Description
Objective 1: **Students acquire advanced knowledge and understanding of governance and regime types in developing countries, with a special attention to issues of (ethnic) diversity and development.
**Objective 2: Student learn to apply and critically judge the literature on this topic and to design and conduct empirical research on a theme of their choice within the overall theme of the course.
Content:
Economic development was long considered a structural pre-requisite for (sustained) democracy. During the 1980s/90s the presumed relationship became reversed: democracy and ‘good governance’ came to be considered essential conditions for development. We will discuss several aspects of the complex relation between democracy and development, and how both issues are related to (ethnic) diversity. We will also discuss the rise of the good governance agenda, and the so-called Post-Washington consensus in which governance, participation and poverty reduction became central issues in development policy. The presence of ethnic or religious diversity in virtually all developing countries implies that basic (individual or group) rights and concerns for distribution and equality merit a central place in politics of development. Students will prepare case studies, which can be chosen from Africa, Latin America and Asia.
Methods of Instruction
Seminar: mini-lectures, close reading, discussions and presentations. Preparation is essential for participation in class.
Examination
First, a research proposal, between 1000 and 1500 words (20%), second, a research paper of 5000 words (50%), participation (10%), and a presentation in class (20%).
Study Material
Core Readings: Adrian Leftwich, States of Development: On the Primacy of Politics in Development (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005); and
William Easterly, 2013, The Tyranny of Experts: economists, dictators and the forgotten rights of the poor (New York, Basic books).
Various journal articles and book chapters, see seminar program!
Registration
See Preliminary Info