Book Description
Why have some developing countries industrialized and become more prosperous rapidly while others have not? Focusing on South Korea, Brazil, India, and Nigeria, this study compares the characteristics of fairly functioning states and explains why states in some parts of the developing world are more effective. It emphasizes the role of colonialism in leaving behind more or less effective states, and the relationship of these states with business and labor in helping explain comparative success in promoting economic progress.
Customer Reviews:
Provocative, but no new topic.......2006-12-08
[CONTENT]
In his book State-Directed Development, Atul Kohli, Professor at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, asks the long-discussed and controversial question why some countries have succeeded in creating wealth and raising the standards of living of their citizens while other countries have failed despite extensive efforts.
To approach the question, Kohli presents four country cases in a comparative study - Korea, India, Brazil and Nigeria - providing extensive information on each country's colonial history, its class structures as well as the political and economic decisions that took place since their independence.
Kohli divides the wide array of developing countries into three ideal-type categories of states: cohesive-capitalist states, fragmented-multiclass states, and neopatrimonial states. He points out that none of the four samples in the study ever reflected any of those ideal-type categories (though some have come close to one or another), and, in addition, that states tended at different times with varying governments and regimes to different categories.
Cohesive-capitalist states represent, according to Kohli, nations with a strong, centralized government and are organized along a professional and meritocratic bureaucracy. The state in this example is insulated from any elite or popular interests, utilizes nationalism to mobilize support and to overcome fragmentation within the population, cooperates closely with businesses and investors, and intervenes heavily in the economy to enforce a rapid industrialization process. The nations that came closest to this description in Kohli's sample of case studies are Korea under Park Chung Hee and Brazil during the Vargas regime. On the other extreme of the scale, Kohli identifies neopatrimonial states, which are depicted as structurally weak states, taken hostage by a small cliqué of corrupt leaders whose only interest is personal aggrandizement. In a neepatrimonial state, corruption and rent-seeking is endemic, and leaders have no commitment to any public greater good. The nation that comes closest to this description among Kohli's sample is Nigeria for most of its post-colonial history. Finally, Kohli describes the fragmented-multiclass state, a state in which the population is fragmented along ethnic, tribal, class, religious or regional lines, but which is nonetheless ruled by a democratic regime. To maintain the ability for political action, the leaders of the latter state frequently furnish conflicting promises to different interest groups, while falling short on delivering them accordingly. Kohli sees the latter category relected in post-independence India.
While neopatrimonial states are likely to fail in creating growth and development for understandable reasons in an environment of endemic corruption and rent-seeking, Kohli argues that "[c]ohesive-capitalist states have proved to be the most effective agents of rapid industrialization in the global periphery" (p381). This is due to their ability to define and to enforce narrow economic goals, as well as to align all domestic resources and rally all classes - workers as well as capital-endowed elites - along a common economic agenda. The economic performance of fragmented-multiclass states, Kohli argues, end up somewhere between cohesive-capitalist and neopatrimonial states, with middling economic results due to recurrent swings in their political focus to accommodate changing pressures of conflicting interest groups.
Up to here, Kohli's concept of state categories does not exceedingly differ from Peter Evans's theory of developmental states which classifies states according to their ability to act as agents of societal transformation and growth. Kohli's neopatrimonial state equals Evans's predatory state, the fragmented-multiclass state is similar to Evans's intermediate state, and the cohesive-capitalist state seems to be comparable to Evans's developmental state. (Evans, "Embedded Autonomy," 1995) Kohli, however, distinguishes his understanding between the concept of the cohesive-capitalist state and Evans's development state as follows: "[P]olitical capacities are rooted not in the levels of information exchanged between state and business [as in Evans's developmental state] but in the amount of power the states command to extract resources, to define priority areas of expenditure, and to instill a sense of discipline and purpose in society." (385) The `discipline' Kohli refers to materializes in the "control of labor, downward penetration of state authority so as to silence opposition and control behavior, and nationalist mobilization so as to put a peacetime economy on a war-time footing." (p389) In describing Brazil's experience, Kohli becomes more explicit in outlining what it takes to be a cohesive-capitalist state: "systematic labor repression which generally kept wage gains well behind productivity gains as workers were mobilized to work hard in the name of the nation."(p392)
With the repressive nature of Kohli's cohesive-capitalist state in mind, the book's principal thesis of a cohesive-capitalist state as a "necessary but not a sufficient condition for rapid industrialization in the developing world" (374) becomes provocative. Do developing countries in fact need authoritarian regimes for late late industrialization? Very troubling, at first sight, some prominent examples of recent history - Brazil, Chile, China, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan among them - seem to offer some evidence for it. Indeed, the question whether rapid industrialization necessitates an authoritarian regime has aroused academics for several decades, and considerable academic work has been done.
Anti-authoritarians have pointed to several arguments. First, undoubtedly, development comprises much more than industrialization. While Kohli's book is titled State-Directed Development, his understanding of development is clearly restricted to the term's narrowest sense, which is industrialization. This is further reflected in the various illustrations of the country studies: while rich historical information is provided to each country, there is little information on the simultaneous repression and gross human rights abuses that took place under Korea's dictator Park Chung Hee, the Japanese colonial occupation of Korea, or the Vargas regime in Brazil. Equally, Kohli conveniently ignores in over 400 dense pages any discussion of the notion of development as anything beyond pure industrialization. (see e.g. Amartya Sen's capability approach in: Sen, "Development as Freedom," 1999)
Second, it is frequently argued that authoritarian regimes offer a better protection of property rights, thereby providing a greater incentive for local and foreign enterprises to invest. Barro ("A cross-country study of growth, saving, and government," NBER Working Paper No. 2855, 1989, p22) rejects this notion, arguing that he could only find three former dictatorships in the entire world (Chile, Singapore, and South Korea) that had not engaged in any expropriation.
Third, Pranab Bardhan, developmental economist at UC Berkely, challenges the assumption that the state is the sole potent actor that can bring about development, and refers to a decentralized, community-based approach to development (Bardhan, "Symposium on the State and Economic Development", Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 1990, Vol. 4, No. 3 pp3-9).
Finally, but most important, advocates of authoritarian regimes have not been able to pinpoint to any motivational causality why a dictatorial regime - once it was in power - would need to show any concern for the greater public good and long-term growth. Instead, in a realist framework, it was more likely that it joined with elite interests to minimize the risk of another coup d'état - the exact opposite of hoped-for state autonomy and insulation.
Bardhan summarizes that "it is not so much authoritarianism per se which makes a difference, but the extent of insulation (or `relative autonomy') that the decision-makers can organize against the ravages of short-run pork-barrel politics. Authoritarianism is neither necessary nor sufficient for this insulation." (ibid.: 5)
To conclude, Kohli's State-Directed Development sheds new light on a question that has long divided social science into different camps. The detailed historic knowledge presented in Kohli's book will certainly make an impact in development economics as well as cultural and colonial studies, and lead to further studies on the elusive origin of growth.
[STYLE]
The book consists of some massive 425 pages. Reading is tiring, since margins are kept very small on all sides of the page. Changing margines, using common font size and the distances between lines would probably result in a total of some 650 pages.
The book's overall structure is simple: an introductory chapter, 4 chapters (each presenting one case study) and a massive conclusion chapter (60 pages). Within the chapters, structure is kept minimal which makes it at times hard to follow. Historical facts are at times repeated over and over again. The conclusion chapter repeats the essence of every case country once again, which made it necessary to interject another 12-page section named "concluding reflections" within the conclusion chapter itself.
For busy readers, I would recommend to read the introductory and jump to the concluding chapter. Both combined are some dense 85 pages (which would be in common book printing standards still around 120 pages). If you would like to look into each country case, watch out for the paragraphs starting with "To sum up, ..."
December 2006
Book Description
How can we help poor people earn more from their knowledge--rather than from their sweat and muscle alone? This book is about increasing the earnings of poor people in poor countries from their innovation, knowledge, and creative skills. Case studies look at the African music industry;
traditional crafts and ways to prevent counterfeit crafts designs; the activities of fair trade organizations; biopiracy and the commercialization of ethnobotanical knowledge; the use of intellectual property laws and other tools to protect traditional knowledge. The contributors motivation is
sometimes to maintain the art and culture of poor people, but they recognize that except in a museum setting, no traditional skill can live on unless it has a viable market. Culture and commerce more often complement than conflict in the cases reviewed here. The book calls attention to the unwritten
half of the World Trade Organizations Agreement on the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS). TRIPS is about knowledge that industrial countries own, and which poor people buy. This book is about knowledge that poor people in poor countries generate and have to sell. It will be of
interest to students and scholars of international trade and law, and to anyone with an interest in ways developing countries can find markets for cultural, intellectual, and traditional knowledge.
Book Description
Rethinking the Economics of War: The Intersection of Need, Creed, and Greed questions the adequacy of explaining today's internal armed conflicts purely in terms of economic factors and reestablishes the importance of identity and grievances in creating and sustaining such wars. This collection of essays responds to current works asserting that the income from natural resources is the end and not just a means for warring rebel groups. The study puts greed in its place and restores the importance of deprivation and discrimination as the primary causes of armed conflict within states. Countries studied include Lebanon, Sierra Leone, Angola, the Republic of the Congo, Colombia, and Afghanistan.
Customer Reviews:
Essential for understanding some of the real origins of war.......2005-12-08
Conflict prevention titles usually focus on ideology and politics, but a more comprehensive overview is taken in Rethinking The Economics Of War: The Intersection Of Need, Creed, And Greed. It crosses disciplines in considering all the different influences on war decisions, it goes beyond economic consideration to discuss cultural identity, grievances, and income gains from war, and it provides scholarly, college-level essays which pinpoint greed and discrimination as primary causes of war within states. Essential for understanding some of the real origins of war.
Product Description
Publication of this book is especially important for my country because our economy depends to a large extent on the remittances of overseas workers. We are particularly interested in the new technologies cited by the authors. These technologies would reduce the cost of remitting money to recipient countries and greatly benefit our workers abroad. Kudos to the World Bank for publishing this comprehensive and useful book. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo President, Republic of the Philippines Readers will find his book an enthralling reminder of the indissoluble financial links that bind migrants to their home countries. These financial links need to be encouraged and sustained by supportive macroeconomic policies. Tito Mboweni Governor, Reserve Bank of South Africa An excellent examination of the global remittances policy agenda, Remittances: Development Impact and Future Prospects is a timely and exciting resource for academics, development institutions, central banks, and all policy makers in developed and developing countries. Hernando de Soto President, Institute for Liberty and Democracy New research shows the astonishing scope of remittances, with formally documented flows now estimated at $90 billion for 2003. Globally, remittances now constitute the largest source of financial flows to developing countries after Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), and indeed in many countries they now exceed FDI flows. Remittances explores policy options for enhancing the poverty alleviation impact of remittance money in recipient countries, and addressees concerns about increasing migration and inequality. It looks at new technologies that allow remittance service providers to reduce direct transaction costs and open new channels, enhancing convenience for remitters and improving levels of transparency and accountability for regulators and policy makers. Importantly, it also establishes a baseline for further research and collaborative effort, showing the areas where the international financial institutions, particularly the World Bank, can add value to enhance the positive impact of remittance flows and minimize less welcome effects. Edited by Samuel Munzele Maimbo, who has already published authoritative articles on this subject, and Dilip Ratha, who first revealed the global significance of remittances, this book is intended for remittance service providers, as well as policy makers and researchers interested in financial sector, migration and development issues.
Download Description
"An excellent examination of the global remittances policy agenda, Remittances: Development Impact and Future Prospects is a timely and exciting resource for academics, development institutions, central banks, and all policy makers in developed and developing countries. Hernando de Soto President, Institute for Liberty and Democracy Re-mit-tance n. 1. The sending of money to someone at a distance. 2. The sum of money sent. New research shows the astonishing scope of remittances, with formally documented flows now estimated at $90 billion for 2003. Globally, remittances now constitute the largest source of financial flows to developing countries after Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), and indeed in many countries they now exceed FDI flows. Remittances explores policy options for enhancing the poverty alleviation impact of remittance money in recipient countries, and addressees concerns about increasing migration and inequality. It looks at new technologies that allow remittance service providers to reduce direct transaction costs and open new channels, enhancing convenience for remitters and improving levels of transparency and accountability for regulators and policy makers. Importantly, it also establishes a baseline for further research and collaborative effort, showing the areas where the international financial institutions, particularly the World Bank, can add value to enhance the positive impact of remittance flows and minimize less welcome effects. Edited by Samuel Munzele Maimbo, who has already published authoritative articles on this subject, and Dilip Ratha, who first revealed the global significance of remittances, this book is intended for remittance service providers, as well as policy makers and researchers interested in financial sector, migration and development issues."
Average customer rating:
|
Land Policies for Growth and Poverty Reduction (World Bank Policy Research Report)
World Bank
Manufacturer: A World Bank Publication
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Policy & Current Events
| Popular Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Popular Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Development & Growth
| Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Economic Policy & Development
| Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Sustainable Development
| Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Real Estate
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Small Business & Entrepreneurship
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Industries & Professions
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Property
| Business
| Law
| Subjects
| Books
All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Land Law Reform (Law, Justice, and Development)
ASIN: 0821350714 |
Book Description
This volume synthesizes insights from the vast literature on land policy. It evaluates the implications of these insights for development policy, taking due account of actual experiences in policy implementation, and suggests ways to design land policies that promote growth as well as poverty reduction.
Download Description
Land is a key component of the wealth of any nation. Throughout history, virtually all civilizations have spent considerable time defining land rights and establishing institutions to administer them. Well-defined, secure, and transferable rights to land are crucial to development efforts. In developing countries, most land is used for agricultural production, a mainstay of economic sustenance. The possession of land rights also typically ensures a baseline of shelter and food supply and allows people to turn latent assets into live capital through entrepreneurial activity. Once secure in their land rights, rural households invest to increase productivity. Moreover, the use of land as a primary investment vehicle allows households to accumulate and transfer wealth between generations. The ability to use land rights as collateral for credit helps create a stronger investment climate and land rights are thus, at the level of the economy, a pre-condition for the emergence and operation of financial markets. Property rights to land are one of the cornerstones for the functioning of modern economies. This book looks first at the historical, conceptual, and legal contexts of property rights to land. It then considers aspects of land transactions, including the key factors affecting the functioning of rural land markets. Finally, it explores the scope and role of governments and land policy formation and discusses ways in which developing countries can establish land policy frameworks that maximize social benefit.
Book Description
This is the first book to give a comprehensive overview of the new field of housing microfinance practice worldwide. The expert contributors provide guidance to practitioners and policymakers on what works best, and look at the applicability of developing-world experience for housing microfinance in the United States.
The book takes experience from the separate fields of housing policy and microfinance and explores what each can learn from the other. The contributors review the important issues for microfinance institutions which are considering expanding into housing, or providers of conventional housing loans who seek to offer products for poor clients who lack collateral, or a regular salary income.
Although there are differences between the low-income housing market in the United States and in developing countries, there are lessons from international experience that can be applied domestically, and the book also explores this topic.
With lessons for both housing policymakers and housing microfinance practitioners, this will be a crucial book in putting the new field of housing microfinance on the map.
Book Description
An effective state is essential to achieving socio-economic and sustainable development. With the advent of globalization, there are growing pressures on governments and organizations around the world to be more responsive to the demands of internal and external stakeholders for good governance, accountability and transparency, greater development effectiveness, and delivery of tangible results. Governments, parliaments, citizens, the private sector, NGOs, civil society, international organizations and donors are among the stakeholders interested in better performance. As demands for greater accountability and real results have increased, there is an attendant need for enhanced results-based monitoring and evaluation of policies, programs, and projects.
This Handbook provides a comprehensive ten-step model that will help guide development practitioners through the process of designing and building a results-based monitoring and evaluation system. These steps begin with a "Readiness Assessment" and take the practitioner through the design, management, and importantly, the sustainability of such systems. The Handbook describes each step in detail, the tasks needed to complete each one, and the tools available to help along the way.
Customer Reviews:
Cogent, Succinct, and Informative.......2005-07-26
With increasing pressure on public sector and non-profit organisations to move from activity-based management to a more results-based orientation, Ms. Kusek and Mr. Rist of the World Bank have written what they call a Handbook for Development Practitioners.
The challenges associated with moving towards a results-based monitoring and evaluation system are broken down into ten steps, each with relevant background material, and a set of questions to guide one through the process. For example, in step one - Conducting a Readiness Assessment, eight key questions are highlighted such as (i) what potential pressures are highlighting the need for an M&E system within the public sector? (v) how wil the system support better resource allocation and the achievement of program goals? (vii) where does capacity exist to support a results-based M&E system? Other chapters have similar guides, checklists, etc.
Though both authors are from the World Bank, examples from other donors and activities in other countries provide a wide perspective throughout the text.
I have been reading this book in conjunction with Paul Niven's Balanced Scorecard Step-by-Step for Government and Nonprofit Agencies (ISBN: 0471423289) as both define and describe inputs, outputs, outcomes, and performance measures in great detail and put them all together in an "overall performance-based framework."
If you are interested in aid effectiveness, the Millennium Development Goals, monitoring of poverty reduction strategies in developing countries, and performance measurement, you must have a copy of this book.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent, even if "grand unification" theme is suspect.......2005-12-31
This is a book every single US Senator and Representative should read.
The title derives from the reality that illicitly gotten funds create their own momentum as the funds are laundered throughout the world, creating interest, mayhem, and leaving 3rd world countries (preyed upon for weak financial regulations) struggling under massive debt they didn't really incur.
Average customer rating:
|
Local Governance in Developing Countries (Public Sector Governance and Accountability) (Public Sector Governance and Accountability)
Manufacturer: World Bank Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Economic Policy & Development
| Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Small Business & Entrepreneurship
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Public Affairs & Administration
| Government
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Politics
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Public Administration
| Political Science
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Local Government
| Levels of Government
| Political Science
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Local Governance in Industrial Countries (Public Sector Governance and Accountability) (Public Sector Governance and Accountability)
-
Public Expenditure Analysis (Public Sector, Governance, and Accountability Series) (Public Sector, Governance, and Accountability Series)
-
Fiscal Management (Public Sector, Governance, and Accountability) (Public Sector, Governance, and Accountability Series)
-
Public Services Delivery (Public Sector, Governance, and Accountability) (Public Sector, Governance, and Accountability Series)
ASIN: 0821365657 |
Book Description
This book provides a new institutional economics perspective on alternative models of local governance, offering a comprehensive view of local government organization and finance in the developing world. The experiences of ten developing/transition economies are reviewed to draw lessons of general interest in strengthening responsive, responsible, and accountable local governance. The book is written in simple user friendly language to facilitate a wider readership by policy makers and practitioners in addition to students and scholars of public finance, economics and politics.
Book Description
Providing the first theoretical analysis of regulation of public services for less developed countries (LDCs), Jean-Jacques Laffont demonstrates how the debate between price-cap regulation and cost of service regulation is affected by the characteristics of LDCs. Laffont develops a new theory of regulation with limited enforcement capabilities, and discusses the delicate issue of access pricing in view of LDCs' specificities. His evaluation of the different ways to organize the regulatory institutions makes a significant contribution to the field.
Books:
- Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations: A Guide to Strengthening and Sustaining Organizational Achievement, 3rd Edition
- StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup's Now, Discover Your Strengths
- The Analysis of Household Surveys: A Microeconomic Approach to Development Policy (World Bank)
- The Complete Idiot's Guide to Publishing Children's Books, Second Edition
- The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo.
- The Methods and Materials of Demography, Second Edition
- The Methods and Materials of Demography, Second Edition
- The New Investment Superstars: 13 Great Investors and Their Strategies for Superior Returns
- The Pre-Foreclosure Property Investor's Kit: How to Make Money Buying Distressed Real Estate -- Before the Public Auction
- The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge Studies in Social & Cultural Anthropology)
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Spanish Revival Architecture
- Deja Review: USMLE Step 2 Essentials
- Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts; or, Practical Aesthetics
- The Big Book of Ford Tractors: The Complete Model-by-Model Encyclopedia...Plus Classic Toys, Brochur
- The Structure of Magic II: A Book About Communication and Change
- College Accounting: A Practical Approach Chapters 1-12 with Study Guide and Working Papers
- Airs Above the Ground
- Roberto Burle Marx: The Lyrical Landscape
- The Architecture of Ralph Adams Cram and His Office
- The palms and cycads of Thailand
The Developmental State (Cornell Studies in Political Economy)
Embedded Autonomy
Locked in Place: State-Building and Late Industrialization in India
Politics in the Developing World
In Search of Prosperity
