Lecture 1: What is development? Flashcards
Politics
How public decisions are made, who gets what, when and how?
What is development ?
Many definitions, however, we are developing everyone.
What are we Developing?
Economic development - eg. GDP per capita
Social development - eg. Improving healthcare ,education
Political development - eg. Democracy
Psychological development - eg. Personal wellbeing, Happiness kind of subjective but all matter to some extent
Modernization
all of the components of development are correlated through modernization: A linear transition from the same ‘traditional’ start to the same ‘modern’ end. other views say that development is subjective!
We need a middle ground and more ‘useful’ relationship between the dimensions of development
Development as Freedom (Sen 1999)
Why does freedom matter for development?
- Intrinsic/Constitutive reason: Freedom matters in itself
- Instrumental reason: Freedoms promote other freedoms
* Eg. Democracy prevents famine…
…But also matters for political freedom initself
* Recognizes development contains complementarities between dimensions(=Modernization Theory)
o But ‘freedoms’ let people choose what they value (=Subjective Development)
Development as Freedom (Sen 1999)
Three Clarications:
-Not just ‘freedom from’ interference (libertarianism; negative freedom)
Freedom = Capabilities (opportunities; positive freedom)
Eg. the capability to live a long life; to become a teacher
-Not just income
Not all ends can be bought
Needs vary: Resources are converted into capabilities
-Not about what people do with their Freedoms/Capabilities
People choose specic Functionings
5 freedoms of Sen
- Participate in politics
- Engage in economic transactions
- Social opportunities through education and healthcare
- Transparency during interactions
- Security of life
-How do we decide which Capabilities/Freedoms matter?
For Sen, this is what democracy is for…
…But he still proposes his five freedoms
How do we ‘decide’ for countries under
authoritarianism?
-Not just a normative question
Politics is the conflict between people who
value different dimensions of development
-The complementarities quickly disappear…
COVID demonstration that different people had different priorities
Development is a conflict about what development is
Rural vs Urban
Intergenerational (conflict is huge)
Sustainable Development
“Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs” (Bruntland Commission 1987)
basically don’t use all the resources for the future generations
Do we prioritize freedoms today or freedoms of future generations? Eg. for climate change, how much would you pay to give an extra $100 to your great great grandchildren (100 years from now)?
-The ‘Development First’ route
Wealth and education reduce fertility and
support cleaner technologies, reducing
environmental pressures
Rapid technological innovation will help us
solve problems like climate change and
become more resilient (get rich quick to fix all this problems, invent AI to fix it all etc)
The Kuznets curve
Approach 2; Sustainable Development
The ‘Sustainability First’ route
Tackling environmental challenges will
stimulate new innovations and investments
Conserving assets improves their
productivity, eg. new medical cures in the
rainforest
Avoiding climate stresses prevents conflict
and boosts yields
Post-Development Critiques
1) The discourse of ‘Development’ makes people think of themselves as ‘underdeveloped’ (development is a construct of the post war world that discourse is materialistic and problematic)
“Poverty is a myth, a construct and the invention
of a particular civilization” (Rahnema 1997)
Rejecting Modernization Theory: We’re not all
traveling in the same direction; more is not
always better
2) ‘Development’ is an imposition of power and hierarchy
A ‘weapon’ of the cold war and post-colonialism
Development as ‘planned poverty’ (Illich 1997)
“A top down, ethnocentric, and technocratic
approach” (Escobar 1992)
Westernization and eradicating diversity
Norway’s hypocritical gas policy creates
dependency and neocolonialism 3) ‘Development’ has failed on its own terms
Rising inequality
“Delusions and disappointment, failures and crimes have been steady companions of development and they tell a common story: it did not work” (Sachs 1992)
4) Development is an industry
Governments, NGOs, BINGOs, for-profit companies, foundations
Reliant on the continuation of poverty
Lobbying governments for new contracts
Governments seeking markers for their companies
This people have an incentive to the continuation of poverty
Measuring Development
Challenges to Measurement
Limited data collection capacity in key regions
Difficult to gather frequent, representative data on the most vulnerable
Hard to link progress directly to specific policies
Development is multi-dimensional Human Development Index (HDI)
Not a measure of life quality, but focuses on education, health, and income
Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)
Measures % of people poor in at least 1/3 of key indicators
Highlights the intensity of poverty
Sustainability Concerns
HDI/MPI reward resource use but overlook long-term environmental impacts
Ecological Footprint measures the area required to sustain human activity
1.75 Earths needed to sustain current consumption; 5 Earths if everyone lived like the USA
📈 Progress in Development
Rapid but Uneven progress
Poverty increasingly concentrated in Africa
