Details of Module and its Structure
Module Detail
Subject Name Sociology
Paper Name Development, Globalisation and Society Module Name/Title Ideas and Ideologies of Development
Pre-requisites Understanding basic sociological concepts such as change, progress and development; as well as major theoretical perspectives such as
modernisation and dependency theory
Objectives This module seeks to explain the concept of development through a systematic investigation of different meanings and connotations that are associated with development over the time. Besides, the module also attempts to bring out the major debates and critical perspectives on the concepts of development.
Keywords Development, growth, modernisation, dependency, neo-liberalism, sustainable development, alternative development, human development, basic needs approach, post-development.
Structure of Module / Syllabus of a module (Define Topic / Sub-topic of module) Conceptualising
Development – Ideas and Ideologies of Development
Locating the idea of development
Meaning of Development
Historical investigation of the concept
Contested meaning of development over time
Conceptualising development
Voice of Dissent
Liberal critique
Marxist critique
Post-modern critique
SummaryRole Name Affiliation
Principal Investigator Prof Sujata Patel Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad
Paper Coordinator Prof Sherry Sabbarwal Department of Sociology, Panjab University
Content Writer/Author (CW)
Dr. Satyapriya Rout Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad
Content Reviewer (CR) Prof Sherry Sabbarwal Department of Sociology, Panjab University, Chandigarh
Language Editor (LE) Prof Sherry Sabbarwal Department of Sociology, Panjab University, Chandigarh
Course: Development, Globalisation and Society Unit: Conceptualising Development
Module Title: Ideas and Ideologies of Development
Introduction
This module seeks to explain the concept of development through a systematic examination of its various meanings over the period of time. The module begins with the assumption that the concept of development, since its inception, has been dynamic in nature; and conferred different meanings and connotations at different periods of time. Second, the module also asserts that development, in a sense has been
‘reflexive’ in nature; with its innate ability to adapt and change itself by accommodating the criticisms, reflections and challenges that were levied to it. The module is divided into five sections, including this introduction. To gain a comprehensive perspective on the ‘idea of development’, we begin with a dissection of the soil in which the seed of development germinated, i.e. the geo-political situation of the world around World War II period. This section brings out the world situations in the mid of the 20th Century which created the fertile ground for emergence of the concept of development. Following this, the next section brings out different meanings of the concept of development in a chronological manner. It highlights how in different periods of time, development connoted different meanings ranging from economic growth of 1950s to Global Goals of 2015. This section also attempts to conceptualise ‘development’, highlighting its three most important dimensions: (a) development as a long-term process of structural societal change; (b) development as short to medium term outcome of desired targets, and (c) development as a dominant discourse of western modernity. The fourth section engages itself with a critique to development from three perspectives: liberal, Marxists and post-modernist; and the fifth section provides a summary and conclusion.
Locating the Idea of Development
Development, in its various avatars, has seemingly emerged as the most powerful influence structuring the near total transformation in the non-western world, especially after the Second World War and decolonization. As we may observe, from the economic growth theories of 1950s to the Human Development approach of 1990s and early 2000s – which emphasizes directly enhancing human abilities and creating enabling conditions of well-being – the primary pre-occupation of academicians and policy makers has constantly been to identify the kind of development that needed to be pursued to solve the social and economic problems of developing world. In the last six and half decades of development history, developing societies have become virtual laboratories to test one model of development after another, each having multi- faceted implications on the lives of people. To be precise, development history suggests that we may criticize a given model of development and propose modifications or improvements appropriately, but the very fact of ‘development’
itself, and the need for it could not be refuted. To agree with Arturo Escobar,
‘development had achieved the status of a certainty in the social imaginary; and it indeed seemed impossible to conceptualise the social reality of the developing world in other terms’ (Escobar, 1995: 5). Such omnipresent reality of development makes it essential to understand the historical and geo-political conditions that led to the
emergence of the concept of development, as we understand it in post-colonial context.
Arturo Escobar (1995: 21) in his book Encountering Development: Making and Unmaking of the Third World writes, ‘one of the many changes that occurred in the early post-World War II period was the “discovery” of mass poverty and underdevelopment in Asia, Africa and Latin America’. It was realized by then that around two-thirds of world population are living in conditions of acute hunger, which is at the same time cause and consequences of poverty, squalor and misery in which they live in. The persistent conditions of poverty and social unrest of the poor countries posed serious threat to world peace as well as prosperity of developed countries. Genuine world prosperity was perceived as indivisible, which cannot last in one part while other parts live in conditions of poverty and ill health. It is important to highlight here that the post-colonial understanding and treatment of poverty was quite different from that of colonial approach to poverty. Despite the colonial administration’s efforts to enlighten the ‘natives’, no serious attempt was ever made for achieving economic development for the poor. In the post-colonial times, poverty was considered as a social problem, which required a new kind of intervention in society. The post-colonial treatment of poverty was conditioned by the belief that poverty could be eradicated by securing economic development of newly independent nations through economic and technological assistance from western world (Rahnema, 1991).
Most of the scholars (Escobar, 1995; Sach, 1991) trace the origin of the concept of development to American President Harry Truman’s January 20, 1949 speech, where Truman announced the programme of development for the ‘underdeveloped world’
based on his democratic fair deal. Truman’ doctrine envisioned to solve the problem of underdevelopment by way of replicating the features that characterized the advanced societies throughout the world. The problem of underdevelopment was perceived as something which could only be solved by imitating the paths travelled by then advanced nations of Western Europe and northern America, i.e. high levels of industrialization and urbanization, technicalization of agriculture, rapid growth of material production, widespread adoption of modern education and cultural values.
The emergence of the concept of development in mid 20th century was not only an American dream of achieving world prosperity, but also was a product of its own time, i.e. the specific historical conditions that characterized the geo-politics of post World War II era. The period immediately following World War II witnessed a drastic realignment of relations between the rich and the poor world, with the ascendancy of United States as the dominant power of the capitalist world on the one hand, and concomitant consolidation of communist power by Soviet Union. The then newly independent nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America had one of two choices at that time: either to dissociate their national liberation movement from the framework of world capitalism, and join hands with the socialist/communist revolution; or to associate their national liberation with institutions and international framework of world capitalism (Alavi and Shanin, 1982). Development, as a project of specific intervention through active financial assistance and technological transfer from the then advance nations, pertained to those nations who adopted the second type of choice mentioned above.
The post World War II period marked a profound transformation in world affairs, which conditioned emergence of the concept of ‘development’, as we understand it today. Three important characteristics of the period stand apart, which gave a shape to the programme of development worldwide. First, by the end of World War II, America has emerged as the undisputable leader of world affairs with its economic opulence and military pre-eminence. Second, parallel to the privileged position of Unites States, there was rising socialist regimes in Eastern Europe and successful march of communists to power in China and Soviet Russia. Third, in an otherwise context of cold war and the ideological struggle between capitalism and socialism, the old colonial systems of exploitation and control were becoming untenable leading to decolonization of erstwhile colonial nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America. This geo-political realignment of the world put in firm place three fold division of the world: the first world, i.e. the free (capitalist) industrialized nations of Western Europe and north America; the second world, i.e. the communist industrialized nations; and the third world, i.e. non-industrialised nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
It is in this geo-political representation of the world, that development emerged as a
‘grand strategy for advancement of West – East (read capitalist – socialist) rivalry and lent legitimacy to the enterprise of modernization and development of the third world’
(Escobar, 1995: 34). The cold war between two great ideologies and two great forms of economic transformation – capitalism and socialism – undoubtedly played an important role in conforming the strategy of development in the third world. The fear of communist expansion and the night-mare of loosing access to raw-material and booming markets of the non-industrial third world became one of the most compelling arguments extending financial assistant and technology under the banner of the mega project of ‘development’. The capitalist West (read United States) had realized by early 1950s that if poor countries were not rescued from their poverty and underdevelopment, they would succumb to communism. Development was perceived as an effective instrument, which would help in successfully establishing US hegemony over the under-developed third world.
Escobar (1995) mentions that besides the geo-politics of mid 20th Century, two other factors were crucial that influenced the formation of the new strategy of development:
advancements in science and technology, and the increased experience with public interventions with economy. The advancements in science and technology, especially during the war years, gave legitimacy to the new discourse of development with its promise of modernizing the underdeveloped world. American President Truman’s democratic fair deal of early 1950s also emphasized transfer of modern technology and capital from the economically developed nations to the underdeveloped world. It was believed that application of technology to the underdeveloped world ‘would provide progress at a lower price’ (Escobar, 1995: 36).
The early years of development emphasized to a great extent on the need for some sort of planning with active state intervention in economy. The experience of social planning of the ‘new deal’ programme in America and the influence of Keynesian economics strengthened the idea of development of the underdeveloped world with active state intervention and external financial assistance.
The factors discussed above, in a broad sense, were most important in conditioning and shaping the emergence of current discourse of development. A deeper insight into the past of the developed world and its comparison with their the then economic opulence, not only emphasized possibility of transformation of the underdeveloped world, but also its desirability and inevitability through the programme of development. It was firmly believed that by tracing the paths of progress of the capitalist (developed) world, sooner or later the poor countries would become rich, and the underdeveloped world would definitely be developed.
Meaning of Development
In the last six and half decades of developmental history has produced both negative and positive connotations of the meaning of development. In the introduction to the seminal book The Development Dictionary, Wolfang Sachs writes, ‘the epoch [of development] is coming to an end. The time if ripe to write its obituary……The lighthouse [of development] shows cracks and is starting to crumble. The idea of development stands like a ruin in the intellectual landscape. Delusion and disappointment, failures and crimes, have been the steady companions of development, and they all tell a common story: it did not work’ (Sach, 1992). In a sharp departure from such a pessimism about the future of development, Daphne Thuvesson, in an editorial to a community forestry newsletter has written, ‘As the existing systems crumble around us, new and exciting alternatives are sprouting up in the rubble’ (Thuvesson 1995). Sach’s pessimism and Thuvesson’s optimism point towards the contested, complex and ambiguous meanings of development.
We may therefore, assert that development has been taken to mean different things at different times, in different places, and by different people in different professions and organisations (Chambers 2004). Yet, the common theme in most definitions of development entails ‘change’ in a variety of conditions of human living. The change that development is envisioned to brought has ranged from immanent process of change such as that of capitalism to imminent or intentional process of change such as the deliberate process to develop the 3rd world (Cowen, M. Shenton 1998).
Summarizing the meaning of development, Robert (Chambers 2004) writes
‘development seems to have had two aspects: it has been normative; and it has involved change. So the underlying meaning of development has been good change’
(Chambers, 2004: 2). It is important to highlight here that while as a sociological concept ‘change’ is value-neutral, development is inevitably treated as a normative and value-loaded concept, as almost a synonym for improvement or betterment.
Dudley Seers phrases it rightly that ‘while defining development, we cannot avoid what the positivists often refer to as ‘value judgment’. To pretend otherwise is just to hide one’s own value judgment’ (Seers 1969:2).
We have emphasized in the beginning that development in its present understanding, emerged as a post-colonial concept in the mid of the 20th Century. In a generic sense, however, the concept has a long past dating to its origin in the biological sciences.
The following section attempts to investigate different meanings of the concept from a historical perspective till its current use.
A Historical investigation of the Concept
In its generic meaning, development underlies a process through which the inner
‘potentialities of an object or organism is released, until it reaches its natural,
complete, full-fledged form’ (Esteva, 1992: 3). The concept was first used in biological sciences to explain the natural growth of plants and animals, or a process through which organisms achieved their genetic potential. Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory in biology conceptualised the term as a transformation that moves towards from the appropriate form to that of even more perfect form.
The concept of development entered into the social science lexicon during the last quarter of 18th Century, when Justus Moser – the German social theorists – used the word Entwicklung in 1768 to refer to the gradual process of social change (Esteva, 1992). Later development became the central theme for founding fathers of classical sociology, who engaged themselves in understanding the transformation of society from one stage to that of other, where each succeeding stage was perceived as more mature, perfect and improved than the preceding one. By the beginning of 20th Century, ‘urban development’ has become widespread, denoting a specific manner of reformulation of urban surroundings, based upon homogenous industrial production of urban spaces.
It was in the 1930s that the association of development and colonialism acquired a different meaning, when the British government transformed its Law of Development of the Colonies into the Law of Development and Welfare of the colonies in 1939 (Esteva, 1992). This entailed a profound economic and political intervention in the colonies, which argued for the need to guarantee the natives minimum levels of nutrition, health and education. It was expected from the conqueror to economically develop the conquered region and carry out well-being of the natives.
The contested meanings of development notwithstanding, the concept could not delink itself from the meanings with which it was originally formed in biological sciences – growth, evolution and maturation. Irrespective of context, connotation and expression, the concept of development from mid-20th Century has implied a favorable change, a step from simple to complex, from inferior to superior, and from worse to better. The word retains to this day the meaning given to it a century ago by the creator of ecology, Ernst Haeckel: ‘Development is, from this moment on, the magic word with which we will solve all the mysteries that surround us or, at least, that which will guide us towards their solution’ (Esteva, 1992: 6).
Contested meanings of development over time
The term ‘development’ has conveyed different meanings over time. The discipline of development studies locates the emergence of the term in postwar era of modern development thinking. Nevertheless, earlier attempts to study social transformation can be viewed as antecedents of development thinking, even through the term
‘development’ as not necessarily used by those scholars. Evidently, Kurt Martin regarded classical political economists – from Ricardo to Marx – as development thinkers for they addressed similar problems of economic development (Martin 1991).
Likewise, Lauer regarded early evolutionary sociological theories of Auguste Comte, Emile Durkheim and Herbert Spencer as ‘socio-historical theories of development’
(Lauer 1977).
Cowen and Shenton (1996) argued that in 19th Century England, development referred to remedies for the shortcomings and maladies of progress, involving the questions of population, job loss, and urban squalor. In their argument, development
not only differs from progress, rather it complements progress. Jan Nederveen Pieterse in his book Development Theory argue that during the later stage of colonialism, development came to be regarded as ‘trusteeship’ – management of colonial economies not merely with a view to their exploitation for metropolitan benefit but also allegedly with a view to the interests of the native population. In colonial economies, it refereed mainly to colonial resource management, first to make the colonies cost effective and later to build up economic resources with a view to national independence (Nederveen Pieterse 2001).
Mainstream [Economic Growth] Approach to Development: The modern development thinking of mid 20th Century regarded development as economic growth; with mechanization, industrialization and urbanization (also read westernization) as its major strategies. For the economic growth theorists, development consisted simply of growth in the income per person in economically underdeveloped areas.
The mainstream approach to development, which emerged during the 1950s, reduced the meaning of development into economic growth. Development, in this framework, meant the capacity of a static or retarded economy to generate and sustain an annual increase in GNP at the rate of 5 – 7 % (Dube 1988). One of its advocates Arthur Lewis was concerned with growth of output per head of population; and stated that
‘first it should be noted that our subject matter is growth, and not distribution’ (Lewis 1955). Likewise, Rosensten-Rodan emphasized on capital investment, building of infrastructure, promoting industrialisaiton and positive state intervention as principal instruments of economic development. Paul Baran, the neo-Marxist development thinker, in his influential book The Political Economy of Growth defined growth or development as the increase in the per capita production of material goods (Baran 1957). Walt W. Rostow, in 1960 presented his Non-Communist Manifesto, where he conceptualised development as a uni-linear evolutionary process, consisting of four well marked stages: (1) the traditional and stagnant low per capita stage; (2) the transitional stage in which pre-conditions of development are laid out; (3) the take-off stage marking the beginning of economic growth and development; (4) the industrialised, mass production and mass consumption stage (Rostow 1960).
With the increasing popularity of modernization theory in 1960s, economic growth was combined with political modernization (Huntington 1971); sociological and individual modernization (Inkeles 1969); achievement orientation and entrepreneurship (McClelland 1961).
The First UN Development Decade (1960 – 70): While the economic growth approach of 1950s considered ‘economic’ and ‘social’ aspects of development as separate entities, 1960s witnessed an effort to integrate ‘social’ into economic development. The Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (Ecosoc) in 1962 recommended for integration of both aspects of development. The UN declared the 1960s as the First Developmental Decade, and in its Proposal for Action, it stated that: ‘the problem of underdeveloped countries is not just growth, but development.
Development is growth plus change; and change, in turn, is social and cultural as well as economic, and qualitative as well as quantitative’ (UNO 1962). In its commitment to integrate economic and social aspects of development, UNO in 1963 established United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), which
emphasized the need for harmonizing economic and social planning. Despite of UN’s emphasis on social aspects of development, through out the First UN Development Decade, development continued to be perceived as a definable path of economic growth passing through various stages; ‘integration’ remained as watchword linking the social aspects to the economic aspects (Esteva 1992).
The Second UN Development Decade (1970s): While the First Development Decade considered the social and economic aspects of development as separate entities, the Second Decade called for merging the two. With an increased recognition of the failure of First Decade to bring satisfactory development despite high rates of growth, Robert S. McNamara, the then President of the World Bank, insisted that 1970s should see more than gross measures of economic growth (McNamara 1970). The International Development Strategy of UN called for a unified approach to development in October 1970, which declared that development should be designed to (UNRISD 1980):
Leave no sector of population outside the scope of change and development
Effect structural change which favours national development and to activate all sectors of population to participate in development
Aim to social equity, including achievement of an equitable distribution of income and wealth in the nations
Give high priority to the development of human potentials – the provision of employment opportunities and meeting the needs of children
Attempts for a unifying principle of development continued throughout 1970s on several platforms. In October 1974, United Nations Environment Programme and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNEP-UNCTAD) organized a symposium on the ‘Patterns of Resource Use, Environment and Development’ in Cocoyoc, Mexico, and adopted a declaration that defined development in a completely different manner. The Cocoyoc Declaration stated that: ‘the purpose of development should not be to develop things, but to develop people. Any process of growth that does not lead to the fulfilment of basic needs – or even worse disrupts them – is a travesty of the idea of development (Friedmann 1992). Reflecting similar ideas, the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation in 1975, suggested the search for a human- centred development, and stated that people should have a greater influence in the development process. In its commitment to achieve the social objectives of development, International Labour Organisation (ILO) in its conference on Employment, Income Distribution and Social Progress, organized in June 1976, called for the ‘Basic Needs Approach’ (BNA) to development. The BNA aimed at achievement of certain specific minimum standard of living of people before the end of the century (ILO, 1976; cited in Esteva, 1992). This approach called for directly targeting the minimum specified needs of people, rather than expecting their satisfaction as a result of the process of economic development. The Basic Needs Approach remained fashionable for some time during the 1970s; and appealed international donor agencies and national government as well, who have started experimenting with the improving the socio-economic conditions of ‘target groups’ of population.
Towards the end of the decade of 1970s, the UNESCO promoted the concept of
‘endogenous development’ in 1978, which openly contradicted the conventional
wisdom of development in stages, and in turn, rejected the necessity or possibility – let alone suitability – of mechanically imitating the industrial societies (Esteva 1992).
UNESCO’s endogenous development challenged the ideology of imposing a single developmental (read growth) model on the whole world, and proposed to taking into account the cultural specificities and local particularities of each nation.
The decade of 1970s remained crucial in the discourse of development. It witnessed emergence of new and innovative approaches to development, which not only challenged the mainstream wisdom, but shifted the focus of development away from
‘economic growth’ and instead, emphasized on ‘social development’, ‘equitable distribution’, ‘human flourishing’, ‘fulfilment of needs’ ‘local particularities’, etc.
Third Development Decade [1980s): The innovations and experiments of developmental designs of 1970s suffered a major set back in 1980s, with the ‘debt crisis’ and ‘structural adjustment programmes’. The developmental discourse of 1980s was characterized by terms such as ‘Washington Consensus’ (Williamson 1990); ‘neoliberalism’ and ‘market fundamentalism’ (Soros 2002); and marked a radical transformation from welfare economic policies of previous decades. Greater acknowledgement of the failure of the welfare state to deliver the promises of development created platform for emergence of ‘neoliberalism’, which believed in getting the prices right and letting the market forces to do their work. Neoliberal ideas reduced the interventionist role of the state in delivering development, and believed that the central objective of development – economic growth – is to be achieved through deregulation, liberalization, privatization, and globalization. For the programme of development, these reform principles meant reduction in government spending on welfare schemes, and they had nothing to do with the ‘integrationist’
approach of the previous decade. The silence of the neoliberalism towards social issues of development generated heated debated both against and in favour of these ideas. Andrews and Bawa (2014), therefore, state that ‘while there is ample evidence that globalisation is a form of imperialism (cf. Harvey, 2005) and inherently bad for poor (McMichael 2005); some are quick to celebrate it (Bhagawati 2005).
The neoliberalism of 1980s, therefore, retained the mainstream meaning of economic development, i.e. economic growth, while the ‘how to’ and agency of development switched from state to market forces (Nederveen Pieterse 2001). Gustave Esteva, therefore, regards the decade of 1980s ‘as the lost decade of development’, which abandoned or dismantled most of the previous achievements in the name of development (Esteva 1992).
New Development Ethos of 1990s: While the development discourse of the 1980s saw a sheer negligence of social aspects of development, the 1990s gave birth to new development ethos in the forms of ‘sustainable development’ and ‘human development’; as well as witnessed the most radical rejection of the concept in the form of ‘post-development’ thinking. Conceived in the 1987 World Conference on Environment and Development (WCED), sustainable development rose to prominence from early 1990s, and still continues to be one of the most influential thoughts in development discourse. The outcome of WCED – the Brundtland Commission Report – defined sustainable development as ‘development that meets the needs of the present generation, without compromising the developmental needs of the future generation’ (Adams 1990). The sustainable development approach
brought to the forefront the environmental impacts of development, and called for integrating environmental protection into the agenda of development. While retaining economic growth as the first goal of development, sustainable development, nevertheless argued for a more serious attack on poverty, inequality and environmental degradation, and proposed for an integration of economic (efficiency), social (equity) and environmental (sustainability) into any conceptualization of development.
The critique of economistic notions of development and the debilitating impact of structural adjustment on poor, facilitated the genesis of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)’s first ‘Human Development Report’ (HDR) in 1990 (Andrews and Bawa, 2014). With the publication of HDR, development got another lease of life, with incorporation of notions of quality of life indicators such as literacy (education) and health into development. The Human Development approach brought back the emphasis on social aspects of development – which originated in the 1970s – and attempted to combine the economistic and human-centric approaches of development. Drawing from multidimensional frameworks such as Right-based Approach, Sustainable Livelihoods, Happiness Approach, Capability Approach, Empowerment and Freedom (Alkire 2005; Friedmann 1992; Robeyns 2005; Sen 1999, 2005); Human Development Reports have created a niche for themselves in development discourse. Human Development Approach considered economic growth as a means to achieve development, rather than the goal of development. It believed that improving the lives of people will lead to greater wellbeing for all, rather than assuming that economic growth would result in it. This approach focused on people’s basic necessities such as healthcare and education, and called for enlarging opportunities and choices for people.
While on the one hand the 1990s witnessed emergence of innovative ideas and new ethos in development discourse, on the other it also produced the most radical critique of it in post-development thinking. Putting forth an anti-development position, the post-development scholars shared a disenchantment with the notion of development, and regarded it as a ‘deceitful mirage and a poisonous gift to the population it set out to help’ (Rahnema 1997). Posing a radical critique to development, Arturo Escobar writes, ‘development was and continues to be a top-down, ethnocentric and technocratic approach, which treated people and culture as abstract concepts, statistical figures to be moved up and down in the charts of progress’ (Escobar, 1995:
91). For the post-development scholars, notions of ‘illiterate’, ‘underdeveloped’,
‘malnourished’, ‘landless peasants’, and the ‘poor’ are discursive abnormalities, created by the development project itself in order to provide justification for structural reforms, making development indispensable’ (Escobar 2009; Illich 1997). In a radical tone, post-development approach questioned the inevitability of development, sighting the alternative ways of living as demonstrated in indigenous and grassroots level, self-reliance and self-governing communities.
Development in the New Millennium: The ethos of development that emerged in the 1990s continued in the new millennium, and emphasis on sustainability and human development carried forward, albeit the presence of neoliberal policies. The United Nations in September 2000, organized the Millennium Summit with attendance of heads of states of 189 countries, and adopted the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). The MDGs dominated the development discourse of 2000s, where the UN
and its 189 signatory countries committed themselves to achieve the following eight Goals and 21 targets by 2015:
Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger
o Target 1A: Halve the proportion of people living on less than $ 1.25 between 1990 and 2015
o Target 1B: Achieve Decent Employment for Women, Men and Young
o Target 1C: Halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger between 1990 and 2015
Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education
o Target 2A: Achieve full course of primary schooling for all children by 2015
Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women o Target 3A: Eliminate gender disparity at all levels by 2015
Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality Rates
o Target 4A: Reduce under-five mortality by two-third by 2015
Goal 5: Improve Maternal Health
o Target 5A: Reduce maternal mortality by three-fourth by 2015 o Target 5B: Achieve universal access to reproductive health by 2015
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases o Target 6A: Reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015
o Target 6B: Achieve universal access to treatment of HIV/AIDS
o Target 6C: Reverse the incident of spread of malaria and other major diseases
Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability
o Target 7A: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes, reverse loss of environmental resources
o Target 7B: Reduce biodiversity loss and reduction in rate of loss
o Target 7C: Halve the proportion of population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015
o Target 7D: Achieve significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers
Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development
o Target 8A: Develop further an open, rule based, predictable, non- discriminatory trading and financial system
o Target 8B: Address the special needs of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) o Target 8C: Address the special needs of landlocked developing countries and
small island developing countries
o Target 8D: Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of developing countries through national and international measures
o Target 8E: In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable, essential drugs in developing countries
o Target 8F: In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications.
The MDGs in the new millennium reiterated the notions of human development and sustainability, along with an added emphasis on international cooperation. The notion of development within MDGs framework got a wider connotation, involving human capital, infrastructure and human rights, which intended to improve the living standards of people. The goals intended to increase individual ‘capabilities’ and ensure the means to a productive life to the world’s poor.
The MDGs, which set for a 15 years target at the beginning of the millennium, were extended in the recent UN Sustainable Development Summit of September 2015. On 25th September 2015, 193 world leaders committed to 17 Global Goals with an aim to: (a) end extreme poverty, (b) fight inequality and injustice, and (c) fix climate change by 2030. These goals emphasized the issues of environmental sustainability and climate change; sustainable cities, poverty, hunger, education, and health. It also reiterated the need for global partnership and cooperation to achieve the goals of development.
To summarise different meanings of development over time, we may say that the concept, which started with a meaning of catching up with developed countries of west through economic growth and industrialization, has substantially changed its meaning by the beginning of the 21st Century. Eradicating poverty, access to education health and basic services, attaining environmental sustainability and mitigating climate change, achieving gender equality and all other forms of social justice, etc. have become defining elements of ‘development’, albeit the persistent emphasis on ‘economic growth’ as a means to achieve the above ends of development. The Table below befittingly sums up different meanings of development.
Table 1: Meanings of Development over Time
Period Perspectives Meanings of Development
1800s Classical political economy Remedy for progress, catching up 1850 > Colonial economies Resource management, trustee ship 1870 > Latecomers Industrialization, catching up 1940 > Development economics Economic growth – industrialization 1950 > Modernization theory Growth, political and social
modernization
1960 > Dependency theory Accumulation – national, autocentric 1970 > Alternative development Human flourishing
1980 > Human development Capitation, enlargement of people’s choices
1980 > Neoliberalism Economic growth – structural reforms, deregularization, liberalization, privatization
1990 > Post-development Authoritarian engineering, disaster 2000 > Millennium Development Goals Structural reforms
Source: Nederveen, P. J. Development Theory: Deconstruction/Reconstruction. Sage, 2001, pg. 7.
Conceptualising development
We are clear by now that development as a concept has varied meanings and definitions. However, for analytical purpose, let us consider the following definitions:
Alan Thomas (2000) refers to the meaning of development as: (1) a vision, description or measure of the state of being of a desirable society; (2) an historical process of social change in which societies are transformed over long periods; and (3) a deliberate effort aimed at improvement on the part of various agencies, including governments, all kinds of organizations and social movements.
Duffield (2006) defines development as ‘a set of bio-political compensatory and ameliorative technologies of security that define and act upon non-insured populations to improve resilience by strengthening self-reliance’.
According to Hettne (2008), ‘development in the modern sense implies international social change in accordance with societal objectives’.
Nederveen Pieterse (2001) defines development as ‘the organized intervention in collective affairs according to a standard of improvement’.
Woolcock (2009) defines development as ‘the internal and external processes that shape, in a given society or for a particular social group, the welfare, justice and opportunities of its members, but especially its poorest and most marginalised’.
While these definitions may have their individual specificities, one common feature among them is the idea that development connotes the notion of change, improvement and welfare. Despite the dominant meaning of development as certain targets aimed at specific groups (e.g. MDGs, Global Goals) that has come to reside in the idea of development as practice; the larger meaning of the concept connotes long-term social change and transformation. Besides these two notions of development – development as long term societal transformation and development as meeting desired targets – recent literature on post-development theory considers it as a discourse of western modernity, loaded with abstract concepts, which are imposed upon the non-western indigenous world. Following Sumner and Tribe (2008), we may conceptualise development having three discernable connotations:
Development as a long term process of structural societal change
Development as a short-to-medium term outcome of desirable targets
Development as a dominant discourse of western modernity
Development as long-term structural change: This aspect of development is dearer to the academic community, who attempt to come out with a theoretical generalization on the concept. From evolutionary perspective to modernization theories, development has been conceptualised as a long-term process of structural transformation, with potentials for far reaching consequences upon almost all spheres of social existence. The key characteristics of this perspective are that it is focused on processes of structural societal change, it is historical and it has a long-term outlook (Sumner and Tribe, 2008). According to this perspective, societal shift in one dimension would have far reaching implications on the other dimension of society.
For instance, it was expected that transformation of society from ‘tradition’ to
‘modern’ entails a larger change in almost all sectors of society, albeit the fact that change may emerge from any of the sector of society. The understanding of development as structural change does not necessarily relate to any specific targets or set of objectives; and remains as a value neutral perspective – without attaching itself
to intentional or ‘good’ change. A broad, non-normative perspective like this may help in carving out a theoretical abstraction of societal change and development, but is of limited use for meaningfully directing developmental policymaking and practice.
The second perspective on development, which relates itself to short and medium term targets, however, address this shortcoming.
Development as short to medium term outcome of desirable targets: This perspective is narrower in scope; and is ‘simply concerned with development as occurring in terms of a set of short-to-medium-term performance indicators or goals, which can be measured compared with targets’ (Sumner and Tribe, 2008: 13). With its instrumental elements, this perspective is of great help to policy makers, development practitioners, and donor agencies who would like to see the impact of their intervention in a short period of time. In contrast to the former, Gore (2000) regards this perspective as ‘ahistorical’, since it has a relatively short-term outlook.
This perspective of development runs into trouble waters when a consensus does not emerge regarding the goals and targets as set by the policy makers/development practitioners and people for whom these goals are formulated. This raises the question of the democratic nature of articulation of these targets, and the amount of space available for the beneficiaries of targeted development to make their voices heard and represented in setting up of the targets. For the academic community such a perspective to development looses the grand vision of societal transformation, and results in imposition of values and ideologies of development on the local and indigenous population, who do not necessarily share the same values and ideologies.
This dissatisfaction over target-oriented development becomes more explicit in the third perspective to development, which considers it as a dominant discourse of western modernity, imposed upon the non-western world.
Development as dominant discourse of western modernity: This perspective on development is based on the view that ‘development has consisted bad change and bad outcomes through the imposition of western ethnocentric notions of development upon the third world’ (Sumner and Tribe, 2008: 14). This perspective offers a post- modern/post-development conceptualization of development, which draws heavily upon the works of Michel Foucault, and believes that development and poverty are abstract social constructs that do not exist in reality in an objective sense out side the discourse. As Rahnema (1997: 158) writes: ‘poverty is a myth, a construct and the invention of a particular civilization’. We have discussed in the previous section that post-development scholars out rightly reject the concept as it imposes values and ideologies of western modernity on non-western world, which are not shared by the people upon whom it is imposed. This perspective to development regards that notions of ‘modernity’ and ‘tradition’ imply certain elements of superiority and inferiority, the definition of which are mediated through existing power relations.
Voices of Dissent
The theory and practice of development, since its inception in modern sense from World War II onwards, have been subject to continuous criticisms and suggestions.
The power of development, however, becomes explicit from its ability to incorporate each of the criticisms, and come out with a new incarnation, rather than crumbling down to these criticisms. We may broadly identify 3 sets of criticisms, which have challenged and at the same time shaped the praxis of development: (1) liberal critique, (2) Marxist critique, (3) post-modern critique.
Liberal Critique to Development: The liberal critique to development, which exposed the blatant rudeness of economic growth approach in addressing the quality of life issues such as improved living, health, education, poverty, etc., led to a terminological revolution in early 1960s and 1970s in development discourse. The liberal critics from the very First Developmental Decade made it explicit that emphasis on economic growth, without sufficient attention towards distribution, will not result in the desired outcome of development. Perhaps, one of the most powerful accounts of liberal critique to development has been Mahbub ul Haq’s (1976) The Poverty Curtain, which suggests that:
Growth in GNP often does not filter down: what is needed is a direct attack on poverty.
The market mechanism is often distorted by existing distributions of income and wealth: it is generally an unreliable guide to setting national objectives
Institutional reforms are generally more decisive than appropriate price signals for fashioning relevant development strategies
New development strategies must be based on the satisfaction of basic human needs rather than on market demands
Development styles should such as to build development around people rather than people around development
Distribution and employment policies must be an integral part of any production plan.
A vital element of distribution policies is to increase the productivity of the poor by a radical change in the direction of investment towards the poorest sections of society
A drastic restructuring of political and economic power relationship is often required if development is to spread to the vast majority of the population
The starting point to the liberal critique to development is the acknowledgement that (economic) growth may be necessary, but not a sufficient to achieve development.
The liberal critiques, instead, focus on equity, distribution and socially desirable growth. For the liberal critiques the indicators of economic growth such as ‘growth rate’, ‘GNP’, ‘per capita’, are often deceptive, which hide ugly realities of impoverishment. These income figures ‘obscure both extreme poverty as well as vulgar richness’ (Bhaduri 2005).
Another aspect of liberal critique to development has found expression in exposing the environmental consequences of development. Arguing for environmental-friendly development, this dimension has given rise to sustainable development thinking; and urges to work within the limits of earth’s resources and laws of regeneration of nature.
Marxist Critique to Development: The Marxist and Neo-Marxist critiques of (economic) development are consolidated in the ‘dependency theory’ of 1960s and early 1970s. Adopting a neo-Marxist perspective, dependency theory argues that the persisting underdevelopment situation of the third world is a direct consequence of its association with the capitalist/developed countries of Western Europe and Northern America, which produce development in advanced capitalist countries and underdevelopment in third world countries simultaneously. Rejecting the notion that underdevelopment is an original condition in the unilinear path of evolution as
propounded by the mainstream economic growth/modernization theorists, T. Dos Santos argues that ‘underdevelopment, far from constituting a state of backwardness prior to capitalism, is rather an consequence and particular form of capitalist development – known as dependent capitalism. Dependence is a conditioning situation, in which the economic conditions of one group of countries are conditioned by development and expansion of other’ (Santos 1969, 1970).
Neo-Marxists believe that underdevelopment of the third world is a created/external condition imposed from outside (capitalist countries of Western Europe and Northern America), rather than being an original condition in the state of evolutionary process.
The past and present of the underdeveloped third world in no way resembles the past of the now developed countries of the first world, which were never been underdeveloped like third world. The contemporary underdevelopment of the third world is a specific historical product of relationship between satellites (third world) and metropolis (first world), which dates back its origin to colonialism (Frank 1969).
The neo-Marxist perspective argues that development does not trickle down from the centre/core to the periphery as expected by the scholars of modernisation and development. On the contrary, underdevelopment of the periphery (third world) is a direct result of the development of the centre (first world). It is argued that underdevelopment of the third world is going to be a permanent phenomenon under
‘dependent capitalism’, and the only way to achieve development for the third world is to end their association with the capitalist first world (Baran 1957; Frank 1969, 1971). The current underdevelopment situation of the third world can be best understood by the Metropolitan – Satellite relationships, where the Satellite serves as an instrument for sucking capital and economic surplus from its own and channel it to world metropolis of first world. The local, regional and national transfer of surplus (towards world metropolis of the first world) has promoted underdevelopment in the third world and development in the first world. As A. G. Frank suggests:
‘Underdevelopment is not due to the survival of archaic institutions, existence of capital shortage in the region. Underdevelopment was and still is generated by the very same historical process, which also generated economic development, i.e.
development of capitalism’ (Frank, 1969: 9).
The Post-Modern Critique: The post-modern critique of development, which came into prominence in 1990s, took shape in the form of ‘post-development paradigm’.
Post-modernism can be understood as a critique of the modern age based on scientific principles of positivism, objectivity and the tendency to know ‘the truth’ through consensus. On the contrary, central to post-modernism is diversity, differentiation and enhancement of subjective positions. As Katy Gardner and David Lewis writes, ‘post- modernism is the wider cultural and epistemological rejection of modernity in favour of a broader pluri-cultural range of styles, techniques and voices, including rejection of unitary theories of progress and scientific rationality’ (Gardner and Lewis, 1997:
xv).
The post-modern critiques – the post-development scholars – offer a radical and pessimistic perspective to development; and argue for an end of development era. As post-development scholar Wolfgang Sach suggests:
‘The epoch [of development] is coming to an end. The time is ripe to write its obituary…… The idea of development stands like a ruin in the intellectual landscape. Delusion and disappointment, failures and crimes have been the steady companions of development and they tell a common story: it did not work. Moreover, the historical conditions, which catapulted the idea into prominence, have vanished: development has become out-dated. Above all, the hopes and desires, which made the idea fly are now exhausted: development has growth obsolete (Sachs, 1992:
xv).
The post-development scholars such as Wolfgang Sach, Majid Rahnema, Gustavo Esteva, Ashish Nandy, Arturo Escobar, despite their individual differences, come to a consensus that development in its dominant connotation has reflected the forceful imposition of western hegemonic ideas over the third world countries. These scholars point towards the existing unequal power relation, which determines the meaning and discourse of development. For instance, Arturo Escobar in his works clearly demonstrates that the notion of third world is produced by the discourses and practices of development since their inception in early post World War II period (Escobar 1991, 1995). Escobar states that the emergence of development discourse has produced ‘an extremely efficient apparatus for producing knowledge about, and for exercising power over the third world’ (Escobar 1995:9).
Giving a post-modern turn to conceptualisation of development; and using Michel Foucault’s ‘dominant discourse’ and Derrida’s ‘deconstruction’, these scholars challenged the universal and consensus language that development scholars have used since 1950s, and reiterate that these conceptions are abstract constructions, which were created to justify and give legitimacy the very notion of development itself. This criticism is well captured by Escobar, when he writes:
Development was – and continues to be for the most part – a top-down, ethnocentric and technocratic approach, which treated people and culture as abstract concepts, statistical figures to be moved up and down in the charts of progress…. It comes as no surprise that development became a force so destructive to the Third World cultures, ironically in the name of people’s interest (Escobar 1995:91).
For Escobar, the notions of ‘illiterate’, ‘underdeveloped’, ‘malnourished’, ‘small farmers’, ‘land less’, and the ‘poor’ are discursive abnormalities [abstract constructions] created by development project itself in order to provide justification for structural reforms, making development indispensable (Escobar 2009). Arguing in a similar tone, James Ferguson in his work on the World Bank assisted rural development programmes in Lesotho [The Anti-Politics Machine: Development, Depoliticisation and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho] states: ‘development is a name, not only for a value, but also for a dominant problematic or interpretive grid through which the impoverished regions of the world are known to us’ (Ferguson, 1990: xiii).
One of the striking features of the post-modern critique to development has been its rejections of the ‘inevitability of development’. They argue that development is not inevitable as alternative ways of living are demonstrated in indigenous and grassroots- oriented self-reliance, self-governance and spirituality (Andrews and Bawa, 2014). In
this regard the post-development scholars search for an alternative (something completely different) to development, not any other development alternative. They try to find these alternatives (to development) in localised traditions, in indigenous knowledge and grassroots movements, and in self-reliant, self-governing communities. The aim of this analysis was not to replace the present malfunctioned scenario of development with a new utopia – or as Ivan Illich puts it ‘to engage in scripting scenarios for an alternative future (Illich 1997) – the thinking was as Escobar portrays it ‘beyond a paradigm’ of development (Escobar, 2000).
Arguing in a similar tone, Frans J. Schuurman argues that development studies since World War II has produced three misconceptions: (i) essentialisation of the Third World; (ii) unconditional belief in the concept of progress and in the makeability of society; and (iii) political and scientific confidence in the role of state to realise progress (Schuurman 2000). Drawing insights from post-development thinking (i.e.
Samuel Huntington, Eric Hobsbawm & Robert Kaplan), Schuurman (2000), on the other hand argue that the current development thinking highlight the ‘end of the belief in progress and development’. Wolfgang Sachs (1992) echoes a similar concern when he finds the concept development as ‘outdated’, because:
Belief in technology had led, and will increasingly lead to ecological disasters.
The concept of development was an ideological weapon in the East-West (First World – Second World) conflict, which is no more in place.
The welfare gap between North and South is growing and not diminishing in spite of the promise of the development discourse
Development has been a misconceived enterprise from the beginning, as the success of development is turning out to be more problematic, rather than its failure.
In essence, we may say that the pessimism of post-development thinking and its near- total rejection of development are not out of context. The ever increasing conflicts over several development projects in the Third World; the grassroots movements against globalisation and privatisation; the sabotage and degradation of the traditional network of indigenous communities; homogenisation of the cultural pluralism; etc.
have now been associated with development; and have become the same side of the coin. Despite the criticisms of pessimism and directionless, post-development thinking has challenged the hegemonic dominance of development; and has remained as its most deadliest critique.
Summary
This module attempted to examine the ideas and ideologies of development through an exploration of different meanings and connotations of the concept. We began with an examination of the geo-politics of mid-20th Century, which explained the role of decolonisation, World War II, Cold War and rising powers of Unites States of America (USA) in shaping the meaning as well as the practice of the concept. Having originated in the geo-political atmosphere of decolonisation and cold war, development in the early 1950s was conceptualised as economic growth. However, with the increasing criticisms of the growth approach, the concept of development became more inclusive to accommodate concerns of justice, redistribution (equity), education, health, and other non-economics parameters into it. By the turn of the 20th Century, there has almost been a terminological revolution in the field of
development, with new ideas such as alternative development, basic needs, sustainable development, human development, etc. making their way to into the discipline to give a definite shape to the concept. The divergent meanings and perspectives to the concept of development notwithstanding; we may, for the analytical purpose, conceptualise the term development by delimiting its scope to three most important aspects: (a) development as a long-term process of structural societal transformation, (b) development as a short-to-medium outcome of desired targets, and (c) development as a discourse of dominant western modernity.
The concept of development has faced with serious criticisms from the very beginning, and the charm of the concept has been its ability to adapt and change itself by accommodating most of these challenges. We have identified three broad critiques to development, i.e. liberal, Marxists and post-modern. The liberal critiques seek to bring reforms to the conventional wisdom of ‘growth as development’ by insisting on questions of social justice, equity, and participation. They argue for a people centric, participatory development aimed at improving the qualities of life of people, rather than equating development with growth parameters. The Marxists and Neo-Marxists critiques challenge the superordinate – subordinate relationship of countries in the world capitalist framework; and trace the major reason of backwardness of Third World countries to this unequal relationship. The post-modern critiques offer a much radical and frontal blow to the concept, and argue for a near-total rejection of the concept of development. For the Post-modern/post-development scholars the concept of development and the indices used to measure it are all abstract constructions, which evaluates people and their lives from a western, ethnocentric perspective. To conclude, we may reiterate the ‘reflexive’ nature of development, and assert that in the present context, development has assumed a more ‘reflexive’ character, where the task of development practitioners not only includes dealing with problems of non- development or under-development; but also equally and in a significant manner, involves managing the risks and uncertainties arising out of the project of development.
