggage, Peters examines, in anthropological detail, international development, ‘the purposeful pursuit of social change,’ as it is carried out by the implementariate who seek to fulfill the wishes of policy makers, consultants, and donors. Well written and well organized, this is an important contribution to the literature on the intersection of international development and anthropology. Highly recommended.' Choice

Implementing Inequality is a useful read for both students and development professionals. It could serve as a trigger for self-reflection and urges better practices and greater understanding within the sector. LSE US Centre American Politics and Policy blog

Lower wages for local employees, sexism and racism in their own ranks: development organizations are not free from power relations that they actually want to abolish. Experts and employees repeatedly criticize the inequality within aid organizations. With her large-scale field study on a democratization project in Angola, anthropologist Rebecca Warne Peters makes a contribution to the debate. Above all, she reveals the balance of power between project staff and administrative employees. welt-sichten

Rebecca Warne Peters is an assistant professor of anthropology at the State University of New York, Oswego.

Glossary of Terms and Acronyms
Introduction
Inside the Encounter: The Implementariat
            Implementation as Internal and External “Social Work”
Good Governance as “Development” in Angola
Research Methods and Chapter Sketches
Chapter 1: Development Hierarchies
            The Development Industry and Development Ideology
Professional Inequalities
            Principal-Agent Thinking and Development’s Common Sense
            “Shadow Work” in Development
Development Work and “Making Policy”
Chapter 2: Development’s Inputs and Outputs
            “Technically Skilled GGAP Staff…”
“… and Sufficient Support”
            Inputs and Outputs
            Invisible Development Work, Invisible Development Workers
Chapter 3: Reinforcing Hierarchies: Monitoring and Evaluation
            Monitoring and Evaluation
            Instruments and Tools
“Quality” Data
The “Lopsided Structures” of International Development
Chapter 4: Designing Interventions for Peers, Not Beneficiaries
            Development’s Peerage
            Interventions Designed for Peers, not Places
            Sites Known and Unknown: Seeing Like a Donor
            Reputations at Risk
Absence and Inequality in Development Intervention
Chapter 5: Partnership and the Development Praxiscape
            Founding Partnerships
            The Development “We”
            “Battling” Toward Governance
            Partners or Proprietors?
            Partnership as Development Praxis
Conclusion: Development Without Borders
            Shadow Work out of the Shadows
            Expanding Principal-Agent Thinking
Tomorrow’s Development
Acknowledgments
Appendix: GGAP Logical Framework
Notes
Bibliography
Index

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