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Meanings of “Development”
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“Essentially contested concept”
“Development” is a political process
Definition of the process is political
Politics of development are normative
Different interests and values impose
preferences on definition, content, and
direction of development strategies
Development as historical progress
• Progressive unfolding of history
• Steady, confident, and onward process arising
from application of human intellect and energies
in the systematic understanding and
transformation of the world
• Grounded in European experience
• Improvement in material circumstances,
scientific understanding, and human freedom,
quality, and autonomy
Development as exploitation of
natural resources
• Used to rationalize European colonialism
• Opening up and exploiting natural resources of
the colonies
• Development brought to the “backward” colonies
by the “advanced” colonial powers
• Colonies lacked knowledge, energy, and capital
• Unlock potential for the benefit of all, colonizer
and colonized
Development as promotion of economic,
social, and political advancement
• Planned public, private, or combined
mobilization of resources and technology
to promote economic growth and social
and political progress
• Strategies for capitalist and non-capitalist
development
Development as a condition
• Stage or level of socioeconomic and political
achievement
• Ranked on a continuum, along a path leading to
end-state or condition
• Set of defining economic, social, and political
characteristics
– industrial or post-industrial economy (capitalist or
socialist)
– income and material welfare
– greater cultural homogeneity and social equality
– secular political system
– high levels of public participation
Development as a process
• Progressive (improving) change
• Relative concept; no set of universal criteria
• Promotion and institutionalization of capacity for
constant adjustment, adaptation, and change
• “Progress” is contentious and relative
• Requires criteria and measurements to measure
change
• Selection is political and normative
Development as economic growth
• Continues today in almost every country and
policy-makers everywhere seek to promote it
• Annual increases in GNP or income per capita
• Result of intensification of productive effort and a
transformation of methods and techniques in
agriculture and/or industry, resulting in increased
productivity
• How benefits of growth are distributed
• Social, political, and/or environmental costs
Development as structural change
• Shift in structure of economy and output from
primarily agricultural to primarily industrial, i.e.,
industrialization
• Changing share contributed to GDP by
agriculture, industry, and services, and by
number of people working in different sectors
• Shift from primarily rural and agricultural
economy to primarily urban society and
industrial economy
Development as modernization
• Human societies develop from simple
forms of traditionalism to complex
expressions of modernity
• Embodies condition and process
approaches, with “traditional” society the
starting point and “modern” society,
“modernity,” the destination
• Process moving societies through
transition from one condition to the other
Marxism and development as an
increase in the forces of production
• Economic growth, structural change, and progress
toward an end-point called communism
• Tribal  Asiatic and ancient  feudalism  capitalism
 socialism
• Process of progressive and revolutionary change
• Capitalist or bourgeois stage represented most
developed because of its creation of productive forces
• Socialism most advanced mode of production in
progressive development of human societies
• Grounded in secular, rationalist, and materialist
conception of modernization as basis for socialism
Post-war meanings of development
• Growth, modernization, and structural
change dominant orthodoxies
• Little concern with human development or
social development, or development as
social justice
• Commitment to growth reflected in
development views of IMF, World Bank,
and UN
Development as social
development
• Improvements in education, health care, income distribution,
socioeconomic and gender equality, and rural welfare
• Nationalization of major assets, redistribution of wealth (land
reform), and popular participation in decision-making about means
and ends of development
• Social development and social justice for all
• Growing inequalities within “developing” societies and between them
and industrial societies needed to be addressed
• IMF, World Bank, and UN needed reform if effective redistribution of
resources in favor of third world countries was to occur
• Political and economic reform necessary to alter pro-western bias of
prevailing international economic regime
• Policies needed to protect and promote third world interests in
commodity prices, trade, and technology transfer
Development as satisfaction of
basic human needs
• Need for self-determination, self-reliance, political
freedom and security, participation in decision-making,
national and cultural identity, and a sense of purpose in
life and work
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basic goods for family consumption (food, clothing, housing)
basic services (education, water, health care, transport)
participation in decision-making
fulfillment of basic human rights
productive employment
• Redistribution of income, assets, and power
• Rapid economic growth
• Required appropriate political action through the state
Development as human
development
• Social development, redistribution, and basic human needs
• Fundamental meaning and purpose of development was to improve
conditions
• How growth translates or fails to translate into human development
• Process of expanding human choices by enabling people to enjoy
long, healthy, and creative lives
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Long and healthy life
Education
Access to resources
Political, social, and economic freedom
• HDI combines indicators of life expectancy, educational attainment,
and income
• UNDP has argued level of human development has been lower and
slower in many countries than it could be or ought to be given their
GDP per capita
Development as freedom
• Primary end and principal means of development
• Major sources of unfreedom -- poverty, tyranny, poor economic
opportunities, systematic social deprivation, neglect of public
facilities, and intolerance or repressive states
• Five categories of freedom
– Political freedoms enable people to shape government, government
policy, maintain accountability
– Economic facilities, opportunities for individuals to use resources for
consumption, production, or exchange
– Social opportunities, arrangement societies make for health care and
education
– Transparency guarantees, social and public trust achieved through clear
disclosure to limit corruption and graft
– Protective security, institutional safety net that prevents people being
reduced to abject poverty and starvation
• State and society have roles in strengthening and safeguarding
human capabilities for development
Sustainable development
• Development that meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their own needs (World Commission on
Environment and Development, 1987)
• Promote and maintain economic growth that reflects
sustainability, equity, social justice and security
• Protect resource base
• Sustainable level of population
• Adapt and re-orient technology to account for
environmental impact
• Ensure environmental issues are integral to policymaking and enhance international relations and
cooperation
Development as dependency
• Assumption of modernizers this could or would
happen in the “developing” world in the same
way it happened in the West is naïve at best
• Foreign aid, foreign investment, and
international trade have not promoted
autonomous capitalist development
• Condition of dependency in an increasingly
global economy dominated by the “developed”
nations and their multinational corporations
Development as a discourse of
domination
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Ideas and practices of ”development” (conveyed through aid, trade,
projects, programs, and investment) represent cultural invasion that
imposes western view of the world and inhibits creativity of invaded by
curbing their expression
Western “knowledge” about development connected with western economic
and political power (expressed through banks, companies, government
agencies, and international institutions)
Right of people in third world to a voice, the right to be, and to assume
direction of their destiny
Development discourse rooted in rise of West, in history of capitalism, in
modernity, and globalization of western state institutions, disciplines,
cultures, and mechanisms of exploitation
New ways of using, producing, and distributing resources, new conceptions
and practices of development, must come from local initiatives, ideas and
communities of grass-roots organizations and new social movements
Indigenous and participatory forms of activity define a particular kind of
development and give expression to forms of resistance to poverty,
injustice, and inequality, and to self-help at the local level
Concluding remarks
• Every concept of “development” flows from
some political context or purpose, or has been a
response to political circumstances, or an
integral part of an attempt to transform such
circumstances
• Implies a set of political implications for policy
and practice
• Politics and “development” are inseparable, both
in concept and practice
• Whenever and wherever “development” has
been pursued it has always enhanced the
interests of some at the cost of others