Discourse and Ethics in International Development Flashcards
What is international development?
Aims to explain both the diversity evident in the world in relation to human well-being and the common patterns that emerge when comparing people, social groups, nations, economic stems, and regions of the world
What are the roots of the discipline?
Truman’s point 4 ‘underdeveloped’ (inadequate food, disease, primitive economic life, poverty)
‘Progress’ (knowledge, skills, resources)
Cold War proxy states
What does President Harry Truman’s Point 4 state?
Two sides:
Inadequate food, disease, primitive economic life, and poverty (underdeveloped)
Scientific advancement, industrial progress, and technical knowledge (developed)
How is the developing world characterized by?
A rich diversity of human experience and social organization
A vast variety of political organizations
Dual society signs of material wealth coexist with poverty
What is post-development?
A critique of the development industry, the traditional dichotomy of rich equal in the west and north, and poor equal in the south in the east
What does labeling do?
Make existing practices appear legitimate
Shape future policy-making
What are the four important labels?
Developed
Developing
Underdeveloped
Least developed
What are the Three Worlds?
First World (capitalist and democratic) Second World (communist and planned economy) Third World (everyone else)
What are the NICs?
Newly Industrialized Countries (China, Brazil, Russia, and others)
Referred to as ‘emerging markets’
What are the four economic criteria by which NIC status is determined?
Manufactured goods contributing 30% GDP
Manufactured goods as 50% of total exports
A shift in employment from agriculture to industry
Per capita income of at least US$2,000
What does GDP growth classify?
Countries as developed or developing
What is a ‘trickle down’?
Copying the industrialization experience of the West
What is income inequality?
A measure of how the wealth of a country is distributed among its population
How is income inequality measured?
A comparison of the income earned by a different strata of the population and the Gini coefficient
A standard comparison is between the earnings of the wealthiest 20% of the population and the poorest 40%
What is social capital?
Refers to the extent to which individuals are willing to cooperate in the pursuit of shared goals and is usually thought to be essential to the development of a civic and democratic culture
What is absolute poverty?
Refers to being below the minimum level of income required for physical survival ($1.25/day, measured in 2005 $US)
What is moderate poverty?
Typically considered to be a level at which basic needs are barely met but survival is not actually threatened ($2.00/day, measured in 2005 $US)
What is relative poverty?
Refers to a kind of poverty that does not threaten daily survival but in which an individual may not have the income necessary to fully participate in his or her society
What does the term ‘Fourth World’ mean?
Denote the poorest of the poor countries
Refers to the internal colonization of aboriginal peoples
What is the Human Development Index (HDI) constructed of?
A long and healthy life is measured by life expectancy at birth
Knowledge is a composite of the adult literacy rate and the combined gross enrolment ratio for primary, secondary, and post-secondary schools
Standard of living is measured by GDP per capita
What is discourse?
‘Understands’ context
Is about power
Shapes what is seen as right, possible behavior
Shapes practice
In regards to discourse, what is a narrative?
Unifies a discourse
Gives the construction meaning, which is constituted through language
Also called a thesis
What is the difference between a dominant and a subjugated narrative?
Dominant narratives are empowered and frames ‘truth’
Subjugated narratives are disempowered and are discrete to brush off as irrelevant
What does the cosmopolitanism argument consist of?
Universalism
Consequentialist
Contractarian
Rights-based
According to cosmpolitanism, what is universalism?
Justice is owed to all people regardless of where they happen to live or where they happen to have been born, and regardless of their race or gender, class or citizenship
According to cosmopolitanism, who is a consequentialist?
Assess whether or an action is morally or just on the basis of the goodness or value of the outcomes it produces
According to cosmopolitanism, who is a contractarian?
Holds that moral norms are justified according to the idea of a contract or mutual agreement
According to cosmopolitanism, what is rights-based?
Justifies moral claims on the basis of fundamental entitlements to act or be treated in specific ways
What does Peter Singer’s Drowning Child Analogy signify?
Our moral intuition tells us that you should clearly put aside those minor inconveniences in order to save the [child’s life] and if you ignored the situation, you would have done something seriously morally wrong
What is the communitarianism argument?
Takes issue with the cosmopolitan assumption that national borders have no moral importance
What does communitarianism believe?
Political and social community is morally relevant
We are justified in giving (moral) preference to the needs of our fellow citizens, because membership in the nation creates special bonds
What is libertarian/neo-liberalism?
Places particular value on the right of individuals to acquire and retain private property
What does individualism/private property state?
The simple existence of (even extreme) inequality of wealth and poverty does not indicate justice
Individuals should be free to give donations to poorer people if they so choose, but there is no moral obligation to do so
What is a researcher?
Tends to be principally concerned with the issues of informed consent and respect for the privacy and confidentiality of those who participate in their studies
What is a practitioner?
Informed consent usually translates as ensuring that participation is willing and voluntary in the development project at hand
What is positionality?
Suggests that researchers or development practitioners must be aware of and reflect upon the social and power relationships in which they are embedded, particularly in their position relative is to the local people with whom they interact
