Author Description

Why Do So Few Countries Achieve Development Success? Achieving Development Requires Many Changes Over A Short Period Of Time, Generating Instability And Risk. It Is A Deep And Integrated Economy Of Change Involving Force, Strategic Thinking, And Ideological Conviction - It Emerges When Successful Development Is Seen As Necessary For The Survival Of A Political Order. Developmentalism Engages With The Moral Issues That This Raises. Developmentalism: The Normative And Transformative Within Capitalism Uses A Historical Comparative Approach To Understand Development As A Transformation Which Involves A Deep And Integrated Political Economy Of Change - A Shift From A State Of 'capital-ascendance' To 'capital Dominance'. It Is Only Through A Transformation Towards Capital Dominance That Mass Poverty Reduction And The Construction Of A Commonwealth Are Possible. However, Capitalist Development Is Extremely Difficult And Requires A Highly Exacting Political Endeavour. The Politics Of Development Is Conceptualized As Developmentalism: A Strategy And Ideology In Which Governments Exercise Heavy Directive Power, Endure Instability And Crisis, And Secure A Rudimentary Legitimacy For Their Efforts. This Book Argues That Developmentalism Requires A Conflation Of Successful Capitalist Transformation With Some Form Of Existential Insecurity Of The State Itself. It Flourishes When Capitalist Transformation Connects To Profound Questions Of Sovereignty, Statehood, Nation-building, And Elite Survival. Developmentalism Shows Deep Contextualisation Of Capitalist Transformation As Well As The Massive Improvements In Material Life That It Has Generated.