What is Development?

Development is a key dimension of personal life, social relations, poli-

tics, economics and culture in the countries and regions that provide the
subject matter of this book: Africa, Asia, Latin America and the
Caribbean. For analytical convenience, I divide up the countries of the
developing world' or 'the South' into regions. Sub-Saharan Africa -
sometimes shortened to Africa' in the book - refers to all African
countries south of the Sahara desert. Under the heading Asia' come the
following: "South Asia' is the Indian sub-continent plus Pakistan. East
Asia and the Pacific' includes Asian countries - apart from Japan -
geographically located between the Indian sub-continent and the United
States in the Pacific Ocean. In addition, "the Middle East and North
Africa' region covers the predominantly Muslim countries of West Asia
and Africa north of the Sahara. Finally, "Latin America and the
Caribbean' denotes the countries of South America plus the islands of the
West Indies.
The book has several aims: to provide a lively introduction to the topic of
development, to enthuse readers about the subject of develop- ment and
to encourage them to delve further into this complex and fas- cinating
topic. It is aimed especially - but not exclusively - at higher education
students, including those approaching the subject matter for the first time.
The book invites readers to consider key dilemmas and challenges in
relation to development; it ranges over both substantive empirical and
theoretical material. It adopts a comparative approach, with examples
drawn from a range of different national and cultural settings.
A starting point is to note that more than 90 per cent of today's
developing countries were, at one time or another, colonial possessions of
a handful of Western powers, including: Belgium, Britain, France,
Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the USA.
Decolonization came in two main waves, separated by more than a
century. The first occurred in the early nineteenth century, resulting in the
independence of eighteen Latin American and Caribbean countries. The
second occurred in the decades after the Second World War, follow- ing
the weakening of European powers and growing demands for national
recognition in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. Over the next thirty years,
around ninety colonies achieved freedom from foreign rule. Decoloniza-
tion was virtually complete by 1990, marked by the independence of
Namibia (see Hadjor 1993: 73-8, for a complete list of former colonies in
the developing world).
Despite the optimism attending decolonization, over time it became clear
that independence from colonial rule was rarely if ever a panacea to deal
with many former colonies' economic, political, institutional, cultural and
social problems. Despite the huge achievement of throwing off colonial
rule, most former colonies in the developing world found themselves with
two basic, pressing problems:
 Relative economic impoverishment and weakness. Often harnessed to
the international economy on 'a detrimental basis, many former
colonies, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, soon became highly
depen- dent on Western financial aid.
 Failure to develop workable political systems and associated political
instability. Most postcolonial developing countries had democrati-
cally elected governments at or shortly after independence. Many
were, however, soon deposed by military rule or became one-party
states, changes that many observers argued were detrimental to both
economic and political development.
In addition, the aftermath of colonial rule brought two further problems
for many post-colonial governments. First, in order to achieve political
and social stability, it was necessary to construct nation-states from often
disparate groups of people, typically separated by ethnic, linguistic and/
or religious divisions. In many cases, this was very difficult or impossible
to achieve. Second, most postcolonial governments in the developing
world had great difficulty building up their country's productive capaci-
ties so as to deliver sustained economic growth to ensure rising living
standards for all their country's people.
Before turning to how post-colonial countries sought to deal with these
issues, we need to resolve a basic issue of nomenclature.

What's in a name? ‘the Third World’, ‘the South’, ‘the developing

world/countries’
Before going further it is necessary to deal with a controversial issue:
what to call the collectivity of African, Middle Eastern, Asian, and Latin
American and Caribbean countries on which we focus in this book?
Rather than constantly - and clumsily - referring to "the coun- tries of
Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, East
Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America and the Carib- bean’, we need to
find an acceptable shorthand term. The problem,however, is that in the
development literature there is no agreement on this issue of classification
(Dodds 2002). You will see several terms used, and three are common:
"The Third World', 'The South' and the "Developing world/countries'. Let
us look at the pros and cons of using each.
‘The Third World’
"Western political scientists found themselves increasingly challenged to
develop frameworks for understanding and predicting the[ir] politics'
(Randall and Theobald 1998: vii) when dozens of African, Asian, Middle
Eastern and Caribbean countries decolonized in the 1950s and 1960s.
Alfred Sauvy, a French economist and demographer, is usually credited
as the first person to use the term 'Third World', in an article published in
1952. Its use caught on, and by the late 1950s was in widespread use. For
Sauvy and others, the Third World' referred not only to the then
decolonizing countries but also to the economically weak countries of
Latin America, most of which had gained independence more than a
century earlier.
Apart from its use in political science, the term 'Third World' also had a
meaning in international relations. Its use reflected the fact that, following
the onset of the Cold War in the late 1940s, the world was conventionally
divided into three ideologically defined blocs:
 'First World', that is, the industrialized democracies of Europe and
North America (plus Australia, New Zealand and Japan).
 "Second World', that is, the communist countries of Eastern Europe.
Some analysts also included their ideological allies in Asia (North
Korea, China) and Latin America (Cuba).
 'Third World', comprising a large number of countries organized in
the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). All claimed to be neutral in the
Cold War.
Thus the label "Third World' had two, separate, yet linked, senses during
the Cold War. It was used to refer to certain countries': (1) poor economic
development position and (2) relatively unimportant place in interna
tional politics. Developmentally, the term sought to capture the notion of
a certain type of country: postcolonial and, compared to the rich countries
of the First World, economically weak and underdeveloped. Regarding
international relations, a bloc of postcolonial countries emerged and
formed an alliance: the NAM, whose member countries claimed,
sometimes with good reason, to be followers of neither the USA nor the
USSR. While, individually, most developing countries played relatively
minor roles in international relations during the Cold War, their collective
voice focused in the NAM was relatively loud, at irregular intervals,
influential (Acharya 1999).
In sum, the term 'Third World has had a dual meaning. On the one hand,
it referrerd to a large group of economically underdeveloped, devel-
opmentally weak African, Asian, Middle Eastern, and Latin American
and Caribbean countries. On the other hand, it connoted the proclaimed
international neutrality of a large bloc of often small and weak, mainly
post-colonial developing countries, organized in the NAM.
The ideological division manifested in the Cold War between the
superpowers was crucial in defining the concept of the "Third World".
Consequently, it is hardly surprising that the end of the Cold War in 1989
produced highly significant international changes; not least, a oua key
justification for continued use of the term 'Third World' disap- peared
(Fawcett and Sayigh 1999). The contemporaneous demise of the Second
World and the growing economic and political diversity of the developing
countries led Bayart (1991) to argue that logically the term 'Third World'
could no longer be analytically useful. Two events were of particular
importance. The first was the political col- lapse and eventual dissolution
of the communist Second World, as the dramatic collapse of the Eastern
European communist bloc removed at a stroke the chief ideological
challenge to the West. The second was the contemporaneous wave of
democratization and economic lib- eralization that swept across Africa,
Asia and Latin America (but not the Middle East) in the 1980s and 1990s.
Dozens of new democracies emerged in Latin America, Asia and Africa
at this time, yet overall there was still a great deal of political - not to
mention developmental - diversity among "Third World' countries. By the
end of the 1990s, the result was a variety of political systems: large
numbers of democ- racies and numerous non-democracies, including:
communist one-party rule (Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, North Korea), military
dictatorship (Paki- stan) and theocracies (Afghanista'n, Iran, Saudi
Arabia, Sudan). In addition, economic and developmental diversity were
reflected in strik- ingly different per capita gross national products
(GNPs): in 1999, that of Singapore was $29,610, South Korea's was
$8490, and Ethiopia's a mere $100, one third of one per cent of
Singapore's (World Bank 2001: 274-5, Table 1).
For Bayart (1991), the consequence of these developments was that the
very notion of a single 'Third World' was now a 'fantasy', without
analytical or conceptual utility. It was a convenient but now inappropri-
ate label, unwarrantedly conjoining diverse nations with often very dif-
ferent cultures, societies, political systems and economies. Other critics of
use of the term, such as Berger (1994), agreed that the very concept of a
"Third World' was developmentally meaningless - but for a different
reason. He argued that even the richest Western countries had often
substantial impoverished 'underclasses' - that is, groups of people who
lived in what were essentially "Third World' conditions. Moreover, in the
developing countries groups of political and economic elites (often the
same people) were integrated into a global class structure, enjoying very
good living standards, comparable with those enjoyed by rich people in
the West. The overall point was that by the 1990s there were no longer
clear divisions between the rich countries of the First World and the poor
countries of the erstwhile Third World'. In part, this was because there
were large numbers of impoverished people living in the West and much
smaller, although still significant, numbers of wealthy elite people in
virtually all developing countries.
In sum, by the early 1990s, the old, familiar simplicities reflected in the
term 'Third World' no longer had much analytical utility. Three
developments were important: (1) the ideological collapse of the com-
munist Second World; (2) the 'third wave of democracy' (Huntington
1991) and contemporaneous widespread economic liberalization in many
Third World countries (Thirlwall 2002); and (3) a partial blurring of the
division between rich 'First World' and poor 'Third World' countries, as
some people in the latter achieved higher living standards than most
people in the former (Berger 1994).
The ‘South’
If the term 'Third World' was no longer analytically useful, what of a
possible alternative: the South' (Dodds 2002)? Apart from the problems
identified above, for many people the term "Third World' has a further
problem. It is regarded as unacceptably pejorative, implying: poverty,
lack of development, and low status - in short, 'third rate". Reflecting
such concerns, a 1980 report compiled by a team led by a former West
German chancellor, Willy Brandt, suggested an alternativer the South. A
key advantage was that the term lacked the pejorative connotations of
"Third World' ('Brandt Report 1980). There was also a further justi-
fication for its use: the term served to highlight the unjust global eco-
nomic order. It did this by dichotomizing developmental distinctions
between the rich "North' - the developed countries of North America and
West Europe (plus Japan, Australia and New Zealand, also collec- tively -
and confusingly - known as 'the West') -- and the poor 'South' (Latin
America and the Caribbean, Asia, and Africa). However, just as the
blanket term 'Third World' obscured considerable cultural, economic and
political differences among individual countries, so too the ‘South'was an
unsatisfactory analytical term, for two main reasons. On the one hand, the
"South was an essentially geographic expression that ignored the fact that
two 'Northern countries, Australia and New Zealand, were actually
located in the geographical south. In addition, the term failed to
differentiate between individual countries - whether politically, cultur-
ally, developmentally or economically.
"Developing world/countries'
The developing world' and 'developing countries' are also shorthand
terms employed to designate the aggregation of Middle Eastern, African,
Asian, and Latin American and Caribbean countries. I shall use both
terms synonymously in this book. While acknowledging that these coun-
tries' economic, cultural, developmental and political positions vary
widely, I justify their use not least by the fact that these are favoured by
most governments of the countries themselves, as well as by global insti-
tutions, such as the United Nations and the World Bank (www. un. org/
english/; www.worldbank.org/).
But this is not to imply that the term is uncontroversial. As Thomas
points out, while 'modernization, industrialization and development often
appear effectively to be synonyms, the concept of "development" actually
embodies considerable ambiguity' (Thomas 1999: 46). For critics, the use
of the adjective developing has a big drawback: it may imply that there is
a clearly identified spectrum: "underdeveloped.atone end, developed at
the other. The implication is that 'developing' coun- tries logically move
over time from a position of 'underdevelopment' to one where they
become 'developed'. The problem is not only that there is great economic
and developmental diversity among developing countries but also that it
is highly debatable whether all or even most developing countries are
really moving in linear progression from assumption is highly
problematic in some cases - for example, Afghani- stan, Iraq, Somalia,
and the Democratic Republic of the Congo - where development seems at
present an unattainable goal, largely as a result of recent civil wars. On
the other hand, as perusal of annual United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) reports over the years would indicate, the great
majority of developing countries, measured in overall terms, have seen -
sometimes substantial, more often patchy - economic and human
development over time (www.undp.org/).
There is also an additional problem to note: what makes a developed
country "developed'? Does it simply imply a nation with a certain (rela-
tively high) degree of economic growth? Or does it suggest an element of
redistribution of the fruits of growth? What about widely divergent socio-
economic conditions, of the kind referred to earlier by Berger (1994), that
occur in both developed' and 'developing' countries? It is not easy to
answer such questions. However, despite problems and ambi- guities, I
primarily use the terms developing world' and developing countries' in
this book, not least because to my mind there are currently no obviously
better alternatives. I will also on occasion, for the sake of variety, also use
the term "the South'. Remember, however, that all of these terms are at
best merely shorthand expressions, used primarily for convenience. Their
use does not imply that all developing countries or states in "the South'
share the same developmental, political, social, cul- tural or economic
characteristics. Perhaps all they have in common is that many informed
observers would agree that they are - in various ways - not developed',
while all are located in the geographical South. The overall implication is
that "development' is a vague yet predictive term, which struggles to
acquire a precise meaning (Clark 2006).
Development and how to achieve it
Following the Second World War (1939-45), wide-ranging decoloniza-
tion led to the emergence of dozens of new African, Asian and Carib-
bean countries - collectively joining the already independent, yet stil
underdeveloped', countries of Latin America. Focusing on this wave of
new countries, with their attendant economic, political, cultural,
developmental and social characteristics, the formal study of develop-
ment soon emerged. Originally the term 'development was widely
regarded as both self-evident and prophetic, informing a widespread
assumption in the 1950s and 1960s: most underdeveloped countries
would - almost inevitably - become 'developed over time. Most would
follow a similar path already travelled by the now 'developed nations,
such as Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union (after 1991
fragmented into Russia and numerous other post-Soviet states). Con-
sequently, they would move from a position of underdevelopment to one
of development, characterized by multifaceted modernity and one-way,
consequential economic and technological progress (Payne 2005: 3-20).
The study of development has over time involved a focus on various
issues, notably political, economic, social and cultural concerns. Politi-
cally, the spotlight was on comparative political cultures, problems of
nation building, and construction of stable and workable political and
public institutions and administrations. Economically, the key issue was
what did 'developing’ countries need to do to join the ranks of the devel-
oped countries? Socially, development concerned the issue of human
development and how to achieve it, while a focus on culture concerned
the issue of whether different cultures were more conducive to develop-
ment than others (Barr 2002).
Driving a focus on such issues was a common realization: to achieve
multifaceted development goals was, for most developing countries,
highly problematic, contentious and complex. Things did not go to plan
for the great majority of developing countries and, over time, wide
developmental discrepancies emerged and became embedded. For
example, no country in Sub-Saharan Africa has yet joined the ranks of the
developed states, while East and South Asia have recorded a growing
number of development success stories' (Hobden 2005). These include
from the 1970s and 1980s East Asia's newly industrializing countries'
(NICs) - including Hong Kong (now part of China), Singapore, South
Korea and Taiwan. All managed to record highly impressive development
gains via sustained and swift economic growth. More recently, both
China and India have also attracted attention because of their fast eco-
nomic growth from the 1980s and 1990s. What, if anything, do these
disparate Asian countries have in common, enabling them to record
substantial development gains over time when none among the dozens of
African countries could manage it?
Early theories of development - especially modernization theory and
dependency theory (focused upon in chapter 2) - had diametrically
opposed explanations for developmental successes and failures (Payne
2005:6-11). The former pointed primarily to the significance of domes-
tic factors, especially the relationship between state and society, while the
latter highlighted external concerns, notably the workings of the
international economic system. Thus these early development analyses
were arranged in terms of a dichotomy, with a focus on either the domes-
tic environment or the international milieu. Over time, however, it
became apparent that each paradigm was problematic for the same
reason: their focus was partial and as a result lacked necessary width,
breadth and depth.
Especially since the end of the Cold War in 1989...the subsequent
dissolution of the erstwhile Soviet bloc, and the deepening of globaliza-
tion in the 1990s, it has become clear that to understand development
outcomes in the developing world, we need to take into account a range
of domestic and external factors (Scholte 2005). In other words, bifur-
cated, partial foci are no longer analytically adequate or appropriate to
develop necessary insights. As a result, there is now widespread agree-
ment that the context and process of development in the developing world
is both complex and multifaceted, involving a variety of both internal and
external factors. Neither modernization theory, with its main focus on
domestic factors, nor dependency theory, with its primary concern the
external arena, are on their own analytically adequate to explain
development trajectories and outcomes in the developing world. I contend
- and in this book will seek to demonstrate - that the best, most
convincing, analysis explaining development outcomes in the devel-
oping world is to focus on a range of domestic and external factors and
their interaction.
This is not to imply that links between external and internal factors, on
the one hand, and development outcomes, on the other, have been
irrelevant or inconsequential to development outcomes in the developing
world in the past. For example, after the Second World War most
Western governments agreed that the best - perhaps the only - viable way
to achieve substantial development improvements in the then newly
decolonizing countries of isla mencaid, The then a merican president
Harry Truman, made this premise clear in his inaugural speech in 1949.
BITTE parun s usameA SPLAID TEM PIOD a do Suruadaap. 201
1surede das int Tru a 'bold new' programme of financial aid for the
underdeveloped regions'.
Truman's aim was to use development aid in tandem with the West's
primary development advantage - swift scientific-industrial progress to
facilitate the economic development of newly postcolonial countries so as
to keep them out of the hands of the Soviet Union (Holenstein 2005: 17).
As in today's 'war on terror, Western governments believed then that to
prevent people becoming communists (today it is 'terrorists') it was
necessary to increase their material living standards.
Truman hoped that his strategy would deliver several interlinked
objectives: financially kick-start economic development in 'underdevel-
oped regions' and thus deal with endemic poverty, while ideologically
binding them to the United States, away from the clutches of the Soviet
Union. The president did not restrict his call to action to the United States
alone, but also appealed directly to the community of Western
industrialized countries, asking them to join with America in this crucial
project. The overall strategy was well captured in the form of words
adopted in a Swiss Foreign Ministry memorandum of 1950: "Basically it
is to win the hearts and minds of people who are threatened by Com-
munism or possibly drawn to it through misery' (quoted in Holenstein
2005: 17).
In short, after the Second World War Western countries, led by the
United States, sought to help launch development in the underdeveloped
regions through a combined strategy of financial assistance and ideologi-
cal persuasion. The aim was that people living there would be saved from
their 'backwardness' through the application of both capital and modern
western technology. This was the strategy pursued by the United States
and other Western countries throughout the Cold War period (late 1940s-
late 1980s). Thus from the word 'go' the achievement of develop- ment in
the underdeveloped regions was closely linked to the involve- ment of
Western countries and their willingness to supply large quantities of
development aid in order to kick start and fuel the development process.
From the point of view of the developing countries themselves, to achieve
better development was obviously of great concern. For many
governments, the key issue was how to advance from a position of
underdevelopment' to one of being developed', that is, to achieve the
status of a 'modern', wealthy state, such as Britain, France, the US.A or
the Soviet Union. On the one hand, as already noted, there was the
Western capitalist development model - but it was not the only one on
offer. Despite Truman's efforts, numerous developing countries looked
not to the West but to the communist East and the alternative develop-
mental models provided by the Soviet Union and to an extent communist
China. While differing in fundamental respects, both capitalist and
communist development models concurred on one important point:
achieving substantial development accretions would require massive
financial investment, coordinated by central government. In other words,
state-led development was believed to be the key to development gains
across the developing world. As a result, for several decades after the
Second World War, "both liberal and Marxist experts saw states as
playing the central role in the process of development through their
commanding position in the governance of society' (Ellis and ter Haar
2005: 1)
It was believed to be primarily the job of government to inaugurate and
deliver the policies and programmes to bring about, sustain and expand
development. Initially, problems of underdevelopment were regarded
primarily as technical issues that could be resolved by trained
administrators who, producing the necessary policies and programmes
and with the appropriate budget, would work to achieve the state's
developmental goals. Dedicated state officials were expected to imple-
ment the necessary policies, in line with relevant statements, policies and
programmes produced by government, and within budget. In short,
governments in the developing countries were regarded as the primary
agents of development, mainly responsible for improving the material
well being of all their citizens (Calvert and Calvert 2001).
Over time, however, the dominant role of government in achieving
development was increasingly questioned, not least because of wide-
spread and palpable failures among developing countries to attain the
goal. There was also a second concern: was a one-dimensional concern
with economic development alone - that is, more and more economic
growth as quickly as possible - enough to deliver broad-based develop-
ment goals and aspirations? Was more effort necessary to ensure that
fruits of economic growth were more evenly distributed? And what of the
environmental consequences and costs of industrialization, a seem- ingly
inevitable by-product of economic growth? A result of such con- cerns
was that over time the question of development and how to achieve it
moved from a core concern with economic growth to a wider issue: how
to attain what became known as 'human development?
What is "human development'? The quandary of how to perceive and
measure development led the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) to devise the Human Development Index (HDI) in 1990. The
HDI is an attempt to arrive at an objective conception of development, by
combining indicators of economic and social welfare. The HDI, now
published annually, seeks to apportion equal weight to a number of
development attributes, including life expectancy at birth, educational
attainment and the utility derived from income', i.e., citizens' purchasing
power. Overall, the core of the concept is that it puts human at the centre,
not incomes. It seeks to measure three main elements (life expectancy;
education/literacy; and adjusted incomes). It works on the premise that
people are the real wealth of a nation. The basic objective of develop-
ment is to create an enabling environment for people to live long, healthy
and creative lives (HDR 2006). Overall, human development is a process
of enlarging people's choices. "The most critical ones are to lead a long
and healthy life, to be educated and to enjoy a decent standard of living.
Additional choices include political freedom, guaranteed human rights
and self-respect (HDR 1990).
The key aspects of human development are:
 Incomes are means not an end.
 Humans are ends not means.
 Humans are a vitally important resource.
 Major focus is on basic needs-type goods and services, but the
concept also discusses other issues, including: freedom, the natural
environ- ment and local communities. As a result, human
development is not a closed idea but an open-ended concept. The
defining characteristic is that all issues brought in are those that may
affect human potential.
 Freedom to choose is given priority, that is, human development
concerns widening human choices.
The notion of human development' can be understood in various ways.
Politically and economically, human development is concerned with sta-
bility, security and citizens' relative prosperity, Socially, it relates to lit-
eracy, education, social relationships and, more vaguely, the quality of
life". Morally, it involves development of conscience, moral awareness,
and the will and associated capacity to act according to societal and
cultural knowledge of what is judged to be right - and in the developing
world this often overlaps with life's religious and spiritual dimensions.
Finally, psychologically, human development is to do with mental health,
self-esteem, success in significant relationships, and human happiness.
The multiple dimensions of human development collectively underline
even: stability, security and relative prosperity, with political, economic,
social, prala BAR psych Until development professionals, human
development was regarded as an add-on, an 'optional extra', peripheral to
a much more pressing concern: finding ways consistently to generate
increased economic growth. Now, however, things are changing:
typically, development professionals now seek to try to make the idea of
human development a reality by including various factors, including the
spiritual dimension of life, in their consid- erations (Kollapen 2005)
Advantages of the human development approach compared to basic needs
and capability approaches are that it: (1) goes beyond basic', as it
encompasses all nations, both developing and developed; (2) takes us
further than physical condition to include institutional and political
elements; (3) seeks to tally up and assess individual country progress and,
as a result, improves upon the capability approach; and (4) is significantly
a political as well as development agenda. Note, however, that human
development is never a finished process but a work-in-progress, a
continuing attempt to evaluate humanity's current condition. It is also a
normative attempt to outline development pri- orities while also serving
as a rallying cry for all those seeking human and humane alternatives.
The concept has also attracted controversy for various reasons. There is
the problem of how we might seek to measure human development, not
least because there are inherent problems with any measure. For example,
which dimensions should be included? What scale of measurement
should be used? How can we usefully weight different elements that
overall add up to a category? (Stewart 2006).
Some countries have major differences in their ranking on the human
development index (HDI) compared with GNP per capita. For example
many communist and former communist countries - for example, Cuba -
do better on human development compared to GNP, as do social
democratic countries, with their pronounced emphasis on social sectors,
for example, Costa Rica. Finally, some countries with failed or failing
economies - such as Democratic Republic of Congo and Lebanon - also
do better in terms of human development compared to GNP. In some
other developing countries, the position is reversed: they do better on
GNP than human development indicators. These include oil economies,
such as Saudi Arabia and Gabon, and countries seriously affected by
Hiv/AIDS, for example, Guinea and Burkina Faso.
There are several policy lessons to be noted. First, there are many paths to
human development success including: good growth; relatively equitable
distribution of income and well-targeted social expenditures. Second, in
general, countries that are successful in improving human development
are those that give priority to girls and women (in terms of both education
and incomes) and also have high social expenditures as share of income.
While there are various views regarding the best ways of achieving
noinan chevelopment, there Is an emerging consensus that in
dieosttilized. This reflects a widespread agreement that development is a
complex process, difficult to attain, and a realization that it may be
necessary to include various non-state entities to maximize chances of
achieving it. As a result, development agencies, practitioners and
academics now argue that the state cannot realistically do everything
necessary to achieve development goals; it is also crucial to involve
various non-state actors - especially community organizations - to add to
governmental efforts. This does not imply that the state's role is sidelined
or marginalized - but it does emphasize that development is a complex
business, more likely attainable with clear and effective societal inputs
than without them (Desai and Potter 2002; Clark 2006; Haynes 2005a). A
wider point is that both external actors - mainly by their ability to provide
development aid - and a variety of internal components are crucially
involved in achieving development.
Globalization and development
Although we shall devote a later chapter to this issue (chapter 3), I want
to introduce it now because of its significance for development in the
developing world. Although the topic has only appeared in academic and
popular usage in recent years, this does not imply that globalization began
only a short time ago. Instead, it is widely agreed, globalization began in
the seventeenth century, characterized by the spread of capital- ism from
Europe and the subsequent growth of colonial empires (Haynes 2005b).
Nevertheless, two fairly recent global processes -economic lib-
eralization and the 'third wave of democracy' (Huntington 1991) - have
had important ramifications for development outcomes across the devel-
oping world in recent years (McGrew and Poku 2007). They have led
both to increased political and economic interaction between state and
society in developing countries and between governments of the latter
and governments in the West. In addition, contemporary globalization is
also characterized by pervasive calls for better governance in the devel-
oping world, as well as increased focus on human development. For all
these reasons, globalization is of crucial importance for understanding
development outcomes in the developing world.
But what is 'governance'? The terms governance and "good gover- nance'
are common in the development literature. As a concept, ‘gover-nance'
has two key aspects: it (1) describes the process of governmental
decision-making and (2) the manner by which decisions are put into
practice (or, in some cases, not put into practice). Theoretically, whatever
the precise nature of the political system within which they function,
public institutions have three functions: (1) conduct public affairs, (2)
manage public resources, and (3) guarantee the realization of a range of
human rights. Good governance succeeds in delivering these objectives in
a manner and context that is (mostly) free of abuse and corruption and
with due regard for the rule of law. Note, however, that 'good gov-
ernance' is an ideal - difficult to achieve and to implement in its totality.
There are two key dimensions to its implementation. On the one hand,
good governance should be a primary internal goal of (preferably demo-
cratically elected) governments. In addition, virtually all developing
countries are dependent on various external actors for developmental
Imputs and increasingasters actordere thane proctorcontimprecisate
developmental assistance.
In sum, globalization is a key issue in relation to development out- comes
in the developing world because of its enormous, continuing and
interlinked economic, social, cultural and political ramifications. For
example, in relation to economic issues, often deemed the most im-
portant single component of globalization in relation to the developing
world, many point to the economic significance, range and clout of
transnational business corporations (TNCs) (Ibhawoh 2007). Thousands
of TNCs are active in the developing world and many observers contend
that many have greater power - because of their economic and political
clout - than most governments of developing countries. In addition,
economic globalization is also widely associated with growing impover-
ishment of already poor people in many parts of the developing world
(Thomas 2005). Together, these circumstances encourage many people
and their representative organizations - both secular and faith-based - to
work towards amelioration of developmental imbalances that many
believe are caused or at least exacerbated by economic globalization
(Alkire 2006).
The overall result is widespread concern with developmental dimen-
sions and outcomes of economic globalization in the developing world.
This is manifested in various ways, including not only increased popular
involvement in development initiatives, but also widespread support
around the world for anti-globalization' activities, such as anti-World
Trade Organization protests and international economic justice efforts
(Spickard 2001). Collectively, these reactions underline that responses to
economic globalization in the developing world increasingly include a
stress on social interests that go way beyond the confines of what might
be called conventional development concerns that have traditionally been
concerned primarily with economic development. Moreover, extensive
demands for increased developmental justice dovetail with a call - from
both citizens and international agencies, including the United Nations and
the World Bank - for better governance in the developing world (Cleary
and McConville 2006).
Globalization and human development
Focus on both globalization and good governance coincides with growing
interest in the theory and practice of human development, implying a
developmental concern that goes beyond economic growth alone to
include life's spiritual and ethical dimensions. As already noted, when the
concept of development was first introduced after the Second World War,
it meant economic development tout court, with a generalized notion of
economic growth over time. In recent years, however, the concept of
human development has come into vogue, emphasizing aspects of
people's lives that go beyond the economic dimension', including: health,
education, literacy, social relationships, and the overall quality of life"
(Ellis and Ter Haar 2005: 1). As noted above, the UNDP rightly regards
"human development as a 'complex concept of development, based on the
priority of human well-being, aimed at ensuring and enlarg- ing human
choices leading to greater equality of opportunities for all people in
society and empowerment of people so that they participate in - and
benefit from - the development process' (Human Development Report
1996: 5).
Over the years, numerous popular organizations at the community level
throughout the developing world have sought to improve human
development outcomes in relation to: education, social welfare, charita-
ble work, and humanitarian relief (Haynes 1993; Dark 2000). Nonethe-
less, it was common to see community-level organizations excluded from
national development programmes, as they were typically modernization
processes overseen by governments with scant regard for what 'ordinary'
people regarded as appropriate (Alkire 2006). Now, however, numerous
sionals for their welsamatoris are recognized by development proses
human development; and, in some cases, this has led to cooperation in
relation to specific development objectives (Haynes 2007c). The sources
of such cooperation often lie in shared desire to answer the following
questions.
 What should be key developmental priorities in the early years of the
21" century?
 How can popular organizations assist in achievement of development
goals?
 What should be the relationship between external development agen-
cies, governments and community-level organizations in relation to
development?
But these are rather new topics when it comes to the theory and process
of development.
The term "development' first acquired a clear meaning for many western
social scientists in the decades after the Second World War. Then, the key
issue was the likely political and economic trajectories of 'under-
developed' or 'developing countries, many of which were emerging from
colonial rule. In the late 1940s, the main focus was Asia (including
Ceylon (Sri Lanka), India, Nepal, Pakistan and Indonesia) and from the
mid-1950s, sub-Saharan Africa (starting with Sudan in 1956 and Ghana a
year later) and the Caribbean. Over time, a new academic sub- discipline
- development studies - evolved, chiefly drawing on insights from
political science, economics and sociology (Clark 2006). Develop- ment
studies examined comparative political cultures, nation-building and the
construction of stable institutions and administrations, as well as how
currently underdeveloped countries might deal with uniformly pressing
problems of political and economic 'underdevelopment".
The most basic assumption underlying the general concept of develop-
ment was the need for poverty reduction and, by extension, accretions in
the mass of ordinary people's well being. These were believed neces- sary
to encourage economic, human and political development. These
assumptions underpinned the emergence and development of the aca-
demic study of development after the Second World War, when the issue
first appeared on national and international agendas. It soon became
apparent, however, that development was a more complex issue than
initially supposed. Following decolonization, by the 1960s and 1970s
there was growing realization of an increasingly developmentally
polarized world - and no quick fix readily available to improve things.
During the 1980s, leading Western governments and international finan-
cial institutions (IFIs), including the International Monetary Fund and the
World Bank, sought to deal with increasingly clear developmental
imbalances by encouraging a shrinking of the state's developmental
responsibilities in the developing world, working on the presumption that
many governments tried to do too much yet often performed badly:
spending large amounts of money and time but developmentally achiev-
ing little or nothing. However, lack of clear or widespread success with
this strategy led to another rethink in the 1990s: to achieve broad-based
‘development’ in the developing world it was necessary to create,
embedand develop three-way partnerships involving international donors,
national governments and local communities. Such concerns were at the
heart of proposals and policies expressed in the Millennium Develop-
ment Goals announced in 2000 (www.un.org/millenniumgoals/).