This is a serious book worth very careful consideration. Its brevity at 180 pages of text should not fool anyone that this will be a quick read. It is not. However, for those in our midst tethered to Twitter and 140 characters or less, the following “posts” headline the big picture that Judith Teichman draws and so might encourage them to return to old-fashioned scholarship and a deserving close read. “Simple Solutions”: Seldom Satisfy. “Perfect Programs”: Don’t Either. “Context Matters”: It Really, Really Does.

The general idea of inclusive development is far from simple, certainly in its aspirations, or as Teichman states it: “Inclusive development . . . provides basic physical security for the population, achieves the elimination of poverty, and mitigates the deprivations that prevent citizens from participating fully in society. It provides equality of access to good quality services, particularly education, for all groups and generates decent livelihoods (reasonably stable and secure incomes) for all” (p. 2). Institutions, particularly political and administrative (but not necessarily democratic) ones, must rise to the occasion in many different ways to contribute to the overall inclusive bill of particulars. Simply generating economic growth is not enough, as essential as it may be as one of many different means and objectives. Politics matters at least as much, probably even more: “The achievement of inclusive development is, more than anything else, a political feat, and one that requires a societal agreement on the goal of inclusive development” (p. 2).

The book is organized simply. The first three chapters cover the theoretical hopes, doctrinal guideposts, and practical outcomes that result from narrow economic strategies; the complicated historical relationships that shape and limit efforts to devise effective programs, whether state centered (1950 to ∼1980) or market based (1980 to ∼2010); and the considerable challenges needed to forge political coalitions that foster “resolute state action . . . required to make progress toward inclusive development” (p. 49). The following three chapters present rich contextual portraits of the experiences and development pathways of Mexico, Indonesia, Chile, and South Korea and so make a convincing case in a concluding argument for inclusive development founded on and motivated by political means.

Teichman is not alone in her concerns as indicated by a growing movement to understand so-called fragile states in various stages of breakdown and failure (Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail, 2012). A common thread linking Teichman to this movement is a realization that a country’s individual developmental needs and its capacity to cope institutionally are crucially interrelated. Pursuit of economic goals to the exclusion of many other, different ones has not worked very well and, in many circumstances, may have contributed to political and social instabilities. The so-called International Monetary Fund coup comes to mind here. In addition, the time frames and horizons separating the usually short ones favored in economic policies seldom allow for the much longer, even generational, ones involved in genuine inclusive development. Shifting economic doctrines based on unsatisfactory, relatively short term results or, even worse, on changing fads in economic thinking has proven unhelpful, too.

The case studies demonstrate in rich detail these essential points while simultaneously assembling a convincing argument for a richer, more sophisticated approach to development. Each case study is a little gem quite capable of standing on its own as a concise story about what worked and did not work and the reasons why. Taken together, one quickly realizes that many different ways exist to improve; likewise, there are many different ways to stumble or fail. Humility, patience, and a willingness to embrace trial and error help. The overriding importance of understanding historical and cultural specifics that shape and color specific settings and experiences is undeniable. What might work in Chile may fail utterly in Indonesia, Mexico, or Korea and so forth. The importance of trends and events in the world at large and through time matter, too. Trade regimes beyond an individual country’s control often matter far more than interventions taken by actors within a country or even a region. Similarly, prices set in world markets for commodities and natural resources provide both opportunities (when prices increase) and challenges (when they fall) that are not under local control. Sometimes just being lucky works out far better than being all-knowing or even smart, just as Machiavelli in the sixteenth century taught The Prince about Fortuna.

Perfect programs, or at least those appearing to work out, may not succeed long term. Conditional cash transfers (CCT) have improved human capital in many countries by requiring medical and educational commitments for children of poor people as a condition for cash payments. So far so good, but what happens when these children age out of programs and are now searching for jobs other than the usual low-paying ones available in an informal economy? Long before this happens, where are the health and education services to provide the requisite improvements in well-being and skill even to allow one a better life?

Microfinance, providing small loans to the poor to improve capital investment and thus self-employed incomes, gained much favor and attention in the 1980s and 1990s as a means to lessen poverty. As real experiences with it gathered, the rosy social glow dimmed in the wake of commercialization of many small-scale lenders in ever larger units and their inability to scale up individual loans to more productive levels and viable purposes. High interest rates, always an issue but usually manageable for small, short-term loans, became a major issue as loans grew in size: “This has produced unsustainable debt loads and loss of land and businesses when poor borrowers could not make payment” (p. 55).

Letting markets and big business work “unfettered by government” or in a framework of specific industrial policies has naive appeal, although the ensuing problems soon mount, as several of the cases carefully detail. Balancing a power partnership between business and government is at the crux of the matter. Being responsive to the dynamics of an ever-changing global economy is another.

The dynamic extends to internal political arrangements. While democratic regimes, compared to authoritarian ones, are also appealing as means to achieve inclusive development, they are not necessary, as the cases of South Korea and Chile before 1990 demonstrate. The Chinese experience is also notable. Mexico’s electoral democracy is associated with certain kinds of development, but still fails to account for considerable inequities among and between different sectors located throughout the country.

The roles played by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are numerous, as are the sheer numbers of NGOs operating around the world. Providing essential social services in health, education, welfare, safe water, microfinance and so on figures prominently in their contributions to development. Here again, the larger, longer-term perspective of these contributions is mixed: “The use of [NGOs] arguably discourages states from developing the competencies that are essential for the achievement of inclusive development in the long term” (p. 171). NGOs are also capable of threatening existing political forces, with sometimes unfortunate consequences for the NGO.

In The Politics of Inclusive Development, Teichman presents a detailed, sophisticated, and sobering analysis, while at the same time offering hope that weaning ourselves off of simple solutions and perfect programs in favor of careful, context-specific specific and adaptive ones will provide more realistic paths to progress.