Politics and Development: A Critical Introduction - Softcover

Tornquist, Olle

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0761959343 ISBN 13: 9780761959342

Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd, 1999

Synopsis

This major new textbook provides a clear and comprehensive introduction to the main analytical approaches and their use in the study of third world politics and development. The text is organized around three key sections: The first outlines the difficulties in the various analytical approaches to the study of development and locates the important role and future relationship of political science to the field. The second presents a critical overview of each of the main schools of thought, from the politics of modernisation theories to the more recent new institutionalist and post-marxist perspectives. In the third and final section the key contemporary issue of democratization in the third world is introduced to illustrate how students can apply a framework for research and critically develop a perspective of their own. The author concludes the text with his own critique of the dominant civil society and social capital paradigm to advance new insights into democratization in the third world. Accessible and wide-ranging, Politics and Development in the Third World will be invaluable reading for all students on courses which aim to offer a deeper understanding of the problems of development.

About this title

About the Author

Olle Törnquist is Professor of Politics and Development in the Department of Political Science at Oslo University and Reader in Political Science at Uppsala University.

Review

`If it′s a lucid, concise intellectual history of development theory you′re looking for - one with originality and political bite, you′ll find it in T[um]ornquist′s fine book′ - James C Scott, Yale University

`This book introduces the student to the politics of development in the postcolonial world by familiarising them with the main debates on the subject. I can think of no better way of doing it′ - Mahmood Mamdani, University of Cape Town

`Through a wide ranging critique of influential conceptualisations of the ′Third World′, and by focussing on the symbiosis between politics and development, Tornquist opens the way for a fresh understanding of how late developing societies can be democratised′ - Neera Chandhoke, University of Delhi

`A pleasant, wide-ranging and ambitious textbook Olle Tornquist has written. It is pleasant because of the authors frankness about his own preferences combined with an openess towards diverging views; it is wide-ranging in the theoretical space it covers; and it is ambitious in the way it proposes a "best practice" within the study of politics and development....I recommend the book to anyone interested in entering a stimulating discussion on the subject′ - The European Journal of Development Research

Edition details

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0761959343
• ISBN 13: 9780761959342
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208