ABSTRACT
The contemporary phrase 'pockets of effectiveness' is very much of its own early twenty-first century period, and as such its evolution is worth reflecting on. Notions of effectiveness, and its closely related cousins, efficiency and productivity, are key components in a cluster of attributes that at their core comprise the institutions of markets, legal orders and bureaucratic organizations. Effectiveness' does not by definition require an impersonal order, and historically effectiveness was not particularly tied to impersonal orders. The leadership at the top of the organization was collective but also small, initially with only three Chinese and two Americans as commissioners. The curious cases of the Sino-Foreign Salt Inspectorate and the Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction (JCRR) offer examples of how surrounding political environments can be benign, hostile, and radically change from one to the other; and as such suggest parameters for the consolidation and extension of high performing state organizations elsewhere in the developing world.
