Books like Critical development theory by Ronaldo Munck

A practical, policy‑oriented textbook that uses models and country examples to explain economic development, updated with the latest research and data for students with limited economics background.

Amartya Sen’s 1999 book analyzes international development as a process of expanding human freedom.

Debraj Ray, one of the most accomplished theorists in development economics today, presents in this book a synthesis of recent and older literature in the field and raises important questions that will help to set the agenda for future research. He covers such vital subjects as theories of economic growth, economic inequality, poverty and undernutrition, population growth, trade policy, and the markets for land, labor, and credit. The book takes the position that there is no single cause for economic progress, but that a combination of factors - among them the improvement of physical and human capital, the reduction of inequality, and institutions that enable the background flow of information essential to market performance - consistently favor development. Ray supports his arguments throughout with examples from around the world. The book assumes a knowledge of only introductory economics and explains sophisticated concepts in simple, direct language, keeping the use of mathematics to a minimum.

This book is a 'stock-taking' of development theory at the end of the twentieth century. It argues that the assumptions on which development theory has rested since the 1950s no longer hold. The ex-colonial 'third world' for which development theory was originally developed has fractured into increasingly diverse regions, while the end of the post-war regime of regulated international trade and capital movements has drastically curtailed the scope for state economic intervention. A much broader-based, more historical and more explicitly political theoretical effort is now called for.

This text provides a critical assessment of dominant features of development theory and practice in such areas as globalization, governance, social development, participation, feminism and postcolonialism, civil society, environment, and development management. Each chapter addresses a particular approach within development by setting out the orthodoxy, and critically evaluates this before engaging more constructively with the challenges presented by contemporary development. This approach will give students a clearer understanding of the debates within development today. [Publisher].