What Happened to Political Development?

Abstract

The subject matter of economic development and political development intersects over a broad front. Economic policy is made by incumbent politicians in the context of political institutions. The analysis of the economic impact of alternative policies is the stock in trade of the economist. The choice of the alternative policies that are subjected to economic analysis is influenced by the agendas of political parties and interests. The subject matter of political science includes the political decision process by which policies are adopted and implemented. It also includes the social consequences and the public response to policy. There is a deep fault line that divides scholarship in the two fields. Each field tends to treat the knowledge it draws on from the other as implicit rather than explicit. It seems apparent that the implicit theorizing by economists about political development and of political scientists about economic development should be replaced by more specific attempts to develop an integrated theory of political and economic development. Political scientists and economists loosely grouped within the collective choice school of political economy have advanced our understanding of the proceses by which economic resources are translated into political resources and political resources are translated into economic resources.' But a similar convergence of theory and analysis has not yet been achieved among students of political and economic development. This article represents an attempt to assess what development economists could learn from theory and research in the field of political development to advance knowledge and policy in the field of economic development. I proceed by first reviewing the contributions of several development economists who have attempted to give explicit attention to the political preconditions or conditions for economic development. I then review the evolution of thought in the field of political development. This leads me to a discussion of the central problem