This new edition examines some of the philosophical and theoretical issues underlying the 'democratic project' which increasingly dominates the fields of comparative development and international relations. The first concern presented here is normative and epistemological: as democracy becomes more widely accepted as the political currency of legitimacy, the more broadly it is defined. But as agreement decreases regarding the definition of democracy, the less we are able to evaluate how it is working, or indeed whether it is working at all.
The second issue is causal: what are the claims being made regarding how best to secure a democratic system in developing states? To what extent do our beliefs and expectations of how political relations ought to be governed distort our understanding of how democratic societies do in fact emerge; and, conversely, to what extent does our understanding of how democracy manifests itself temper our conception of what it ought to be?
The volume will be of interest to those in international development studies, as well as political theorists with an interest in applied ethics.
- ISBN10 1847795188
- ISBN13 9781847795182
- Publish Date 19 July 2013 (first published 17 September 1998)
- Publish Status Cancelled
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Manchester University Press
- Imprint Manchester University Press Melland Schill Studies
- Edition 2nd edition
- Format eBook
- Language English