No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 January 2018
The ‘weak’ and ‘flawed’ nature of South Asian institutions has become axiomatic in development discourse, with the persistence of this view outweighed only by its lack of concreteness. The fascination with institutions is noteworthy precisely because the most fundamental questions about them are still under debate: there is little agreement on the definition of institutions beyond generic statements, let alone an established consensus on which institutions engender development. Instead institutionalist explanations float far and wide, netting the blame for various policy failures, with a striking lack of critical inspection. This special issue is an attempt to bring together various perspectives on institutional change and economic development in South Asia in an attempt to problematize the very concept of institutions and their perceived role in fostering economic development. The geographical focus on South Asia furthers a central aim of this collection: to emphasize the contextual nature of institutions. This translates into a need for disaggregating secular institutional theory into its precise constraints and implications for particular spaces, moments, and contexts.
This special issue is based on papers presented at the conference ‘Institutions and their Discontents: Rethinking Economic Development in South Asia’, 17–18 March 2014, University of Cambridge, UK. We would like to thank Joya Chatterji, Norbert Peabody and the team at Modern Asian Studies for their support and assistance in bringing this issue to publication.
1 See North, Douglass, Institutions, institutional change and economic performance (Cambridge, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Galiani, Sebastian and Sened, Itai, ‘Introduction’ in Galiani, Sebastian and Sened, Itai (eds), Institutions, property rights and economic growth: The legacy of Douglass North (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 2 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Shepsle, Kenneth A., ‘Institutional equilibrium and equilibrium institutions’ in Weisberg, Herbert (ed.), Political science: The science of politics (New York: Agathon Press, 1986), pp. 51–55 Google Scholar.
4 Galiani and Sened, ‘Introduction’, p. 6.
5 Ibid.
6 Acemoglu, D., Robinson, J. and Johnson, S., ‘The colonial origins of comparative development: An empirical investigation’, The American Economic Review, 102, 6 (2012), pp. 3077–3110 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7 See for instance Jalal, Ayesha, Democracy and authoritarianism in South Asia: A comparative and historical perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.