Ilchman and Uphoff believe that political science has failed in the past to meet its own standards of rigor and cogency and does not meet standards of usefulness and relevance set by others. The Political Economy of Change attempts to remedy these shortcomings by expanding the limits of social science analysis to deal with problems of allocation and productivity in all spheres of public choice, not just the economic sphere.

Drawing on concepts in political economy, political ecology, justice theory, and critical development studies, the authors offer the first comprehensive, systematic exploration of the ways in which adaptation projects can produce unintended, undesirable results. This work is on the Global Policy: Next Generation list of six key books for understanding the politics of global climate change.

An analytical framework for explaining the ways in which institutions and institutional change affect the performance of economies is developed in this analysis of economic structures.

This volume serves as an introduction to the field of positive political economy and the economic and political processes with which it is concerned. This new research tradition is distinct from both normative and historical approaches to political economy. Grounded in the rational-actor methodology of microeconomics, positive political economy is the study of rational decisions in a context of political and economic institutions. More analytical than traditional approaches, it is concerned with the derivation of principles and propositions against which real-world experience may be compared. Its focus is on empirical regularities, and its goal is theoretical explanation. The field has focused on three main areas of research: models of collective action, constraints on competitive market processes, and the analysis of transaction costs. Developments in all of these areas are covered in the book. The first part of the volume surveys the field, while the second part displays positive political economy at work, examining a variety of subjects. The final part contains essays by leading political economists on the theoretical foundations of the field.

This volume looks at the effectiveness of conditionality in structural adjustment programmes. Tony Killick charts the emergence of conditionality, and challenges the widely held assumption that it is a co-operative process, arguing that in fact it tends to be coercive and detrimental to development objectives. Through detailed case studies of twenty one recipient countries, he explores the key issues of: * ownership * role of agencies * government objectives and the effects of policy. The conclusion is that conditionality has been counterproductive to price stability, economic growth and investment.