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Burnell & Randall: Politics in the Developing World 2e

Chapter 11

  1. Which countries in the developing world exemplify best the positive features of a developmental state, and why?

  2. Are the conditions for developmental democratic states as favourable now as the conditions for developmental authoritarian states have been in some developing countries in the past?

  3. What are the main forces that lead states everywhere to resemble more closely the modern state idea?

  4. What are the forces that most powerfully prevent convergence by developing world states on the modern state idea?

  5. How far must an adequate theory of the state in the developing world in the twenty first century take account of economic forces that originate outside the country?

  6. Are states being displaced by non-state actors as the primary unit of analysis in developing country politics?

  7. What was the legacy of colonial rule for the state in newly independent countries of the developing world and does it continue to have a bearing?

  8. Do you agree that a prerequisite for democratic consolidation is a strong state?

  9. Why does the struggle to capture state power tend to be so intense in developing countries?

  10. Discuss, with reference to the experience of developing countries, the claim that strong and effective states are inconceivable without strong economies.

  11. Compare and contrast the features of a developmental state and of a 'rentier' state.

  12. Are there any necessary conditions for a developmental state to emerge?

  13. Are all developmental states the same?

  14. Have any parts of the developing world either rejected the modern state or decided that some of its central features are not appropriate for them, and if so, what reasons do they give?

  15. Does the developing world provide evidence for the proposition that strong states underpin stable democracy?

  16. How do you make sense of the paradoxical combination of despotic (coercive) power and weak infrastructural or transformative capacities that has been said to characterise many developing world states?

  17. 'Although globalization has been said to undermine state autonomy vis-à-vis the rest of the world it could also be responsible for increasing the autonomy of states in the developing world vis-à-vis their own society.' Explain and discuss.

  18. How useful are Marxist understandings of the state for analysing the state in developing societies?

  19. Discuss the contention that the colonial state inherited by developing countries at independence was 'overdeveloped'.

  20. Is it possible to have a developmental state which is also democratic? Discuss with reference to countries in the developing world.