BOOK REVIEW

Democratization and Demystification: Deconstructing “Governance” as a Development Paradigm

Democratization and Demystification: Deconstructing “Governance” as a Development Paradigm

There has been a lot of debate on the various the best form of government for the development and prosperity of an economy. It is widely observed that the development paradigm is heavily dependent on the technological advancement the state of the economy. The environmental and development bargain of the South elite would be in collaboration with the elites of the North, accepting the hegemony of the existing rules and the systems of the world.

Discourses on participatory development are the extent to which they evade the actual relations of the power which keep the people poor and deprived of their basic needs and requirements. This is the reason why people term globalization as a failed phenomenon because countries face problems with such a concept. Third World and underdeveloped countries are most affected with the concept of globalization as most of the global policies are directed in favor of developed countries. The policy makers have severely criticized on this matter recently as the economic development is hampered in third world countries. The policy has yet to produce good results for countries and international organizations.

There has been an ideological linkage of the popular participation to economic liberalization. Organizations and individual who are designing policies and empowering are not poor people, so they do not think accordingly and do not have the real taste of the problems faced by the poor people. A lot has been written on the issue of participatory development, but the issue is yet to be solved. World Bank recently prepared a document on the problem of participatory development with a title “Demystifying Popular Participation”. It states that:

“Fostering Popular Participants is a deeply serious matter, but it is not ...