Bridging political economy analysis and critical institutionalism: an approach to help analyse institutional change for rural water services

This paper argues that approaches to understanding local institutionsfor natural resource management based on “critical institutionalism” (Cleaver2012), which emphasises the importance of improvisation and adaptationacross different scales, can be placed within broader political economy analysisframeworks for assessing challenges in public services delivery from national tolocal levels. The paper uses such an extended political economy analysis approachto understand the role of the international NGO WaterAid and its partners in Mali inrelation to institutions for financing rural water services, drawing on collaborativeresearch undertaken in 2010 and 2011. The case study shows that WaterAid’sapproach can be understood through elements of both mainstream and criticalinstitutionalist thinking. At local government level, WaterAid primarily promotesformal institutional arrangements, which exhibit the challenge of “reforms assignals” (Andrews 2013), where institutional reforms appear to happen but lackthe intended function. However, the work of WaterAid’s partners at communitylevel supports processes of “institutional bricolage” through which they try togradually work with local actors to find ways of ‘best fit’ for financing rural waterservices which adapt existing local practices into new arrangements