This work investigates how local-level development projects in India and Indonesia are shaped by the micropolitics of social relationships and individual agency. Tanya Jakimow, an expert in development studies, utilizes ethnographic fieldwork to analyze how development interventions are not merely top-down implementations but are instead negotiated through the complex, often unpredictable interactions of local actors. The book argues that susceptibility—the capacity to be influenced or affected by these local dynamics—is a critical, yet often overlooked, component of development success and failure.

Scholars in the field of development studies recognize this text as a nuanced contribution to the understanding of local-level institutional behavior. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose, which is tailored for researchers and students of political anthropology and development policy.