William D. Ferguson
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781503604612
- eISBN:
- 9781503611979
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9781503604612.003.0011
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Development, Growth, and Environmental
Development entails sustained enhancement of economic and political capabilities across a society’s members and groups. This text presents a conceptual framework, fully developed in Chapters 8 and 9, ...
More
Development entails sustained enhancement of economic and political capabilities across a society’s members and groups. This text presents a conceptual framework, fully developed in Chapters 8 and 9, that addresses the social scientist’s dilemma concerning how to approach systematic inquiry into the myriad complexities of political-economic development. To address pertinent contexts, this framework systematically addresses interactions between asymmetric distributions of power and institutional evolution. It relates distinct types of political settlements to distinct sets of developmental CAPs that shape development. Related inquiry can then focus on how principles from the five core hypotheses operate in specific political-economic contexts. Such analysis can uncover how specific types of policy innovations relate to prospects for successful adoption within specific contexts. This framework can also underlie broad research programs with many theoretical and modeling extensions, as well as multiple testable empirical hypotheses.Less
Development entails sustained enhancement of economic and political capabilities across a society’s members and groups. This text presents a conceptual framework, fully developed in Chapters 8 and 9, that addresses the social scientist’s dilemma concerning how to approach systematic inquiry into the myriad complexities of political-economic development. To address pertinent contexts, this framework systematically addresses interactions between asymmetric distributions of power and institutional evolution. It relates distinct types of political settlements to distinct sets of developmental CAPs that shape development. Related inquiry can then focus on how principles from the five core hypotheses operate in specific political-economic contexts. Such analysis can uncover how specific types of policy innovations relate to prospects for successful adoption within specific contexts. This framework can also underlie broad research programs with many theoretical and modeling extensions, as well as multiple testable empirical hypotheses.
William D. Ferguson
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781503604612
- eISBN:
- 9781503611979
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9781503604612.003.0001
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Development, Growth, and Environmental
How can social scientists address the complexity of the myriad interrelations between economic development, political development, inequality, and human ability to achieve cooperative collective ...
More
How can social scientists address the complexity of the myriad interrelations between economic development, political development, inequality, and human ability to achieve cooperative collective action across groups and populations of individuals from different backgrounds who hold widely divergent positions, interests, and perceptions? This book navigates the difficult terrain between universal-principle, one-size-fits-all frameworks, on the one hand, and approaches that insist that every society is unique, on the other. Using principles of political economy outlined in five core developmental hypotheses, as well as a method for drawing distinctions between basic types of political-economic context, this book constructs a typology that relates distributions of power to specific configurations of institutional systems and social orders. Each component of the typology points to specific types of collective-action problems that condition a society’s ability to achieve economic and political development. Policy analysis should pay attention to such contextual influence.Less
How can social scientists address the complexity of the myriad interrelations between economic development, political development, inequality, and human ability to achieve cooperative collective action across groups and populations of individuals from different backgrounds who hold widely divergent positions, interests, and perceptions? This book navigates the difficult terrain between universal-principle, one-size-fits-all frameworks, on the one hand, and approaches that insist that every society is unique, on the other. Using principles of political economy outlined in five core developmental hypotheses, as well as a method for drawing distinctions between basic types of political-economic context, this book constructs a typology that relates distributions of power to specific configurations of institutional systems and social orders. Each component of the typology points to specific types of collective-action problems that condition a society’s ability to achieve economic and political development. Policy analysis should pay attention to such contextual influence.
