marginalization (the deprivation of social and economic rights) typically is paired with, and largely to be explained by, political disempowerment (in violation of civil and political rights, in particular the right to take part in the conduct of public affairs). This leads to a vicious cycle in which because the poor are unable to influence political processes, the policies shall serve the elites rather than respond to their needs.236 Strengthening the participation of the poor in shaping policies can help to break this cycle, leading in turn to the adoption of policies that will be more attentive to their needs.237 Secondly, improving participation in budgetary decision-making will strengthen the negotiating position of departments dealing with health, education or social welfare, whose demands frequently compete with those from departments concerned with law and order -- the Interior, National Defence or Justice --. The bargaining position of advocates of social investment within governments is especially weak in countries in which controlling the population and law enforcement are seen are major challenges on which the very stability of the government may depend : if civil society are involved in defining the budgetary priorities, it is likely that they will support the "human development" sectors within the State. The competition however is not only between the 'left hand' of the State and its 'right hand', to borrow from Pierre Bourdieu's distinction238 ; it also is between macroeconomic policies that keep the public debt under control and thus reassure the external creditors of the State, and the needs of the population. Here too, the role of participation may be key, this time to strengthen the bargaining position of the government in its negotiation with its creditors and with international financial institutions in particular. While this makes it more difficult for the government to find an agreement with creditors in situations where it needs financial support, the creditors may take solace in the fact that transparency and accountability may improve the efficiency of public policies, and maximize the effectiveness of public investment in reducing poverty and placing the country on the track of sustainable human development.239 Thirdly, the focus on norms of participation, accountability and transparency in budgetary decisionmaking helps to move beyond the apparent tension between national democratic self-determination and supervision by courts or by international human rights bodies. Such a tension occurs obviously where courts or expert bodies question the budgetary priorities set by national governments, on the basis of a reading of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights that remains so vague about the implications of the requirement that States parties should dedicate the "maximum 236 See Report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, to the 29th session of the Human Rights Council (A/HRC/29/31) (26 May 2015), para. 21 (citing Combating Poverty and Inequality: Structural Change, Social Policy and Politics (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.10.III.Y.1), p. 6) ("Economic inequalities seem to encourage political capture and the unequal realization of civil and political rights. High levels of economic inequalities 'may create institutions that maintain the political, economic and social privileges of the elite and lock the poor into poverty traps from which it is difficult to escape'"). For instance, the governing elites may veto tax reforms that would lead to a more progressive system of taxation, and they may undermine efforts at combating the practices of tax evasion that they, more than the average citizen, may be able to rely on : see Ana Corbacho, Vicente Frebes Cibils and Eduardo Lora (eds), More than Revenue: Taxation as a development tool (Inter-American Development Bank and Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), at 3 ("One of the rent-seeking mechanisms that the most affluent have imposed on the rest of society is the regressive design of the tax structure. Opportunities to evade taxes that vary greatly across income groups compound this perverse structure, shrinking the effective tax bases and resulting in low levels of revenue"). 237 See, e.g., World Health Organization, World Health Report 2010: Health Systems Financing: the path to universal coverage, cited above (note XXX), at 25 ("Dealing with universal health coverage also means dealing with the poor and the marginalized, people who are often politically disenfranchised and lack representation. This is why making health a key political issue is so important and why civil society, joined by eminent champions of universal coverage, can help persuade politicians to move health financing for universal coverage to the top of the political agenda"). For a powerful empirical study relating the diffusion of power in society (i.e., its degree of democratization) to the adoption of pro-poor policies, see Mwangi S. Kimenyi, "Economic Rights, Human Development Effort, and Institutions", in Hertel and Minkler (eds), Economic Rights. Conceptual, Measurement, and Policy Issues, cited above note 46, 182-213, as well as the previous effort of this scholar finding a statistical correlation between indicators of power diffusion and progress along the Human Development Index : Mwangi S. Kimenyi, Institutions of Governance, Power Diffusion and Pro-Poor Growth and Policies (African Economic Research Consortium, 2005). 238 Pierre Bourdieu, Sur l'Etat. Cours au Collège de France 1989-1992 (Paris : Seuil, 2012), at 582. 239 World Health Organization, World Health Report 2010: Health Systems Financing: the path to universal coverage (Geneva: World Health Organization, 2010), at 25 ("Improving efficiency and accountability may also convince ministries of finance, and increasingly donors, that more funding will be well used"). 51