Democracy and Development: Theory and Practice

Is democracy a necessary condition for economic development or is it an outcome of it? This is the central question addressed in the chapters specially commissioned for this book.

Current Western orthodoxy holds that third-world countries must democratize if they are to develop, and aid has become increasingly conditional on such political reforms. But can democracy survive in the conditions which are found in many developing countries or will it only engender turbulence and instability? The book deals with these questions at the theoretical and empirical levels, focusing first on the theory and then on case studies of the relationship between democracy and development in Botswana, India, South Korea, Chile, South Africa, China and the islands of the South Pacific.

Contributors include Geoffrey Hawthorn, John Holm, Sudipta Kaviraj, Yong Cheol Kim, Jan-Erik Lane, Peter Larmour, Tom Lodge, Chung-in Moon, Jenny Pearce, Peter Rutland, Richard Sklar, and Gordon White. Overall, these authors call into question the current orthodoxy about the relationship of democracy and development. In so doing, they have written a text which will be of wide interest to students in development studies, international relations and political theory, as well as to all those engaged in international organizations grappling with the nature and policies of development itself.