Why does the World Cup work?

Next month footballers from 32 countries converge on South Africa for  the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Participants from Algeria to the USA, from Korea DPR to New Zealand, divided by language, religion, culture and politics, some rich, some poor – so how can it all possibly work?

The answer to this apparent organisational miracle is that the rules of the game are clearly understood and agreed by all. But where do the rules come from, why are they important, and why am I talking about football on a development blog? The answer to all of these questions lies in institutions. Institutions shape human behaviour in all spheres of life: they can be formal (e.g laws, constitutions) or informal (customs, traditions) and are best understood as the “rules of the game”. A good way of thinking about the difference between institutions and organisations is to think of the former as the rules and the latter (teams) as the players.

Players operate within the rules or – as stakeholders with different interests and preferences – may seek to change or shape the rules of the game. When rules are transgressed, outrage ensues – in football and in society. Republic of Ireland defender Sean St Ledger, commenting on the Thierry Henry handball which Ireland felt had robbed them of a World Cup place, said: “If they’ve [FIFA] got the power to change that rule I don’t understand why they haven’t got the power to change the rule here. So, confusing but not surprising.”

Leaving aside the question of whether a single organisation can change an institution, let’s look at the “rules of the game”. Rules, particularly informal rules, are more pervasive than we might realise. In the UK you probably wouldn’t wear white to a funeral – but there are other cultures where white is the norm. The link to sport is also pervasive – in Michael Cockerell’s recent BBC programme on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, an interviewee stressed how much the language of diplomacy borrowed from cricket (“playing a long game” etc) and it’s still common to be given a deadline of “close of play”.

Stable politics requires agreement about the rules. Rules must have legitimacy and be applied fairly. Losers must accept the decision (sorry, Ireland team) but must also have the chance to try again later. Institutions are sets of rules, and they stay when players go – so there also need to be rules about how to change the rules.

Wherever you look – in sport, social life, economy, politics – we are part of a web of rules – institutions – which form the “scaffolding” of society. Of course, institutions can be bad as well as good. Gender discrimination is institutionalised in many parts of the world – certainly not a “good” institution for the women bound by those rules. And the question of what makes a “good” institution is of central concern for those of us interested in the “scaffolding” required to support pro-poor growth.

Improving Institutions for Pro-Poor Growth (IPPG) concerns itself with exactly these questions. For example, our research into Malawi’s Community Based Rural Land Distribution Project showed that a World Bank-sponsored programme, established with the best of intentions to support the landless poor, failed to take key local and informal political institutions into account. The findings here and in other IPPG research shows that failure to explore and understand the full and detailed context of political institutions and processes in which economic activity occurs can seriously compromise well-intentioned programmes.

Let us return to the World Cup host nation. We have recently been investigating South African state-business relations and the lack of pro-poor growth both before and after South Africa’s remarkable transition. A major product of the transitional period, the National Economic, Development and Labour Council (Nedlac), failed to live up to its promise as an institutional forum for forging consensual social and economic policies. State-business relations remain fragile and highly fragmented; the emergence of a class of politically well-connected black corporate elites suggest, say the authors, the growth of “crony capitalism with a peculiarly South African twist”; and prospects for pro-poor growth are not looking promising.

One of the pleasures of the World Cup is that some of the world’s least developed countries have the opportunity to shine alongside some of the wealthiest nations on earth because, barring the odd handball, everyone abides by the same rules. But once everyone goes home in July and the international Development community begins to gear up for the 2010 Millennium Development Goals Review Summit in September, perhaps we might turn our attention to ensuring a level playing field for poorer nations – off the pitch as well as on it?  That will mean establishing global institutional arrangements (rules) as well as institutions within countries. And – as has been demonstrated for many years now by the problem of getting agreed rules for combating climate change – this is always going to be a political process, not a technical ‘fix’.

Dr Adrian Leftwich

Co-Director, IPPG

www.ippg.org.uk