Research Handbook On Democracy And Development

Exploring and updating the controversial debates about the relationship between democracy and development, this Research Handbook provides clarification on the complex and nuanced interlinkages between political regime type and socio-economic development. Distinguished scholars examine a broad range of issues from multidisciplinary perspectives across Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.

Democratic innovations are proliferating in politics, governance, policy, and public administration. These new processes of public participation are reimagining the relationship between citizens and institutions. This Handbook advances understanding of democratic innovations, in theory and practice, by critically reviewing their importance throughout the world. The overarching themes are a focus on citizens and their relationship to these innovations, and the resulting effects on political equality. The Handbook therefore offers a definitive overview of existing research on democratic innovations, while also setting the agenda for future research and practice.

Considering the current challenges to human progress, this reference book examines recent theories, policies, and sectoral priorities, as well as various social, economic, and administrative factors that impact worldwide modernization and development. The book emphasizes the fact that communities must evaluate continuously and adjust their program activities in order to achieve a genuine mode of development. This volume includes case studies demonstrating effective applications of the major operational tools for the layout and execution of major development policies and examines the current trends and future directions in development theories, policies, and practices in the 21st century.

Over the past few years, e-government has been rapidly changing the way governmental services are provided to citizens and businesses. These services improve business and government exchange capability, provide a new way to discover and share information, and play a part in the evolution of future technologies. The Handbook of Research on Democratic Strategies and Citizen-Centered E-Government Services seeks to address which services in e-government should be provided to users and how. This premier reference work gives an overview of the latest achievements in the field of e-government services, provides in-depth analysis of and research on the development and deployment of cutting-edge applications, and provides insight into future trends for researchers, teachers, students, government workers, and IT professionals.

In many discussions of nations' development, we often focus on their economic and social development. Is it becoming wealthier? Is its society modernizing? Is it becoming more technologically sophisticated? Are social outcomes improving for the broad mass of the public? The process of development policy implementation, however, is always and inevitably political. Put simply, regime type matters when it comes to deciding on a course of development to follow. Further, political institutions matter. When a government's institutional capacity is low, the chances of success severely decline, regardless of the merits of the development plan. In The Oxford Handbook of the Politics of Development, two of America's leading political scientists on the issue, Carol Lancaster and Nicolas van de Walle, have assembled an international cast of leading scholars to craft a broad, state-of-the-art work on this vitally important topic. This volume is divided into five sections: major theories of the politics of development, organized historically (e.g. modernization theory, dependency theory, the Washington consensus of 'policies without politics,' etc.); key domestic factors and variables; key international factors and variables; political systems and structures; and geographical perspectives, inclusive of regional dynamics. A comprehensive and cross-regional examination on key issues of political development, this Handbook not only provides an authoritative synthesis of past scholarship, but also sets the agenda for future research in this discipline.

The International IDEA Handbook on Democracy Assessment is a robust and sensitive guide to assessing the quality of democracy and human rights in any country around the world. The Handbook introduces an easy-to-use and universal methodology for assessing the condition of democracy in any country, or its progress in democratisation, that has been developed in a three-year action programme at IDEA, the inter-governmental Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance in Sweden. The Handbook provides a means to measure systematically the full range of values, institutions and issues relating to modern democracy that is sensitive to the underlying principles and democracy and the differences between democracies themselves. It is therefore both universal in application and capable of responding to particular aspects of any one nation's democratic arrangements. The animating principle of the Handbook is that only citizens of a nation themselves are qualified to assess the quality of their own democratic arrangements. Thus, it provides a self-help guide, which gives academics, lawyers, political practitioners, journalists and interested citizens the tools to assess the state of their democracy, or any key aspects of their democracy. The Handbook is above all a practical working document that draws on the actual experience of assessing democracy in different countries, comparative knowledge and research, and democratic principles and practice. It gives a step-by-step guide to the purposes and methods of democracy assessment; who to involve; how to use the research tools; how to validate the findings; what standards of practice to adopt; and how to present and publicise a finished assessment. It contains extracts from completed assessments, guidance on the use of qualitative and quantitative data, examples of codes of democratic practice and international and regional standards, and a vast list of accessible data sources. The methodology was created by a team of political scientists assembled from all regions of the world by International IDEA and has been tried and tested in a variety of countries, including Bangladesh, El Salvador, Italy, Kenya, Malawi, New Zealand, Peru, South Korea and the United Kingdom. International organisations like the World Bank and UNECA are adapting it for in-country use. The four main authors and editors have been directly involved from the inception of the project - in developing and refining the methodology and participating in and advising on the nine country studies that form the essential practical core of experience on which this invaluable Handbook is based.

Effective governance is a crucial aspect of all modern nations. Through various collaborative efforts and processes, nations can enhance their current governance systems. The Handbook of Research on Sub-National Governance and Development is a pivotal reference source for the latest scholarly material on the intersection between local and national politics, analyzing how this relationship affects nations’ economy and administration. Highlighting theoretical foundations and real-world applications, this book is ideally designed for professionals, academics, students, and practitioners actively involved in the fields of public policy and governance.

This important Research Handbook explores the nexus between human rights, poverty and inequality as a critical lens for understanding and addressing key challenges of the coming decades, including the objectives set out in the Sustainable Development Goals. The Research Handbook starts from the premise that poverty is not solely an issue of minimum income and explores the profound ways that deprivation and distributive inequality of power and capability relate to economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights.