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Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed
Contributor(s): Scott, James C. (Author)

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ISBN: 1538552868     ISBN-13: 9781538552865
Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks
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Binding Type: Compact Disc - See All Available Formats & Editions
Published: May 2018
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Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Political Science | History & Theory - General
- Political Science | World - General
- Political Science | Public Policy - General
Physical Information: 1.7" H x 6.1" W x 5.7" L (0.75 lbs)
Features: Price on Product, Unabridged
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
Compulsory ujamaa villages in Tanzania, collectivization in Russia, Le Corbusier's urban planning theory realized in Brasilia, the Great Leap Forward in China, agricultural "modernization" in the Tropics-the twentieth century has been racked by grand utopian schemes that have inadvertently brought death and disruption to millions. Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry?In this wide-ranging and original book, James C. Scott analyzes failed cases of large-scale authoritarian plans in a variety of fields. Centrally managed social plans misfire, Scott argues, when they impose schematic visions that do violence to complex interdependencies that are not-and cannot-be fully understood. Further, the success of designs for social organization depends upon the recognition that local, practical knowledge is as important as formal, epistemic knowledge. The author builds a persuasive case against "development theory" and imperialistic state planning that disregards the values, desires, and objections of its subjects. He identifies and discusses four conditions common to all planning disasters: administrative ordering of nature and society by the state; a "high-modernist ideology" that places confidence in the ability of science to improve every aspect of human life; a willingness to use authoritarian state power to effect large- scale interventions; and a prostrate civil society that cannot effectively resist such plans.

Contributor Bio(s): Scott, James C.: -

James C. Scott is the Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Anthropology at Yale University and current president of the Association of Asian Studies. He is the author of Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance; Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts; and The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia, all published by Yale University Press.


 
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