In this paper we survey the new learning in comparative political economy and suggest how this learning should redirect our attention in economic development.

Self-enforcing arrangements are crucial to the study of African political economy. The weakness of formal governance in much of Africa makes understanding informal institutions of cooperation particularly important. I consider the application of self-enforcing arrangements, like those described by the Ostroms, to the problems of violence and social heterogeneity that plague Africa.

Robust political economy requires that both the assumptions of agent benevolence and omniscience be relaxed so that both incentive issues and knowledge problems can be adequately addressed.

The Austrian school of economics and the Virginia school of political economy have a long history of interdependence -- methodological, analytically, and ideologically. While Austrians typically…