Friday, 13 September 2019
Lecture 2
International development studies
Mainstream development refers to everyday development talk in developing
countries, international institutions and development co-operation agencies
(Nederveen Pieterse, p.358)
Principal theories on development (p 50)
• Mainstream development: common ideas in international institutions:
Modernisation theory, neo-liberalism, Washington consensus (institutions of
development)
• Alternative development: Dependency theory, basic needs approach,
“development from below”, participatory development, NGO-ization of
development, measuring poverty and development
• Post development:The empire speaks back”, post-colonialism, reflexive
development, degrowth
What is the nature of global inequality? What is the end goal of development? What
challenges generates rapid development?
Traditional views on world development
Division of world in 1st, 2nd and 3rd world (“homogenizing and categorizing views
on the world”)
Positive vision, The individualistic approach; development can be planned and
guided, modernisation thinking; poverty as a transitionary phenomenon
Negativist approach, structuralist approach: developing countries are trapped in a
position as providers of raw materials, can’t develop on their own
Structure vs agency, is it possible to break out of their conditions
1
, Friday, 13 September 2019
Intellectual roots of development:
Enlightenment: rationality, civilisation and progress through rationality and science
(“responsibility for your own destiny”)
environmental determinism, 19th century what impact has the environment on the
society? Eg equatorial paradox, physical anthropology ( studying different
ethnicities to showcase differences in intelligence/development based on race, 19th
century). environmental darwinism
Late-19 century industrialisation, modernisation. development is ordered,
predictable and valuable change
->Post-war Europe: Marshall plan, development can be planned and directed
Environmental determinism (early 1900s)
Geographical influence.
Equatorial paradox (“economic development of a country can be predicted from the
distance between that country and the equator.”)
•Approving euro-centric theories of development: “Served to justify racism and
imperialism”
•Also: physical anthropology
Geography matters…
Sub-Saharan Africa’s geographic conditions—its low population densities before
the twentieth century, high prevalence of disease, lack of navigable rivers for
transportation, meager productivity of rainfed agriculture, and shortage of coal,
among others—long impeded the formation of centralized states, urbanization, and
economic growth (Sachs, 2012).
These transport problems, along with ecological and resource-related weaknesses,
made Africa vulnerable to invasion and conquest by Europe in the late nineteenth
century (after the Europeans learned to protect themselves against malaria with
quinine), and they still hamper development in some parts of the continent today
(ibid.).
Colonialism justified by a ‘superiority of race’
2
Lecture 2
International development studies
Mainstream development refers to everyday development talk in developing
countries, international institutions and development co-operation agencies
(Nederveen Pieterse, p.358)
Principal theories on development (p 50)
• Mainstream development: common ideas in international institutions:
Modernisation theory, neo-liberalism, Washington consensus (institutions of
development)
• Alternative development: Dependency theory, basic needs approach,
“development from below”, participatory development, NGO-ization of
development, measuring poverty and development
• Post development:The empire speaks back”, post-colonialism, reflexive
development, degrowth
What is the nature of global inequality? What is the end goal of development? What
challenges generates rapid development?
Traditional views on world development
Division of world in 1st, 2nd and 3rd world (“homogenizing and categorizing views
on the world”)
Positive vision, The individualistic approach; development can be planned and
guided, modernisation thinking; poverty as a transitionary phenomenon
Negativist approach, structuralist approach: developing countries are trapped in a
position as providers of raw materials, can’t develop on their own
Structure vs agency, is it possible to break out of their conditions
1
, Friday, 13 September 2019
Intellectual roots of development:
Enlightenment: rationality, civilisation and progress through rationality and science
(“responsibility for your own destiny”)
environmental determinism, 19th century what impact has the environment on the
society? Eg equatorial paradox, physical anthropology ( studying different
ethnicities to showcase differences in intelligence/development based on race, 19th
century). environmental darwinism
Late-19 century industrialisation, modernisation. development is ordered,
predictable and valuable change
->Post-war Europe: Marshall plan, development can be planned and directed
Environmental determinism (early 1900s)
Geographical influence.
Equatorial paradox (“economic development of a country can be predicted from the
distance between that country and the equator.”)
•Approving euro-centric theories of development: “Served to justify racism and
imperialism”
•Also: physical anthropology
Geography matters…
Sub-Saharan Africa’s geographic conditions—its low population densities before
the twentieth century, high prevalence of disease, lack of navigable rivers for
transportation, meager productivity of rainfed agriculture, and shortage of coal,
among others—long impeded the formation of centralized states, urbanization, and
economic growth (Sachs, 2012).
These transport problems, along with ecological and resource-related weaknesses,
made Africa vulnerable to invasion and conquest by Europe in the late nineteenth
century (after the Europeans learned to protect themselves against malaria with
quinine), and they still hamper development in some parts of the continent today
(ibid.).
Colonialism justified by a ‘superiority of race’
2
