Monday, May 12, 2014

Book Review - Development, Democracy, and the Welfare States: Latin America, East Asia, Eastern Europe



In the work Development, Democracy, and the Welfare States: Latin America, East Asia, Eastern Europe, Stephan Haggard and Robert R. Kaufman explore how social and political shifts can have long standing effects on the development and economies in particular regions. It provides a comprehensive analysis of various systems, which serves as a cross comparison of these various regions.

As per the suggestion of Dr. Cocozzelli, I began reading this particular book because it provides a unique link between the development of states and education. Though this book only caters to one area of my research topic through its assessment of East Asia, including Korea, it has provided some substantial information regarding how state’s prioritization of education can ultimately lend to specific outcomes for states. In a cross comparison between Latin America and East Asia there were not large gaps between levels of overall GDP spending on education, but the states prioritized their spending differently. Korea worked to achieve universal primary school enrollment. There were also parallels drawn between the type of political ideology employed in the state and the education outcomes. States with socialist regimes, such as those in China had significantly higher levels of educational development.


This provided a great perspective on some of the education attainment indicators, which will provide a great foundation for additional research. 

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