The fourth, thoroughly updated, edition of this well-respected textbook explores the changing nature of politics in the developing world. Leading experts in the field consider theoretical approaches, society-state relations, and policies, with a series of illustrative country-based case studies.

This textbook deals with the central political themes and issues in the developing world, such as globalization, inequality, and democracy. Leading experts in the field provide up-to-date and systematic coverage. The book is accompanied by an Online Resource Centre.Student resources:Three additional case studies, including one on ChinaWeb links from the bookFlashcard glossary

Why are some countries rich and others poor? Colonialism, globalization, bad government, gender inequality, geography, and environmental degradation are just some of the potential answers to this complex question. Using a threefold framework of the West, the South, and the natural world, Shaping the Developing World provides a logical and intuitive structure for categorizing and evaluating the causes of underdevelopment. This interdisciplinary book also describes the social, political, and economic aspects of development and is relevant to students in political science, international studies, geography, sociology, economics, gender studies, and anthropology. The Second Edition has been updated to include the most recent development statistics and to incorporate new research on topics like climate change, democratization, religion and prosperity, the resource curse, and more. This second edition also contains expanded discussions of gender, financial inclusion, crime and police killings, and the Middle East, including the Syrian Civil War.

An extensively revised edition of an acclaimed textbook on developing societies

With a framework based on interests, interactions, and institutions, World Politics gives students the tools to understand international relations. In the thoroughly updated Fourth Edition, new Controversy units provide models for applying the concepts in each chapter to real-world issues and events. New InQuizitive activities—created and tested by instructors who teach with World Politics—then invite students to practice applying the analytical tools from the text to alternative examples and cases.

In this classic text, now in its fourth edition, Gilbert Rist provides a complete and powerful overview of what the idea of development has meant throughout history. He traces it from its origins in the Western view of history, through the early stages of the world system, the rise of US hegemony, and the supposed triumph of third-worldism, through to new concerns about the environment and globalization. In a new chapter on post-development models and ecological dimensions, written against a background of world crisis and ideological disarray, Rist considers possible ways forward and brings the book completely up to date. Throughout, he argues persuasively that development has been no more than a collective delusion, which in reality has resulted only in widening market relations, whatever the intentions of its advocates.

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.