Political Culture And Democracy In Developing Countries

The authors explore the complex and reciprocal interactions between a society's dominant beliefs, values, and attitudes about politics and the nature of its political system.

This textbook edition of Political Culture and Democracy in Developing Countries has been abridged to convey the core arguments of the book in a format appropriate for classroom use.

First Published in 1999. This book does not aim to offer a new or radically different interpretation of the ongoing debate over cultural geography. Kamrava states nor does it seek to present a universal theory of what Third World countries have done or ought to do as they navigate the political, economic and sociocultural traumas of development. Instead, it tries to place culture in its proper political perspective in the Third World.

This book is a welcome new edition, which completely updates and revises the very popular first edition, Politics and Society in the Third World. Mehran Kamrava has brought the book in line with the major changes in global politics, and the politics and social issues of the developing world. The book examines key issues such as democratisation: civil society organisations and NGOs, 'political society', state collapse, democratic bargains and transition, consolidation and problems of legitimacy, elections, multi-party politics; industrial development; dependency theory and globalisation; the roles of the IMF and the World Bank, the GATT and other multinational institutions; urbanisation; social change; the increasing influence of western values, capital and institutions; urbanisation; social change; the increasing influence of western values, capital and institutions; political culture: its role and impact in newly democratic developing countries; revolution; and gives more examples from Africa, East Asia and rural societies.

This book argues that it is time for African nations to govern themselves using modified, indigenous political structures and ideologies. Osabu-Kle closely examines the colonization experience and the massive transplantation of Western political forms as well as the post-independence period of structural transformation. He delves into the makeup of a number of indigenous African political systems: the Ovimbunda, Zulu, Ashanti, and Ga peoples whose cultures, though geographically distant, exhibit common characteristics, including consensualism and a balance between centralization and decentralization to check the abuse of power. Osabu-Kle argues that only a type of democracy compatible with the historic African cultural environment is capable of achieving the political conditions for successful development. But he goes beyond establishing that precolonial African political systems were democratic. Rather, he describes how the indigenous political culture might be modified to achieve the political conditions necessary to work towards a successful future. This dynamically written, lively, and informed study provides a provocative challenge to conventional Western commentaries on Africa and current thinking about the continent's "re-democratization."

V.1. Persistence, failure, and renewal. v.2. Africa. v.3. Asia v.4. Latin Ameri ca.

From decolonization and democratization to religion and gender, Politics and Culture in the Developing World is a comprehensive survey of the global context of development. With in-depth and current examples from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East., this text examines the central political themes in the developing world. Throughout, Politics and Culture in the Developing World demonstrates how globalization both accelerates change and increases interdependence between developing and developed countries.