ABSTRACT
No culture is inherently good or bad, a simple truth that, however, has to be underlined time and again in view of fashionable but doubtful theses on the “clash of cultures,” “rogue states,” and “axes of evil.” Stimulated by Max Weber’s enlightening concept of the Protestant ethic as the spirit of European capitalist development, generations of social scientists searched for similar cultural innovations that could promote economic growth in developing countries. However, outdated hypotheses about monocultural readings of a nation’s past or about cultural determinism that were considered inspiring truth turned out to be oversimplifi cations of little prognostic value (cf. Sen 2004). Nevertheless, they remain cherished by many scholars and development experts, not least because they provide ready-made concepts. Though a tendency still prevails to underrate the role of culture in development, there is a consensus in the social sciences that culture matters.1 The question is rather: What constitutes the decisive element of culture in relation to development, and how does culture matter (cf. DiMaggio 1994; Elwert 1996; Rao and Walton 2004; Sen 2004)?
