30 1 The Companion to Development Studies
measurement of poverty' by Simon Maxwell (these are available from www.odi.org.uk/publications/briefing/ poverty/index.htmi). Finally, Gordon and Spicker (1999) is a useful resource. The main data sources are the UNDP's Human Development Report and the World Bank's World Development Indicators, both of which are published annually (with the latter available on CD-ROM). Past issues of the Human Development Report contain discussions of the various indices presented, including the HDI and HPI, while World Development Indicators contains useful information on data sources. The World Bank's poverty data are available from www.worldbank.org/poverty, which includes many useful links to poverty-related material.
The following text references provide the basis for further reading.
Baulch, B. (1996) 'The new poverty agenda: A disputed consensus', IDS Bulletin, 27: 1-10. Black, R. and White, H. (2004) Targeting Development: Critical Perspectives on the Millennium Development Goals, London: Routledge.
Chambers, R. (1995) Poverty and Livelihoods: Whose Reality Counts? Brighton: Institute of Development
Studies, Discussion paper 347. Gordon, D, and Spicker, P. (eds) (1999) International Glossary on Poverty, London: Zed Books. Jodha, N.S. (1988) 'Poverty debate in India: A minority view', Economic and Political Weekly, 22(45-47): 2421-8. Ravallion, M. (1992) Poverty Comparisons: A Guide to Concepts and Methods, Washington, DC: World Bank,
Living Standards Measurement Study, Working Paper 88. White, H. (1999) 'Global poverty reduction: Are we heading in the right direction?', foumal of International
Development, 11: 503-19.
1.7 The Millennium Development Goals
Jonathan Rigg
Deriving the goals
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 18 September 2000, at the UN Millennium Summit. Nearly 190 countries have since signed up to the resolution. The eight goals, to be achieved by 2015, are linked to 18 targets, and these, in turn, to 48 indicators (Table 1). While the individual goals may not be new, the collective agreement by almost 190 countries to strive to meet these goals was - and is - unprecedented. The MDGs arose from a wish, clearly expressed at the Millennium Summit, that at the turn of the millennium good intentions had to be matched by concrete actions. Under values and principles', the UN General Assembly agreed that:
We believe that the central challenge we face today is to ensure that globalization becomes a positive force for all the world's people. For while globalization offers great opportunities, at present its benefits are very unevenly shared, while its costs are unevenly distributed.. .only through broad and sustained efforts to create a shared future, based upon our common humanity in all its diversity, can globalization be made fully inclusive and equitable.
We will spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty, to which more than a billion of them are currently subjected. We are committed to making the right to development a reality for everyone and to freeing the entire human race from want (http://www.un.org/millennium/ declaration/ares552e.pdf).
The Millennium Deveiopment Goals i 31
Table 1 The MDGs: 8 goals, 18 targets, 48 indicators
Goals (8)
Targets (18)
Indicators (48)
1. Eradicate extreme    1. Reduce by half the proportion
hunger and poverty
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, . malaria and other .:■ diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
of people living on less than a dollar a day
2. Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger
3. Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling
4. Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015
5. Reduce by two-thirds the mortality rate among children under five
6. Reduce by three-quarters the maternal mortality ratio
7. Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
8. Halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases
9. integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources
1. Proportion of population below $1 (PPP) per day
2. Poverty gap ratio, $1 per day
3. Share of poorest quintile in national income or consumption
4. Prevalence of underweight children under five years of age
5. Proportion of the population below minimum level of dietary energy consumption
6. Net enrolment ratio in primary education
7. Proportion of pupils starting grade 1 who reach grade 5
8. Literacy rate of 15- to 24-year-olds
9. Ratio of girls to boys in primary, secondary and tertiary education
10. Ratio of literate women to men 15-24 years old
11. Share of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector
12. Proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments
13. Under-five mortality rate
14. Infant mortality rate
15. Proportion of 1-year-old children immunized against measles
16. Maternal mortality ratio
17. Proportion of births attended by skilled health personnel
18. HIV prevalence among 15-to 24-year-old pregnant women
19. Condom use rate of the contraceptive prevalence rate and population aged 15-24 years with comprehensive correct knowledge of HIV/AIDS
20. Ratio of school attendance of orphans to school attendance of non-orphans aged 10-14 years
21. Prevalence and death rates associated with malaria
22. Proportion of population in malaria risk areas using effective malaria prevention and treatment measures
23. Prevalence and death rates associated with tuberculosis
24. Proportion of tuberculosis cases detected and cured under directly observed treatment short courses
25. Forested land as percentage of land area
26. Ratio of area protected to maintain biological diversity to surface area
27. Energy supply (apparent consumption; kg oil equivalent) per $1000 (PPP) GDP
32 I The Companion to Development Studies
Table 1 - continued
8. Develop a global partnership for development
10. Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water
11. Achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020
12. Develop further an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable and nondiscriminatory, includes a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction - nationally and internationally
13. Address the least developed countries' special needs. This includes tariff- and quota-free access for their exports; enhanced debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries; cancelSation of official bilateral debt; and more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction
14. Address the special needs of landlocked and small island developing states
15. Deal comprehensively with developing countries' debt problems through national and international measures to make debt sustainable in the long term
16. In cooperation with the developing countries, develop decent and productive work for youth
17. In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable, essential drugs in developing countries
18. In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies - especially information and communications technologies
28. Carbon dioxide emissions (per capita) and consumption of ozone-depleting CFCs
29. Proportion of the population with sustainable access to and improved water source
30. Proportion of the population with access to improved sanitation
31. Slum population as percentage of urban population (secure tenure index)
Official development assistance (ODA)
32. Net ODA as percentage of OECD/DAC donors' gross national product (targets of 0.7% in total and 0.15% for LDCs)
33. Proportion of ODA to basic social services (basic education, primary health care, nutrition, safe water and sanitation)
34. Proportion of ODA that is untied
35. Proportion of ODA for environment in small island developing states
36. Proportion of ODA for transport sector in landlocked countries
Market access
37. Proportion of exports (by vaiue and excluding arms) admitted free of duties and quotas
38. Average tariffs and quotas on agricultural products and textiles and clothing
39. Domestic and export agricultural subsidies in OECD countries
40. Proportion of ODA provided to help build trade capacity
Debt sustainability
41. Proportion of official bilateral HIPC debt cancelled
42. Total number of countries that have reached their HIPC decision points and number that have reached their completion points (cumulative) (HSPC)
43. Debt service as a percentage of exports of goods and services
44. Debt relief committed under HIPC initiative
45. Unemployment of 15- to 24-year-olds, each sex and total
46. Proportion of population with access to affordable, essential drugs on a sustainable basis
47. Telephone lines and cellular subscribers per 100 population
48. Personal computers in use and Internet users per 100 population
Source: Extracted and adapted from http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/index.html
Notes: DAC = Development Cooperation Directorate; HIPC = heavily indebted poor countries; OECD
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
The Millennium Development Goals 9 33
At the time of the Summit, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan stated: 'We will have time t0 reach the Millennium Development Goals - worldwide and in most, or even all, individual countries — but only if we break with business as usual.'
Progress towards the MDGs
At (he time of writing (2006), more than five years have passed since the MDGs were adopted by the UN General Assembly, a sufficient period of time to assess whether they are likely to be achieved - and where. To put it another way, is there evidence that the world community has bro-]<en with 'business as usual', as Kofi Annan exhorted?
The baseline year for measuring progress towards most of the targets is 1990 and the latest data .come from 2004. On this basis, the simple answer is that while there has been significant progress with respect to some of the goals, and in some parts of the world, it is also necessary to admit that
■ bverall progress has been slow, halting and patchy. Table 2 summarizes progress in 2005 towards :;igoals 1-7 in ten regions of the world. In only 55 instances are targets likely to be met by 2015 at
current rates of progress; in 81 cases, the target is not expected to be met given prevailing trends, ■:,ahd, of these, in 33 cases there has actually been a deterioration in progress. Table 3 shows that there is a clear - at least in terms of this level of aggregation - regional pattern to achievement and sfailure. In sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, West Asia, Oceania and CIS Asia the balance of success is negative: more targets will not be met by 2015 than will be met, at least given prevailing trends. ;,: It is goal 8, relating to the derivation of a global partnership for development and its associated indicators and targets, which directs attention to the responsibility of the wider international community and, particularly, richer countries. Again, progress has been made, but, many .commentators feel, not sufficiently far or fast enough to meet the MDGs. Aid has increased significantly but not by enough; trade barriers remain largely in place, particularly for products
■ deemed strategically important to rich countries (such as farm products); and while the debt burden of heavily indebted countries in Africa has fallen, it remains too high and an impediment to progress.
Criticizing the self-evidently desirable
Few would contest that the desires and objectives contained within the MDGs are laudable - they are self-evident 'goods'. Perhaps because of this, scholars have tended to shy away from criticizing them. However, from the start, there have been critics who have questioned whether, first, the MDGs are fit for purpose; second, whether we have the available data to measure the achievement of the targets identified; fhird, whether the targets set adequately assess the goals to be achieved; and fourth, whether there is a mechanism in place - beyond exhortation and moral persuasion -to support and propel the achievement of the MDGs, especially in relation to goal 8.
Jeffrey James (2006) directs his criticism at what he perceives to be a failure to distinguish between means and ends, or between actual achievements (ends) and potential achievements. Some of the MDG targets are ends manifested and measurable at the level of the individual. This applies, for example, to the targets associated with goals 4, 5 and 6 (all health related) and also target 2 under goal 1 (referring to hunger) (see Table 1). But many of the other goals are, in James's view, means rather than ends. So, for example, he draws a distinction between completing primary school (target 3 under goal 2) and the acquisition of basic literacy and numeracy. The former (primary school education) may lead to the latter (literacy and numeracy), but if schooling is inadequate, as it so often is in the poorest countries, then this may not be achieved. In other words, the mere meeting of a target - universal primary-level education - may not deliver the desired end of an adequate education for the modern world. The same argument can be applied to the goals of gender equality and empowerment, and of environmental sustainability (goals 3 and 7).
34 i The Companion to Development Studies
The Millennium Development Goals 1 35
Table 2 MDG progress chart (2005)
Goals and targets	Number of regions in each category {out of ten world regions)			
	Target met or	Target expected	Target not	No progress, or
	close to being	to be met if	expected to be	deterioration or
	met	prevailing trends persist	met if prevailing trends persist	reversal in trends
Goal 1: Reduce by half the	2	2	3	2
proportion of people living				
on less than a dollar a day				
Goal 1: Reduce by half the	0	5	3	2
proportion of people who				
suffer from hunger				1
Goal 2: Ensure that all boys	0	4	5	
and girls complete a full				
course of primary schooling				0
Goal 3; Eliminate gender	5	2	3	
disparity in primary education				1
Goal 4: Reduce by two-thirds	0	3	6	
the mortality rate among				
children under five				
Goal 4: Measles immunization	4	2	2	2
Goal 5: Reduce by three-	0	3	5	2
quarters the maternal				
mortality ratio				6
Goal 6: Halt and begin to	0	0	2	
reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS				1
Goal 6: Halt and begin to	0	5	4	
reverse the incidence of				
malaria				
Goal 6: Halt and begin to	0	3	4	3
reverse the incidence of				
tuberculosis				
Goal 7: Reverse loss of forests	3	0	3	4
Goal 7: Reduce by half the	0	7	1	2
proportion of people without				
sustainable access to safe				
drinking water				
Goal 7: Reduce by half the	0	3	2	5
proportion of people				
without sanitation				
Goal 7: Achieve significant	0	2	5	2
improvement in lives of				
slum dwellers				
Total	14	41	48	33
Table 3 Progress chart by region (2005)
Goals and targets
Number of regions in each category (out of ten world regions)
Source: Millennium Development Goals: Progress Chart (2005) http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/ mdg_chart_sept.pdf
Notes: Some regions' progress is not assessed under some of these targets because of insufficient data. These targets do not conform exactly to those agreed at the UN Millennium Summit and listed in Table 1.
In defence of this means-based approach, it has been suggested that cross-country data are simply not always available to target ends and that such means-based measures are a broad and generally applicable indicator of success. But even here there are reasons to be cautious. For example, doubts have been expressed about whether we have sufficiently robust data to assess the achievement of the targets set. And, of course, the absence of robust data is particularly severe in
Target met or     Target expected Target not No progress, or
close to being     to be met if expected to be deterioration or
met prevailing met if prevailing reversal in trends
trends persist trends persist
"North Africa Sub-Saharan Africa East Asia Soutli East Asia South Asia West Asia Oceania
Latin America and Caribbean CIS- Europe CIS - Asia Total
1	10	2	0
0	0	4	10
3	5	5	1
2	6	5	1
0	2	10	2
0	4	5	4
0	2	4	6
2	5	6	1
3	4	4	3
3	3	3	5
14	41	48	33
Source: Millennium Development Goals: Progress Chart (2005) http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/ mdg chart, sept.pdt
the poorcsl countries where the need to meet the MDGs is most acute. Satterthwaite (2003: -5), for example, writes of'nonsense' statistics, such as the levels of urban poverty and urban service provision in Africa (linked to goal 7, targets 10 and 11), which are then used to measure progress towards the MDGs: 'if monitoring is based on inappropriate indicators or indicators abased on inappropriate assumptions, it will not serve to monitor poverty reduction with regard to adequate income levels or service provision levels' (p. 189).
V v A related criticism is whether the rather mechanical, target-based approach places a characteristically instrumentalist gloss on the achievement (or otherwise) of the goals. The achievement of the poverty target, for example (goal 1, target 1), is income-based and related to official data and basic needs as ascertained by experts'. Other forms of deprivation (linked to social exclusion, polit-:ical marginality and cultural rights) are ignored, and the inequalities in power which are often the rool cause of poverty, overlooked (ibid.: 182). It also means that governments and agencies are likely to focus their energies on interventions that will improve the chances of meeting the MDGs, rather than on more deep-seated, political and problematic manifestations of deprivation. Moreover, it is not just what is done - reducing poverty, eradicating hunger, reducing maternal ^mortality - but how it is done. The general criticism that development has become a technocratic ■ project informed by experts, driven by governments and multilateral agencies, and based on meas-sures of success that pay little heed to local desires is equally apposite to the MDG initiative (see the papers in Hasan, Patel and Satterthwaite 2005).
It is important to appreciate that the MDGs are not discrete, stand-alone goals, but are interlinked so that the failure to meet one is likely to have knock-on effects for some of the other :goals. Thus, the failure to meet the goal of universal primary school education will compromise ;the achievement of targets related to infant mortality, child malnutrition, gender equality, HIV/AIDS, and so forth (Delamonica, Mehrotra and Vandemoortele 2004). Furthermore, high maternal mortality in sub-Saharan Africa reflects not just a shortage of the necessary medical \ infrastructure, but also the low status of women in those societies and women's lack of control over dieir reproductive decisions (Simwaka et al. 2005). The goals, therefore, not only link with each other, but are implicated in some deeper and arguably even more profound aspects of inequality.
36 I The Companion to Development Studies
To achieve the MDGs there needs to be a commitment from both donors, in terms of increased assistance, and, of course, from developing country governments. Regarding the former, the UN Millennium Project calculated that aid needed to rise from US$69 billion in 2003, to US$135 billion in 2006, to US$195 billion in 2015 if the MDGs were to be met. Furthermore, this increase in aid needs to be targeted at the right places - the neediest countries and those that are likely to use it most effectively and efficiently. The evidence is that on both counts donor nations are failing. Total aid to developing countries in 2005 was US$106 billion. Baulch (2006) also argues that the United States and the European Commission, particularly, disperse the bulk of their aid budgets to middle-income countries that either have met, or are on track to meeting the MDGs.
Summary
The MDGs represent the first collective and integrated attempt to improve the lives and life chances of the world's poor. That must be counted, in itself, a success. It already seems, however, that many of the poorest countries will not meet the majority of the goals by the target date of 2015. Furthermore, since 2000 there have emerged a number of critiques of the goals themselves, the way that the targets have been framed, the reliability of the data on which progress is assessed, and the failure of the wider international community to sign up to the MDGs in terms of material commitment.
Development and economic growth 9 37
Bauklu B. (2006) 'Aid distribution and the MDGs', World Development, 34(6): 933-50. peJamonica, E., Mehrotra, S. and Vandemoortele, J. (2004) 'Education for all: How much will it cost?', .>■ Development and Change, 35(1): 3-30.
Hasan, A., Patel, S. and Satterthwaite, D. (eds) (2005) 'Meeting the Millennium Development Goals in urban
areas', Environment and Urbanization, 17( 1), special issue. James, J. (2006) 'Misguided investments in meeting Millennium Development Goals: A reconsideration using
ends-based targets', Third World Quarterly, 27(3): 443-58. iSatterthwaite, D. (2003) 'The Millennium Development Goals and urban poverty reduction: Great expecta-... tions and nonsense statistics', Environment and Urbanization, 15(2): 181-90.
Simvraka, B.N., Theobald, S., Amekudzi, Y.P. and Tolhurst, R. (2005) 'Tackling gender inequalities is key to reducing maternal mortality in sub-Saharan Africa', British Medical Journal, 331: 708-9.
1.8 Development and economic growth
A.P. ThirlwaM
GUIDE TO FURTHER READING
A great deal of valuable material on the MDGs can be gleaned from the UN, World Bank and other websites.
For more bard-bitting assessments, however, it is best to look at academic papers. Hasan, A., Patel, S. and Satterthwaite, D. (eds) (2005) 'Meeting the Millennium Development Goals in urban
areas', Environment and Urbanization, 17(1), special issue. A valuable set of papers which takes a critical
look at the MDGs from an urban perspective and questions the assumptions on which some of the goals
and targets are based.
James, J. (2006) 'Misguided investments in meeting Millennium Development Goals: a reconsideration using ends-based targets', Third World Quarterly, 27(3): 443-58. An interesting alternative take on the MDGs and whether the targets set really represent the ends the world community wishes to achieve.
UN (2006) Millennium Development Goals Report, New York: United Nations, http://unstats.un.org/ unsd/mdg/Resources/Static/Products/Progress2006/MDGReport2006.pdf. A summary of progress towards the goals based on a 'master' data set compiled by an 'Inter-Agency and Expert Group on MDG Indicators'.
USEFUL WEBSITES
The main UN MDG website, with background information on the initiative, the UN resolution and the
Secretary General's interventions, can be found at http://www.un.org/milienniumgoals/index.html A useful 2005 progress chart on the Millennium Development Goals can be downloaded from
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/mdg_charLsept.pdf The latest (and past) UN reports on progress towards the MDGs can be downloaded from
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/documents.html http://unstats.un.org/unsd/mdg/Resources/Static/
Products/Progress2006/MDGReport2006.pdf A fact sheet on the role of the UN in implementing the Millennium Development Goals can be found at
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/MDGs-FACTSHEETl.pdf The World Bank also has a hill section on the MDGs, with links to relevant studies, accessible from
http://ddp-cxt.worldbank.org/ex t/GMIS/home.do?siteId=2
The economic and social development of the world's poorest countries is perhaps the greatest challenge facing society at the present time. Over one billion of the world's six billion population live in absolute poverty; the same number suffer various degrees of malnutrition, and millions have no access to safe water, health care or education. This poverty is concentrated largely m countries described as 'developing', and coexists with the affluence enjoyed by the vast majority of people in ■■countries described as 'developed'.
The standard of living of people is commonly measured by the total amount of goods and services produced per head of the population, or what is called gross domestic product (GDP) per capita (or gross national product (GNP) per capita, if net income from abroad is added). This, in turn, is determined by the number of people who work, and their productivity. The basic proximate cause of the poverty of nations is the low productivity of labour associated with low levels of :: physical and human capital (education) accumulation, and low levels of technology.
Income per head in a country is naturally measured in units of its own currency, but if interna-: tional comparisons of living standards are to be made, each country's per capita income has to be converted into a common unit of account at some rate of exchange. The convention is to take the US dollar as the unit of account and convert each country's per capita income into dollars at the official exchange rate. A country's official exchange rate, however, is not necessarily a good measure of the relative purchasing power of currencies, because it only reflects the relative prices of goods that enter into international trade. But many goods that people buy are not traded, and the relative price of these n on-traded goods tends to be lower the poorer the country, reflecting much lower relative labour costs. An exchange rate is required which reflects the purchasing power parity (PPP) of countries' currencies, and this is now provided by various international organizations, such as the World Bank, which uses US$1 per day measured at PPP, to define the level of absolute poverty.
The economic growth of countries refers to the increase in output of goods and services that a country produces over an accounting period, normally one year. If a country is said to be growing at 5 per cent per annum, it means that the total volume of its domestic output (GDP) is increasing at this rate. If population is growing at 2 per cent per annum, this means that output per head (or the average standard of living) is growing at 3 per cent per annum.
38 S The Companion to Development Studies
Economic growth, however, is not the same as economic development. The process of economic (and social} development must imply a growth in living standards, but it is a much, wider concept than the growth of per capita income alone. Growth, it might be said, is a necessary condition for the economic and social development of nations, but it is not a sufficient condition because an aggregate measure of growth or per capita income pays no attention to how that output is distributed among the population; it says nothing about the composition of output (whether the goods are consumption goods, investment goods or public goods such as education and health provision), and it gives no indication of the physical, social and economic environment in which the output is produced. In short, the growth rates of nations cannot be taken as measures of the increase in the welfare of societies because the well-being of people is a much more inclusive concept than the level of income alone.
If the process of economic and social development is defined in terms of an increase in society's welfare, a concept of development is required which embraces not only economic variables and objectives, but also social objectives and values for which societies strive. Many economists and other social scientists have attempted to address this issue, and here we mention the ideas of two prominent thinkers in the field: Denis Goulet and Amartya Sen (who in 1998 won the Nobel Prize in economics for his work on the interface between welfare and development economics).
Goulet (1971) distinguishes three basic components or core values that he argues must be included in any true meaning of development, which he calls life sustenance, self-esteem and freedom. Life sustenance is concerned with the provision of basic needs. No country can be regarded as fully developed if it cannot provide all its people with such basic needs as housing, clothing, food and minimal education. A country may have a relatively high average standard of living and an impressive growth performance over several years, but still have a poor provision of basic needs, leaving large sections of the population in an underdeveloped state. This issue is closely related to the distribution of income in societies measured by the share of total income going to the richest and poorest sections of society. The distribution of income is much more unequal in poorer developing countries than in richer developed countries, and it is perfectly possible for a poor country to be growing fast, yet its distribution of income to be worsening because die fruits of growth accrue to the rich. Such a country would have grown, but it would not have developed if the provision of basic needs for the poorest groups in the community had not improved.
Self-esteem is concerned with feelings of self-respect and independence. A country cannot be regarded as fully developed if it is exploited by others or cannot conduct economic relations on equal terms. In this sense, the colonization of large parts of Africa, Asia and South America kept the countries in these regions of the world in an underdeveloped state. Colonialism has now virtually ended, but some would argue that there are modern equivalents of colonialism, equally insidious and antidevelopmental. For example, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank dominate economic policymaking in many developing countries, and many of the policies that the countries are forced to pursue are detrimental to development. Also, multinational corporations that operate in many developing countries often introduce consumption patterns and techniques of production which are inappropriate to the stage of development of the countries concerned, and to that extent impair welfare. In international trade, poor and rich countries do not operate on a level playing field, and the strong may gain at the expense of the weak. The distribution of the gains from trade is not equitable, not least because the terms of trade of primary producing developing countries (i.e. the price of their exports relative to the price of imports) tends to deteriorate through time (at an average rate of about 0.5 per cent per annum for at least the last century).
Freedom refers to the ability of people to determine their own destiny. No person is free if they are imprisoned on the margin of subsistence with no education and no skills. The great benefit of material development is that it expands the range of choice open to individuals and to societies at large. For the economic and social development of a country, however, all must participate in and
Development and economic growth I 39
benefit from the process of growth, not just the richest few. If the majority are left untouched, their choices remain limited; and no person is free if they cannot choose.
Sen (1983,1999) argues in a similar vein to Goulet that economic growth should not be viewed as an end in itself, but as the means to the achievement of a much wider set of objectives by which economic and social development should be measured. Development should focus on, and be judged by, the expansion of people's 'entitlements' and the 'capabilities' that these entitlements generate, and income is not always a good measure of entitlements. Sen defines entitlements as 'the set of alternative commodity bundles that a person can command in a society using the totality of rights and opportunities that he or she faces1. For most people, the crucial determinants of their entidements depend on their ability to sell their labour and on the price of commodities. ; Employment opportunity, and the level of unemployment, must therefore be included in any ^meaningful definition of development. Entidements also depend on such factors as what individuals can extract from the state (in the form of welfare provision); the spatial distribution of resources and opportunities, and power relations in society. Sen (1984) has analysed major world famines, using the concept of entitlements, and finds that several famines have not been associated : with a shortage of food, but rather with a lack of entitlements because the food supply has been .withdrawn from certain parts of the country or sections of society, or food prices have risen.
The thinking of Goulet, Sen and others has led to the construction of alternative measures of economic and social development to supplement statistics on growth rates and levels of countries' per-capita income. The most notable of these measures are the human development index (HDI) -and the human poverty index (HPI), compiled by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and published in its annual Human Development Report. These alternative indices of the . .economic well-being of nations do not always correlate well with per-capita income. The same growth rate and per-capita income of countries can be associated with very different levels of achievement in other spheres, such as life expectancy, death rates, literacy and education. As the UNDP says in its 1997 report: 'although GNP growth is absolutely necessary to meet all essential human objectives, countries differ in the way that they translate growth into human development'.
The UNDP's human development index is based on three variables: life expectancy at birth; educational attainment, measured by a combination of adult literacy and combined primary, : secondary and tertiary school enrolment rates; and the standard of living measured by real per-capita income measured at PPP. These variables are combined in a composite index that ranges from 0 to 1 (see Thirlwall 2006 for details). Comparing the ranking of developing countries by ; their HDI and per-capita income shows some interesting divergences. Many oil-producing countries, for example, have much lower HDI rankings than their per-capita income rank, while some poor countries rank relatively high by their HDI because they have deliberately devoted scarce resources to human development. Countries such as Cuba, Venezuela, Jamaica and some former states of the Soviet Union fall into this category.
The UNDP's human poverty index is also based on three main indices: the percentage of the population not expected to survive beyond the age of 40; the adult illiteracy rate; and a deprivation index based on an average of three variables — the percentage of the population without access to safe water, the percentage of the population without access to health services, and the percentage of children under the age of five years who are underweight through malnourishment. The ranking of countries by their HPI also shows some striking contrasts with their ranking by per-capita income. The UNDP has calculated that the cost of eradicating poverty across the world is relatively small compared to global income - not more than 0.3 per cent of world GDP - and concluded that political commitment, not financial resources, is the real obstacle to poverty eradication.
To summarize, economic growth is not the same as economic development. The annual growth rate of a country is a very precise measure of the growth of the total volume of goods and services produced in a country during a year, but it says nothing about its composition or distribution. Growth is a necessary condition for real income per head to rise, but it is not a sufficient condition
40 I The Companion to Development Studies
for economic development to take place, because development is a multidimensional concept which embraces multifarious economic and social objectives, concerned with the distribution of income, the provision of basic needs, and the real and psychological well-being of people. Many poor countries in the last quarter of the twentieth century experienced quite a respectable rate of growth in living standards - averaging 2-3 per cent per annum — but the absolute number in poverty has continued to rise, and the distribution of income has become more unequal. At the global level, there is little evidence of the convergence of per-capita incomes across nations. The poor countries have been growing, but the rich countries have been growing as fast, if not faster in per-capita terms. While the eradication of poverty - and the narrowing of the rich-poor country divide - remains one of the great challenges of the new millennium, economic growth in poor countries is not enough by itself for development to take place when viewed in a broader framework.
GUIDE TO FURTHER READING AND REFERENCES
The topics covered here can be taken further by recourse to the following texts.
Goulet, D. (1971) The Cruel Choice: A New Concept on the Theory of Development, New York: Atheneum. Sen, A. (1983) 'Development: which way now?', Economic Journal, December.
Sen, A. (1984) Poverty and Famines: An Essay in Entitlement and Deprivation, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Sen, A. (1999) Development as Freedom: Human Capability and Global Need, New York: Knopf.
Thirlwall, A.P. (2006) Growth and Development: With Special Reference to Developing Economies, eighth
edition, London: Macmillan. United Nations Development Programme (1997, 1999) Human Development Report, New York: Oxford
University Press.
1.9 Development and social welfare/human rights
Jennifer A. Elliott
Development and social welfare/human rights I 41
progress and development, for example, that characterized the modernist tradition in development theory for so long, were to a degree overturned by the postmodern movement, particularly through the 1990s (Simon 1999). 'Rights-based development', as a concept and as a policy directive, has also gained strength through the rethinking and critique of neoliberalism and its agents (jyfanzo 2003).
In short, while a concern for human dignity and well-being in development studies is not entirely new, it is only recently that 'many new problems as well as old ones' (Sen 1999: xi, empha-sjs added) are being so widely conceptualized in terms of human rights and freedoms.
Rights and development as separate concerns
Although human rights and well-being were undoubtedly concerns in the 1940s and 1950s within international institutions, among governments of newly independent countries and in the emergent discipline of development studies, it has been argued that the predominant ideas and practices of development at that time were often devoid of ethical considerations and separate from "those 'marked out for development* (Corbridge 1999: 69). For example, ideas of progress during that period were generally synonymous with economic growth and the modernization of traditional societies. In so far as welfare and rights issues were considered, it was assumed that these
J would follow as outcomes of the linear process of economic development. In turn, development and underdevelopment were quantified (and as reported by the World Bank and United Nation's reports) in terms of the level of gross national product (GNP) per capita.
During this period, the traditional view of human rights centred on civil and political (CP) rights (the right to life, liberty and security, for example; the right to vote, to a free press and freedom of speech) and on legal rights such as due process of law and the presumption of innocence
■.;;::-until proven guilty. In short, the debates were led by the West, they emphasized material well-being and took place alongside, rather than being integrated with, the agendas of international development. Although two key international covenants were adopted by the United Nations in 1966 (on CP rights and on economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights), work focused on the ratification and inscription of CP rights into constitutional and legal frameworks. ESC rights, such as the right to
:an adequate standard of living, the right to education, to work and equal pay, and the right of
minorities to enjoy their own culture, religion and language, were less prominent and tended to be considered separately to CP rights (Maxwell 1999).
Critical development studies
In the early years of the twenty-first century, human well-being (including individual civil and political liberties), as well as meeting the physical and material needs of human society, are accepted concerns for development, both as outcomes and conditions for sustained progress (World Bank 1998; UNDP 2000). Issues of egalitarian development, democracy, participation, ethics and human rights suffuse development theory, the pronouncements of major development institutions such as the United Nations and the World Bank, and the activities of new social movements alike. In short, the practice and discourses of development have become more morally informed, particularly since the late 1980s.
In part, the 'insertion of a critical sensibility' (Radcliffe 1999: 84) into development studies is a product of the recognition that many of the world's citizens continue to lack even the most fundamental goods and opportunities. Integral to this understanding has been the expansion in tools and measures for monitoring deprivation and progress worldwide, such as those developed and reported annually by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Theoretical developments have also been important in prompting an emphasis on human welfare and human rights concerns. The legitimacy and universal acceptance of the 'big ideas' of
The basic needs approach
:: By the end of the 1960s, however, there was growing disillusionment with the practice of develop-; ment and with indicators of development that took no account of the distribution of national wealth. It became widely agreed that the economic growth that actually took place in most developing countries seemed to go together with increases in absolute and relative poverty. In response to this dilemma, it was argued that a direct approach was required to the delivery of welfare outcomes. In due course, what became known as the basic needs approach (BNA) drew together theorists and practitioners from a range of traditions, academic centres and institutions of development, searching for more human-centred and locally relevant processes and patterns of development (see for example, Stohr's (1981) 'development from below'). In short, under the basic needs approach, development was redefined as a broad-based, people-oriented or endogenous process, as a critique of modernization and as a break with past development theory.
As a result of the influence of the BNA, the 1970s saw a vast array' (Escobar 1995) of programmes focused on households and covering aspects of health, education, farming and reproduction practices, designed to create a minimum level of welfare for the weakest groups in society. Development practice became characterized by district and regional planning (supported by
42 I The Companion to Development Studies
major international donor institutions), by proliferating field bureaucracies and by development solutions through targeting (of social groups — particularly women and children, of sectors and of : regions) to overcome the recognized inadequacies of the 'planning fantasies of the 1960s' (Chambers 1993: 108). Concurrently, a series of social indicators for development appeared, most notably within annual reports of the World Bank and the UNDP, as concepts of absolute and relative poverty were redefined to include the distribution of access to education and clean water, for example, in addition to income.
Buying and selling welfare
The BNA did much to put poverty, human needs and rights back on official development agendas in the 1970s. However, many assert that the decade of the 1980s was one of development 'reversals' rather than achievements, with evidence, particularly in Africa, of falling school enrolments and literacy levels, for example (Simon 1999). Similarly, development theory was proposed to have reached an 'impasse' (Schuurman 1993) through the predominance and power of neoliberal development ideas.
Progressively throughout the decade, basic human rights such as access to safe water and sanitation, which had been identified in the early 1980s as essential to bringing marginal groups into : dominant cultures, became 'commodities subject to the rigours of the market' (Bell 1992: 85). Donors, for example, came under increasing pressure to find new methods of financing and providing welfare both at home and abroad. Governments of developing nations were also required : to cut state expenditures under conditions for access to multilateral development finance. While these pressures opened up spaces for new project types, processes and programmes in development, it has been suggested that the more radical aspects of the original BNA philosophies were often devalued in practice, 'reducing them from agendas for change and empowerment into little more than shopping lists that are hawked to donors for implementation, commonly more in line with donors' than recipients' priorities' (Simon 1999: 27).
Converging agendas through the 1990s
If the 1980s were an impasse in development thinking, it could be suggested that the 1990s made up for it with a whole set of theoretical 'turns' that generated much debate and (often divergent) ideas on how development could be achieved, and even on the meaning of development itself. Smith (2000: 2), however, was cautious regarding the prospects for change in practice: 'while the affluent endure post-modern ambiguity and uncertainty in comfort, for those at the coal-face of human misery what constitutes progress is still likely to be self-evident'.
hi 1986, the United Nations adopted the UN Declaration on the Right to Development, within which development itself was identified as an inalienable human right. The articles that supported the Declaration drew on wider debates about development at that time, in particular through engaging with the emerging critique of conventional development and of neoliberalism, with understandings of the uneven impacts and limits of globalization and in the support it gave to notions of'people centred' development and human empowerment (Manzo 2003). However, out of respect for international human rights law and the Charter of the UN, the Declaration also emphasized the primary role of the state for creating the national and international conditions favourable to realizing the rights to development. Subsequently, the fiftieth anniversary of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights provided an opportunity for key players within the UN to reaffirm society's obligations to respond to the inalienable rights of individuals and the commitment of the UN to efforts to mainstream rights-based development across the institution (Manzo 2003).
Throughout the 1990s, agencies of the UN (such as the UNDP) made important contributions to changing ideas on the meaning and goals of development and in raising understanding of the
I
Development and social welfare/human rights I 43
non-income indicators of human well-being, through changes in its annual reporting of development progress, for example. In 1990, it introduced the human development index (HD1), a composite index designed to reflect achievements in the most basic human capabilities, defined as leading a long life, being knowledgeable and enjoying a decent standard of living. In 1995, the gender-related human development index (GDI) and gender empowerment measure (GEM) were introduced, encompassing the recognition that gender equality is a measure of and means for human and national development. In 1997, the human poverty index (HPI) was introduced to measure deprivation, in terms of the percentage of population not expected to live until the age of 40, illiteracy rates, the percentage of people lacking access to health services and safe water, and the percentage of children under five years who are moderately or severely underweight. These developments are evidence of how, increasingly, 'development' became conceived in terms of human rights and freedoms and of the recognition of the interconnectedness and multidimensional nature of these component issues.
Poverty is now understood as a human rights violation, and working to ensure freedom from poverty (and its impacts on human opportunity and environmental resources) worldwide in the future is encapsulated in the Millennium Development Goals around which multilateral and bilateral aid are increasingly focused. Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers are now the framework through which eligibility for debt relief and further funding from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund is coordinated, for example; these require recipient countries to establish coherent plans focused on poverty reduction and to identify the financing needs required.
Table 1 displays a number of quotations that further illustrate the converging agendas of wel-: fare and human rights issues in international development into the twenty-first century.
Conclusion
: In this short chapter, it has not been possible to do justice to the decades of work done in the fields ::of poverty, participation, gender and democracy, for example, which have all been extremely important in bringing about a much more holistic and moral agenda for development. However,
Table 1 The multidimensional and interdependent nature of human rights and human development
• Political freedoms (in the form of free speech and elections) help to promote economic security. Social opportunities (in the form of education and health facilities) facilitate economic participation. Economic facilities (in the form of,opportunities for participation in trade and production) can help to generate personal abundance as well as public resources for social facilities. Freedoms of different kinds can strengthen one another. (Sen 1999: 11)
• Civil and social education will help people better understand their rights and increase their choices and income-earning capacity. At the same time, developing and implementing equal opportunity laws will empower people to gain more equitable access to productive resources.    (UNDP 1998: 10)
• Sustainable human development and human rights will be undone in a repressive environment where threat of disease prevails, and both are better able to promote human choices in a peaceful and pluralistic society. (UNDP 1998: 6)
• The levels of ill-health experienced by most of the world's people threatens their country's economic and political viability and this in turn affects economic and political interests of all other countries.
(Brundtland 2000: 3)
• A fundamental human freedom is freedom from want. Poverty is a human rights violation, and freedom from poverty is an integral and inalienable right.
(UN Declaration on the Right to Development, 1986)
• Every step taken towards reducing poverty and achieving broad-based economic growth is a step towards conflict prevention. (Annan 2000: 45)
44 I The Companion to Development Studies
this brief analysis has highlighted how such an agenda has shifted the focus away from determining any particular means or 'specially chosen list of instruments' (Sen 1999: 3) for development, towards more concern for the overarching ends of development. Critically, these ends are plural and fluid in the sense that different societies at any particular time may assign varied importance within conceptions of human rights, for example, to the obligations of individuals to self and other, or to material well-being over personal liberty. But rather than debating the primacy of one right, good, opportunity or resource over another, the debates are now more regularly focused on questions of appropriate entry points or sequencing in development interventions in recognition of the reinforcing and interdependent nature of these issues. As Sen has highlighted, the (interrelated) sources of people's 'unfreedoms' may be extremely varied. Development involves expanding these freedoms, as liberties to be valued in their own right and as the principal means (free agency, capability and choice) through which the overarching goals of development, for individuals to lead the kinds of lives they have reason to value' (ibid.: 10), will be achieved.
GUIDE TO FURTHER READING
Bell, M. (1992) 'The water decade valedictory, New Delhi 1990: Where pre- and post-modern meť, Area, '.; 24(1): 82-9. This paper gives a nice review of the thinking behind, and outputs from, the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade.
Hausermann, J. (1998) A Human Rights Approach to Development, London: Rights and Humanity. Prepared ; for the Department for International Development as part of the consultation process behind the first White Paper, this text provides a very clear and comprehensive source of information and ideas on human : rights, evolving approaches to development and the opportunities for greater integration of these areas.
Manzo, K. (2003) Africa in the rise of rights-based development, Geoforum, 34: 437-56. A paper that : explores the rise of rights-based development, the debate surrounding the concept and the varied way in which it is being endorsed by prominent international organisations like DF1D, the World Bank and the United Nations. It explores in detail its origins within the critique of neoliberaiism, but points also to how many of the elements of that agenda are actually being perpetuated in the name of rights-based development.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is a department of the UN Secretariat that is mandated to promote and protect all rights established in the Charter of the United Nations and in international human rights laws and treaties. The Declaration on the Right to Development as well as work under the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action can be found via www.ohchr.org
Simon, D. (1999) 'Development revisited', in D. Simon and A. Narman (eds) Development as Theory and Practice, Harlow: Longman, pp. 17-54. A nice starting point to put the explicit issues of welfare and human rights into a wider context. The overview chapter gives a challenging account of changes in development thinking and practice.
Smith, D.M. (2000) 'Moral progress in human geography: Transcending the place of good fortune', Progress in Human Geography, 24(1): 1-18. A recent paper, from an author well known for his contributions over time in this area, which raises many questions for individual researchers, disciplines and institutions of development if'gaps are to be narrowed'.
Wolfe, M. (1996) Elusive Development, London: Zed Books. A readable book that reflects in some detail on the successes and failures of the Basic Needs Approach to development.
REFERENCES
Annan, K. (2000) "We the Peoples': The role of the United Nations in the twenty-first century, Washington, DC: United Nations.
Participatory development I 45
Bell, M. (1992) 'The water decade valedictory, New Delhi f990: Where pre- and post-modern meť, Area, 24(1): 82-9.
Prundtland, G.H. (2000) Health and Population, Reith Lecture, http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/ staitc/events/reitfi_2 000
Chambers, R. (1993) Challenging the Professions: Frontiers for Rural Development, London: Intermediate Technology Publications.
.; Gorbridge, S. (1999) 'Development, post-development and the global political-economy', in P. Cloke, P. Crang
and M. Goodwin (eds) Introducing Human Geographies, London: Edward Arnold, pp. 67-75. :..Escobar, A. (1995) 'Development planning', in S. Corbridge (ed.) Development Studies: A Reader, London:
Edward Arnold, pp. 64-78. : Hausermann, J. (1998) A Human Rights Approach to Development, London: Rights and Humanity. : Manzo, K. (2003) Africa in the rise of rights-based development, Geoforum, 34: 437-56. Maxwell, S. (1999) What Can We Do with a Rights-based Approach to Development! Briefing Paper 1993(3), .  September, London: Overseas Development Institute. . Radcliffe, S.A. (1999) 'Re-thinking development', in P. Cloke, P. Crang and M. Goodwin (eds) Introducing Human Geographies, London: Edward Arnold, pp. 84-92. Scluitirman, R (ed.) (1993) Beyond the Impasse; New Directions in Development Theory, London: Zed Books. Sen, A. (1999) Development as Freedom, Oxford: Oxford University Press, i; Simon, D. (1999) 'Development revisited', in D. Simon and A. Narman (eds) Development as Theory and
Practice, Harlow: Longman, pp. 17-54. ■Smith, D.M. (2000) 'Moral progress in human geography: Transcending the place of good fortune', Progress
in Human Geography, 24(1): 1-18. Stohr, W.B. (1981) 'Development from below: The bottom-up and periphery-inward development paradigm, in W.B. Stohr and D.R.E Taylor (eds) Development from Above or Below?, Chichester: John Wiley, pp. 39-72. UNDI' (United Nations Development Programme) (1998) Integrating Human Rights with Sustainable Human
Development, New York: UNDP. :.IJNDP (United Nations Development Programme) (2000) Human Development Report: Human Rights and
Human Development, New York: UNDP. ■World Bank (1998) Development and Human Rights: Tlie role of the World Bank, Washington, DC: The World Bank.
1.10 Participatory development
Giles Mohan
At the dawn of the 21st century, calls for more active engagement of poor people in development have come of age. Participation in development has gained a new respectability and legitimacy, and with the status of development orthodoxy (Cornwall 2002a: 15).
Introduction
Since the mid-1970s, a wide range of organizations have started involving local people in their own development, so much so, as Cornwall's quote above shows, that it is new 'orthodoxy'. This chapter begins by looking at different definitions of participatory development and examines through what sorts of organization it is achieved. As there are many possible approaches, I have included case studies which demonstrate different facets of participation. This brings us on to a critique and an overview of where things seem to be heading.
46 I The Companion to Development Studies :;M
Participatory development in theory
The emergence of participatory development (PD) is tied into critiques of both theory and practice.
The emergence of participation f
According to the strongest advocates of PD, 'normal' development is characterized by biases - ;|
Eurocentrism, positivism and top-downism - which are disempowering (Chambers 1997). The I
tendency is to equate development with the modernity achieved by 'Western' societies and to copy I
them through planning by experts. The flip side is that 'non-expert', local people were sidelined ...» and their only role was as the objects of grandiose schemes.
As it became apparent that programmes had yielded limited benefits, the volume of criticism [,
grew. In the 1970s, radicals such as Paulo Freire (1970) advocated participatory action research, f.
which created new learning environments for people to express their needs and achieve develop- ^
ment. Even mainstream organizations like the World Bank argued for basic.needs approaches :s|
which targeted marginalized groups. Added to this were academics, most notably Robert I
Chambers, who argued that 'putting the last first' was necessary for rural development. Since then, |
the acceptance of participation has widened (Hiclcey and Mohan 2005). j
Contested definitions |
Participation is a plastic concept, which is generally deemed 'a good thing', but it has multiple j
meanings. Understanding how participation is used, therefore, is more than an academic exercise, I
but central to its possible impacts. In terms of development, a key question is: if people participate, |
what are they aiming to gain by participating? One view is about efficiency and effectiveness of'for- I
mal' development programmes (Cornwall 2002a). The goals of development are valid, although [
the institutions are felt to be malfunctioning, but can be improved by involving the beneficiaries. 1
For example, the German agency, GT2, defined participation as 'co-determination and power I
sharing throughout the programme cycle' (1991: 5, cited in Nelson and Wright 1995: 4). Here, par- \
ticipation involves external and local agencies working together on a project basis, the implication '
being that the project was reasonably circumscribed. Another view concerns mutual learning, in !
which participation is an epistemological and practical issue of understanding where others are [
coming from and, ideally, learning from one another to achieve a better outcome (Chambers 1997; !
Cornwall 2002a). Others take this further in seeing participation as more transformative (Hickey >;
and Mohan 2005). That is, 'development' is flawed and only by valorizing other voices can mean- j
ingful social change occur. \
Despite these differences, there has been a growing acceptance regarding the importance of ! local involvement. Underlying this 'consensus' is the belief in not relying on the state. So, it might
not be coincidental that PD gained popularity around the same time as the neoliberal counter- I
revolution of the 1980s, with its discourse of self-help and individualism. T
Powerful processes
It needs emphasizing that whichever approach to participation we adopt, PD is fundamentally j about power (Nelson and Wright 1995). Participation involves struggle whereby the powerful fight to retain their privileges. Even many supposedly participatory development agencies show a marked reluctance to release control. Cornwall (2002b) usefully distinguishes between 'invited' I and 'claimed' spaces of participation. Invited spaces are the more formal events where develop- j ment agents create forums for stakeholders to contribute and, ideally, reach a consensus in an [ orderly fashion. By contrast, claimed spaces are more organic and involve the poor talcing control 1
Participatory development i 47
of political processes, without necessarily being invited in. Here, participation is conflictual, although in practice, political struggle usually has elements of both.
Participatory development in practice
In this section I discuss the institutional arrangements involved in PD and the processes through which it attempts to change power relations.
Grass-roots civil society
In rejecting the statism and top-downism of'normal' development, the focus for PD has become the grass-roots level which permits a plurality of developmental goals to be realized, as well as giving communities the self-determination diey need. Hence, PD has become associated with civil society. If state structures are infiexible, bureaucratic, urban-biased and unaccountable, then civil society organizations are believed to be smaller, more accountable and hands-on. Although civil society has ; multiple meanings, it has largely been interpreted as the realm of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), with many Southern-based ones relying on funding and institutional support from Northern partners.
New knowledges
The first step in reversing the biases marginalizing the poor concerns rethirrking knowledge generation. The expert systems of modernity relied on scientific approaches, where planners worked from normative social models so that the recipients of development were treated as passive or, more often, conservative and obstructive. PD reverses this. The research methods for accessing local knowledges were inspired by Paulo Freire and have grown into a veritable industry (Chambers 1997), but all centre on trying to see the world from the point of view of those directly affected by the developmental intervention.
The most widely used methodology is participatory rural appraisal (PRA). As Chambers (1997: 103) explains:
The essence of PRA is change and reversals — of role, behaviour, relationship and learning. Outsiders do not dominate and lecture; they facilitate, sit down, listen and learn. Outsiders do not transfer technology; they share methods which local people can use for their own appraisal, analysis, planning, action, monitoring and evaluation. Outsiders do not impose their reality; they encourage and enable local people to express their own.
PRA relies on many visual and oral techniques for generating knowledge because it is felt that the medium of written language is prejudicial to free expression. Methods such as mapping, ranking of preferences and oral histories are all part of PRA. So, PD seeks out diversity rather than treating everybody as uniform objects of development.
Participation in action
So far I have outlined the theory of PD, but what happens when it is practised in the 'real' world? These brief case studies demonstrate different facets of PD. The Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (India) has used participation to enhance the effectiveness of predetermined projects. The approach relates to 'consensus building', whereby the role of participatory approaches was 'to find a meeting ground to negotiate terms of collaboration' (Shah 1997: 75). In a dam scheme the farmers were not given an option regarding water payments, but the participatory exercise helped
48 i The Companion to Development Studies
Participatory development i 49
them to reach mutually agreeable solutions. As Shah (1997: 77) concludes, 'What has this exercise achieved? Certainly not true empowerment where villagers decide and prioritise development proposals with minimal external support and facilitation.1 Shah suggests that while transformátory participation might be desirable, it is rarely viable where external agents are time-bound and accountable to funders. But that is not to say that they are dictatorial and that the lack of true empowerment detracts from real benefits.
A similar issue is raised where participatory approaches have been 'scaled up1. In the mid-1990s, the major lenders initiated poverty reduction strategies (PRSs), which responded to the criticism of their predecessors - structural adjustment programmes - of being imposed on countries. Instead, formulation of PRSs is to be 'owned1 by the countries concerned, which means scaling up the invited spaces in which citizens and their representative organizations have a voice (Hickey and Mohan 2005). However, these mass participation exercises are often piecemeal, late in the policy process, and involve only 'safe1 civil society organizations who will not question the neoliberal logic of PRSs.
By contrast, Village Aid, a small, UK-based NGO working in West Africa, has been trying to promote deeper participation, which leaves the development trajectories more open-ended. It became aware 'that a particular project undertaken in the past had not been a high priority for the village, but was undertaken at the suggestion of an NGO1 (Village Aid 1996: 7). These were very much invited spaces. Instead, it sought to develop a situation where 'village communities set the agenda and outside agencies become responsive' (ibid.: 8). This process encourages the claiming of spaces and moves beyond a rigid PRA framework which is based on the values and communication capacities of outsiders.
The problems of participatory development
Having looked at these case studies, it will be worth drawing together some of the major problems that have emerged with PD.
The first is tokenism. As PD has become popular, some agencies use the rhetoric of participation with limited empowerment. Although PRA started as a challenge to expertise, it has become so routinized that many agencies treat it as a rubber stamp to prove their participatory credentials. As the Village Aid study showed, some NGOs have grown sceptical about the abuse of PRA, as it still relies on methods (e.g. voting) which are non-local (Cooke and Kothari 2001). And in the PRS process, which champions participation and ownership, most representatives of the poor are either hand-picked to ensure agreement or are brought in too late to change anything {Hickey and Mohan 2005).
Second, much PD has treated communities as socially homogeneous. While community empowerment might be an improvement on unresponsive bureaucracies, there have been cases where support for 'the community1 has meant that resources have passed to elites. More sensitive PRA picks up on heterogeneity, particularly gender differences at the household and community level (Mosse 1994).
Third, the emphasis on civil society can create competition between local organizations. With aid being channelled through such organizations, it is the better organized or more acceptable which capture resources. The result is that weaker organizations are further undermined. Allied to this is that many'partnerships' between Northern and Southern NGOs are heavily loaded in favour of the former. Not only does the Northern NGO usually control the Finances, but it often retains de facto veto power over its counterpart. Financially, intellectually and politically, many partnerships are anything but participatory, with the Southern NGO acting as a delivery mechanism for a predetermined agenda.
Fourth is whether participation is an end in itself or also a means to an end. From a democratic perspective, simply being able to participate is a major achievement, but for the poor their lack of
......Resources means that any participatory process must yield tangible benefits. In turn, this forces us
.....10 consider people not as idealized political subjects, but as embodied agents, shaped and constrained by material and cultural structures. Furthermore, as Brett (2003) warns, simply participating is meaningless unless there is some institutionalized accountability. He argues that we
'......should focus on 'the nature of the institutional constraints that determine how much leverage
users can exercise over agencies, whether these operate in the state, market or voluntary sector' (Brett 2003: 18).
The final problem is broader and relates to the causes of underdevelopment. PD seeks to igive local people control, but many processes affecting their (or our) lives are often not readily tackled at the local level. For example, it is very hard for a small cooperative in Africa to change the rules governing international trade when the World Trade Organization is domi-nated by the developed economies. The emphasis on grass-roots society can leave important structures untouched and do nothing to strengthen states and make them more accountable to their citizens.
Citizenship and the future of participatory development
......It becomes clear that while PD has brought benefits to some communities, it has been abused and
does little to address extra-local processes. This recognition that development will involve broader questions of citizenship and sovereignty has seen agencies building the capacity of the state rather
...than bypassing it in their eagerness to empower civil society. This involves state-society'synergy' to produce more lasting development by bolstering citizenship.
Iov Refraining participation as citizenship is about combining the advantages of invited and claimed participatory spaces. It situates PD in a broader range of socio-political practices, or expressions of agency (Gaventa 2002), through which people extend their status and rights as members of particular political communities, thereby increasing their control over socioeconomic resources. This unites a'liberal' theory of citizenship, stressing formal rights and politi-cal channels, with 'civic republican5 approaches that emphasize the collective engagement of citizens in the determination of their community affairs. The focus here is on substantive rather than procedural forms of citizenship, a participatory notion that offers the prospect that citizenship can : be claimed 'from below', through the efforts of the marginalized in organized struggles, rather than waiting for it to be conferred 'from above'.
A further development on the limitations of localized participatory approaches has been the fnove by NGOs into advocacy and lobbying. Given that 'local' problems have global causes, the ijhost useful thing that a relatively powerful, non-local organization can do is use its political weight :to raise awareness and campaign for reform of global institutions. This sees ever more complex networking between NGOs, which generates new forms of participation which are not rooted in ;place, but stretched across transnational space where 'community' may exist only in a 'virtual' sense. In all these cases, the challenges for participatory development multiply.
GUIDE TO FURTHER READING AND REFERENCES
The following text references provide the basis for further reading.
■Brett, E.A. (2003) 'Participation and accountability in development management', Journal of Development .   Studies, 40(2): 1-29.
Chambers, R. (1997) Whose Reality Counts? Putting the First Last, London: Intermediate Technology Publications.
Cooke, W. and Kothari, U. (2001) Participation: The New Tyranny? London: Zed Books. Cornwall, A. (2002a) Beneficiary, Consumer, Citizen: Perspectives on Participation for Poverty Reduction, SIDA Studies no. 2, Stockholm: Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.
50 I The Companion to Development Studies
Cornwall, A. (2002b) 'Making spaces, changing places: situating participation in development', IDS Working ;
Paper 170, Brighton: Institute of Development Studies. Freire, P. (1970) The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, New York: The Seabury Press.
Gaventa, f. (2002) 'Exploring citizenship, participation and accountability', IDS Bulletin, 33(2): 1-1!. GTZ (1991) Where There is no Participation, Eschborn: Deutsche Gessellschait fur Technisehe ; Zusammenarbeit
Mickey, S. and Mohan, G. (2005) 'Relocating participation within a radical politics of development', ;
Development and Change, 36(2): 237-62. Mosse, D. (1994) 'Authority, gender and knowledge: Theoretical reflections on the practice of participatory :
rural appraisal', Development and Change, 25: 497-526. Nelson, N. and Wright, S. (1995) 'Participation and power', in N. Nelson and S. Wright (eds) Power and
Participatory Development: Theory and Practice, London: Intermediate Technology Publications, pp. 1-18. Shah, A. (1997) 'Developing participation', PLA Notes, 30; 75-8.
Village Aid (1996) Beyond PRA: A New Approach to Village-led Development, unpublished business plan, Village Aid.
1.11 Culture and development
Susanne Schech and Jane Haggis
The role of culture in development has become an important subject in the development literature since the mid-1990s. Scholars increasingly recognize culture's interconnectedness with the many and varied economic, political and social changes which developing societies are experiencing in their quest to modernize, and the impossibility of understanding such changes without taking 'the cultural factor' into account. As Tim Allen (1992: 337) points out in an early contribution to the literature on culture and development, 'religion and kinship are just as significant as economic.;! transactions and the political life of nation states, and in fact these things are not really separable! or comparable'
Even though many development scholars accept that culture matters in development, there is still much debate over how it matters. Some argue that cultural values, attitudes, orientations J and opinions are a key variable in determining economic progress, and can explain why some countries succeed in their quest for development and others fail (ITarrison and Huntingtoni 2000). But Amartya Sen (2004: 43) warns against such cultural determinism, and points out that 'the temptation toward using cultural determinism often takes the hopeless form of trying to fix the cultural anchor on a rapidly moving boat'. His concept of culture takes into account that cultures are constantly changing and are not internally homogeneous, and that culture alone:; does not determine our lives and identities - class, gender and politics also shape us, as do institutions and incentives. However, in the eyes of other scholars, Sens concept of culture is too; limited. Rather than seeing gender as separate from culture, feminist critiques of the male bias of mainstream economic development acknowledge gender as an important cultural variable in [ the development process. If gender can be seen as cultural, then so can institutions. Arturo Escobar (1995) argues that the 'Third World' is produced 'by the discourses and practices of development' embedded in institutions such as the World Bank. Techniques of definition and; categorization, such as the international poverty line, operate to stereotype millions of people by criteria not of their own malting. In this way, the 'Third World1 becomes a cultural artefact of
Culture and development 1 51
the West, revealing more about the cultural blinkers of the West than the objective circumstances of the 'Rest'. These examples demonstrate the need to understand where scholars are coming from when they consider culture and development.
Looking back on culture and development
A focus on culture is not a new move in development studies. In the 1950s and 1960s, the role of culture in development received considerable attention within a development studies dominated by modernization theory. Here, the main challenge was perceived to be to explain why some societies were developed and others were not, and how underdeveloped societies can become modern and developed. Culture played an important role in distinguishing 'traditional' from 'modern' societies. Daniel Lerner's anthropological study of the Turkish village of Balgat, caught in the 1950s on the brink of its incorporation into the modernizing capital city of Ankara, exemplifies this approach. His study typecasts the village head as a 'traditional man', defined by Islamic religiosity, patriarchal authority, austerity, obedience and patriotic loyalty, whose cosmos is the village of Balgat. In contrast, the 'modern man' is a shopkeeper, who dreams of material wealth, moving to the USA and knowing the world. This binary contrasting traditional and modern is based on a notion of culture as a bounded, discrete entity, 'consisting of particular sets of structures of social relations, practices and symbolic systems which forge a cohesive unity for the group, whether as society> nation, community, or class' (Schech and Haggis 2000: 35, 22).
Modernization studies took for granted that development was accompanied by the acquisition of Western cultural traits and values, which would result in developing societies eventually resembling Western Europe and the United States. One way of explaining this was by seeing modern patterns of social relations as a 'universal social solvent' which erases the traditional cultural traits of Third World societies through contact. Thus the traditional/modern was not a binary of equals, but hierarchical: traditional societies or 'cultures' placed at the bottom of the hierarchy were labelled evolutionary dead ends, which would either be left to die out or be 'bred out' of a people through more or less well-meaning policy interventions {Schech and Haggis 2000: 18-19). A more .positive depiction of non-Western cultures was as romanticized Other, whose unchanging repositories of 'tribal', 'peasant' or 'traditional' ways of living and belief systems were presumed to exist outside modernity, where they could be imagined as part of pure nature. Both these conceptualizations of 'traditional' society are based on the same notion of culture as a discrete, bounded entity.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the battle between Marxist-inspired studies of underdevelopment and ^dependent development on the one hand, and neoliberalism on the other, drove culture off the .mainstream development agenda dominated by economist and political-economy analyses. With
:■:this debate at an impasse, some scholars turned to the new fields of cultural studies, post-colonial studies arid globalization for new analytical tools to explore development. This provided for a
; :rnuch more dynamic and broad definition of culture as 'a network of representations - texts, images, talk, codes of behaviour, and the narrative structures organising these - which shapes every aspect of social life' (Frow and Morris 1993: viii). Culture, from this perspective, is productive, in the sense of being an active component in the production and reproduction of social life, and the
: sense people make of it.
The significance attached to representation and power in this definition of culture reflects the impact of post-colonial studies, which critiques Western cultural domination and cultural repre-
■: sentations of developing societies, and thus places power relations at the centre of analysis (Said 1978; Hall 1992). Stuart Hall reveals how European colonization not only involved economic and political domination of the New World, but that 'Europe brought its own cultural categories, languages, images, and ideas into the New World in order to describe and represent it' (Hall 1992: 293-4). How the colonial territories and peoples were seen, thought about and represented in art,
52 1 The Companion to Development Studies
literature and scientific studies reflected the interests Europe had in them. Edward Said's study of Orientalism, which he describes as a way of knowing the Orient and simultaneously a Western style of dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient' (Said 1978: 3), exposes and challenges a politics of representation which continues to use colonizing strategies in describing developing countries and problems of development.
The rise of globalization studies, and the processes of globalization themselves, have also influenced the ways scholars look at the connection between culture and development. The deregula- .;:|: tion of financial capital and trade, and the reconfiguration of social relationships in terms of space, time and speed, has challenged the binary models of modernity and tradition, core and periphery, which underpinned modernization and Marxist development theories. The connection with the global makes the parameters of peoples lived experience more permeable than ever before, expanding the awareness of other circumstances, experiences, images and ways of living. Thus, . Arjun Appadurai, Stuart Hall and others have argued that the global flows of ideas, people and goods further undermine the utility of a concept of culture as a distinct, discrete and nationally bounded entity, fostering instead a fluid and complex notion of culture as constantly being trans- . :|| formed by multi-directional, cultural interactions, which weave the local and the global together .J| in a multitude of different, and often rather unstable, configurations. Alan Pred (1992: 109) cap- ' tures this notion of culture in his inimical style: f:
Culture does not stand isolated
on its own, immutable and uncontested. It is neither fixed, nor confined to the traditional,
neither completely stable, nor a unified monolith of coherence. It is not an autonomous entity, J existing in a territory of its own, ||: beyond the rearms of materiality and social reality. g| Culture is embodied and lived,
actively produced and expressed, >sf through all social practices, through all that is concrete and everyday, through all that is enmeshed in power relations
and their associated discourses, || their associated representations and rhetorics.(...) ||
Looking through a culture and development lens
As Pred and others have pointed out, the 'cultural' in development studies is connected to the uneven articulations of capitalist economic processes, which are never just physical - labour, capital, goods, technologies, and so on - but also take on cultural forms. As late capitalist economies switch their focus from production to consumption, 'culture gains a heightened salience in differentiating consumers and driving the ever-changing goods through which modernity and identity are appraised' (Radcliffe 2006: 229). At the same time, discontent, contestation and resistance to the inequalities and injustices produced by the forces of capitalism and modernity are increasingly expressed and channelled through culture. Friedman's (1990) study of Les Sapeurs, a men's group in Brazzaville in the Peoples Republic of the Congo, illustrates this dialectic relationship. As Les Sapeurs acquire European designer clothes at great expense, sacrificing the majority of their income as migrant workers in Paris, only to display the brand names in ritualized practices of 'lumpen-proletarian dandyism' on their return to Brazzaville, they lock themselves into the global cultural economy as consumers and workers. But they also indigenize Western consumerism in
Culture and development 1 53
ways that challenge the established norms of elite status in Congolese society (Schech and Haggis 2000: 61).
;;.=;: Culture is not only a product or a vehicle of accommodation and contestation, but is increasingly used as a development tool by a variety of development actors (international agencies, governments, non-governmental organizations and grass-roots activists) (Radcliffe 2006). As Sarah Kadcliffe argues, since the 1990s, development planners and scholars have increasingly treated culture as a kind of glue that holds societies together and gives them a coherent structure which can be used for development interventions. For example, the World Bank moved towards a more \ social notion of development in the 1990s that considered the influence of gender, ethnicity and other forms of diversity on economic development and poverty. The Bank commissioned a study ::of the Voices of the Poor (Narayan et al. 2000), which identifies the common threads and themes an-the world views of the poor, as well as acknowledging that representation is a critical issue in development policymaking and practice. The study reveals that poor people are often ambivalent about the cultural norms relating to gender, class, ethnicity, caste, and so on, of the societies they dive in - sceptical and ironical on the one hand, but compliant on the other. Drawing on this study, the World Development Report 2000 argues that the fight against poverty must build on the social capital that bonds poor communities together - the ties connecting family members, ^neighbours, close friends and business associates - onto which vertical ties can be grafted between the poor and people in positions of influence in formal organizations who make decisions relat-ing to their welfare.
.While the World Bank has incorporated elements of the perspective of poor people into its ■rnbdel of development, as Appadurai (2004: 66) points out: 'The poor are recognized, but in ways thai ensure minimum change in the terms of redistribution.' He uses the example of a pro-poor ^alliance of housing activists based in Mumbai, India, and linked to a global network, die ^lurn/Shackdwellers International, to show how the poor become development actors by using culture to expand the spaces of agency and representation. One of the strategies the Alliance employs to increase the voice of Mumbai slum residents and expand their capacity to aspire is the ^busing exhibition, which provides a public space for poor people to discuss their housing needs :ahd interests with politicians, donor agencies, local planners, architects and professional builders. Hijacking what is essentially an upper-class form and placing slum residents at its centre enhances their visibility and recognition, as well as cleverly subverting the dominant class cultures in India.
GUIDE TO FURTHER READING
Appadurai, A. (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
Icrgiison, J. (1990) The Anti-Politics Machine: 'Development', Dcpoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in
v Lesotho, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. v.Goudge, P. (2003) The Whiteness of Power: Racism in Third World Development and Aid, London: Lawrence & b Wishart.
Lerner, D. (1958) The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East, New York: Free Press. Liechty, M. (2003) Suitably Modern: Making Middle Class Culture in a New Consumer Society, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Allen, T. (1992) 'Taking culture seriously', in T. Allen and A. Thomas (eds) Poverty and Development in the
1990s, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 331-46. Appadurai, A. (2004) 'The capacity to aspire: Culture and the terms of recognition', in V. Rao and M. Walton
(eds) Culture and Public Action, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 59-84.
54 I The Companion to Development Studies
Information and communication technologies for development
55
Escobar, A. (1995) Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World, Princeton, N]: v Princeton University Press.
Friedman, J. (1990)'Being in the world: Globalization and localization', Theory, Culture and Society,?: 311-28. .,: Frow, J. and Morris, M. (1993) Australian Cultural Studies: A Reader, St Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin. :§ Hall, S. (1992) 'The West and the rest: Discourse and power', in S. Hall and B. Gieben (eds) Formations of
Modernity, Cambridge: Polity Press, pp. 275-311. Harrison, L.E. and Huntington, S.P. (eds) (2000) Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress, New .::
York: Basic Books.
Narayan, D. et al. (2000) Voices of the Poor, Vols. 1-3, New York: Oxford University Press.
Pred, A. (1992) 'Capitalisms, crises, and cultures II: Notes on local transformation and everyday cultural S
struggles', in A. Pred and M./. Watts (eds) Reworking Modernity: Capitalisms and Symbolic Discontent^ew-
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Radcliffe, S.A. (2006) 'Conclusions: The future of culture and development', in S.A. Radcliffe (ed.) Culture and
Development in a Globalizing World: Geographies, Actors, and Paradigms, London: Routledge, pp. 228-37. :: Said, E.W. (1978) Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient, New York: Pantheon Books. Schech, S. and Haggis, J. (2000) Culture and Development: A Critical Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell. Schech, S. and Haggis, J. (eds) (2002) Development: A Cultural Studies Reader, Oxford: Blackwell. Sen, A, (2004) 'How does culture matter?', in V. Rao and M. Walton (eds) Culture and Public. Action, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 37-58.
1.12 Information and communication technologies for development
Tim Unwin and Geraldine de Bastion
In his acceptance speech for the 2006 Nobel Peace. Prize, Mohammed Yunus, the founder of the: Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, commented:
Information and communication technology (ICT) is quickly changing the world, creating -' a distanceless, borderless world of instantaneous communications. Increasingly, it is becom- v ing less and less costly. I saw an opportunity for the poor people to change their lives if this ;■ technology could be brought to them to meet their needs.
As a first step to bring ICT to the poor we created a mobile phone company, Grameen Phone. "We gave loans from Grameen Bank to the poor women to buy mobile phones to sell phone services in the villages. We saw the synergy between microcredit and ICT.
The phone business was a success and became a coveted enterprise for Grameen borrowers. Telephone ladies quickly learned and innovated the ropes of the telephone business, and it has become the quickest way to get out of poverty and to earn social respectability. Today there are ; nearly 300,000 telephone ladies providing telephone service in all the villages of Bangladesh (http://nobelprize.org/nobeLprizes/peace/laureates/2006/yunus-lecture-en.html).
This is a prominent example of the ways in which information and communication technologies (ICTs) have recently come to the fore as a vehicle for improving the lives of poor people, and thereby contributing to 'development'. However, ICT for development (ICT4D) has not been without its critics, many of whom argue that the use of such technologies merely reinforces existing patterns of social and economic inequality.
There has been much discussion of the notion that ICTs have played a central part in the processes associated with globalization. The use of the Internet has transformed the ways in which people interact, with flows of information and communication taking place across the world at ever incfeasing speeds. However, it is also possible to argue that, rather than being an exogenous force of change, the emergence of such technologies has been a direct response to the needs of those in power, notably businesses and the world's dominant states, to increase their control of the world economy. Castells (2000) has argued that these processes have ushered in a profoundly new Information Age. He suggests that
Towards the end of the second millennium of the Christian era several events of historical significance transformed the social landscape of human life. A tech nological revolution, centred around information technologies, began to reshape, at accelerated pace, the material basis of society. Economies throughout the world have become globally interdependent, introducing a new form of relationship between economy, state, and society, in a system of variable geometry {Castells 2000: 1).
More recently, Friedman (2006) has commented that around the year 2000, certain forces had come together to act in a mutually reinforcing way to lead to a flattening of the world, moving it from being a primarily vertical system to one instead dominated by horizontal processes associated .with connecting and collaborating. For Friedman (2006: 205), these ten key forces were 'the fall of the Berlin Wall, the rise of the PC, Netscape, work flow, outsourcing, offshoring, uploading, insourcing, supply-chaining, in-forming, and the steroids' of computing, instant messaging and file sharing, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), videoconferencing, new computer graphics and wireless technologies. It is not easy to determine who will be the winners and the losers in these new social, economic, political and cultural contexts. Friedman (2006) certainly makes the case ■:--.that the USA can retain its dominance of the global economy, but he also argues that developing countries can benefit from the potential of the 'Flat World' if they are able to get the infrastructure, .education and governance conditions right for their people to benefit.
Two contrasting sets of ideas can help us to understand these options. On the one hand are 'nor-;malizatiorí arguments that suggest that the social profile of digital and online communities will gradually broaden over time, so that the use of these technologies will come to reflect society as a whole, be that locally or globally. Thus, in more developed societies, the Internet could eventually become as ubiquitous as television is today, as a result of falling costs for hardware, software and services. For enthusiasts like Jean Michel Billaut, the introduction of fibre-optic cables across Europe would thus transform the ways in which we communicate and work (http://billaut.typepad.com). Drawing in part on his experiences in the southern French community of Pau - where an optical and wireless network offering 100 megabits per second for US$30 per month for everybody has pro-■ vided dramatically enhanced functionality, including VoIP, DVD quality streaming, web conferencing, music, e-health, e-administration and interactive 3D for commerce — Billaut envisages a future ■ where everyone can benefit from the potential of high bandwidth connectivity. In contrast, social diffusion models, drawing particularly on the work of Rogers (2003, but first published in 1962), have suggested that the adoption of new technologies often reinforces existing economic advantages. Thus, characteristics such as education, levels of literacy and social status all constrain access to the essential financial and information resources that are necessary to enable people successfully to benefit from new technologies. In highly stratified societies it is therefore common for innovations to reinforce existing socio-economic differences. However, one of the key conclusions of this body of literature is that active initiatives to level the playing field and enable disadvantaged communities to benefit from innovations may have a positive impact hi equalizing these benefits.
Von Braun and Torero (2006: 1) have emphasized that ICTs have become an increasingly important component of contemporary development practice for four main reasons: their inner-
fffc
Editorial introduction
H js generally appreciated that ideas about how development can be put into practice have long 'been both controversial and highly contested. Development involves a range of actors, from international agencies, through the state, down to the individual, all of whom have a vested interest in lidw change and development are to proceed. Thus, all facets of development depend not only on ..political ideology, but on moral and ethical prescriptions too. Thus, ideas about development over time have tended to accumulate and accrue, and not fade away. These sorts of ideas are considered a; the outset in this part of the book, before turning to some of the major theories and strategies of development that have been followed and popularized.
Right-wing stances on development can be regarded as having their origins in the lihlightenment and the era of modernity that followed. The eighteenth-century Enlightenment saw an increasing emphasis placed on science, rationality and detailed empiricism. It also witnessed the establishment of the 'West1 and 'Europe' as the ideal. It was during this period that the classical economists, Adam Smith and David Pdcardo, writing in the 1700s, developed ideas surrounding the concept of comparative advantage, which stressed the economic efficacy of global free trade and, in many senses, gave rise to the earliest capitalist strategies of economic develop-::iheht. These were followed by a plethora of dualistic and linear conceptualizations of the develop-..rnent process, including modernization theory, unbalanced and unequal growth, and top-down and hierarchical formulations. Together, such approaches are generally referred to as neoclassical. Whatever one's critical view on modernization, the approach usefully pinpointed the salience of change as a necessary factor in the development equation. Such approaches are, of course, still alive and kicking, in die form of the 'new right' orthodoxy, involving the 'magic of the market' and the neoliberal policies of structural adjustment, and very recently, poverty reduction strategies. All these approaches can be traced directly to the works of Smith and Ricardo.
The antithesis to classical and neoclassical views was provided by radical dependency -approaches in the 1960s. It is a reflection of the Eurocentricity of development theory that Andre :Qiinder Frank has become the name most closely associated with dependency. This is despite the ■ fact that the approach essentially stemmed from the writings of structuralists in Latin America and ::fhe Caribbean. In respect of process, dependency theory was couched in terms of inverted cascading global chains of surplus extraction, and, again, it was all too easy to reduce this to simple dichotomous terms, involving polar opposites such as 'core-periphery', 'rich—poor' and 'devel-: pped-underdeveloped'. It was left to world systems theory to stress that contemporary development has involved the emergence of a substantial semi-periphery, consisting of the newly industrializing countries (NICs) of east Asia and Latin America.
:: The era of postmodernity may not be regarded as fitting the realities of the developing world or poor countries in all respects, but the existence of these notions cannot be ignored in the analysis of the conditions faced by such nations. Early standpoints taking a less generic, less monumental and less linear view of the development process included what are referred to under the headings 'bottom-up' and agropolitan' approaches, which have come to include ideas of'another' development. All these approaches stressed the importance of local indigenous knowledge. More
66 I The Companion to Development Studies
recently, the 'postisf stance afforded by post-colonialism has been added to the critique. Tins argues that the production of Western knowledge has been inseparable from the ™ o Western power. And development is closely interconnected with reducing the forms of social exclusion that exist within societies. Ethical and moral considerations surface once more, this time in terms of the responsibilities we carry for so-called 'distant others'. Most of us have been trained to favour people close to home, our 'nearest and dearest', as opposed to those strangers who may be deemed more needy, but who live far away. Many of the practical problems that are to be faced in the field of humanitarian assistance stem from this basic but enduring conundrum of develop^ ment Finally, it is notable that evolving conceptualizations of the roles of the state, civil society and social capital underpin continuing debates concerning development theory.
2.1 ^Theories, strategies and ideoSogies of developrnent
Robert B. Potter
A major characteristic of the multi- and interdisciplinary field of development studies since its establishment in the 1940s has been a series of sea-level changes in thinking about the process of development itself. This search for new theoretical conceptualizations of development has been mirrored by changes in the practice of development in the field. Thus, there has been much debate and controversy about development, with many changing views as to its definition, and the strategies by means of which, however development is defined, it may be pursued. In short, the period since the 1950s has seen the promotion and application of many varied views of development. And ■the literature on development theory and practice has burgeoned, particularly since the mid-1980s (see, for example, Apter 1987; Preston 1987, 1996; Lesson and Minogue 1988; Schuurman 1993; Crush 1995; Escobar 1995; Hettne 1995; Streeten 1995; Brohman 1996; Cowen andShenton 1996; Leys 1996; Rapley 1996; Potter et al. 2004). A major theme is that ideas about development have long been controversial and highly contested.
It is also necessary to stress that development covers both theory and practice, that is, both ideas about how development should or might occur, and real-world efforts to put various aspects of development into practice. This is conveniently mapped into the nomenclature suggested by Hettne in his overview of Development Theory and the Three Worlds (1995). In reviewing the history of development thinldng, he suggested that 'development' involves three things: development theories, development strategies and development ideologies. Before going any further, these three basic terms can usefully be defined and clarified.
Following the general definition of a theory as a set of logical propositions about how the real world is structured, or the way in which it operates, development theories may be regarded as sets of ostensibly logical propositions, which aim to explain how development has occurred in the past, and/or how it should occur in the future. Development theories can either be normative, that is, they can generalize about what should happen or be the case in an ideal world, or positive, in the sense of dealing with what has generally been the case in the past. This important distinction is broadly exemplified in the figure that accompanies this account, Hettne (1995) remarks that 'development studies is explicitly normative', and that teachers, researchers and practitioners in the field 'want to change the world, not only analyse it' (Hettne 1995: 12). The arena of development theory is primarily, although by no means exclusively, to be encountered in the academic literature, that is, in writing about development. It is, therefore, inherently controversial and contested.
On the other hand, development strategies can be defined as the practical paths to development which maybe pursued by international agencies, states in both the so-called developing and developed worlds, non-government organizations and community-based organizations, or indeed individuals, in an effort to stimulate change within particular nations, regions and continents. Thus, Hettne (1995) provides a definition of development strategies as efforts to change existing economic and social structures and institutions in order to find enduring solutions to the problems facing decision makers. As such, Hettne argues that the term 'development strategy' implies an actor, normally the state. In order to sound less top-down, it is necessary to think in terms of a wider set of development-oriented actors, including all those listed above.
Different development agendas will reflect different goals and objectives. These goals will reflect social, economic, political, cultural, ethical, moral and even religious influences. Thus, what may be referred to as different development ideologies may be recognized. For example, both in theory
68 I The Companion to Development Studies
and hi practice, early perspectives on development were almost exclusively concerned with promoting economic growth. Subsequently, however, the predominant ideology within the academic literature changed to emphasize political, social, ethnic, cultural, ecological and other dimensions of the wider process of development and change. Theories in development are distinctive by virtue of the fact that they involve the intention to change society in some defined manner. One of the classic examples is the age-old battle between economic policies which increase growth but widen income disparities, and those wider policy imperatives which seek primarily to reduce inequalities within society.
Perhaps the only sensible approach is to follow Hettne (1995) and to employ the overarching concept of development thinking in our general deliberations. The expression 'development thinking1 may be used as a catch-all phrase indicating the sum total of ideas about development, that is, including pertinent aspects of development theory, strategy and ideology. Such an alS-encompass-ing definition is necessary due to the nature of thinking about development itself. As noted at the outset, development thinking has shown many sharp twists and turns during the twentieth century. The various theories that have been produced have not commanded attention in a strictly sequential-temporal manner. In other words, as a new set of ideas about development has come into favour, earlier theories and strategies have not been totally discarded and replaced. Rather, theories and strategies have tended to stack up, one upon another, coexisting, sometimes, in what can only be described as very convoluted and contradictory manners. Thus, in discussing development theory, Hettne (1995: 64) has drawn attention to the 'tendency of social science paradigms to accumulate rather than fade away.
This characteristic of development studies as a distinct field of enquiry can be considered in a more sophisticated manner by referring to Thomas Kuhn's ideas on the structure of scientific revolutions. Kuhn (1962) argued that academic disciplines are dominated at particular points in time by communities of researchers and their associated methods, and they thereby define the subjects . and the issues deemed to be of importance within them. He referred to these as 'invisible colleges', and he noted that these serve to define and perpetuate research which confirms the validity of the existing paradigm, or 'supra-model', as he referred to it. Kuhn called this 'normal science'. Kuhn noted mat only when the number of observations and questions confronting the status quo of normal science becomes too large to be dealt with by means of small changes to it, will there be a fundamental shift. However, if the proposed changes are major and a new paradigm is adopted, a scientific revolution can be said to have occurred, linked to a period of what Kuhn referred to as extraordinary research'.
In this model, therefore, scientific disciplines basically advance by means of revolutions in which the prevailing normal science is replaced by extraordinary science and, ultimately, a new form of normal science develops. In dealing with social scientific discourses, it is inevitable that the field of development theory is characterized by evolutionary, rather than revolutionary . change. Evidence of the persistence of ideas in some quarters, years after they have been discarded elsewhere, will be encountered throughout the development literature. Given that development thinking is not just about the theoretical interpretation of facts, but rather about values, aspirations, social goals and, ultimately, that which is moral, ethical and just, it is understandable that change in development studies leads to the parallel evolution of ideas, rather than revolution. Hence, conflict, debate, contention, positionality and even moral outrage are all inherent in the discussion of development strategies, and associated plural and diverse theories of development.
There are many ways to categorize development dunking through time. Broadly speaking, it is suggested here that four major approaches to the examination of development thinking can be recognized, and these are shown in the figure. This framework follows that suggested by Potter and Lloyd-Evans (1998) (see also Potter et al. 2004). The framework first maps in the distinction previously made between normative development theories (those focusing on what should be the case)
Theories, strategies and ideologies of development 1 69
and positive theories (which ponder what has actually been so). Another axis of difference between theories is seen as relating to whether they are holistic or partial, and most partial theories emphasize the economic dimension. This is also intimated in the figure.
These two axes can be superimposed on one another to yield a simple matrix or framework for the consideration of development theories, as shown. Following Potter et al. (2004: Chapter 3), as noted, four distinct groupings of development theory can be recognized by virtue of their characteristics with regard to the dimensions of holistic-economic and normative-positive. The approaches are referred to as: (i) the classical-traditional approach; (ii) the historical-empirical approach; (iii) the radical political economy-dependency approach; and finally, (iv) bottom-up and alternative approaches. Following the argument presented in the last section, each of these approaches may be regarded as expressing a particular ideological standpoint, and can also be identified by virtue of having occupied the centre stage of the development debate at particular points in time. Classical-traditional theory, embracing dualism, modernization theory top-down conceptualizations, the new right and neoliberal imperatives, is seen as stressing the economic and, collectively, existing midway between the normative and positive poles. In direct contrast, according to this framework, radical-dependency approaches, embracing neo-Marxism, and the articulation of the modes of production, are seen as being more holistic. At the positive end of the
NORMATIVE THEORY (what should be the case)
ECONOMIC
HOLISTIC
POSITIVE THEORY {what has been the case)
A framework for considering development theories Source: Potter et al. 1999: Figure 3.2
I
70 i The Companion to Development Studies
spectrum exist those theories which are basically historical in their formulation, and which purport to build on what has happened in the past. These include core-periphery frameworks, cumulative causation and models of transport evolution, especially the mercantile model. In contrast, : once again, are theories which stress the ideal, or what should be the case. These are referred to as 'alternative approaches', and basic needs, neo-populism, "another development', ecodevelopment and sustainable development may be included in this category.
However, each approach still retains currency in particular quarters. Hence, in development theory and academic writing, left-of-centre socialist views may well be more popular than classical and neoclassical formulations, but in the area of practical development strategies, the 1980s and 1990s have seen the implementation of neoliberal interpretations of classical theory, stressing the liberalization of trade, along with public-sector cutbacks, as a part of structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), aimed at reducing the involvement of the state in the economy (Pugh and Potter 2000). Such plurality and contestation are an everyday part of the field of development studies. In the words of Hettne (1995: 15), 'theorizing about development is therefore a never-ending task'.
GUIDE TO FURTHER READING
Hettne, B. (1995) Development Theory and the Three Worlds: Towards an International Political Economy of ■ Development, second edition, Harlow: Longman. Briefly introduces the concepts of development theories, . strategies and ideologies (see pp. 15-16), before presenting an overview of Eurocennic development thinking, the voice of the 'other', globalization and development theory, and 'another development'.
Potter, R.B., Binns, T., Elliott, J. and Smith, D. (2004) Geographies of Development, second edition, Harlow: Prentice Hall. An introductory textbook on development, designed mainly for undergraduates. In terms of overall remit, the book seeks to stress the plural and contested nature of development theory and prac- : tice. As part of this approach, Chapter 3 overviews theories and strategies of development, stressing their diversity and value-laden character. The structure of the account is based on the figure employed in the . present account.
Preston, P.W. (1996) Development Theory: An Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell. Sets out to provide an overview of the intellectual resources available to developmentalists working with reference to the classical European tradition of social theorizing. Accordingly, the first part of the book treats social theory in gen- : era) terms. Thereafter, contemporary theories of development are summarized, followed by what are referred to as new analyses of complex change.
REFERENCES
Apter, D. (1987) Rethinking Development: Modernization, Dependency and Postmodern Politics, Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Brohman, J. (1996) Popular Development: Rethinking the Theory and Practice of Development, Oxford: , Blackwell.
Cowen, M.P. and Shenton, R. (1996) Doctrines of Development, London: Routledge. Crush, J. (1995) Power of Development, London: Roudedge.
Escobar, A. (1995) Encountering Development, Princeton, N): Princeton University Press.
Hettne, B, (1995) Development Theory and the Three Worlds: Towards art International Political Economy of
Development, second edition, Harlow: Longman. Kuhn, T. {1962) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lesson, RE. and Minogue, M.M. (eds) (1988) Perspectives on Development. Cross-Disciplinary Themes in
Development, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Leys, D. (1996) The Rise and Fall of Development Theory, Oxford: James Currey.
Preston, P.W. (1987) Making Sense of Development: An Introduction to Classical and Contemporary Theories of Development and their Application to Southeast Asia, London: Routledge.
Enlightenment and the era of modernity I 71
Preston, P.W. (1996) Development Theory: An Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell. Potter, R.B. and Lloyd-Evans, S. (1998) The City in the Developing World, Harlow: Prentice Hall, potter, R.B., Binns, T., Elliott, J. and Smith, D. (2004) Geographies of Development, second edition, Harlow: Prentice Hall.
Pugh, J. and Potter, R.B. (2000) 'Rolling back the state and physical development planning: The case of
Barbados', Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 21: 183-99. Rapley, J- (1996) Understanding Development: Theory and Practice in the Third World, London: UCL Press, Schuurman, F. (1993) Beyond the Impasse: New Directions in Development Theory, London: Zed Books. Streeten, P. (1995) Thinking About Development, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
: 2.2^ ^ $f modernity ■
Marcus Power
Introduction: The 'rough and tumble' of early industrialism
Just as light cuts through darkness, the philosophy of the Enlightenment was seen as something that would open the eyes of the world's poor and free them from unjust rule. During the 'century of linlightenrnenť, educated Europeans awoke to a new sense of life and many wrote of'enlightening' the world and the need to disseminate knowledge among 'enlightened peoples'. According to Gay (1973: 3), at this time educated Europeans experienced 'an expansive sense of power over nature and themselves: the pitiless cycles of epidemics, famines, risky life and early death, devastating war and uneasy peace - the treadmill of human existence - seemed to be yielding at last to the application of critical intelligence'. Fear of change began to give way to fear of stagnation. It was a century of commitment to enquiry and criticism, of a decline in mysticism, of growing hope and trust in effort and innovation (Hampson 1968). One of the primary interests was social reform, and the progression and development of societies built around an increasing secularism and a growing willingness to take risks (Gay 1973). There is no monolithic 'spirit of the age' that can be discerned, however. Enlightenment ideas and writings comprise a fairly heterogeneous group, but did form a set of interconnected ideas, values, principles and assumptions. In its simplest sense, the Enlightenment was the creation of a new framework of ideas and secure 'truths' about the relationships between humanity, society and nature, which sought to challenge traditional world views dominated by Christianity.
New cultural innovations in writing, painting, printing, music, sculpture and architecture, and new technological innovations in warfare, agriculture and manufacture, had a major impact on tire philosophes, the free-thinking 'men of letters' who had brokered this enlightened awakening. Reaching its climax in the mid-eighteenth century in Paris and Scotland, but with foundations in many European countries, 'the Enlightenment' was thus a sort of intellectual fashion, or 'a tendency towards critical inquiry and the application of reason' (Black 1990: 208), rather than a coherent intellectual movement or institutional project. The modern idea and narration of 'development' can thus be traced back to these tendencies and critical enquiries, and back to where it was invented 'amidst the throes of early industrial capitalism in Europe' (Cowen and Shenton 1996: 5). The metaphor of the 'light of reason' shining brightly into all the dark recesses of ignorance and superstition in 'traditional' societies was a powerful and influential one at this time. In Europe, the light that 'development' brought was intended to 'construct order out of the social disorders of rapid urban migration, poverty and unemployment' (ibid.: 5).
72 I The Companion to Development Studies
The philosophes sought to redefine what was considered as socially important knowledge, to bring it outside the sphere of religion and to provide it with a new meaning and relevance. They believed that through this 'enlightenment', Europe had broken through the 'sacred circle' (Gay 1973) where dogma had previously circumscribed European thought. In this sense, as Hall and Gieben (1992: 36) point out, there are four main areas which distinguish the thought of the philosophes from earlier intellectual approaches:
• anticlericalism;
• a belief in the pre-eminence of empirical, materialist knowledge;
• an enthusiasm for technological and medical progress;
• a desire for legal and constitutional reform.
There is clearly a risk of applying the term 'the Enlightenment' too loosely or too widely, as if it had touched every intellectual society and every intellectual elite of this period equally. The Enlightenment is thus best considered as an amorphous, dynamic and variegated entity (Porter 1990). There were, however, many common threads to this patchwork of enlightenment thinking: the primacy of reason/rationalism, a belief in empiricism, the concept of universal science and rea-son, the idea of progress, the championing of new freedoms, the ethic of secularism and the notion of all human beings as essentially the same (Hall and Gieben 1992: 21-2). Thinkers such as Kant, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot, Hume, Smith, Ferguson, Rousseau and Condorcet found a receptive audience in many European cities for their 'new style of life' (Hampson 1968). They produced a large collection of novels, plays, books, pamphlets and essays for the consumption of nobles, professionals (especially lawyers), academics and the clergy. It is important to remember, however, that this new style of life was in the main reserved for the fortunate and the articulate - the rural and urban masses had little share. It was not until the eve of the French Revolution in the 1780s that a new social group emerged, concerned with popularizing enlightenment ideas. Similarly, though many women played a major part in the development and diffusion of enlightenment ideas, applying such ideas to their social conditions meant negotiating a number of contradictory positions within patriarchal societies.
The emancipatory potential of this knowledge thus turned out to be limited in that it was conceived of as abstract and utilitarian, as a mastery over nature which thus becomes characterized by power. As Doherty (1993: 6) has argued:
Knowledge is reduced to technology, a technology which enables the illusion of power and of domination over nature. It is important to stress that this is an illusion. This kind of knowledge does not give actual power over nature... What it does give in the way of power is, of course, a power over the consciousness of others who may be less fluent in the language of reason... Knowledge thus becomes caught up in a dialectic of mastery and slavery, (emphasis in original)
Many enlightenment thinkers viewed the remedy for the disorder brought on by industrialization as related to the 'capacity' to use land, labour and capital in the interests of society as a whole. Only certain kinds of individuals could be 'entrusted' with such a role (Cowen and Shenton 1996). Property, for example, needed to be placed in the hands of'trustees', who would decide where and how society's resources could be utilized most effectively. In eighteenth-century France, the prevailing social orders were represented as three 'estates' - clergy, nobility and the 'third estate', which comprised everyone else, from wealthiest bourgeois to poorest peasant (Hall 1992). This 'dialectic of mastery and slavery', and this gap between the philosophes (who were often members of the second estate) and the peasantries of European eighteenth-century societies, are both important parts of the historical context of enlightenment thinking. Although they appeared to represent a threat to the established order, these ideas and writings sought evolutionary rather than revolutionary
Enlightenment and the era of modernity I 73
change, arguing that progress and development could come about within the existing social order through the dissemination of ideas among 'men of influence' (Flail and Gieben 1992).
'Modernity' and the rise of the social sciences
IThe influential economist John Maynard Keynes (1936: 570), once wrote that '[practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist'. So it is with much development thinking today. A variety of twentieth-century movements, including neoclassicism {of which Keynes was an important part) and liberalism, can trace their origins back to the Enlightenment. The foundations of many modern disciplines (including development studies) were intimately bound up with the Enlightenment's concept of progress, and the idea that development could be created through the application of reasoned and empirically based knowledge. The Enlightenment had forged the intellectual conditions in which the application of reason to practical issues could flourish through such 'modern'
Iinstitutions as the academy, the learned journal and the conference. In turn, a 'modern' audience was constituted for the dissemination of social and political ideas alongside a class of intellectuals that could live from writing about them (Hall 1992). Through the Enlightenment, state bureaucracies began to use social statistics to provide the evidence necessary for 'rational' choices in the allocation of resources. These 'official' labels were - and still are - generally portrayed and accepted as objective facts, though many are rooted in intensely political processes. For example, many conventional racial and group classifications were created in the imperial and colonial periods, when authorities counted, categorized, taxed and deployed slave, servile and forced labour, often over vast geographical areas (IDS 2006).
;The emergence of an idea of'the West' was also important to the Enlightenment in that it was a very European affair, which put Europe and European intellectuals at the pinnacle of human achievement. This view sees 'the West' as the result of forces largely internal to Europe's history and formation (Hall 1992) rather than as a 'global story' involving other cultural worlds. In the making of nineteenth-century European 'modernity', Europeans had a sense of difference from other worlds (e.g. 'Africa'), which shaped the ways in which they were viewed as distant, uncivilized and immature stages in the progress of humanity. The establishment of modern modes of scientific enquiry, of modern institutions and the modern 'development' of societies in nineteenth-century Europe thus partly incorporated a contrast with the 'savage' and 'uncivilized' spaces of the non-Western world.
: Modernist reason was not as inherently good as the 'enlightened' thinkers believed and has been used for a wide variety of purposes. Reason can be imperialist and racist (as in the making of the idea of'the West'), taking a specific form of consciousness for a universal, a standard that all must aspire to reach. Reason was also a potent weapon in the production of social normativity during 'the Enlightenment', driving people towards conformity with a dominant and centred 'norm' of behaviour (Doherty 1993). Modernist reason was therefore dependent on the 'othering' of nonconformists, of cultures and societies that were not informed by this reason and social norms, and were thus banished to the lower echelons of humanity, defined as 'backward', 'undeveloped' or 'uncivilized'. The emergence of new ideas about social, political and economic development was therefore bound up with these pressures to conform to particular notions of knowledge, reason and progress, and with the making of a 'third estate' or 'Third World' of nonconformity as the alter ego of a developed 'West'.
Conclusions: Completing the Enlightenment beyond Europe
Much contemporary development thinking has its roots in the Enlightenment as the 'age of reason', which shaped concepts of progress, growth and social change. Modernist thought also
74 1 The Companion to Development Studies
envisaged a process of enlightenment, of becoming more modern and less traditional, and saw a group of enlightened Western scientists 'guiding' the paths to progress of distant others. Arturo Escobar (1995: 2-4) has even argued that the post-1945 development project is 'the last and failed attempt to complete the Enlightenment in Asia, Africa and Latin America'. 'Development' repre-sents more than a singular post-war historical experience, however, and has complex roots in the emergence of 'the Enlightenment' at the dawn of European industrial capitalism, and in the rise and formation(s) of European modernity. It is also important to remember that European and Western identities have been formed by contrasting modernity with the tradition and backwardness of the 'Third World' as 'other'.
Even today, the work of enlightenment thinkers like Adam Smith (with his free-market economics) remains very relevant to 'international development' for some observers. Examples of this can be found in some of the key global development institutions, such as the World Bank, which see their (neoclassical) knowledges as potentially enlightening. Consider the following quotation from a speech given by the World Bank President James Wolfensohn in 1996: 'Knowledge is like light. Weightless and intangible, it can easily travel the world, enlightening the lives of people, everywhere. Yet billions of people still live in the darkness of poverty - unnecessarily' (quoted in Patel 2001: 2). Thus the knowledge and expertise of contemporary development practitioners is seen as something almost itniversal that easily traverses borders, extinguishing the darkness of poverty wherever it shines. For some theorists and practitioners of development today, people and places can become 'developed' simply though acquiring scientific and technical knowledges about the 'normal' or correct series of developmental stages. If only it were that simple.
GUIDE TO FURTHER READING
For an excellent introduction and overview to early development discourses and ideas, see Rist, T. (1997)
History of Development, London: Routledge. Cowen, M.P. and Shenton, R.W. (1996) Doctrines of Development, London: Routledge. Provides an accessible
discussion of enlightenment ideas, exploring their bearing on the construction of particular development
approaches and doctrines.
Doherty, T. (ed.) (1993) Modernism/Postmodernism, Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Offers clear
and accessible definitions of modernism in the Introduction. Hall, S. and Gieben, B. (1992) Formations of Modernity, Cambridge: Open University/Polity. Focuses on the
making of modernity in the non-Western world. Kors, A.C. (2003) Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, New York: Oxford University Press. A four-volume edited
encyclopedia of the Enlightenment.
REFERENCES
Black, J. (1990) Eighteenth-century Europe 1700-1789, London: Macmillan.
Cowen, M.P. and Shenton, R.W. (1996) Doctrines of Development, London: Routledge.
Doherty, T. (1993) 'Postmodernism: An introduction', in T. Doherty (ed.) Modernism/Postmodernism, Hemel ■■;
Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, pp. 1-31. Escobar, A. (1995) Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third Wo rid, Princeton, NJ: ,
Princeton University Press.
Fieldhouse, DX (1999) The West and the Third World: Trade, Colonialism, Dependence and Development, London: Blackwell.
Gay, P. (1973) The Enlightenment: A Comprehensive Anthology. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Hall, S. (1992) 'The West and the rest: Discourse and power', in S. Hall and B. Gieben (eds) Formations of ,
Modernity, Cambridge: Open University/Polity, pp. 275-331, Chapter 6. Hall, S. and Gieben, B. (1992) Formations of Modernity, Cambridge: Open University/Polity.
Smith, Ricardo and the world marketplace, 1776-2007: Back to the Future? 1 75 Hampson, N- (1968) The Enlightenment, London: Penguin.
JDS (Institute of Development Studies) (2006) 'The power of labelling in development practice', IDS Policy
Briefing, Issue 28 (April). Keynes, J.M. (1936) The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, London: Macmillan. Patel, R. (2001) 'Knowledge, power, banking', Z Magazine, (20 Inly 2001) (available at http://www.zmag.org/
ZSustainers/ZDaiIy/200 l~07/20patel.htm). Porter, R. (1990) The Enlightenment, London: Macmillan. Rist, T. (1997) History of Development, London: Routledge.
2.3 Smith, Ricardo and the world marketplace, 1776-2007: Back to the future?
David Sapsford
Introduction
Why do countries trade with one another? What determines the terms on which trade between countries is conducted in the world marketplace? These two questions are perhaps the most fundamental to be considered in any analysis of international trade, be it trade between developed and developing countries or trade among countries in either the developing or the developed world. These questions are of special importance in the context of economic development, since if there are 'gams from trade' to be had, the distribution of such gains between trading partners carries important implications for living standards and economic welfare within the participating countries.
The classical economists, most notably Adam Smith (1723-90) and David Ricardo (1772-1823) considered these two questions, and their analyses are outlined in the following - section. Subsequent sections consider the available evidence regarding the changes that have occurred over the long run in the terms on which trade between developed and developing nations has been conducted, exploring the implications of this for economic development in the developing world.
Absolute and comparative advantage
The foundations of the economic theory of international trade were laid by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (1776). Smiths analysis of the division of labour is well known, and to a large extent he saw the phenomenon of international trade as a logical extension of this process, with particular regions or countries (rather than particular individuals) specializing in the production of particular commodities. Smith s view is clearly demonstrated by the following quotation: '
ll is the maxim of every prudent master of a family, never to attempt to make at home what it will cost him more to make than buy... What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom. If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy of them with some part of the produce of our own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage (Smith 1776: 424).