This volume offers a critique of the literature on political development from the 1960s and 1970s, and traces its influence in contemporary approaches to democratization. It argues that the orthodox view was never optimistic about the immediate prospects for democracy around the Third World.

This volume offers a critique of the literature on political development from the 1960s and 1970s, and traces its influence in contemporary approaches to democratization. It argues that the orthodox view was never optimistic about the immediate prospects for democracy around the Third World. On the contrary, it was always fearful that democratic reform, once initiated, would prove hard to control. This prompted the formulation of a pragmatic "doctrine for political development" which survived failed attempts to establish a persuasive theory to back it up. Pardoxically, suggests this book, despite such failure, this doctrine dominates discussion of democratization today.