Vol. 2 No. 2&3 (2014): CISS Insight Quarterly News & Views, June - Sep 2014
Book Reviews

Dargon Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty

Ms. Farzana Siddique
Research Officer at the Center for International Strategic Studies (CISS)
CISS Insight Journal 2014
Published October 6, 2014
How to Cite
Ms. Farzana Siddique. (2014). Dargon Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty. CISS Insight Journal, 2(2&3), Vol.2,No.3 P57-60. Retrieved from https://journal.ciss.org.pk/index.php/ciss-insight/article/view/184

Abstract

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty is an in-depth look at the growing income and wealth disparities between rich and poor countries. The central theme of this book is to explain the concept of inclusive and extractive political and economic systems, which according to the authors are responsible for the disparity of wealth among the countries. Authors have made a comparative analysis of the countries like US, Britain and Germany with the poor countries, such as those in Sub-Saharan Africa, Central America and South Asia. The authors categorize the two sets of countries, the rich and the poor, according to the sociopolitical systems prevailing in each state. Developed countries have an inclusive system and most of the developing countries are practicing extractive political and economic systems.

The whole debate in the book revolves around the framework of inclusive political and economic systems and its impact on an economic and political progress of the country whose institutions are practicing these systems. The authors have explained these concepts with the help of analogies and tested their theory on the basis of historical experiences of various states and their current status in the world.