The Indirect Approach

Ellerman, David

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ACHIEVEMENT;    ACTIVE LEARNING;    ADAPTATION;    AIR;    ATTENTION;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-2417
RP-ID  :  WPS2417

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Aid and conditionalities are the"carrots and sticks" of the conventional, directapproach to fostering economic development. The economictheory of agency is the most sophisticated treatment of thedirect carrots-and-sticks approach to influencing humanbehavior. Considering the outcomes of the conventionalapproach, it might be worthwhile to explore alternativeindirect approaches that focus on enabling clients to actmore autonomously, rather than try for fuller control ofclients' actions (or "agents" behaviors) withimproved carrots and sticks. Are there inherent limitationsin the direct approach that will not be addressed withbetter crafted "agency contracts" or closermonitoring of the agents? The author traces the intellectualhistory of indirect approaches from Socrates to modernthinkers, such as Wittgenstein, Gandhi, and McGregor. Onetheme of his survey is that constructivist andactive-learning pedagogies constitute an indirect approachin which the teacher does not directly transmit knowledge tothe learner, through training, and instruction. Thesepedagogies - translated into social and economic developmentas learning writ large - from the basis for an alternativeindirect approach to fostering development. Actions havemotives, just as beliefs have grounds, concludes the author.In the wide spectrum of human endeavor, there is only afairly small "bandwidth" in which motives can besupplied by the carrots, and sticks of the direct approach(including agency theory, and market-driven activities asspecial cases of the direct approach to affecting behavior).Outside that spectrum, trying to use direct methods in acontrolling manner, contradicts the motives for actions (andthe grounds for beliefs) - like trying to "buylove." For higher activities, motives must come fromwithin. Helpers can at best use an indirect approach tobring doers to the threshold; the doers have to do the rest,which makes the results their own.