The politics of development policy

Abstract

Theories of the causes of development in the Third World are criticized for a lack of attention to policy, focus on too abstracted and too narrowly conceived variables, and an excessive concern with generalization. Two more promising current approaches—analysis of the calculations of politicians and officials when they make policy decisions, and of the implications for the politics of policy making of certain economic variables and policies—are assessed and reformulated. The merits of these approaches are then illustrated with cases from current research on the politics of development policy in Indonesia.