ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 sets the stage, outlining the main building blocks of the presentation. It begins by noting that while scholarship has provided ample evidence that the quality of institutions matters to outcomes, policy making has been held hostage to parallel beliefs that culture and history do not matter, implying that informal institutions do not matter. It then moves on to show how Western governments developed a powerful urge to intervene in the internal affairs of non-Western countries. The third part outlines the accumulated experiences of such interventions, from third world development assistance, to post-communist economic transition and color revolutions, arguing that inattention to institutional specificity staked out a road to ruin. The fourth rounds off by pointing at moral dilemmas that rest in undertaking interventions that are claimed to be morally laudable but end up making bad situations even worse.
