The Quest for Operational Priorities: Areas in Need of Strategic Development Intervention

Abstract

AbstractThis article seeks to define a certain set of priority areas in need of strategic development-oriented intervention in contexts that are linked to failed, failing, and week states, including post-conflict societies. The need for prioritization is dictated, among others, by the scarcity of resources and an overall unenthusiastic climate for international aid and other development efforts. The very choice of the areas can in itself be conceived as a prioritization. These four priority areas, operationalized in the article, form the core of the argument, namely (1) effective institutions; (2) enforceable universalistic human rights /rule of law; (3) economic development; and (4) effectuation of supranational efforts and policies in line with contextual domestic circumstances.