Abstract
The main conclusions and limitations of Escaping the Governance Trap are presented. Key limitations include this book’s methodology, case selection, focus on economic rather than political reforms, its reticence on the sources of good institutions, and its emphasis on the United States. Several potential futures are then presented, including baseline, downside, and upside scenarios. Trajectories will depend on the balance of power between the Northern Triangle’s autonomous states and non-state groups such as transnational criminal organizations, the degree of international support, global economic conditions, and geopolitics. While this list of variables is not exhaustive, it does yield several potential narratives for how the future could unfold for the region and the implications therein. The book closes with a call to action, noting how helping Northern Triangle countries escape their governance traps is critical to regional security and prosperity.
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Notes
- 1.
Chapter two provides specific examples.
- 2.
For example, see (Gedan, 2016) on how Panama’s authorities successfully managed the Panama Canal after handover from the United States. Gedan finds that success is explained by “the determined effort to build a national consensus about the canal’s structure and future management,” as well as the Panama Canal Authority’s legal autonomy. Thus, the political and institutional context of infrastructure management mattered, much as this book has argued. See also (Ferreira, 2009) on Costa Rica’s structural reforms.
- 3.
As argued by Alina Iancu et al., such a scenario planning approach “are not forecasts or predictions;” rather, they are “narratives that illustrate how an unpredictable future might play out… [to] help generate perspectives sufficiently different from those currently held.” See (Iancu et al., 2020, p. 25).
- 4.
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Shenai, N. (2022). Conclusions and Potential Futures. In: Escaping the Governance Trap. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99023-7_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99023-7_4
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