During recent years, provision of key social services in low-income countries has been affected by adverse macroeconomic conditions and by radical changes in economic thinking. For example, the welfarist approach, which gives prominence to the state in delivering and financing social services,...

The 1990s have witnessed the ascendance of a new orthodoxy which asserts that democracy and development are mutually reinforcing. This is in marked contrast to the dominant consensus that held sway for the previous two decades, which stated that developmental progress in poor societies was best...

Since 1978, China has pursued sweeping economic changes in an officially sponsored transition from a Stalinist centrally planned economy to a socialist market economy. China's reformers have highlighted the need to curb the awesome power of the Leninist state and change the balance of power...