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This book applies the conceptual framework of Douglass C. North, John Joseph Wallis and Barry R. Weingast's Violence and Social Orders (Cambridge University Press, 2009) to nine developing countries. The cases show how political control of economic privileges is used to limit violence and coordinate coalitions of powerful organizations. Rather than castigating politicians and elites as simply corrupt, the case studies illustrate why development is so difficult to achieve in societies where the role of economic organizations is manipulated to provide political balance and stability. The volume develops the idea of limited-access social order as a dynamic social system in which violence is constantly a threat and political and economic outcomes result from the need to control violence rather than promoting economic growth or political rights. Table of Contents 1. Limited access orders: an introduction to the conceptual framework 2. Bangladesh: economic growth in a vulnerable LAO 3. Fragile states, elites, and rents in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) 4. Seeking the elusive developmental knife-edge: Zambia and Mozambique – a tale of two countries 5. Limited access orders: the Philippines 6. India's vulnerable maturity: experiences of Maharashtra and West Bengal 7. Entrenched insiders: limited access order in Mexico 8. From limited access to open access order in Chile, take two 9. Transition from a limited access order to an open access order: the case of South Korea 10. Lessons: in the shadow of violence.