ABSTRACT
The rise of the neoliberal paradigm in the 1980s and 1990s has cast doubt over the desirability and capacity of the state to resolve economic and social problems. As former military and authoritarian regimes in Latin America and Africa democratised from the mid-1970s onwards and the socialist states of the Soviet Union crumbled under the weight of popular dissent, politicians and policy-makers have increasingly placed their hopes in the potential of the market and civil society to address issues of economic growth and democratic accountability.
