Chapter 1 Questioning
Development
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What
is
Development?
A working out, a gradual unfolding
Growth plus change, evolution, well-gown state, stage of
advancement
Upward movement of an entire social system
Per capita real income
Development area – one suffering from or liable to serve
unemployment
Development is a means – as an instrumental process for
overcoming persistent poverty and achieving human development
Development is ultimately about improving the life chances of
people
“Economic development should be interpreted as a process of
expansion of the positive freedom that people enjoy…….it is a
process that expands the entitlements and capabilities of people to live
in ways we have reason to value.” - Amartya Sens, Nobel Laureate.
Many different ideas! Affects everyone from the individual to the
global.
Some
Histories
of
Development
“Modern Era” Approach
• U.S. President Truman in 1949 Made reference to
“Underdeveloped areas” (Duty to
develop these areas)
– Began to establish a new colonial or
neocolonial role for the U.S.A. for
these newly independent countries.

Guided by Modernism +
Trusteeship
• Modernism – Idea of
transforming traditional countries
into modern western states
• Trusteeship – Holding another’s
property with the belief that the
trustee is able to look after it
better than the owner of the
property, until a certain time in
the future.
Enlightenment Approach
• Rise of Rationalism in 18th
century (age of reason – “I
think, therefore I am”) plus
rise of Humanism in 19th
century (return to the study of
antiquities of classical
Greece)
• Rationalism + Humanism
gave rise to Enlightenment
through the 18th century
• Enlightenment – Based on
scientific and rational
thinking. Rise of a secular
intelligencia. Orderly
progress and new freedoms.
Enlightenment Approach
• Led to Development = European/Western values
and ideology
• Above gave rise to:
• Progress - Pure capitalist industrialization (1800s)
• Development – Representative of Christian order,
modernization and responsibility (1920s)
Authoritative Intervention
• Used Enlightenment
and 19th century
Humanism as
reasoning
• Strategy was
Authoritative
Intervention
– Via Advise and Aid
Programs
• Led to U.S.
Dominated Neo
Colonial Mission
Critiques of Development
“ Eurocentricity and
Development”
• Eurocentrism has distorted
development and its patterns
and processes through their
pseudoscientific rational and
reasoning.
• All major strategies are
Eurocentric in origin and in
bias. So, everything from
modernism through neoMarxism to the neo-liberal
counter culture. All of these
ideas originated in Europe.
• Captalist Driven and seen as a
meta – narrative or universal
in their assumptions.
Critiques
of
Development
A”Alternative and Populist
Approaches” – Began in 1970s
• Locally oriented, idea of
“development from below”
strategies. Used in rural peasant
based societies. People oriented
and heavily community based.
• Shelter, education, and health
care. NGOs play a big part in
community development and
empowering the poor.
• Criticisms of the NGOS is that
they are moving away from the
communities and becoming more
of a bridge to the state. The NGO
is also disempowering the
community members by
bypassing the more outspoken
members of the community.
Critiques of Development
“Antidevelopment!”
• Based on the failures of
modernism
• Argued that West developed
discourse around
development leads to an
uneven power relationship
• Western “development”
helped to create
poverty,underdevelopment,
backwardness, landlessness
and so on
• Western society then rushed
to solves these problems via
programs that fail to
recognize/respect local
culture and customs
Critiques of Development
• Antidevelopment places emphasis
on new/indigenous social
movements based on democracy
and egalitarian politics based on
local knowledge (ex. Zapatistas
Movement in Southern Mexico)
• Criticisms to antidevelopment –
Does not recognize 4 Asian Tigers
and Japan
• “Development” has brought about
better health care and education for
a majority of the developing world.
• Seen as an elitist argument that is
guilty of its own reductionism and
dependency theories (borrowing
from the Eurocentric tradition)
Critiques of Development
• The Postmodern Stance
• Moves away from large scale theory to specific issues @
local level that relate to improving people’s basic needs
(women’s craft cooperatives and self-help shelter
development
• Some argue a liberation of thought, embracing local
“otherness”, and support for small scale development
Critiques of Development – Post
Modern Stance
• McGee argues that this collection of empirical
studies @ the local level and are invaluable to the
development process
• Others argue it is the cultural logic of late capitalism
Spatializing Development
1930s-1950s - The Idea of a “Third World” Emerging
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It was seen as a Third Way or a Third Force to the
Communist-Fascist extremes in the 1930s in Europe.
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Revived again at the beginning of the Cold War by the
French Left.
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Conference held in Bandung, Indonesia in 1955 for
newly independent states, (e.g. India, Yugoslavia, Egypt)
who saw themselves in a position of non-alignment (neither
Western nor Communist) and also anti-Colonial. John
Friedmann claims that one outcome of the conference was
the decision of these states to call themselves the “Third
World.”
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The Bloc did pursue a “middle way” in international
relations in the 1950s –1960s
Spatializing Development- The Third
World
•Problems – Excluded the communist countries and
Latin American countries did not attend the conference
in Bandung. Additionally, there was no economic
capital to sustain their remaining colonial economies.
•
•Common Political Origins
United in
The Third World
AntiColonial +NonAlignment
POVERTY
• 1960s – Failure of Modernization Strategies
• Did not bring predicted growth to the Third World
• Rising political concern that this persistent and widespread
poverty would lead to more Communist Coups. (e.g.
Castro’s revolution in Cuba)
• This gave rise to a quantitative revolution in development,
both from a planning and economic perspective. Began
using Gross National Product (GNP) to rank countries.
• There was still incredible unevenness within countries.
• By the mid 1960s, the world had a West, a Communist Bloc,
and the Third World
The
1970s
1970s – Growing Political and
Economic Fragmentation of Third
World.
OPEC raise oil prices
substantially in 1973-74 and then
again in 1979 following the
fundamentalist revolution in Iran.
– -OPEC wanted to punish the West
– for supporting Israel.
– -Hurt non-oil producing developing
countries more than the West
– -Many of these developing countries
were following oil led
industrialization and transport
development programs.
– *This resulted in a widened income
 The New International Division of
Labour (NIDL) emerged at this time.
 MNC in West wanted to invest in
various developing countries that
could meet certain criteria.
– -Substantial investments in 4 Asia
Tigers and Mexico and Brazil. The
GNP rose rapidly for these countries
during this time.
• *Considerable debates about naming
of the third world after the fall of
communism and underdeveloped
regions within the first world (fourth
world)
• *After 30 years of debate, the World
Bank still uses GDP as its key
development indicator
1970s
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1980s – The Lost Decade
Rise of the New Right with
Ronald Regan being elected in the
U.S.A. and Margaret Thatcher in
Great Britain.
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The report, “North-South: A
Program for Survival” written by the
Brandt Commission was released in
1980.
-Seen as visionary
-Argued a much more balanced
equitable system between the North
-Put Greater responsibilities on
TNCs to create greater equity within
countries that they operated in.
Willy Brandt, Chancellor of West
Germany, 1969-1974
1980s – The Lost Decade
Problem – North-South division was not explained. The model was
also competing against the core – periphery model – semi periphery
model developed by Wallerstein
1980s – The Lost Decade
• Those that met at Cancun, Mexico in 1981 refuted the Brandt Report and instead
settled for financial packages from the World Bank. The World Bank responded
with Structural Adjustment Programs. Seen as very tough loan programs that
“Blasted
open third world economies,” Bellos ‘94
1980s – The Lost Decade
• Even using notions of sustainability “One
world or no world,” to offer paired down
SAPs to the developing world.
The 1990s and Beyond
• Rise of Regional Economic BlocsNAFTA and APEC
• Outspoken scholars, Sachs,
Corbridge, and Friedmann continue
to call an end to the “Third World”,
– Friedmann noted that policy shall be
built around the disempowered, where
ever they are
– Third World is it becoming more
diverse.
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However, Norwine and Gonzalez
compare the Third World to a
Brazilian Rainforest such that it is
very diverse as well, but it is still a
recognizable entity.
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The one thing that still unites all of
these countries is the grinding poverty
with seemingly no escape.
Still the Third World?
• Some argue the Third World is SIC, an an
outcome of Slavery, Imperialism, and
Colonialism.
• Not simply a semantic or geographic device
– More a process of exploitation, which contrasts at
the local, region, national and global levels are
growing wider
• More of a focus on human beings and their
welfare rather than a politically correct label.
• What do you think?
Measuring Development from
GNP to HDI
• 1950s – Development strategies used the idea of Growth
Theory, which was intended to __________ and
___________ within these newly independent countries.

Based on the above, Gross National Product (GNP)
became the quantitative measure for these countries
beginning in the 1960s.
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Problems – No indication of the true distribution of
wealth within the nation. However, it did begin to reveal
the growing unevenness between the developed world
and the developing world by the 1980s.
Measuring Development from
GNP to HDI
• 1970s-1980s - Began to see a rise in many different
social indicators
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Related to health, education, nutrition and even
gender inequality.
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Problem with these social indicators? They are
not always consistent and can easily be manipulated.
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Thus, there was then a push to return to a
single composit measure in the late 1980s.
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Rise of the Human Development Index
through the 1990s.
The Human Development Index
• Criticisms – Still a linear process and still
measures how far these countries deviate from the
Western Ideal. Esteva (1992)
Progress from the 1970s to the 1990s?
An Unequal World?
Millennium Declaration Goals (MDG)
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Millennium Declaration Goals – Adopted by the UN
in 2000. Can be described as a list of quantifiable, specific,
measurable goals for poverty eradication by 2015.

Outcome based, contains 8 goals (Focused on
Hunger/poverty, education; equality and women, child
mortality, maternal health, addresses HIV/AIDs and
Malaria, environmental sustainability, and a global
partnership for development,
– -Managed by 18 targets, and 48 indicators.

MDGs should amount to realistic and reachable targets
and goals
Some Reflections on the MDGs However, even if targets are met by 2015, 900,000
million people will still be living in poverty
MDGs will be most helpful in achieving poverty reduction if
they are chosen well in the sense of being:
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-Familiar to the main actors and stakeholders
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-Unambiguous
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-Readily monitored
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-SMART (Specific, Measurable Achievable, Relevant,
and Time-bound), as commonly required of targets set in
business and public administration.
* Success of MDG=Need specific targets and outcomes,
leadership, and $$$
Are the MDGs Working?
Problems with the MDGs and their Targets

Political, not scientific

Based on extrapolations of past achievements made
by agency secretariats
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Not based on a country-by-country assessment of
feasibility
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Most MDGs call for reduction in indicators of
poverty by ½ percent. This could be met by good
performance in countries like India, China, or Brazil,
which have large populations.
• Also, many national governments were working to
respond to the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP)
process initiated in 1999 in connection for conditional
debt write-off for Highly Indebted Poor Countries
(HIPC)
Grounds for Guarded Optimism

Comprehensive Development Frameworks
(CDFs) - 1999 World Bank launched the CDFs
approach.
• Intended to provide the overarching development
framework for low and middle-income countries.
-Based on an integrated, long-term, holistic
approach, emphasis on “country ownership” and
broad participatory process to poverty reduction
through consensus and identifying priorities. - --Includes governments, donors, civil society,
and the private sector.
Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers
• Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) – Seen as the
key tool for putting the principles of the CDF into practice.
Essentially the strategic documents around which the World
Bank and the IMF (and other donors) coordinate their
assistance to low-income countries, as well as to be
considered for debt relief.

Seen as the “successor” to structural adjustment
programmes
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Written by national governments and must include
broad participatory processes (includes everything from
school children to the World Bank).
• PRSP Process –

Headed by different national
ministries than MDGs. (Used “broad based
- green and clean” goal development with
donor organizations.)
– -By April 2004 53 countries were engaged in
the PRSP process. 48 completed interim PRSPs
and 37 countries have complete full PRSPs.

Usually shorter-term than MDG (3
years) and incorporate existing sector
objectives and strategies.
• However, consistent with MDG for 3 reasons:
•
• 1. Historical roots and high profile of the MDGs.
• 2. Developing countries long-standing commitment to
the MDGs.
• 3. Growing involvement of donors towards the
incremental reduction of poverty – Especially in
education and health care.
•
• In fact, the 2003 Human Development Report proposed
to develop the process into a new “Millennium
Development Compact,” which would formalize the
above.
The Missing Middle

Both MDG and PRSPs are only “spottily
specific” about activities and processes whereby
policy seeks to bring about outcomes.

This leads to a missing middle of outputs and
intermediate outcomes.

For example, households’ circumstances more
powerful that public service provisions regarding
some targets.
Results Oriented Budgeting –

This means that spending ministries and
agencies must specify the results they expect to
achieve with the budgets they are bidding for,
especially with reference to results that they have
already achieved in previous years. This creates
a framework of accountability.

Singapore and Malaysia started doing this in
the 1980s. Chile and Bolivia in the early 1990s.
S. Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda started using this
in the mid 1990s.
PRSP Process – Grassroots Consultative Session with the
Local Community Regarding Agriculture (Tanzania)
-Various causes of income poverty, especially in the agricultural sector, were identified,
namely:
 Poor working tools and technology (highlighted by over one-third of the groups
involved
in the workshops);
 Non-availability of farm inputs (approximately one third);
 Poor roads (nearly one third);
 Limited access to markets (one third);
 Non-availability of credits (almost one third);
 Collapse of cooperatives (one sixth);
 Adverse climatic conditions (one-sixth); and
 Absence of safety-nets to cope with (weather-related) short-term fluctuations in
income (one-sixth).
PRSP Process in early 2000s – Grassroots Consultative
Session with the Local Community Regarding Education
(Tanzania)
• Education
• Over one half of the groups participating in the Zonal
Workshops cited education as a major
• concern, and specifically noted the following problems:
  Limited access to primary school education;
  Poor quality;
  Inhibiting role, especially in regard to access, of the
cost-sharing mechanisms, including
• the misuse, and lack of transparency in the deployment
of funds contributed by parents;
  High dropout rates; and
  High rate of illiteracy.
Poverty Monitoring and Delivery
Seen as the Achilles Heel of Program based budgeting

Reason – Information, statistics, and academic
research is slow to reach the desks of line ministries for
policy purposes.

Heading in a positive direction! User groups (such as
parent teachers associations) are holding service providers
accountable to their budgets. These groups are becoming
aware of their entitlements and very vocal in their
complaints about service inadequacies. Tanzania has set up
a very effective system dedicated to poverty monitoring.

Donor Commitment –
Monterrey Consensus in 2002
 
EU, U.S. and other countries pledged additional assistance of
over $12 billion in aid to developing countries involved in the PRSP.
So a rise from $58 billon in 2002 dollars to $79 billion in 2006
dollars.
• *Follow-up conference in Doha, Quatar in late 2008. Poorly attended
by the G8. Purpose was to get the vague objectives from the
Monterrey Consensus into more concrete terms and deliverables.
 
Problems – Arrives late in the day for the MDGs, but it does
show signs of underwriting more accurate poverty reduction goals as
compared to the past.
Chapter 2 - Colonialism
• What is Colonialism?
• What is Imperialism?
Colonialism is…….
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The establishment and maintenance for an extended
time, of rule over an alien people that is separate and
subordinate to the ruling power - King (1976)

The policy or practice of acquiring political control
over another country, occupying it with settlers, and
exploiting it economically. – Oxford Dictionary (1999)
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The establishment of domination of a geographically
extended political unit, most often inhabited by people of a
different race and culture, where this domination is political
and economic and the colony exists subordinated to and
dependent on the mother country.- Blauer
Colonialism is……
• Colonialism is often defined as a system of
government, which seeks to defend an unequal
system of commodity exchange – Corbridge
(1993).
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Said (1979) maintains that colonialism exited
in order to impose the superiority of the European
way of life on that of the Oriental, a colonization
of minds and bodies as much as that of space and
economies and ‘much harder to transcend or throw
off’.
Imperialism is…….
• Some Definitions of Imperialism:
• ‘A policy of extending a country’s power and influence
through colonization, use of military force, or other means’
(Concise Oxford Dictionary, 1999)
• The above definition leads to discrepancies in the
chronology of imperialism. For example,
• Maxist (Leninist) analysts believe that this monopoly stage
of capitalism only began around the start of the twentieth
century (Bell 1980)
• Another more broadly reaching definition is,
• ‘both formal colonies and privileged positions in markets,
protected sources of materials and extended opportunities
for profitable employment of labour’ (Barratt-Brown, 1974:
22)