Lant Pritchett’s article offers us some food for thought from the design and innovation perspective:
This insight about creating conditions in which local governments were allowed to pursue “directed improvisation” and not strictly limited to what was forbidden and what was mandated reminded me of the old saw about different types of approaches. In some countries “everything which is not expressly forbidden is allowed”, in others “everything which is not expressly allowed is forbidden”, some in which “everything is forbidden, even that which is expressly allowed” and those in which “everything is allowed, even that which is expressly forbidden.”
The challenge of building prosperous economies and capable states is creating the conditions in which there is possibility of innovation and improvisation, while not pushing systems into chaos.
