Discipline and Development: Middle Classes and Prosperity in East Asia and Latin America - Softcover

Davis, Diane E.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521002087 ISBN 13: 9780521002080

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2004

Synopsis

Perhaps the most commonly held assumption in the field of development is that middle classes are the bounty of economic modernization and growth. As countries gradually transcend their agrarian past and become urbanized and industrialized, so the logic goes, middle classes emerge and gain in number, complexity, cultural influence, social prominence, and political authority. Yet this is only half the story. Middle classes shape industrial and economic development, they are not merely its product; the particular ways in which middle classes shape themselves - and the ways historical conditions shape them - influence development trajectories in multiple ways. This is the story of South Korea's and Taiwan's economic successes and Argentina's and Mexico's relative 'failures' through an examination of their rural middle classes and disciplinary capacities. Can disciplining continue in a context where globalization squeezes middle classes and frees capitalists from the state and social contracts in which they have been embedded?

About this title

Review

"The highest praise that most historical sociologists can give is that a book is in the same league as Barrington Moore's Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. This book may well be in that league with its grand comparative sweep, its subtle attention to methodological issues, and its command of the literature. Postmodern it is not. It offers theory, it grapples with evidence, it comes to strong conclusions that point forward as well as backward." --Leslie Sklair, Professor of Sociology, London School of Economics

Book Description

South Korea's and Taiwan's economic successes and Argentina's and Mexico's relative 'failures' are compared through examination of their rural middle classes and disciplinary capacities. Can disciplining continue in a context where globalization squeezes middle classes and frees capitalists from state and social contracts?

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521002087
• ISBN 13: 9780521002080
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 436