Book Review: Kathleen Staudt, Border Politics in a Global Era: Comparative Perspectives
| Author | Dhananjay Tripathi |
| Published date | 01 January 2018 |
| Date | 01 January 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0020881718756474 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
78 Book Reviews
to make a successful transition. While this argument (particularly about an Asian
model of democracy) has been made before and is not entirely novel, the book
stands out in offering a comparative analysis of political cultures developed
across Africa and Asia. It is clear that the scholars analysing various political
systems agree with the benefits of democratic governance but that the western
model imposed from above without taking into account local factors would result
in failure. The uniqueness of each culture would produce its own version of
democracy—possibly a hybrid one—combining features from both the west and
the east. So to answer the title of the book, the presence of numerous countries
that can clearly be classified as following some form of non-western democratic
model is a clear sign that such regimes are possible and they do exist—challenging
the western views on a universal model of democracy. Asia has the lead when it
comes to non-western democracies while Africa and some West Asian countries
are moving at a slow pace towards modernization. Adding to the growing strength
of voices from the developing world for a better understanding of their peculiar
situation by the developed world, the book effectively argues that there will not
be one single model of democratic governance that can be uniformly applied
across cultures, historical experiences, economic constraints and political realities
but instead each state deciding its own path forward—alongside revealing the
need for a more patient and sympathetic understanding from the western world
about the challenges being faced by the developing world in bringing about
political modernization.
Arun Kumar Mohanty
Professor, Centre for Russian & Central Asian Studies,
School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University,
New Delhi, India
E-mail: amohantymoscow@gmail.com
Nivedita Kapoor
Research Scholar, Centre for Russian & Central Asian Studies,
School of International Studies,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
E-mail: Kapoor.nivedita@gmail.com
Kathleen Staudt, Border Politics in a Global Era: Comparative Perspectives
(London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), 320 pp., US $46 (Paperback).
DOI: 10.1177/0020881718756474
Professor Kathleen Staudt is a familiar name for students of border studies.
She has extensively written on different borders of the world and thus she is in
a position to bring comparative perspectives in a single book. Interestingly, the
book is not only about discussing various borders of the world but also an
attempt to study borders differently. This book is not fixed with one region and
To continue reading
Request your trial