Includes bibliographical references (pages 209-220) and index.

A Buddhist philosophical foundation for social theory -- A Buddhist approach to politics and economics -- Bhutan's nascent democracy -- Gross national happiness : a Buddhist model of development -- Current challenges : globalization and national identity, inter-generational transfer of values and protection of minority rights -- The dragon's roar : the wider relevance of Bhutan's Buddhist approach to democracy and development.

"Today, the majority of sovereign states can be described as 'democracies' in that they possess elected political leadership and some measure of commitment to the protection and promotion of individual rights and equality under law. Likewise, the economies of most democracies revolve around free trade, integrated into wider regional and global markets. Virtually all are organized around Western liberal principles and values. For some, these philosophical commitments are indigenous and longstanding, and for others they were imported later, often through colonization. This book asks how democratic governance and economic development differ when founded on Eastern, Buddhist principles, rather than Western, liberal, and Enlightenment values and beliefs. The small, remote country of Bhutan is the only democratic, market-based state that is rooted constitutionally and culturally in Mahayana Buddhist principles and ethics. In this book, it provides an alternate vision for what democratic states built on Eastern philosophy might look like. William Long argues that the differences in democratic and development systems between Western and Eastern approaches are profound and important. Bhutan's approach to democracy and development is based on the idea of 'Gross National Happiness' and offers a unique approach to the challenges of political polarization, economic inequality, and declining public trust in political institutions"-- Provided by publisher.