State Failure, State Success and Development

3 units

This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to examining the role governments play in development and economic outcomes. We will look at some of the competing arguments about governments in failed and successful states and compare those arguments to the empirical world, or data. In so doing we will recognize that how governments affect development and economic outcomes in society is neither straightforward nor consistent with any of the ideological screeds that often dominate public discourse.