Democracy and Development

This book contains specially commissioned chapters by leading experts on economic development in the Third World. Leftwich examines and assesses the key conditions of economic development and takes a critical look at the role of democracy. This authoritative volume is a major contribution to the discipline. 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. This book calls into question the current western orthodoxy about the relationship of democracy and development, exploring the theoretical issues involved in the relationship and examining a number of case sudies.

This book is a wide-ranging study of the meaning of democracy and the factors which determine its level. This book is a thorough investigation into the requisites of democracy. Based on data from 132 sovereign states of the Third World, it first establishes a scale to measure the level of democracy existing in these countries. The author discusses various interpretations of the meaning of political democracy, and emerges with a specification of its essential elements which includes such elements as the holding of elections to central decision-making organs, and the maintenance of certain fundamental political liberties. Theories concerning the requisites of democracy are then examined in order to explain the manifest differences in the level of democracy among the states of the Third World. The author employs statistical techniques including regression analysis to test theories related to socio-economic conditions, demographic and cultural factors, and institutional arrangements. This book thus provides a wide-ranging examination both of the elements which constitute democracy, and of the factors which explain its varying prevalence.