Maybe organizations could avoid problem 3 by setting up a system to get public input on their projects so they can avoid doing projects that locals donât want? But expand this out, and at that point youâre basically running (part of) a governmentâafter all, aggregating peopleâs preferences into decisions is essentially what governments do. (After all, âlocalsâ arenât a homogeneous group with uniform preferences.) And then you definitely run into all the usual problems with preference aggregation, and you certainly are trying to replace (part of) the local governmentâs role.
âPreference aggregationâ is also what civil society (e.g. associations, free newspapers, labor unions, environmental groups) does. Unless Acemoglu has abandoned social liberalism while I havenât looked, I am fairly confident he wouldnât consider all civil society to be âtrying to replace (part of) the local governmentâs roleâ. So funding civil society is potentially another broad class of interventions that would fit all those desiderata (like @huwâs, it falls under the broader category of âbuilding local capacityâ).
âPreference aggregationâ is also what civil society (e.g. associations, free newspapers, labor unions, environmental groups) does. Unless Acemoglu has abandoned social liberalism while I havenât looked, I am fairly confident he wouldnât consider all civil society to be âtrying to replace (part of) the local governmentâs roleâ. So funding civil society is potentially another broad class of interventions that would fit all those desiderata (like @huwâs, it falls under the broader category of âbuilding local capacityâ).