regarding the topic: Mega project in ethiopia- the dam
B. Your first main section should describe in necessary detail what the event is about.
• What is the event and what are the details of the problem being addressed?
• Who are the people involved in making decisions?
• What is the decision-making process(es)?
• What is the context of the organization, group, individual, etc. around the event and the decisions being made?
C. Your second main section should provide a critical analysis of the event’s failure, which must include the following:
• What made the decision or policy fail and why? Put otherwise, in retrospect, what went wrong with the planning and decision process?
• What were its unintended consequences and why?
step 3:
D. Your third main section must discuss how the failure or unintended consequences might have been prevented, which must include some consideration of the following:
• How might the actors involved prevented or anticipated the failure or unintended consequence?
• What social, political, or economic structures might need to be changed to enable the event to be successful?
E. Wrap up your paper with a brief conclusion that summarises your key points.
STEP 3 IS ESSENTIAL AS WELL AS You must use at least 6 academic references. Your grade will be based on both your research and analysis of the case.
Only use if relevant – readings:
Possible Readings and Useful Concepts on the concept of ‘Unintended Consequences”:
See the related concept of the ‘Hiding Hand’ in the Albert O. Hirschman book, Development Projects Observed.
Some Hayekian (liberal political economy related to neoclassical economics) interpretations of unintended consequences are discussed in Solomon, M.S. 2010.Critical Ideas in Times of Crisis: Reconsidering Smith, Marx, Keynes, and Hayek. Globalizations 7, no.1-2: 127–35.
A Marxian understanding, as per Friedrich Engels (1959, 230):
The ends of actions are intended, but the result which actually follow from these actions are not intended, or when they do seem to correspond to the end intended, they ultimately have consequences quite other than those intended. Historical events thus appear to be governed by chance. But where on the surface accident appears to hold sway, policy, economics, law and consequences are actually governed by inner, hidden laws, and it is only a matter of discovering these laws.
See Engels, F. 1888. Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of classical German philosophy. In Marx and Engels: Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy. Ed. L. S. Feuer. 1959 ed. New York: Anchor Books. (can likely be found on the internet)
A more institutional approach to unintended consequences: Ho, P. 2013. In defense of endogenous, spontaneously ordered development: institutional functionalism and Chinese property rights. Journal of Peasant Studies 40, no. 6: 1087-118.