Analysing institutional partnerships in development: a contract between equals or a loaded process?

Stephen Morse and Nora McNamara
Additional contact information
Stephen Morse: Department of Geography, Whiteknights, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6AB, UK
Nora McNamara: West Park, Artane, Dublin

Progress in Development Studies, 2006, vol. 6, issue 4, 321-336

Abstract: Partnerships are complex, diverse and subtle relationships, the nature of which changes with time, but they are vital for the functioning of the development chain. This paper reviews the meaning of partnership between development institutions as well as some of the main approaches taken to analyse the relationships. The latter typically revolve around analyses based on power, discourse, interdependence and functionality. The paper makes the case for taking a multianalytical approach to understanding partnership but points out three problem areas: identifying acceptable/unacceptable trade-offs between characteristics of partnership, the analysis of multicomponent partnerships (where one partner has a number of other partners) and the analysis of long-term partnership. The latter is especially problematic for long-term partnerships between donors and field agencies that share an underlying commitment based on religious beliefs. These problems with current methods of analysing partnership are highlighted by focusing upon the Catholic Church-based development chain, linking donors in the North (Europe) and their field partners in the South (Abuja Ecclesiastical Province, Nigeria). It explores a narrated history of a relationship with a single donor spanning 35 years from the perspective of one partner (the field agency).

Keywords: analytical frameworks; Catholic Church; Europe, Nigeria; partnership (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1191/1464993406ps146oa (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:prodev:v:6:y:2006:i:4:p:321-336

DOI: 10.1191/1464993406ps146oa

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Progress in Development Studies
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().