Development has alleviated poverty in many countries during the 50 years since the end of War World II, yet half of mankind remains poor; a fifth are very poor. Poverty is not a state of nature, but, as Stepanek shows, can be ascribed to manmade institutions that reflect self-serving and self-indulgent ideologies, poorly tested theories and policies, weak governments, and poverty alleviation programs that are questionably designed and poorly administered. Dr. Stepanek asserts that poverty cannot be alleviated without challenging all of its root causes, and he shows that well-designed development strategies and foreign assistance programs can create growth and reduce poverty. Western governments, international banks, and donor agencies must reexamine how they design and administer foreign aid if they are to be successful. Stepanek explains foreign aid in general and in specific, in history and theory, and in its present and practical forms.
Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West? - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.
A groundbreaking exploration of how finding one's way later in life can be an advantage to long-term achievement and happiness. “What Yogi Berra observed about a baseball game—it ain't over till it's over—is true about life, and [Late Bloomers] is the ultimate proof of this. . . . It’s a keeper.”—Forbes We live in a society where kids and parents are obsessed with early achievement, from getting perfect scores on SATs to getting into Ivy League colleges to landing an amazing job at Google or Facebook—or even better, creating a start-up with the potential to be the next Google, Facebook or Uber. We see coders and entrepreneurs become millionaires or billionaires before age thirty, and feel we are failing if we are not one of them. Late bloomers, on the other hand, are under-valued—in popular culture, by educators and employers, and even unwittingly by parents. Yet the fact is, a lot of us—most of us—do not explode out of the gates in life. We have to discover our passions and talents and gifts. That was true for author Rich Karlgaard, who had a mediocre academic career at Stanford (which he got into by a fluke) and, after graduating, worked as a dishwasher and night watchman before finding the inner motivation and drive that ultimately led him to start up a high-tech magazine in Silicon Valley, and eventually to become the publisher of Forbes magazine. There is a scientific explanation for why so many of us bloom later in life. The executive function of our brains doesn’t mature until age twenty-five, and later for some. In fact, our brain’s capabilities peak at different ages. We actually experience multiple periods of blooming in our lives. Moreover, late bloomers enjoy hidden strengths because they take their time to discover their way in life—strengths coveted by many employers and partners—including curiosity, insight, compassion, resilience, and wisdom. Based on years of research, personal experience, interviews with neuroscientists, psychologists, and countless people at different stages of their careers, Late Bloomers reveals how and when we achieve our full potential. Praise for Late Bloomers “The underlying message that we should ‘consider a kinder clock for human development’ is a compelling one.”—Financial Times “Late Bloomers spoke to me deeply as a parent of two millennials and as a coach to many new college grads (the children of my friends and associates). It’s a bracing tonic for the anxiety they are swimming through, with a facts-based approach to help us all calm down.”—Robin Wolaner, founder of Parenting magazine
The first comprehensive account of U.S. development aid policies and implementation operations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, this work is a unique contribution to world history and to the extensive literature on Third World development. Butterfield begins with the remarkable story of why, in 1949, President Truman surprised Americans with his unprecedented development aid policy. He then describes the major alterations in U.S. development aid strategy and operations from 1950 to 2000. Drawing upon his long experience both in Washington and in country aid missions, Butterfield puts a human face on the story by weaving real world vignettes into his narrative. The survey addresses the role of Congress, important program foundations established in the 1950s, creative initiatives of the 1960s, frustrated promises in Vietnam. It explores the Third World's unexpected population explosion; America's evolving technical assistance work in the core sectors such as agriculture, education, health, and administration; and initiatives to reach the rural poor and promote the development role of women. It also comments upon linkages between policy dialogue and financial aid to promote market-oriented policy reforms, Africa's lagging development, and the decline of U.S. development aid in the 1990s.
Using a variety of tools from various disciplines, Sustainable Development in Africa examines factors limiting sustainable development in Africa. Among the recommendations made to remedy the situation is the call for a more holistic approach to the problem, resolving the urban crisis that is central to African economic recovery and to develop a new security system that transcends the narrow military focus security.
A significant contribution to the ongoing debate on aid effectiveness, this work examines the extent to which trust is present in today's aid relationships. Pomerantz offers valuable recommendations, learned in years of fieldwork and research, that have the potential to transform the way that aid agencies operate.
A significant contribution to the debate on poverty alleviation in Africa, Professor Mbaku offers practical policies for economic growth. He argues that the most important contributor to poverty and deprivation in Africa is the absense of institutional structures that enhance indigenous entrepreneurship and wealth creation. He explains that these are so vital that living standards will continue to deteriorate unless these building blocks are put in place.
Calling increasing poverty and inequality in the Global South (sometimes known as the third world) as "among our most urgent problems today," Thomas-Slayter seeks to explore the problems of globalization from the perspective of ordinary non-elite people of the South. After offering a brief history of imperialism and colonialism, she presents chapters looking at issues of globalization and the nation-state; human rights and international refugees; the role of international economic organizations in creating inequality; the links between population, the environment, and development; food security and global politics; and the rise of "anti-globalization" movements.
The relationship between civil society and the armed forces is an essential part of any polity, democratic or otherwise, because a military force is after all a universal feature of social systems. Despite significant progress moving towards democracy among some African countries in the past decade, all too many African militaries have yet to accept core democratic principles regulating civilian authority over the military. This book explores the theory of civil-military relations and moves on to review the intrusion of the armed forces in African politics by looking first into the organization and role of the army in pre-colonial and colonial eras, before examining contemporary armies and their impact on society. Furthermore it revisits the various explanations of military takeovers in Africa and disentangles the notion of the military as the modernizing force. Whether as a revolutionary force, as a stabilizing force, or as a modernizing force, the military has often been perceived as the only organized and disciplined group with the necessary skills to uplift newly independent nations. The performance of Africa's military governments since independence, however, has soundly disproven this thesis. As such, this study conveys the necessity of new civil-military relations in Africa and calls not just for civilian control of the military but rather a democratic oversight of the security forces in Africa.
The use of wildlife for food and other human needs poses one of the greatest threats to the conservation of biodiversity. Wildlife exploitation is also critically important to many people from a variety of cultures for subsistence and commerce. This book brings together international experts to examine interactions between the biology of wildlife and the divergent goals of people involved in hunting, fishing, gathering and culling wildlife. Reviews of theory show how sustainable exploitation is tied to the study of population dynamics, with direct links to reproductive rates, life histories, behaviour and ecology. As such theory is rarely put into practice to achieve sustainable use and effective conservation, Conservation of Exploited Species explores the many reasons for this failure and considers remedies to tackle them, including scientific issues such as how to incorporate uncertainty into estimations, as well as social and political problems that stem from conflicting goals in exploitation.
