Robert Klitgaard is a University Professor at Claremont Graduate University, in California. His research and consulting have taken him to more than 35 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. He has been a professor at Harvard, Yale, and the Dean of the Pardee RAND Graduate School, America's leading Ph.D. program in policy analysis. Among his ten previous books is Tropical Gangsters, named one of the New York Times' Books of the Century.

This book is a brilliant plea, subtly combining scholarship, examples and common sense, to mobilise the competencies of anthropologists for a better adaptation of development policies to local conditions. It is based on a robust premise: in the confrontation between the interventions of development agencies and the social contexts in which they are implemented (local cultures), the many failures do not stem from a refusal of development by the populations but from an incapacity of public policy experts to take local cultures into account. The final proposal, convening dialogues between experts, anthropologists and local actors, is highly stimulating.

• Preface 1. Culture? Development? Manifesto?2. Is Culture a Key in Development? 3. La Problématique4. Cultures Approaching Cultures5. Are the Scientific Problems Too Hard? 6. The Misuses of Culture7. Cultural Texts8. Adjusting to Cultures9. Culture and Corruption10. Culture and Development ReconsideredReferencesEndnotes

Robert Klitgaard is a University Professor at Claremont Graduate University, in California. His research and consulting have taken him to more than 35 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. He has been a professor at Harvard, Yale, and the Dean of the Pardee RAND Graduate School, America's leading Ph.D. program in policy analysis. Among his ten previous books is Tropical Gangsters, named one of the New York Times' Books of the Century.

This book is a brilliant plea, subtly combining scholarship, examples and common sense, to mobilise the competencies of anthropologists for a better adaptation of development policies to local conditions. It is based on a robust premise: in the confrontation between the interventions of development agencies and the social contexts in which they are implemented (local cultures), the many failures do not stem from a refusal of development by the populations but from an incapacity of public policy experts to take local cultures into account. The final proposal, convening dialogues between experts, anthropologists and local actors, is highly stimulating.

• Preface 1. Culture? Development? Manifesto?2. Is Culture a Key in Development? 3. La Problématique4. Cultures Approaching Cultures5. Are the Scientific Problems Too Hard? 6. The Misuses of Culture7. Cultural Texts8. Adjusting to Cultures9. Culture and Corruption10. Culture and Development ReconsideredReferencesEndnotes

Robert Klitgaard is a University Professor at Claremont Graduate University, in California. His research and consulting have taken him to more than 35 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. He has been a professor at Harvard, Yale, and the Dean of the Pardee RAND Graduate School, America's leading Ph.D. program in policy analysis. Among his ten previous books is Tropical Gangsters, named one of the New York Times' Books of the Century.

This book is a brilliant plea, subtly combining scholarship, examples and common sense, to mobilise the competencies of anthropologists for a better adaptation of development policies to local conditions. It is based on a robust premise: in the confrontation between the interventions of development agencies and the social contexts in which they are implemented (local cultures), the many failures do not stem from a refusal of development by the populations but from an incapacity of public policy experts to take local cultures into account. The final proposal, convening dialogues between experts, anthropologists and local actors, is highly stimulating.

• Preface 1. Culture? Development? Manifesto?2. Is Culture a Key in Development? 3. La Problématique4. Cultures Approaching Cultures5. Are the Scientific Problems Too Hard? 6. The Misuses of Culture7. Cultural Texts8. Adjusting to Cultures9. Culture and Corruption10. Culture and Development ReconsideredReferencesEndnotes