| Sumario: | Lewis et al (2003) establish a cogent argument
which suggests that serious analysis of the
culture of aid organizations, and of the
relationships with other actors, matters,
and that it is a neglected area of analysis.
Their discussion raises important new questions
about the development enterprise from an internal
perspective that heretofore has been neglected or
ignored. Contrasting the article by Lewis et al.
with a book by Harrison and Huntington (2000)
reinforces that conviction. Throughout the Harrison and Huntington book--
whose authors provide an excellent overview of the history of the study of
culture as something that certainly does ‘matter’ in development--we kept saying
to ourselves that ‘All this is fine, but it is focussed (as is much of the ancillary
literature on ‘culture’ in development) on looking
outward, at others undergoing development,
without consideration of the development agency
actors themselves. It mostly addresses questions and
issues concerning the question: Why some political
and national systems succeed and others fail.
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