Discourse and Ethics in International Development

Question 1

What is international development?

Answer 1

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

Question 2

What are the roots of the discipline?

Answer 2

Truman’s point 4 ‘underdeveloped’ (inadequate food, disease, primitive economic life, poverty)
‘Progress’ (knowledge, skills, resources)
Cold War proxy states

Question 3

What does President Harry Truman’s Point 4 state?

Answer 3

Two sides:
Inadequate food, disease, primitive economic life, and poverty (underdeveloped)
Scientific advancement, industrial progress, and technical knowledge (developed)

Question 4

How is the developing world characterized by?

Answer 4

A rich diversity of human experience and social organization
A vast variety of political organizations
Dual society signs of material wealth coexist with poverty

Question 5

What is post-development?

Answer 5

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

Question 6

What does labeling do?

Answer 6

Make existing practices appear legitimate

Shape future policy-making

Question 7

What are the four important labels?

Answer 7

Developed
Developing
Underdeveloped
Least developed

Question 8

What are the Three Worlds?

Answer 8

First World (capitalist and democratic)
Second World (communist and planned economy)
Third World (everyone else)

Question 9

What are the NICs?

Answer 9

Newly Industrialized Countries (China, Brazil, Russia, and others)
Referred to as ‘emerging markets’

Question 10

What are the four economic criteria by which NIC status is determined?

Answer 10

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

Question 11

What does GDP growth classify?

Answer 11

Countries as developed or developing

Question 12

What is a ‘trickle down’?

Answer 12

Copying the industrialization experience of the West

Question 13

What is income inequality?

Answer 13

A measure of how the wealth of a country is distributed among its population

Question 14

How is income inequality measured?

Answer 14

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%

Question 15

What is social capital?

Answer 15

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

Question 16

What is absolute poverty?

Answer 16

Refers to being below the minimum level of income required for physical survival ($1.25/day, measured in 2005 $US)

Question 17

What is moderate poverty?

Answer 17

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)

Question 18

What is relative poverty?

Answer 18

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

Question 19

What does the term ‘Fourth World’ mean?

Answer 19

Denote the poorest of the poor countries

Refers to the internal colonization of aboriginal peoples

Question 20

What is the Human Development Index (HDI) constructed of?

Answer 20

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

Question 21

What is discourse?

Answer 21

‘Understands’ context
Is about power
Shapes what is seen as right, possible behavior
Shapes practice

Question 22

In regards to discourse, what is a narrative?

Answer 22

Unifies a discourse
Gives the construction meaning, which is constituted through language
Also called a thesis

Question 23

What is the difference between a dominant and a subjugated narrative?

Answer 23

Dominant narratives are empowered and frames ‘truth’

Subjugated narratives are disempowered and are discrete to brush off as irrelevant

Question 24

What does the cosmopolitanism argument consist of?

Answer 24

Universalism
Consequentialist
Contractarian
Rights-based

Question 25

According to cosmpolitanism, what is universalism?

Answer 25

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

Question 26

According to cosmopolitanism, who is a consequentialist?

Answer 26

Assess whether or an action is morally or just on the basis of the goodness or value of the outcomes it produces

Question 27

According to cosmopolitanism, who is a contractarian?

Answer 27

Holds that moral norms are justified according to the idea of a contract or mutual agreement

Question 28

According to cosmopolitanism, what is rights-based?

Answer 28

Justifies moral claims on the basis of fundamental entitlements to act or be treated in specific ways

Question 29

What does Peter Singer’s Drowning Child Analogy signify?

Answer 29

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

Question 30

What is the communitarianism argument?

Answer 30

Takes issue with the cosmopolitan assumption that national borders have no moral importance

Question 31

What does communitarianism believe?

Answer 31

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

Question 32

What is libertarian/neo-liberalism?

Answer 32

Places particular value on the right of individuals to acquire and retain private property

Question 33

What does individualism/private property state?

Answer 33

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

Question 34

What is a researcher?

Answer 34

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

Question 35

What is a practitioner?

Answer 35

Informed consent usually translates as ensuring that participation is willing and voluntary in the development project at hand

Question 36

What is positionality?

Answer 36

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