INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
FINAL TERM PAPER
Submitted to:
Sir Zahid
Submitted by:
Samia Younas
Roll no.46
Section-A (6th semester)
BS (Hons.) Management
Dated: May 17th, 2018
It would not be wrong to term International development as “INTRANATIONAL
DEVELOPMENT”. Here the term “INTRAnational development” refers to the development
within a few nations probably the super powers of the world where;
I stand for Invasion and Inequality;
N means No democracy;
T stands for Terrorism;
R stands for Repression of poor states;
and A stands for Authoritative World Order
The proponents of Dependency theory; Dependentistas also held the view that poor countries
experience deteriorating terms of trade owing to their position in world’s capitalist system.
Developed countries become richer by exploiting the resources of poor countries which in turn
only experience the “development of underdevelopment”. So it’s like development of one
nation by using practices such as Invasion, No democracy, Terrorism and Repression of weaker
states. We know that the world order majorly designed in Washington, follows the principle of
‘might is right’. No doubt the ones who are powerful and developed deserve to be ahead others
in the race of development. But today’s developed nations would also be definitely at some
point in time the developing ones since development is a process which nations go through by
passing different phases. There is no such nation that has been developed since its birth. It
requires hard work and most importantly consistency to emerge as a powerful and developed
nation on the world map. It requires commitment of generations to emerge as a strong and
powerful nation but this power and strength doesn’t come with the right to become a threat to
human prospect; unfortunately which the world powers have become now under the label of
international development. And this is contradictory to what is portrayed about the role of
developed nations for the development of developing nations.
Normative Perspective on International Development:
What it should or ought to be?
Idea of development has existed for hundreds of years, but it can be traced back to 18th century
enlightenment idea of progress free from tyranny, superstitions and poverty. Similarly,
international development and trade has existed for centuries, however it’s been a century that
it has emerged as a separate body of ideas. It all began as World War II neared its end in 1944;
the major global governments met in the New England town of Bretton Woods to establish
institutions and rules that would govern post-war international economic activities. The
meetings of Bretton Woods established three key international economic organizations namely
International Monetary Fund (IMF), the International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development, now known as the World Bank, which was designed to fund various industrial
development projects in developing countries; and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
(GATT), now known as the World Trade Organization (WTO), which was designed to fashion and
enforce global trade agreements. These organizations were originally established to assist in
rebuilding war-torn Western Europe but later became the main policy organizations in
international development which can also be seen in the remarks made by Harry S. Truman in
1949. But more important point is the purpose of international development policies.
International development is a confluence of multiple factors. It is suppose to promote the
well-being of the population as a whole, improve quality of life, reduce spread of diseases,
reduce poverty and increase life expectancy. It encompasses change, growth and progress for
all; freedom of choice, speech, economic and social opportunities, transparency and most
importantly security for all. All means all mankind; not a selective number of people (or
nations).
It is mentioned time and again that a lot of measures has been taken by developed nations for
reduction of poverty and improvement of well being of developing nations. These measures
take several forms like foreign aid, loans, development programs, development projects and
many others. One classis example is Millennium Development Goals comprising of 8 goals, 18
targets and 47 indicators. Reduction of extreme poverty, universal primary education, gender
equality, ensuring environmental stability, global partnership for development to name a few.
Now the question arises isn’t Syria a part of this globe? That is why this is a normative
perspective; how things are portrayed; however a closer look at current world affairs shows the
double standards of these development policies (discussed in next section). Another example is
the ‘Alliance for Progress’ program of Unites States. Although it was portrayed as an economic
miracle but it was a miracle for few, not for all. The trade figures went quite high but its
advantage was for few. This is what can be called as contradiction between theory and practice.
Similar goes with ‘globalization’. Now what is globalization; in simple words it is international
integration. In fact, everybody is in its favor. It has been the core principle of the left and
working class movements since their origins. But in practice, it has been appropriated by a
narrow sector of power and privilege to refer to their version of international integration – the
investor’s right version. The normative view is that globalization has made the world smaller
and more integrated. It is viewed that it automatically benefits all who integrate into global
economy. As Thomas Friedman argues that globalization would simply flatten the world.
However this portrays a rosy picture which shows partial truth. In reality, it has increased the
gap between rich and poor. The major question is whom it benefits? Is it for the benefit of
people (theory) or is it for the benefit of power (practice)? The answer to this question clearly
states the theory practice gap in the arena of international development.
Descriptive Perspective on International Development
What it actually is?
International development policies rooted in Western standards of democratic capitalism have
done little to improve the poor economic and political conditions in less developed nations
around the world. Current macro approaches do not recognize the ground-level realities within
underdeveloped nations. Existing international development policies are shaped mainly by
governments of the world’s wealthiest nations. These policies are then implemented on entire
nations, or societies, that are in need of economic and social assistance to become selfsustaining in the international community. However, these current global economic
relationships and developmental policies lack efficiency for creating equitable and efficient
long-term development because majority of these policies are not even intended to do so. This
is the descriptive or more close to reality perspective. Let’s begin with the analysis of theorypractice gap of Millennium Development Goals. It has been mentioned earlier what they ought
to be but to what extent these goals have been achieved in reality? According to Jaffery Sachs,
slight development has been achieved in terms of poverty only in few countries, but it has not
been evenly spread. Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole continues to be off-track in achievement of
the goals.
Isn’t Syria a part of this globe? This question (as mentioned earlier) also arises from one of the
goals of Millennium Development Goals (MDG) i.e. global partnership for development. The
contradiction is that on one side US wants global partnership for development and on the other
side it is fully supporting Israel against Palestine and Syria. Now this shows the double
standards of international development policies prevailing in our world. When Henry Truman
define development (in his 1949’s inaugural address) as “western societies’ commitment to
spread prosperity and peace to less developed countries through social and economic
assistance”; it means development for all nations; no one characterized which nation would get
assistance and which would be left for slow death. No such discriminations were ever made in
theory and speeches but could be clearly seen practiced by world super powers for their own
interests. How could a nation portray itself as the proponent of peace and development when it
is the only power whose veto has stopped the resolution of Palestine – Israel conflict. Similar is
the case with constructive (actually lethal) ‘Alliance for Progress’ program of US in Latin
America. According to this program, Latin America’s agriculture was to be made accessible for
trade at international level. But what actually happened; it ended as a mean for US
agribusiness. It had severe consequences for the people of Latin America; now their farmers
were not allowed to grow crops for their people, in fact their products like broccolis and flowers
were used for Yuppie markets in US. That is why Alliance for Progress was an economic miracle
not for all. Here we need to define miracle; so basically miracle is what is good for and brings
huge amount of profits for a small sector (investors) only.
Is international development and globalization for the benefit of people or for the benefit of
power? The answer to this question (asked in the previous section) is clear from the above
stated examples. It is for the benefit of power; for the benefit of few, not all. For instance,
globalization means the international integration of labor and capital. However, international
integration of people has decreased but integration of capital flow has increased tremendously.
Now what prevails today is the ‘investor’s right version of globalization’. So if we measure it by
people, it has been decreased (less globalization); if we measure it by capital, it has increased
(more globalization). But the main agenda is who gets the benefit? So between this tug of war
between people and power, again power wins. We say that globalization has increased trade,
and increased trade means economic prosperity. But the fact is that majority of the trade of a
country internally goes to a firm only which means wealth in the hands of few multinationals. A
classic example of this is militarization of Mexico border by US in 1994 to cut the free flow of
people under the operation ‘gatekeeper’. US never militarized Mexico border, people could
freely go across the border and come back before NAFTA. But since this was predicted to be an
economic miracle (miracle for few; investors), the border was militarize. Now this is not a way
free trade is done. Implementation of such practices like liberalism, neo-liberalism which leads
to privatization, free markets and capitalistic societies has not been successful everywhere.
Their results may vary from nation to nation. Therefore it could not be said that such policies
directed from the western powers are the ultimate mantra of success for every nation. But the
super powers try to implement such policies without determining the actual needs of the
nation and its people because they want ‘development’ (development of underdevelopment)
for developing nations because they consider weak and fragile states a threat to “international
stability”. Now what is international stability and who defines it?
‘International stability’ is synonymous with security of individual states (more globally
connected world). The one who defines it consider weak and fragile states a threat to the
security of individual nations. But aren’t those states a threat to international stability who can
kill innocent people for the sake of oil reservoirs? How making weak states more weak and then
calling them a threat is justifiable? For instance, Iran is portrayed as a threat to world peace
because of the statement of wiping out a country. But the statement is not the way it has been
propagated. The statement is in course of time, Israel should no longer exist; now a lot of people
agree with it, even those living in Israel; those who believe that there should be one democratic
state. That’s not calling for wiping anyone out. Actually there are two nations that are not only
calling out for some nations not to exist but are also destroying them, namely US and Israel.
That’s their position regarding Palestinians and they are doing it day by day. They did same in
the case of Iraq; America’s invasion of Iraq is an international crime. However Obama is praised
for being a proponent of this invasion. It looks same like the time when Germany tried to
invade Russia. Hitler also said at that time ‘It is a strategic blunder. Now we need to deal with
it’. This is exactly what Obama said; is it this much simple to kill innocent people and then call it
as a strategic blunder that can be dealt with.
Iraq was accused of making weapons of mass destruction (that has not been proved till date
and who needs to prove it when there is no such thing as International law). Now Iran is also
facing same threat from the caretakers of world’s peace. Martin Van Creveld, a couple of years
ago wrote an article in which he said that he does not know if Iran is developing nuclear
weapons, and he hopes not, But he also said that if they are not developing nuclear weapons
they are crazy. United States has just announced “we are going to attack anybody we like and
invade you if we can do it with impunity”. In such scenario any sovereign state should have a
right to opt a defensive strategy. Although Iran has very low military spending but even if they
are developing weapons then it is a deterrent strategy. But then why Iran is regarded as
greatest threat to the world peace again and again? Then what do you about those countries
that already developed nuclear weapons outside the Non-proliferation treaty and are daily
violating the resolutions of Security Council? Now who are concerned about deterrents; only
those who want to use force. These are just a few conflicts to name; our history is filled with
such conflicts at national and international level.
Increased number of International conflicts is another gift of the development policies
implemented around the globe. In past, conflicts were mainly because of colonization and
nationalism. In majority of the wars it was nationalism vs. colonialism, either it be the Philippine
American war or the Italian- Turkish war over the provinces of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica (now
Libya); or the Balkan Wars followed by the World Wars. The main point is that whatever name
these wars have been given, at their back were always economic incentives, lust for power and
authority. It is said that the post cold war era is the era of new wave of democracy where states
no longer live under the threat of their sovereignty being attacked by others. But the truth is
that only the means of imposing force and repressing poor nations have changed; what back in
19th century was called or declared as war is now called a step to safer world by destroying
harmful elements that are don’t know why always present in weaker states. The same old and
violent use of power is now presented in a more sophisticated and organized way. With the
examples of states like Syria, Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam and many more to list; how can
one define sovereignty of state? A sovereign state is the one which has a territorial border and
no outsider has the right to violate the independency and individuality of a state with the
means of force. But what the current world order portrays is completely opposite. It seems like
‘Sovereignty is right of security and independence that every state has until and unless its geostrategic position or natural resources are not needed by the world super powers or if it is strong
enough to protect itself against evil eyes’. In other words this means that weaker states have no
independence even after independence.
International development and International conflicts cannot go hand in hand; they are
inversely proportional. It is inevitable that number of conflicts needs to be reduced in order to
pave way for development. But when the developed nations themselves are involved in igniting
conflicts between states; how conflicts can be reduced? Undoubtedly, world follows the
principle of might is right; those who have money and force are always right. And this is also
true that conflicts are inevitable, but crossing every limit of humanity and destroying nations is
not justifiable in any way. It only leads to greater destruction for all; even those who are
responsible for conflicts; as history shows what happened with Germany in both World Wars. In
fact none of the countries back then wanted this much great destruction for themselves. They
were as Clark says:
“Sleepwalkers, watchful but unseeing, haunted by dreams, yet blind to the reality of horror
they were about to bring in the world”.
Prescriptive Perspective on International Development
How it should be keeping in mind the constraints?
Initially, International development is possible only with development of individual nations. For
this sake the government and citizens should play their part with sincerity. No state is safe if its
leader is like Bashr-ul-Asad. Democracy should be practiced in true sense in order to ensure
development at national and international level. Education and adequate research and
development are also pre-requisite for International development. It’s not true that under the
influence of super powers, weak nations can’t progress. We have example of nations like India,
China and Brazil. China was liberated even after Pakistan and today it is aid donor whereas
Pakistan is at the receiving end. India and China closed their borders for some time, and after
developing strong markets they went international. It’s not about size but right strategies.
Secondly, the international development organizations (which are actually “corporation” of few
world powers) should be liberated in true sense so that could present their own verdict and not
of those who have majority of shares in those corporations.
International conflict resolution is equally important. Conflicts should not be resolved with
force and power. It leads to more repression and hatred. Violence is not the right answer for
violence. A classic example of this is war on terror. At its beginning it was believed that terrorist
were living in small tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, but what happened; it spread
everywhere over Africa, Southeast Asia. Case becomes even worse when you hit vulnerable
systems with sledgehammers not knowing the roots form where the movements are
developing from. For instance, Syria is spiraling into real disaster. Only sensible approach for
resolving Syrian issue is to reduce the violence as much as possible by cutting the flow of Jihadis
to that area. Only then negotiations could be done to solve the issue. And as far as the
negotiations are concerned, it is better to accept what Israel and US wants. Because it is better
to at least live under super power’s rule than to be killed brutally on daily basis. Lastly,
individuals can play very significant part in international development by selecting the right
people as their representatives. The values of a country’s leader are an important determinant
of his/her policies at national and international level.