Thinking about Development

Bjorn Hettne

• Publisher: Zed Books
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781848132474
• eBook ISBN: 9781848137882
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Development Economics
• Index: Economics

This book is a concise and accessible introduction to development thinking, contemporary development theory and practice and - a critical analysis of the values that lie behind them. Hettne argues that schools of development thinking should be historically contextualized, not presented as evolving towards a universal theory. The book will present development as an 'essentially contested concept', that has meant a number of things at various times to different people in different places. Focusing on historical discourses from the initial colonial encounters through to the modern day, Hettne draws the connections between the enlightenment belief in 'progress' through to the more recent focus on the Millennium Development Goals. The first volume in the 'Development Matters' series this book provides the key frame for the series as a whole, enabling readers to locate texts on themes such as environmental justice, technology and development learning within a broader historical, conceptual and political context than the immediate policy and output needs of neoliberalism.

1 | Theoretical Framework

Development thinking represents an effort to conceptualize those aspects of pervasive, continuous social change to which human actors attribute particular meaning and value – and which they believe, in some sense and to a varying extent, they may be able to influence. This ‘agency’ presupposes some organizational structure, which historically has been the nation-state. Over time, social change has been integrated in a wider world context, which gives development a geopolitical dimension as it affects the balance between national societies organized in a states system. This system is increasingly interdependent and ultimately globalized. Development thinking is constantly changing and increasingly separated from its original territorial base. Three theoretical dimensions are in focus in this analysis: development as an aspect of historical transformation; the role of values in the conceptualization of development; and the relationship between development and security.

Development and history

How should development be understood? Either we give it a general and abstract meaning, valid for all countries and historical situations, or we look for contextual meanings that change over time.¹ Development thinking is explained by the historical situation rather than the other way round. This is the approach chosen here. The overall perspective of the book can be called ‘historicist’, meaning that all social situations are seen as structured by previous historical developments, at the same time as they contain the ingredients for future change.² The future is, as Karl Marx once pointed out, both open and constrained by the present. To study a particular societal situation is also to study how it once emerged and how it could develop in the future. This means a methodological refutation of ‘comparative statics’ and ahistorical comparisons across countries and over time, without any concern about the total context.

To be relevant, comparisons must include, and therefore be modified by, the context. This is the holistic approach in Karl Polanyi’s work The Great Transformation, which ‘seeks to demonstrate the structural relationship among all parts of the social whole, while rejecting the genetic determinacy of any one aspect’ (Block and Somers, 1984: 63). The ‘historicist’ approach goes together with a ‘holistic’ ambition to grasp totalities, thus creating a particular methodological tradition that we can term historicist-holistic. This constitutes a meta-theoretical point of departure for this book.

The emphasis on the European historical experience is due to its importance for early development theory and strategy (Senghaas, 1985) and for the hegemonic position of the Western development paradigm. I distinguish between a number of consecutive discourses in the history of development, initially centred on ‘progress’. This process can also be conceived of as ‘the modern project’, the belief in the critical role of human agency in the pursuit of progress, an older word for development. Progress was seen as an immanent historical process, but accessible to rational, scientific analysis, in contrast to the religious view that divine providence determined the outcomes. Development in the modern sense implies intentional social change in accordance with explicit societal objectives. The book covers these three phases: from providence through progress to development. The narrative begins in Europe but extends to the rest of the world, focusing on the emergence of the Third World. It ends up addressing the current debate on globalization.

The history of development has been told both as ‘natural history’ and as ‘historical transformation’. The difference is illuminated below.

Development as natural history

Development means a historical process in which humans are in command. Through the application of knowledge and rational thinking, society and mankind are constantly improved. Development in the Western tradition is basically understood through the metaphor of growth as organic, immanent, directional, cumulative, irreversible and purposive (Nisbet, 1969). It became an integral part of ‘the modern project’, the ideological tradition of gradually and increasingly seeing society as an object to be changed and improved by rational, purposive human action. This world view grew particularly strong in eighteenth-century France, where, in the context of the critique of the Ancien Régime, it was known as the Enlightenment movement. Enlightenment implies that we can attain rational and objective (as distinct from religious or ideological) knowledge of society as a whole in order to achieve progress.

Development as transformation

Discursive change is both a cause and a consequence of societal transformation. The theoretical perspective applied here is the economic–historical dialectic between the dynamic market principle and recurrent political attempts to control the economy. This more open and non-deterministic approach is inspired by Karl Polanyi. In the theory of economic history associated with his work, an expansion and deepening of the market, ‘embedded’ in society, is accompanied by a political intervention in ‘defence of society’, a re-embedment of the market economy. The expansion of market marks the first, and the societal response to subsequent social dislocations the second, movement in a ‘great transformation’. This constitutes what Polanyi termed a ‘double movement’. The ‘first movement’ contains an institutionalization of market exchange on a larger scale than before, which implies both a widening (in terms of scope) and a deepening (in terms of production factors) of the market mechanism. The ‘second movement’ contains all kinds of counter-movements caused by the dislocations and disorder associated with market penetration into new areas and new sectors. As Polanyi put it, society defends itself, but organizes its defence ultimately through political intervention by the state. This leads to what can be called ‘great compromises’, in which the dialectic of market expansion and political intervention is contained, at least for some time, in a stable equilibrium.⁴

Modernity

Modernity originated in the Renaissance and in the seventeenth-century evolution of science, but its most explicit societal manifestation appeared in the mid-eighteenth century. To be modern was to be rational and ‘positive’ (non-religious) and to believe in the inevitability of progress. Progress can be seen as immanent, while development is more intentional and subject to human action.³ Progress was for all humanity, but different human groups were more or less advanced, or ‘civilized’, along historical stages elaborated by different thinkers, but reflecting the same organic metaphor. This ‘scientific’ world view, which in fact became a new kind of religion, also shaped the social sciences as they emerged. It was subsequently incorporated in Development Studies, the particular academic field devoted to the modernization of ‘backward’ or ‘underdeveloped’ societies. In the early phase of theory building, this incorporation of the cult of progress in the theory of development took an essentialist form, in the sense that the development process throughout the world was reified and identified with specific institutions and structures representing the Western experience of modernity. This became the master model for others to follow – in the process concretizing a pattern supposedly inherent or immanent in their own history. It was simply a matter of time.

The development problem is thus quite different during the first and the second movements. In the first, the main objective is freeing the market forces by liberal regulation (often called ‘deregulation’). The critical and alternative perspectives are more prominent in the second one, as the social and environmental limitations of mainstream development become evident, prompting the state into reaction in order to contain social unrest. What is conceived as immanent development turns explicitly into intentional development. For Polanyi the key concept was intervention.⁵

Polanyi was concerned about one particular historical ‘great transformation’, covering the period from the middle of the nineteenth century to the era of interventionist ideologies (fascism, communism, socialism, New Deal) responding to the Great Depression in the 1930s. The compromise of ‘embedded liberalism’, institutionalized in the Bretton Woods system, combined national regulation with international free trade. This ushered in the Golden Age.

When I speak of great transformations in general and in the plural, I include the possibility of seeing globalization and anti- or alter-globalization as another double movement: the second great transformation, with global development as a possible new ‘great compromise’. In the first movement, the high tide of globalization (1980s and 1990s), development was seen as coinciding with globalization, which meant the death of development studies based on the principle of purposeful intervention. In the second movement, the critical and alternative perspectives tend to become more prominent, as the shortcomings of mainstream development become evident. This can be seen in the current debate on a ‘post-globalization’ vision of global development, holding the promise of a renaissance of development studies beyond post-development.

It is important to identify the political actors behind the otherwise seemingly deterministic process. And we should foreground them in both phases of the double movement – not only in the second, more explicitly political movement, but also in the first movement, often treated as a ‘natural’ process or, as in the ‘second great transformation’ (globalization), a return to normalcy after an age of ‘unnatural’ state intervention. It is relevant here to recall what Polanyi said about marketization: ‘There was nothing natural about laissez-faire; free markets could never have come into being merely by allowing things to take their course’ (Polanyi, 1957: 139).⁶ Thus a tension exists between market solutions and solutions engineered by political authority. There is also a different type of tension between contrasting development values: what I have called ‘mainstream’ and ‘counterpoint’. This will be discussed below.

Development and values

Since development is a normative concept it cannot be separated from values. ‘Development’, as distinct from the more neutral concept ‘social change’, is something that normally is valued. Development thinking can even be analysed as a belief system. The link between the cult of progress and Western religion is paradoxical but significant. This is due to the Judaeo-Christian tradition of seeing history as a moral drama whose last act is salvation, a scenario repeated in secular religions such as Marxism and neoliberalism (Gray, 2003). The ultimate goal of salvation was in ‘scientific’ elaborations preceded by a number of stages. In positivist theory, human thinking evolved from religious, through metaphysical to positive thinking. Marx’s theory of human development went through five stages: from primitive communism to modern communism. Ironically, the latter was to restore basic values from the stage of primitive communism, but at a higher level of technology and production. W. W. Rostow’s liberal stages ended up in an ‘era of mass consumerism’, which to Francis Fukuyama was ‘the end of history’ – the ultimate triumph of liberalism.

Freedom, order and justice

Of importance for explaining changes in the Western development discourse is the relative weight of three basic political values: freedom, order and justice. My thesis here is that change in a particular discourse is steered by the under-provision of one particular value. Their relevance is shown by the links to the three European nineteenth-century ideologies: liberalism, conservatism and socialism, underpinned by social science theories such as classical and neo-classical economics, realism and Marxism. Just as the three ideologies can be seen as correctives to each other, so there is a trade-off between the three core values. Freedom (liberty) is being limited for the sake of justice. Redistribution, carried out in the name of justice, raises the issue of order. This in turn is challenged by renewed demands for liberation. The content of these value systems has changed over time, however, and like development they are context-dependent. What is their meaning in the current global order? What is their relevance outside the Western development discourse?

By ‘Western’ is meant primarily European. However, since the European world order in different ways did include extra-European territories, the ‘non-European’ stands out as ‘the other’ in the various historical phases of Eurocentric development thinking. Thus the ‘West’ is to be understood in relation to ‘the other’. The notion of ‘modernity’ is, as mentioned, often associated with ethnocentric arrogance, which has made ‘civilization’ a controversial concept. In the eighteenth century at least some non-European areas, China in particular, were looked upon with a certain respect and admiration. This later changed into contempt as Europe grew more powerful and in its own view ‘civilized’. The ‘non-West’ was instead conceived as static or ‘non-historical’, representing an earlier, less civilized ‘stage’ in development. Karl Marx thought that these areas were stagnant societies which had to be ‘dragged into history’ by colonization, a fate supposed to be fortunate for them. This particular configuration of thought lies behind much of later theorizing about the ‘Third World’, albeit dressed in a more diplomatic language.

Non-Western contributions to development thinking were to a large degree reactions to the Western paradigm. They often articulated different values, adding to and enriching a tradition of ‘alternative development thinking’ critical of modernity. Such reactions and their impact make it possible to talk of an emerging ‘global social theory’ and a global development discourse. The Western hegemony has been challenged and alternative approaches based on other value systems have been met with more respect (Hettne, 2008a, 2008b).

The global expansion of Europe, resulting in cultural clashes in the radically new context of civilizational encounters, was driven by the development of individual nation-states competing for power and wealth. Today civilizations or macro-cultures interact in the new context of globalization. The question often raised is whether this interaction will be in the form of clash or dialogue. Intercultural dialogue, which now has become a political imperative, must face the realities of this completely transformed and complex world. In fact global and universal values must be a negotiated and pluralistic system of ideas, based on the fundamental value of respecting and understanding ‘the other’. The counter-discursive challenging of the Western hegemony leading to a dialogical approach is the only way of moving towards global development.

Mainstream and counterpoint

The dialectical tension between market solutions and political regulation takes place within the ‘mainstream’. By that concept I refer to the predominant, hegemonic and ‘politically correct’ part of the discourse on the goals and means of development. The goals are expressed in concepts such as industrialization, modernization and more recently globalization, whereas the means stress the relative effectiveness of using the market mechanism in comparison with state intervention in achieving the goals. By ‘counterpoint’ I refer to a fundamental questioning of the prevailing development goals, and consequently also of the means to achieve the goals. This contradiction manifests itself throughout the Western history of development, as well as in encounters with non-Western worlds with different value systems.

The counter-discourse must be seen as a reaction to, and a force for, changing mainstream thinking and practice, more often by being co-opted by the mainstream than by changing the fundamentals of the discourse. Lack of success in the endeavour to establish ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• About the series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: Development Studies and Development Thinking
• 1 Theoretical Framework
• 2 The ‘Original Transition’
• 3 The Pursuit of Freedom
• 4 The Modernization Imperative
• 5 Planning in ‘Dark Times’
• 6 The Geopolitics of Poverty
• 7 Globalization and Disorder
• 8 In Search of Global Development
• Conclusion: Towards Global Social Theory?
• Notes
• Recommended Reading
• Index