The Political Infrastructure of Economic Development

Abstract

The collapse of the Soviet model for economic development questions the meaning of the distinction between the First, Second, and Third World. Instead, the classical social scientific distinction between developed and underdeveloped, capitalist and non-capitalist world, appears more appropriate. The problem of development then is one of understanding the causal determinants of progress. A comparative historical political economy research program forces scholars to pay attention to the institutional infrastructure of society, the impact of alternative institutional environments on human action, and the consequences in terms of social and economic progress. Neither old nor new neo-classical economic theory can address these institutional questions, and as such they do not advance our understanding of the causal determinants of economic development. To understand economic development, what is needed is not more elaborate formal models of growth or better techniques for measurement, but more detailed historical studies of the pattern of development across countries and periods. The conjecture that emerges from such a study is that the source of development can be found in the political and legal institutions, and the indigenous cultural practices that combine to form the institutional infrastructure of any society. An appendix applies the argument to developments in Russia.

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