Rethinking Development: Modernization, Dependency & Post-modern Politics

by David E. Apter

Development theory is at a crossroads. Dominant theories such as modernization and dependency have run their course. In Rethinking Development one of the preeminent political and social theorists of our time offers his view of the direction of the discipline. Using major themes such as the relation between development and democracy, the problem of innovation and marginality, Professor Apter offers an innovative comparative study of development. Rethinking Development takes a new look at scientific, romantic and teleological formulations of development, showing how conventional concepts of development prevent us from seeing its negative consequences. It argues that development will generate democracy, but not e

328 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1987

About the author

David Ernest Apter (December 18, 1924 – May 4, 2010) was an American political scientist and sociologist. He was Henry J Heinz Professor Emeritus of Comparative Political and Social Development and Senior Research Scientist at Yale University.
He was born on December 18, 1924. He taught at Northwestern University, the University of Chicago (where he was the Executive Secretary of the Committee for the Comparative Study of New Nations), the University of California, (where he was director of the Institute of International Studies), and Yale University, where he held a joint appointment in political science and sociology and served as Director of the Social Science Division, Chair of Sociology, and was a founding fellow of the Whitney Humanities Center. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1966.
He was a Guggenheim Fellow, a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey, a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Science in Palo Alto, California, a Fellow of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, as well as a Phi Beta Kappa Lecturer. He has done field research on development, democratization and political violence in Africa, Latin America, Japan, and China.
In 2006 he was the first recipient of the Foundation Mattei Dogan prize for contributions to Interdisciplinary research.
Apter died in his home in North Haven, Connecticut, from complications due to cancer on May 4, 2010.