Sakamoto Inequality and Why Nations Fail UNICAMP Brazil August

South African Journal of International Affairs, 2012

As the global economy heads for a ‘perfect storm’, there is no better time to grapple with the fundamental ingredients of Why Nations Fail. The good news, according to Acemoglu and Robinson, is that they don't fail because of financial crises but rather as a long-run consequence of the interaction between critical historical junctures and institutional drift, which determine the formation of political and economic institutions. The central thesis of the book is that economic growth and prosperity are associated with inclusive economic and political institutions while extractive institutions typically lead to stagnation and poverty. The point of departure for the reviewer is in the title; the authors offer a theoretical explanation for the question that haunts all economists at some point or another. In a tornado-like race through history, they examine the development of just about every country in the world to test whether their theoretical explanation stands firm. A culmination of 15 years’ worth of research, the book is not light reading. Yet it is understandable, accessible, rigorous and therefore thoroughly enjoyable for the enquiring mind. Quite simply, it is the most important book yet written on global economic development.

Country Studies, 2004

printed on recycled paper 1 2 3 4 06 05 04 World Bank Country Studies are among the many reports originally prepared for internal use as part of the continuing analysis by the Bank of the economic and related conditions of its developing member countries and to facilitate its dialogues with the governments. Some of the reports are published in this series with the least possible delay for the use of governments, and the academic, business, financial, and development communities. The manuscript of this paper therefore has not been prepared in accordance with the procedures appropriate to formally-edited texts. Some sources cited in this paper may be informal documents that are not readily available. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply on the part of the World Bank any judgment of the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. The material in this publication is copyrighted. The World Bank encourages dissemination of its work and normally will grant permission for use.

The Pakistan Development Review

Global economic inequality is the worldwide divergence of financial resources among nations, but also among households and individuals, or among classes, genders, and other socially defined groups. Debates about economic inequality worldwide, its characteristics, causes, and consequences, are at the heart of contemporary political, scholarly, and policy debates. In a world of unprecedented wealth, in which some have billions of dollars and many are starving, global economic inequality concerns fundamental questions about power, justice, and equity. Different disciplines, including economics, sociology, political science, and philosophy use various theories and approaches to measure, describe, and explain patterns and trends in economic inequality worldwide. These arguments are informed by normative assessments about inequality's moral justifications, as well as broad debates about the relationship between global economic inequality and capitalism.

Chapter Understanding Ethics and Responsibilities in a Globalizing World Volume 5 of the series The International Society of Business, Economics, and Ethics Book Series pp 201-225 The top priority for a far-sighted developing society in the current global interconnected world is addressing the issues of poverty and economic inequality. Economic inequality has been a common threat throughout the history of mankind and particularly occurs in contemporary societies as the obstacle to sustainable global development. The important role of smart governance and partnership between corporations, international institutions, and state authorities toward resolution of the negative externalities of the liberal market economy is considered to be implemented through the countries’ transformation into the socially oriented market economy, enabling both economic growth and social progress

All human beings are equal. This is the politically correct position around the world today. The position holds that individual value must correspond to individual characteristics, and not to ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability, religion, and so on. And since discrimination is wrong based on those kinds of background features, it is understood that all kinds of human beings have the same potential ability in all aspects of life. Of course, in reality, there are many different perspectives and approaches to this position. What is worse, the vast majority of the human population does not seem to hold that position to be true. Different degrees of racism and prejudice dominate societies all around the world. The consequences are clear and present for every disadvantaged human being. The discriminated people usually posses less political power, lower social status and acceptability, and endure lower economic standards. Ethnic polarizations are a common element in most societies. They vary from segregated public spheres, to discrimination for jobs, to ethnic cleansing. Perceived ethnic differences also often spark wars. This study embarks on a sensitive exploration of the relevance of ethnicity in world economy. The expectation is that ethnic polarizations at national levels also have significance at the global macro level. The hypothesis is that there is a systematic correlation between the ethnicity a country represents and sustained economic levels. This is perhaps an intuitive expectation, but we need a presentation capturing the character of these inequalities. The purpose is to reveal this aspect of global economy and bring it into the context of economic development (Part II). This kind of analysis is not included in mainstream economics, yet is so important when describing economic circumstances and formulating policy recommendations. Analysis of this sort is also important in understanding international power structures, processes and outcomes. International negotiations, as the recent Copenhagen climate conference, are one type of example. It seems arrogance and prejudice, coupled with racist attitudes, are still evident in these arenas. Another purpose of this paper is to use, once revealed, the aspect of the global economy described above as a point of departure to an alternative and non-Eurocentric histography capturing processes that have resulted in contemporary economic inequalities at the global macro level (Part III). In the social sciences this theme has provided national and regional analytical perspectives for explaining why some nations are rich and some poor. In the field of economics, some of the most obvious explanatory variables of low levels of GDP per capita for a country are low levels of investment, technology and education. These characteristics are, in turn, explained by other features such as corrupt leadership, civil wars, poor infrastructures, and poor health care facilities. This analysis is sometimes enhanced by factors such as ethnic based conflicts, undemocratic institutions, weak property rights, and other growth impeding factors (among others:

As a foundational topic of modern social sciences, research on inequalities has followed a long path of development and change. Some issues, concepts and topics have been constant, such as those related to social stratification and social mobility, while other conceptualizations and concerns have had ups and downs, with different emphases along time and space. Social science agendas have been shaped by developments within each discipline, but also by policy debates at national and mostly international agencies and by the challenges presented by the " real " world, by trends and experiences in different regions of the world. This book is part of a renewed attention to these issues, with a double face: inequalities in the plural, as an expression of multiple asymmetries, as well as in the singular, since specific inequalities are inserted in a single global social structure. The 1980s and 1990s were times when many scholars, governments, and international agencies concerned their attention on poverty rather than on inequalities. Furthermore, the focus of attention was the national level. At that time, inequalities became subject of econometric approaches that reduced research to measurements of income distribution. Under the dominance of the perspective of human capital, emphasis was placed on the need to invest in the development of human capacities –rather than of changing structures of opportunities, to refer to Amartya Sen's (1999) approach. At the same time, far from the international concerns for poverty and hunger, Western European sociologists and political scientists with few exceptions appeared to be fascinated by a reflexive or second modernity that supposedly opened new spaces for freedom and human creativity, after the debacle of socialism and the global expansion of democracy, virtually banning inequalities from their research agendas (Beck, Giddens, and Lash 1994; Habermas 1998; Beck 1986). Some scholars (Luhmann 1985; Honneth 1992) even proclaimed the unimportance of redistributive conflicts. Struggles for recognition and for individual and collective differentiation were supposed to be the new claims for justice in substitution of fights to reduce structural material inequalities. Meanwhile, in other parts of the world such as Latin America and Eastern Europe, transitions from dictatorships and authoritarian regimes were at center stage, and issues of democratization and enlargement of citizenship rights were at stake. Political and civic claims displaced (or shared the space with) issues of poverty. Later on, the language of exclusion-inclusion would come to the fore, reviving the discussions on marginality of the 1960s (Nun 1969, Nun 2001, LARR 2004). Here and there, the study of (new and old) social movements and collective identities was shaping a new agenda for research on new ways of dealing with stubborn and persistent inequalities in the world as well as the struggles to overcome them. However, research on social movements and social inequalities developed as parallel fields that only recently converged. 1 We would like to thank the Research Network Interdependent Inequalities in Latin America (desiguALdades.net) sponsered by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research for supporting our research and this publication. Our sincere thanks to all authors who kindly accepted our invitation to participate in this joint project, and revised their work so many times, responding to our queries and comments. We are indebted to Neil Jordan as a very collaborative editor, the anonymous reviewers and Tom Norton, for his copyediting work.

2024

Paper ini merupakan suatu risensi dari perpsektif suatu kelompok untuk memahami perbab buku "Why Nation Fail". Namun tidak hanya risensi melainkan pembaca akan disuguhkan dengan bedah materi atau memahami kosakata yanh terasa sulit dipahami.