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Item Details
| Title:
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SEEING LIKE A STATE
HOW CERTAIN SCHEMES TO IMPROVE THE HUMAN CONDITION HAVE FAILED |
| By: |
James C. Scott |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| List price:
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£16.99 |
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We currently do not stock this item, please contact the publisher directly for
further information.
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| ISBN 10: |
0300078153 |
| ISBN 13: |
9780300078152 |
| Publisher: |
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS |
| Pub. date: |
8 February, 1999 |
| Series: |
The Institution for Social and Policy Studies |
| Pages: |
464 |
| Description: |
An analysis of diverse failures in high-modernist, authoritarian state planning. It covers projects such as collectivization in Russia and the building of Brasilia, arguing that any centrally-managed social plan must recognize the importance of local customs and practical knowledge. |
| Synopsis: |
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. |
| Illustrations: |
36 b-w illus. |
| Publication: |
US |
| Imprint: |
Yale University Press |
| Returns: |
Returnable |
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