Administrative Decentralization Strategies

March, 2000 AFRICA N John Cohen was a product of the democratic frontier ethos of the American West. A rigorous stickler for accuracy of detail and fidelity to the facts, he was at the same time an unwavering optimist. His writing and teaching was infused with a moral vision––that ordinary men and women are endowed with the innate capacity to solve their common problems, to learn from mistakes and setbacks, and to associate together in pursuit of their mutual interests. gions, and ethnic origins. Because he found the practice of law unsuited to his moral vision, he abandoned it in favor of political science and social action. In one of the early Peace Corps classes, he promoted political and administrative reforms in the Government of Ethiopia. There he encountered the Chilalo project, which fortified his commitment to participatory development and his life-long interest in African societies and their governance. For two decades at the Harvard Institute for International Development, TRIBUTES