The Constitution of Development: Crafting Capabilities for Self-Governance [Paperback]

Examining the foundations of development, Shivakumar describes how societies can reconstitute themselves to improve their developmental well-being. He argues that the unitary state focus in theory and practice limits the creative potential of individuals to improve their mutual well-being through crafting capabilities for self-governance. This is a significant contribution to current discussions on institutional foundations of development, providing practical guidance on what it means to constitute a government that facilitates rather than impedes progress.Constituting Development PART I: STATE GOVERNANCE AND DEVELOPMENT Post-War Interpretations of Development The Aid Effectiveness Puzzle The State as a Concept in Development The State as the Means to Development PART II: INSTITUTIONS AND DEVELOPMENT The Constitutional Foundations of Development Adaptive Development and Institutional Problem-Solving Institutions, Market Exchange, and Development PART III: CRAFTING CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNANCE Crafting the Institutions for a Problem-Solving Society Crafting New Institutions on Indigenous Foundations Towards a Democratic Civilization for the 21st Century

If we really are serious about wiping out poverty in the 21st Century, we must re-think development so that it is more responsive to the people who need it most. A good place to start is this impassioned and carefully argued brief that the institutions necessary for economic progress cannot be imposed but must come from the bottom-up from the local networks of trust, cooperation, and consensus that ordinary people have created in the face of the social, legal, and economic discrimination that stymies the developing world. - Hernando de Soto, author, The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else