Development in Asia

Abstract

"Development" is one of the most ubiquitous yet least understood concepts of our age. It is something all governments claim to be engaged in and is considered desirable by scholars, activists, policymakers, and laypeople alike. Yet it is also a highly contested term. For some, development is simply a matter of economic growth. Others maintain that it must entail improving life expectancy, literacy, education levels, and access to resources. Others yet, disillusioned by the results of development initiatives, have rejected development altogether, equating it with a self-serving aid industry that entraps the poor in a vicious cycle of dependency. Still, critics argue these "post-development" theorists merely replicate earlier doctrines of development and have themselves become part of the problem they wish to transcend.

This book, a collection of works by scholars of development, examines the theory and practice of development and its implications and varied meanings in Asian contexts. It attempts to under

About the Author

Derrick M. Nault holds a Ph.D. in history from Queen's University in Kingston, Canada. He currently teaches development studies and history at the University of Calgary in Calgary, Canada and has been a visiting professor at Kwansei Gakuin University in Japan and Seoul National University in Korea. He has been the Editor in Chief of the Asia Journal of Global Studies since 2006 and is a past president of the Asia Association for Global Studies.

The individual contributors are all specialists in their fields at leading universities in Asia and elsewhere.