This paper will focus on the arguments and themes presented by Daren Acemoglu and James Robinson in Why Nations Fail. It will serve as a book review by first summarizing the main elements covered by the authors and highlighting their arguments, and then it will analyze the power of the key arguments to clarify its presentation and finally, assess any weaknesses found. Why Nations Fail by Daren Acemoglu and James Robinson can be identified as a critique of developmental failure and successes around the globe. By first bringing up the twin towns of Nogales and comparing the living standards of both, the authors allow the audience to understand how much borders matter. By introducing this notion early in the book, it becomes easier to understand the objectives behind the historical examples introduced by the authors. The authors compare and contrast many historical examples such as the failure of the Mayan civilization and the success of the English when presenting their thesis that prosperity rests upon inclusive political foundations and centralised power. Their arguments revolve around global development and how nations have prospered differently because of their political differences within extractive governments and inclusive governments. Much of their ideologies seem to also hold a neo-liberal perspective.
The authors’ comparison of development patterns in nations across the globe are used to support their thesis that prosperity rests upon inclusive political foundations and centralised power. Inclusive political institutions limit yet broaden political power within democratic elections, constitutions, contract enforcement, property rights, competitive markets, freedom and rights for citizens and public services. Inclusive in...
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... to be as they are today. Lastly, their reference to current day Iraq lacks significance of the “shock and awe” by the Bush government. They used Iraq’s history to argue against the theory of modernization in which as neoliberals, they say “maintains all societies as they grow, which will head towards a more modern and civilized existence, and in particular toward democracy.” Though, the modernization theory still needs an actual success story.
Like most neoliberals though, Acemoglu and Robinson do not fail in providing a successful view on America colonization and the historical explanations provide a great backdrop to understanding different development patterns. Why Nations Fail is recommended for anyone who would like to research more on institutional differences across the globe and the impact institutions play on the overall growth of a nation.
The environmental movement in politics is often overplayed causing people to loose interest in the issue, but Jarred Diamond makes it impossible to ignore the issue in his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Jared Diamond hopes to catch as many peoples attention as he can; the name alone, “Collapse”, makes him appear to be an alarmist looking for attention. He has just cause though for blowing the whistle on society. He makes parallels to previous failed societies and to modern societies showing how the practices that we employ are similar to these failed societies. He is suggesting that America, as well as other countries, are headed down the path of ecocide more possible a global ecocide. Through his extensive research and numerous examples he makes it impossible to argue with his thesis. While all of examples seem redundant and like he is over emphasizing the point he does this to show his thoroughness. He also does it to show that he is correct. Diamond does not want to be wrong; he is a major author who gets a lot of attention when he releases a book. People look to discredit Diamond’s work. Due to this he gives ample resources to support this thesis.
Diamond, Jared. Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. New York: Viking, 2005. 503-504.
Bresser-Pereira, Luiz Carlos. "Globalization, Nation-state and Catching up." Revista De Economia Política 28.4 (2008): 557-76. Print.
...ot afford to lose its predominance in oil rich gulf region. Saddam’s defiance challenged American supremacy and consequently, a planned invasion of Iraq was launched by U.S. and her allied forces in 2003. The invasion had two-fold objectives: one was to secure oil resources in Iraq and other was to reassert its Political-economic dominance in the region which is of great strategic importance to US. Realist theory narrows down the scope of interpretation of war to power politics characterized by military capability while critical and Marxist thinking employs “historical structures” to understand why power is being exercised in a certain way. It broadens the scope of concept of power beyond military perspective. Thus, Iraq war which was fought beyond the scope of “offensive realism” can be better understood within the theoretical framework of Critical/ Marxist theory.
Paul Buck once said, “If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday” (Buck, P.). Considering that the relationship between America and minorities is entrench with bias, prejudice, and oppression it isn’t difficult to see why the public education system is over flowing with policies that promote institutional racism. The novel, The Shame of a nation by Jonathan Kozol and the short film, Eyes on the prize aim to educate the masses about the history of oppression in America’s educational system and the residual effects of the oppression on the present. Although many of the overt struggles outlined in these two pieces of work are no longer seen in schools today there residual effects are still covertly visible
...each into the international community. This is evident in the types of nationalism I’ve explored, both new nationalism and cosmopolitanism. They are opposing views of what nationalism is or can become in the future, but both have qualities that allow smaller nations to continue their existence in the international society. I have inadvertently expressed my opinion that nations are structurally political and that it is in the interest of their leaders to appeal to their unique traditions in order to maintain their power. Either way, the choice between these two approaches rests on the hands of the nation and its relationship with the international society. Globalization does not hinder the existence of the nation but rather helps it establish a place in the structure of power in a world which is still dominated by politically and economically dominant super powers.
At the root of Collier’s argument is the notion that all bottom billion countries are stuck in at least one of four developmental traps: conflict traps, natural resources trap, landlocked with bad neighbors trap, and bad governance in a small country trap (...
There have been enormous efforts to spread democracy as a political system throughout the world by the developed democratic countries and the international development organizations including the World Bank. By the late 1990s the United States alone spent over a half billion dollars to promote democratic expansion throughout the world (Diamond, 2003). These were done considering that the democratic system leads towards development. As a result in the late 20th century we saw a huge political transformation towards democracy. During the last few decades a huge number of countries adopted democracy as their political system. However, it retain a big question how far democracy is successful in bringing development of a country? At this stage, some people also criticizes the effort of democratization arguing that it is done without considering the context of a country, sometimes democracy is not ideal for all countries and it is an effort to extinct diversity of political system. In studying the literature regarding the debate, we found a paradoxical relationship between democracy and development. Some argue that democracy has failed to ensure expected outcomes in terms of development. While others confronted that democracy has a considerable impact on development. Another group of people argue that form of political system actually does not have any impact on development process. On the verge of these debates, some development institutions and academics throw light on why democracy is not working properly, and what measure should be taken to make it more successful in bringing effective development of developing countries. Consequently, this writing is an effort of revisiting the different views about impact of democra...
Why do nations fail? This is a topic of popular debate with many economists and a question many scholars have struggled to find an answer to. Global poverty is an issue that economists Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson investigate and provide an alternative insight for in their book: ‘Why Nations Fail’. Acemoglu and Robinson investigate inequalities that exist across countries and why nations are an epitome of success and others, failure. They come up with an alternative explanation for why standards of living differ across countries, and why a gap exists between the rich and poor. The book introduces an example of two cities that are separated by a border: Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora. On the American side of the border, the income of the average household is $30,000, the population is relatively healthy, and the citizens live prosperously (Acemoglu & Robinson, 2012). On the opposite side of the border in Mexico, majority of the population do not own a high school degree, poor health conditions exist, poor infrastructure and unfortunately, high infant mortality rates (Acemoglu & Robinson 2012). How can situations on opposite borders be so different? The basis for Acemoglu and Robison’ s thesis for this phenomenon is that of institutions. They propose that that there is a strong correlation between economic and political institutions. That is, inclusive political institutions support inclusive economic institutions, and extractive political institutions support extractive economic institutions (Acemoglu & Robinson, 2012). Democratic institutions generally allow opportunities for the majority, leading to positive economic growth. Political institutions that look after a narrow elite is reinforced with stag...
Why nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, is a captivating read for all college economic courses. Coauthored by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, they optimistically attempt to answer the tough question of why some nations are rich and others are poor through political economic theories. They lay it all out in the preface and first chapter. According to Acemoglu and Robinson, the everyday United States citizen obtains more wealth than the every day Mexican, sub-Saharan African, Ethiopian, Mali, Sierra Leonne and Peruvian citizen as well as some Asian countries. The authors strategically arranged each chapter in a way that the reader, whomever he or she is, could easily grasp the following concept. Extractive nations that have political leadership and financial inconsistencies within their institutions are the largest contributor to poverty and despair within most countries. It also states that countries with socioeconomic institutions that work ‘for the people and by the people’, or in other words, focus on the internal agenda of that
Throughout this paper I am going to summarize Paul Colliers’s book, “The Bottom Billion”. Next, I will relate Collier’s argument to three key concepts; failed/failing states, Globalization, and the World Trade Organization (WTO). Secondly, I will critically evaluate three of the Collier’s weaknesses in his book. The first critique I have is his disbelief that democracy could fix the problem of corrupt governing in the bottom billion countries. The second critique that I have is his idea that military intervention is a necessity in order to get the bottom billion countries flourishing. My last critique is about his idea that the bottom billion countries constantly declining will directly correlate with our children in the United States facing an alarmingly divided world and all its consequences. Finally, I will conclude the book review and why I think his conclusion may be volatile.
Robert D. Kaplan’s article “The Coming Anarchy," is best summarized by the following quote, which identifies the different factors that he evaluates throughout his article, “To understand the events of the next fifty years, then, one must understand environmental scarcity, cultural and racial clash, geographic destiny, and the transformation of war.” (Kaplan, 1994) This is the framework that he uses to make his supporting arguments and thus this summary will be broken down into these four main parts.
Rodney’s argument is broken down into six chapters each consisting of several subdivisions and case studies supporting his principle argument. The first chapter works towards defining the terms of development and underdevelopment and argues the comparative nature of these terms; a country is only ‘underdeveloped’ by European standards. This chapter begins by tracing European development from its early stages of communalism through feudalism and finally capitalism. Then, he works towards developing an understanding of the term ‘underdevelopment’ and through an analysis of a variety of development indices what it constitutes in present day society: “In Niger, one doctor must do for 56, 140 people; in Tunisia one doctor for every 8,320 Tunisians”(18). The Marxist concept of inherent inequalities within the international capitalist system un...
In today’s globalizing but still fragmented and dangerous world, nations more than ever need effective governments to provide security, social cohesion and order, governance, infrastructure and basic services. They need, too, a vigorous private sector to mobilize the productive forces of the market, thereby creating national wealth and a strong national economy linked to international trade and markets. These two alone are not enough, however. Without the balance and political integration provided by the action of a third sector “civil society” too often the outcome is to centralize even more power in an already highly-centralized public sector and to concentrate even more wealth in an elite segment of the private sector. A dynamic civil society is needed to bring much greater political voice, social engagement, and economic participation to grassroots citizens. The three sectors need to work together in cross-sector partnerships to advance social progress and reverse the growing gap b...
The link between democracy and human rights has been recognized by many scholars. For example O’Donnell (2004) summarized the quality of democracy as: Quality of Democracy = human rights + human development. This viewpoint indicates that democracy encapsulates human rights. Several research findings strongly support the idea that states with higher levels of democracy, regardless of their election rules, are more respectful of human rights (Davenport 1997; Poe, Tate, and Keith 1999).