Working Paper No.12
Liberal theory, uneven development and institutional reform: responding to the crisis in weak states
E A Brett
DESTIN, LSE
July 2002
The liberal paradigm responds to the failures of neo-mercantilism by attempting
to create reform market-based institutions. This agenda demands such radical
changes in institutions, culture, and knowledge systems, that it is hardly
surprising that it is faltering in countries where the gap between actually
existing and new institutions is so wide. This being so, it is time for a
serious reconsideration of a programme that is manifestly failing to achieve its
own objectives.
This paper looks for explanations for this failure by examining the factors
that led to the demise of the post-colonial interventionist programmes, and the
problems now associated with their liberal successors. It does this by
attempting to validate three propositions: 1) that modern institutions may be
failing in crisis states, but still provide the only long-term alternative that
offers people freedom, security and prosperity; 2) that reforms must generate
antagonistic conflict between new and old institutions and value systems; and 3)
that this means that new structures and theoretical paradigms must be adapted to
deal with the contradictory realities of the political conflicts that they must
inevitably generate during the transition to modernity.
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