A proposition universally accepted, it seems, is that culture should (must) be taken into account in international development work. However, there is zero consensus as to how best to do so. Worse, the pitfalls on the path to integrating cultural approaches make many duck and avoid the topic altogether. Klitgaard has grappled with this odd dilemma for many years, on the ground and in the academy. In The Culture and Development Manifesto, he sets out the
challenges and their historic evolution with lucid clarity (and a host of stories), and offers some sensible, if demanding, ways forward.
Robert Klitgaard is a University Professor at Claremont Graduate University, in California. His research and consulting have taken him to more than 35 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. He has been a professor at Harvard, Yale, and the Dean of the Pardee RAND Graduate School, America's leading Ph.D. program in policy analysis. Among his ten previous books is Tropical Gangsters, named one of the New York Times'
Books of the Century.