Overview

This book examines the underlying conditions that give rise to states that are effective, efficient, and bureaucratically inclusive with their developmental policies. In spite of humanity’s significant advancements in science, technology and institutionalization of universal human rights conventions in the last seven decades, many countries are still failing to achieve successful development results. As a result, enormous levels of inequality, poverty, and malnutrition prevail. This book focuses on the role of the state in the political economy of development, tracing the socio-economic origins of effective state institutions from a comparative historical-institutional perspective. Drawing on the case studies of South Korea, Brazil, India, Spain, France, and England, the study looks at how good state institutions form, and why these are central to the socioeconomic advancement of their populations. The book contends that effective developmental states are those in which state actors are able to effectively diminish and co-opt the power of the country’s landed elites during the early years of state building. Effectively, the power balance between these two classes determines the developmental trajectory of the state. Considering agrarian reform as the foremost indispensable policy tool to open conditions for positive changes in effective taxation, education, healthcare, and strategic sustainable industrial policies, this analysis offers a significant contribution to the literature on the sociology of institutions and the political economy of development. As well as being a key reading for advanced students and researchers in these areas, this book draws real-life policy lessons for practitioners and policy makers in the developing world.

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9780367490362

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Reviews

The building of an effective state is critical to the processes underpinning economic development. In this important new book, Jawied Nawabi identifies a rigorous relationship between effective states and wealth equality, particularly with regard to land. The implications are stark: the transformation of land-based agrarian relations remains fundamental to the formation of state capacity. The many insights of this book make it essential for all students, scholars and practitioners of economic development. Haroon Akram-Lodhi, Professor of Economics and International Development Studies, Trent University, Peterborough, Canada In this excellent and historically grounded book, Jawied Nawabi reveals the truth of the following maxim: “strong landed elites, no socioeconomic development.” Nawabi shows how states across diverse contexts have used agrarian reform to weaken powerful agrarian actors, and how this weakening in turn has fostered successful development projects. Highly recommended. James Mahoney, Northwestern University, USA Nawabi focuses on the key factors for achieving development through an insightful historical comparative analysis of the process of economic development of three well-chosen countries in both the global north and south. The reader gains insights into the requirements for an effective developmental state which is able to design and implement a sustainable development process. I particularly commend Nawabi for stressing not only that states matter but also that radical land reforms matter in countries dominated by rent-seeking landlords. Cristóbal Kay, Emeritus Professor Erasmus, University Rotterdam

Author Information

Jawied Nawabi is Associate Professor of Economics, Sociology, and International Studies at the City University of New York–Bronx Community College.

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