The Culture and Development Manifesto

Reviews / Votes

This book is a brilliant plea, subtly combining scholarship, examples and common sense, to mobilise the competencies of anthropologists for a better adaptation of development policies to local conditions. It is based on a robust premise: in the confrontation between the interventions of development agencies and the social contexts in which they are implemented (local cultures), the many failures do not stem from a refusal of development by the populations but from an incapacity of public policy experts to take local cultures into account. The final proposal, convening dialogues between experts, anthropologists and local actors, is highly stimulating. * Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Marseilles, and LASDEL, Niamey, Niger and author of Anthropology and Development * Can cultural anthropology and international development team up in a way that creates mutual respect and contextually sensitive projects, programs, or social movements - ones that fit? How common is an author with kind heart, hard head, and lucid pen; one intimately familiar too with scholars, program designers, and powerful officials? That's right; both disciplines need this book. * Parker Shipton, Professor of Anthropology and Professor of African Studies, Boston University * The Culture and Development Manifesto seeks to open a path between two disciplines that often seem hermetically sealed, cultural anthropology and development economics. It will be of immense use to any practitioner working at this highly fraught boundary. * Francis Fukuyama, Stanford University * In this highly engaging book, Klitgaard not only brings economic and culture into dialog with each other, he goes beyond 'culture matters' to demonstrate what 'taking culture into account' may mean in practice. This is a book that only Klitgaard, with his sharp multidisciplinary lens, wealth of on-the-ground experience, and remarkable penmanship, could have pulled off * Dani Rodrik, Harvard Kennedy School * As anthropologists and management consultants know, sometimes it takes an outsider to show the value of an idea. In this provocative and thoughtful book, Klitgaard shows that it may take an outsider (an economist, no less) to show how the study of culture holds practical lessons for human development. Rather than seeing 'culture' as an obstacle to development and wellbeing, he shows how both creativity and collaboration emerge from bringing together on equal footing different, even competing, beliefs and ways of looking at the world. Connecting the dots between theory and policy, he offers a practical and useful 'convening framework' to operationalize this model. Policy makers as well as scholars and practitioners of development should read this book and work to implement its conclusions. * Edward F. Fischer, Vanderbilt University * A proposition universally accepted, it seems, is that culture should (must) be taken into account in international development work. However, there is zero consensus as to how best to do so. Worse, the pitfalls on the path to integrating cultural approaches make many duck and avoid the topic altogether. Klitgaard has grappled with this odd dilemma for many years, on the ground and in the academy. In The Culture and Development Manifesto, he sets out the challenges and their historic evolution with lucid clarity (and a host of stories), and offers some sensible, if demanding, ways forward. * Katherine Marshall, Senior Fellow, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, Georgetown University and author of Development and Faith *