Political Development

Book excerpt: This book fills a growing gap in the literature on international development by addressing the debates about good governance and institution-building within the context of political development. Political Development returns the key issues of human rights and democratization to the centre of the development debate and offers the reader an alternative to the conventional approach to, and definition of, the idea of ‘development’. Discussing political development in its broadest context, it includes chapters on democracy, institution-building, the state, state failure, nation, human rights and political violence. Damien Kingsbury, a leading expert on development and Southeast Asia, argues that ‘good governance’, in its common usage, is too narrowly defined and that good governance is not just about ensuring the integrity of a state’s financial arrangements, but that it goes to the core social and political issues of transparency and accountability, implying a range of social structures defined as ‘institutions’. Providing new insights into political development, this comprehensive text can be used on advanced undergraduate and postgraduate courses in international development, comparative politics, political theory and international relations.