Bahir Dar University

Faculty of Social Sciences

Development Sociology

Gebeyehu M.
 Development: History and meaning

• Contentious – practically and ideologically –both curse & blessing

• Hence, Sociologists critique and contribution to this problematic process is
the focus of this course – ‗post-development discourse‘
• History: Arturo Escobar argues, ‗development‘ as set of ideas and practice
which has historically functioned over 20th c as mechanism for the colonial
and post-colonial domination of the South by the North.
• It is emergence rooted in shifting global situation after WWII:
- Decline of colonialism
- the Cold War
- Need for capitalism
- Northern nations‘ faiths in ‗science and technology‘
• Exercise of neocolonial power relation despite intended redistributions of
wealth
• Development implies positive change and progress in all its usages, but in
practice it has been all judgmental – west developed the south - fallacies
 Development: History and meaning
• First used by US pr. Harry Truman in 1949 as mechanism of
disseminating knowledge, technology and resources to
underdevelopment area of the world –Truman doctrine

• Capitalism and colonialism: 1700-1949

• Capitalism – though ideas of social and economic change exist
before 1949, the belief this idea should be promoted is only arose
during the ‗age of competitive capitalism‘ (1700-1860) in Wrn
Europ – era of radical social and political struggle

E.g – Enlightenment till late 20th c as opposed to superstitious

and ignorant dark age. – rise of science and technology

• This results dualities such as advanced vs backward, primitive vs

civilized, superstition vs scientific; nature vs culture etc
 Development: History and meaning
• Scholars relate different types of development theory with different phases of
capitalism:

• Period b/n 1700 – 1860 – classical political economy of Smith and Ricardo and
historical materialism of Marx and Engels

• 1860 – 1945 – neoclassical political economy and classical theories of imperialism

• Age of late capitalism (1945-66) – theories of modernization, neo-Marxist theories of

dependency

• Thus, capitalist expansion has fundamental contribution to the emergence of

development thought and practice

• Colonialism - during later colonial period 1860 -1950, the notion of progress and
enlightenment was key to colonial discourse

• Colonialism itself is thought to be a mechanism of West developing South – changing

local society with European style of education, bureaucracy, new political system
 Development: History and meaning
• Development discourse of 1990s results themes such as good
governance, institution building, gender training

• Early 20th c link b/n development practice and colonialism became

direct. E.g Britsh Law of Development of colonies (welfare of colonies)

• Post-colonial era: 1949 onwards, post WWII – what it means

• Truman defines it in 1949 – d/t from imperial one – his objective was
making available sc. Kgd, technology and advances for the growth and
development of underdeveloped areas = development viewed in terms
of economic growth and modernity.

• After debt crisis of 1980s and structural adjustment programs of 1990s –

economic reform and growth yet to be priority by WB &IMF – aim is
economic growth produce trickle down effect – the rich of those at top
of economic scale will inherently benefits the rest of society through
production and employment – modernization theory dominated
 Development: History and meaning

• Trickle down approach later criticized that growth does not

necessarily leads to better standard of leaving.

• Or rapid increase of GDP does not necessarily eradicate poverty

• This marks emergence of micro level approach 1970s on wards

E.g basic need approach – eradicating poverty rather than

promoting economic growth – poverty focused, satisfying
peoples basic need
 Development: meaning
• Because the term development may mean different things to different
people, it is important that we have some working definition or core
perspective on its meaning.

• i.e defining ‗development‘ is not easy

• Because while development is often viewed as something very

positive, it is also very important to consider the possible detrimental
effects of development on the natural environment, different social
groups and on the cohesion and stability of societies.

• Let us see definitions of development according to different criteria's

• 1) Definition based on traditional Economic Measures

• In strictly economic terms, development has traditionally meant achieving
sustained rates of growth of income per capita to enable a nation to
expand its output at a rate faster than the growth rate of its
population.
 Development: History and meaning

• Levels and rates of growth of ―real‖ per capita gross national income (GNI)
(monetary growth of GNI per capita minus the rate of inflation) are then
used to measure the overall economic well-being of a population—how
much of real goods and services is available to the average citizen for
consumption and investment.

• GNI - The total domestic and foreign output claimed by residents of a

country.

• Income per capita Total gross national income of a country divided by total
population.

• Economic development in the past has also been typically seen in terms of
the planned alteration of the structure of production and employment so
that agriculture‘s share of declines and that of the manufacturing and
service industries increases.

• Development strategies have therefore usually focused on rapid

industrialization, often at the expense of agriculture and rural development.
 Development: meaning

• Development was until recently nearly always seen as an economic

phenomenon in which rapid gains in overall and per capita GNI
growth would either ―trickle down‖ to the masses in the form of jobs
and other economic opportunities

• Problems of poverty, discrimination, unemployment, and income

distribution were of secondary importance to ―getting the growth job
done.‖ Indeed, the emphasis is often on increased output, measured
by gross domestic product (GDP) - The total final output of goods
and services produced by the country‘s economy, within the country‘s
territory, by residents and nonresidents, regardless of its allocation
between domestic and foreign claims.

• Beyond this narrow definition of development an increasing number

of economists and policymakers clamored for more direct attacks on
widespread absolute poverty, increasingly inequitable income
distributions, and rising unemployment.
 Development: meaning
• During the 1970s, economic development came to be redefined in
terms of the reduction or elimination of poverty, inequality, and
unemployment within the context of a growing economy.

• Hence, a number of developing countries experienced relatively high

rates of growth of per capita income during the 1960s and 1970s but
showed little or no improvement or even an actual decline in
employment, equality, and the real incomes of the bottom 40% of
their populations.

• 2) Beyond economic criteria

• The phenomenon of development or the existence of a chronic state
of underdevelopment is not merely a question of economics or even
one of quantitative measurement of incomes, employment, and
inequality.

• Underdevelopment is a real fact of life for more than 3 billion people

in the world—a state of mind as much as a state of national poverty.
 Development: meaning
• Underdevelopment is shocking: the nastiness, disease, unnecessary deaths,
and hopelessness of it all! .

• The most empathetic observer can speak objectively about

underdevelopment only after undergoing, personally or vicariously, the
―shock of underdevelopment.‖
• This unique culture shock comes to one as he is initiated to the emotions
which prevail in the ―culture of poverty.‖

• Underdevelopment is a sense of personal and societal impotence in the face

of disease and death, of confusion and ignorance as one gropes to
understand change, of servility toward men whose decisions govern the
course of events, of hopelessness before hunger and natural catastrophe.

• Chronic poverty is a cruel kind of hell, and one cannot understand how
cruel that hell is merely by gazing upon poverty as an object
 Development: meaning
• Thus, Development must therefore be defined as a multidimensional process
involving major changes in social structures, popular attitudes, and
national institutions, as well as the acceleration of economic growth, the
reduction of inequality, and the eradication of poverty.

• Development, in its essence, must represent the whole gamut of change by

which an entire social system, tuned to the diverse basic needs and evolving
aspirations of individuals and social groups within that system, moves away
from a condition of life widely perceived as unsatisfactory toward a situation
or condition of life regarded as materially and spiritually better.

• The process of improving the quality of all human lives and capabilities by
raising people’s levels of living, self-esteem, and freedom (Todaro &
Smith,2020).
 Three Core Values of Development
• Development- what it meant better life must include:

According to Todaro it can be categorized

• 1) Sustenance: The Ability to Meet Basic Needs

• All people have certain basic needs without which life would be impossible.
These life-sustaining basic human needs include food, shelter, health, and
protection. When any of these is absent or in critically short supply, a condition
of ―absolute underdevelopment‖ exists.

• 2) Self-Esteem: To Be a Person

• Self-esteem—a sense of worth and self-respect, of not being used as a tool by

others for their own ends. All peoples and societies seek some basic form of self-
esteem, although they may call it authenticity, identity, dignity, respect, honor,
or recognition.

• However, with the proliferation of the ―modernizing values‖ of developed

nations, many societies in developing countries that have had a profound sense
of their own worth suffer from serious cultural confusion
• 3) Freedom from Servitude: To Be Able to Choose

• Freedom here is to be understood in the sense of emancipation from alienating

material conditions of life and from social servitude to nature, other people, misery,
oppressive institutions, and dogmatic beliefs, especially that poverty is
predestination.

• Freedom involves an expanded range of choices for societies and their members
together with a minimization of external constraints in the pursuit of some social
goal we call development.

• Amartya Sen writes of ―development as freedom‖ Development can be seen . . . as a

process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy

• Arthur Lewis stressed the relationship between economic growth and freedom from
servitude when he concluded that ―the advantage of economic growth is not that
wealth increases happiness, but that it increases the range of human choice.‖
 The Three Objectives of Development
Whatever the specific components of this better life, development
in all societies must have at least the following three objectives:

• 1)To increase the availability and widen the distribution of basic life-
sustaining goods such as food, shelter, health, and protection

• 2)To raise levels of living, including, in addition to higher incomes,

the provision of more jobs, better education, and greater
attention to cultural and human values, all of which will serve
not only to enhance material wellbeing but also to generate
greater individual and national self-esteem

• 3)To expand the range of economic and social choices available to

individuals and nations by freeing them from servitude and
dependence not only in relation to other people and nation-
states but also to the forces of ignorance and human misery
 The Experience and conception of Poverty: Voices of
the Poor
•When one is poor, she has no say in public, she feels inferior. She has no
food, so there is famine in her house; no clothing, and no progress in her
family.
—A poor woman from Uganda

For a poor person, everything is terrible—illness, humiliation, shame. We are

cripples; we are afraid of everything; we depend on everyone. No
one needs us. We are like garbage that everyone wants to get rid of.
—A blind woman from Tiraspol, Moldova

Life in the area is so precarious that the youth and every able person have to
migrate to the towns or join the army at the war front in order to escape the
hazards of hunger escalating over here.
—Participant in a discussion group in rural Ethiopia
The Experience and conception of Poverty: Voices of the
Poor

• Don’t ask me what poverty is because you have met it outside my house.
Look at the house and count the number of holes. Look at the utensils and
the clothes I am wearing. Look at everything and write what you see. What
you see is poverty.
—Poor man in Kenya
• [Poverty is] . . . low salaries and lack of jobs. And it’s also not having
medicine, food, and clothes.
Participant in a discussion group in Brazil