The Struggle for Development and Democracy: New Approaches

In this rousing study, Alessandro Olsaretti argues that we need a new approach to fundamental questions to turn back neoliberal economic policy. The Struggle for Development and Democracy makes the case that we need significantly new theories of development and democracy to answer the problem posed by neoliberalism and the populist backlash, namely, uneven development and divisive politics. This book proposes as a first step a truly multidisciplinary humanist social science, to overcome the flaws of neoliberal economic theories, and to recover a balanced approach to theories and policies alike that is especially needed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. These led to divisive culture wars, which were compounded by the divisive populist politics. This book begins to sketch such a humanist social science, and applies it to answer one question: who is responsible for neoliberalism and the populist backlash?

Alessandro Olsaretti is an independent researcher in Montreal, where he gained his PhD in sociology from McGill University in 2013 with a thesis on Antonio Gramsci. He has published articles in Critical Sociology, the Journal of Classical Sociology, and Historical Materialism. He has also worked on Ottoman history, social history, and the history of social and political thought, and has published in the Radical History Review, Social History, and the International History Review. Outside academia, he has worked as a database analyst in the finance sector, development sector, and fundraising sector, and has published a novel titled The Caravaggio Code. He is working on a series of essays titled Towards a Humanist Social Science.