Governments fail to provide the public goods needed for development when its leaders knowingly and deliberately ignore sound technical advice or are unable to follow it, despite the best of intentions, because of political constraints. This report focuses on two forces—citizen engagement and transparency—that hold the key to solving government failures by shaping how political markets function. Citizens are not only queueing at voting booths, but are also taking to the streets and using diverse media to pressure, sanction and select the leaders who wield power within government, including by entering as contenders for leadership. This political engagement can function in highly nuanced ways within the same formal institutional context and across the political spectrum, from autocracies to democracies. Unhealthy political engagement, when leaders are selected and sanctioned on the basis of their provision of private benefits rather than public goods, gives rise to government failures. The solutions to these failures lie in fostering healthy political engagement within any institutional context, and not in circumventing or suppressing it. Transparency, which is citizen access to publicly available information about the actions of those in government, and the consequences of these actions, can play a crucial role by nourishing political engagement.

This text presents case studies of experiences with democracy in Asia, Affrica, Latin America and the Middle East, along with the editor's synthesis of the factors that facilitate and obstruct the development of democracy around the world. This second edition includes a chapter on South Africa.

Praise for the first edition: "... this masterful and concise volume overviews the range of approaches social scientists have applied to explain events in the Third World." --Journal of Developing Areas Understanding Third World Politics is a comprehensive, critical introduction to political development and comparative politics in the non-Western world today. Beginning with an assessment of the shared factors that seem to determine underdevelopment, B. C. Smith introduces the major theories of development--development theory, modernization theory, neo-colonialism, and dependency theory--and examines the role and character of key political organizations, political parties, and the military in determining the fate of developing nations. This new edition gives special attention to the problems and challenges faced by developing nations as they become democratic states by addressing questions of political legitimacy, consensus building, religion, ethnicity, and class.

An extensively revised edition of an acclaimed textbook on developing societies

Politics in Developing Countries provides a clear and reader-friendly introduction to the key factors and themes that shape political processes in developing countries. Achieving development outcomes such as reducing poverty and inequality is only possible through efficient governance, well-planned policies and careful allocation of resources, but often politics in developing countries has been identified with mismanagement, corruption, conflict and repression of dissent. This book assesses the politics of developing countries in the period since decolonisation, focusing on the ways in which states have or have not worked to the advancement of their citizens’ interests. Key topics include: Colonialism and its legacy Ethnicity and nation building Governance, corruption and the role of the state Poverty and the political economy of development Aid and outside influence. Drawing on a range of case studies from around the world, Politics in Developing Countries looks at the consistencies and variations between developing countries, examining why some have forestalled political change by liberalising their economies, and others have actively stifled calls for change. Wide-ranging and engagingly written, this introductory textbook is perfect for students of politics and international development, as well as for those with a general interest in the challenges faced by countries in the Global South.

Shipping has played a pivotal role as the vector or artery through which this trade is conducted and in which this pattern of inequality has only recently been challenged by the South.