Making Meritocracy
Lessons from China and India, from Antiquity to the Present
Michael Szonyi editor Tarun Khanna editor
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc
Published:13th Sep '22
Should be back in stock very soon
This hardback is available in another edition too:
- Paperback£27.99(9780197602478)
How do societies identify and promote merit? Enabling all people to fulfill their potential, and ensuring the selection of competent and capable leaders are central challenges for any society. These are not new concerns. Scholars, educators, and political and economic elites in China and India have been pondering them for centuries and continue to do so today, with enormously high stakes. In Making Meritocracy, Tarun Khanna and Michael Szonyi have gathered over a dozen experts from a range of intellectual perspectives--political science, history, philosophy, anthropology, economics, and applied mathematics--to discuss how the two most populous societies in the world have addressed the issue of building meritocracy historically, philosophically, and in practice. They focus on how contemporary policy makers, educators, and private-sector practitioners seek to promote it today. Importantly, they also discuss Singapore, which is home to large Chinese and Indian populations and the most successful meritocracy in recent times. Both China and India look to it for lessons. Though the past, present, and future of meritocracy building in China and India have distinctive local inflections, their attempts to enhance their power, influence, and social well-being by prioritizing merit-based advancement offers rich lessons both for one another and for the rest of the world--including rich countries like the United States, which are currently witnessing broad-based attacks on the very idea of meritocracy.
This remarkable series of essays examines the central issue of meritocracy from a broad yet complementary set of perspectives, from the historical to the contemporary and into the future. This novel and holistic approach allows for a much deeper and more nuanced understanding of this complex topic. I highly recommend this thought-provoking book as a must-read publication for both specialist and generalist readers. * Tan Chorh Chuan, University Professor and former President, National University of Singapore *
Making Meritocracy is a work of rigorous scholarship on a particularly topical and relevant subject. It examines the practice and theory of meritocracy in India and China, politically and philosophically, both in the past and at present. This collection of insightful essays by reputed scholars in the field comes when most societies face dilemmas in the making and definition of meritocracy, choices between merit and equity, and a certain populist backlash against expertise. This book deserves to be very widely read for our choices on this issue will deeply affect all of our futures. * Shivshankar Menon, Chair, Ashoka University's Centre for China Studies, and former Foreign Secretary to the Government of India *
This superb collection of essays on the theory and practice of meritocracy in China and India is a fascinating contribution to comparative politics, and to ongoing debates about the meaning of merit. Ranging across historical and contemporary attempts to allocate social roles based on talent, skill, or virtue, this volume sheds new light on some of the most urgent social and political questions of our time. Indispensable reading for anyone interested in the meritocracy debates that are raging today. * Michael Sandel, author of The Tyranny of Merit *
ISBN: 9780197602461
Dimensions: 159mm x 241mm x 25mm
Weight: 685g
394 pages