Approaches to the Study of Political Development

Abstract

Interest in the politics of the developing areas has increased steadily since World War II, and scholars have now produced a sizable collection of single-country monographs, several regional studies, and at least one attempt at a global synthesis. 1 This literature has tended to stress various conditions as the primary correlates or determinants of political development. This research note offers a taxonomy of five approaches to the study of political development. The taxonomy draws upon both traditional and contemporary sources, and studies of both “developing” and “developed” areas, to derive a framework for ordering the literature on political development produced in the past two decades. The five approaches are (I) “legal-formal,” (2) “economic,” (3) “administrative,” (4) “social system,” and (5) “political culture.”