November 2, 2010Modernization , Dependency, Human Development

Recap 1 – criteria for assessing a develop theory/approach. These were:

▪ Justice; difference; agency▪Note: justice as redistribution versus▪Justice as removing oppression (metaphor of the cage)

Recap 2: Two approaches to development – modernization; human development as capability

Critique and compare modernization and capability approaches by using our three

criteria

Look at the dependency approach Human development as social power

Five stages of growth the traditional society the preconditions for take-off the take-off the drive to maturity, and the age of high mass-consumption.

LinearSees growth as a ‘naturalized’

processDoes not identify forces of changeNo contradictionsAssumes the ‘superiority’ of the

Western model

Justice (distribution vs oppression) Difference (race, gender, ethnicity

etc.) Agency (who brings about change?

From above or below? Who has a voice in determining how development happens?

Note: these three are connected. You cannot consider one without the other.

http://www.teacherlink.org/content/social/instructional/industrialrevolution/home.html

Gallery of Industrial Revolutionhttp://www.learnhistory.org.uk/cpp/1750gal.htm

Other views

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/Curricula/Immigration/factory.html

Modernization cannot be replicated in its entirety

It was a specific phenomena that occurred in the West because of a combination of factors

Not linear

Andre Gunder Frank: No development

Cardoso & Faletto: Dependent development (or “associated-dependent development)

Cardoso link

Development of UnderdevelopmentThat the development of the

advanced world and underdevelopment of the “backward” world are parts of the same process

Underdevelopment and dependency cannot be overcome unless the links between the “advanced” and the “backward” world are severed

“It may happen that a society modernizes its patterns of consumption, education, and so forth without a corresponding advance in development, if by development we understand less dependency and self-sustained growth based on the local capital accumulation and on the dynamism of the industrial sector”

To analyze development properly, we must consider in their totality the "historic specificities," both economic and social, underlying the development processes at the national and international levels.

Suggests that binaries such as Development/underdevelopmentCenter/periphery Internal/externalTraditional/modern Economic/social developmentAre not useful in the analysis of social

change

This idea stresses that underdeveloped economies are not in total stagnation

Forces of change are in playMain prescriptions:Locally-based industrializationStrong state and public sector Delinking

The Three Approaches At a Glance

HD as enhancement of capability

HD as protection of the most vulnerable

HD as changes in the matrix of social power

The capability approach

Main distributive, as associated with capitalism, with minimal liberal regulations, so as to give individuals better access and rights

The human face approach

Focuses on economic inequality, especially inequality amongst nations.

The capability approach

Speaks at length of gender, sporadically of ethnicity and religion; but always within the framework of distributive justice, particularly the distribution of access and opportunity for individuals

The human face approach

Largely silent; its focus is on groups such as women and children who are most vulnerable

The capability approach

The goal is to develop individual agency; in the interim, the state and international institutions are to be the agents which create conditions for the development of individual agency

The human face approach

The goal is to develop the capacity of  international institutions as agents; it also emphasizes the role of the state, and policy-makers as  agents

Basic ideas: Development is about unequal

power relations between collective entities

Gender, race, class, nation etc. Inequality between these entities

is Structural and require changes in

the structure

Indicators of Human Development Kerala All of India

Male literacy rate 94 76

Female literacy rate 88 54

Percentage of Population Below Poverty Line - 1999-2000

13 26

Infant Mortality Rate - 2000 14 68

Human Development Index Rank 2001 (out of 15)

1

High levels of human development despite low levels of income

Dramatic changes in fertility, literacy, workforce participation came about without coercion

Strong participation by civil societyRelatively high levels of gender

equalitySubstantive redistribution of social

power as manifested in programs such as land reform

Continuing problem of growth and unemployment, which derives arguably from an inadequate emphasis on local development

Caste-based and gender exclusion

Environmental concerns

HD requires changes in structures that make people powerless :

Land reformsPublic investmentcollective forms of economic

production such as cooperativesConscious efforts for workplace

democratizationState-mediated distributive policies

especially in basic necessities such as food and health care

Addressed clearly the problem of gender equality

Kerala is the only Indian state where the sex ratio for women exceeded 1 Female literacy exceeds rest of India

Female life expectancy exceeds that for males

However, women’s economic and political participation remain inadequate. Why?

One of the central pillars of the Kerala model has been the nature of agency:

Collective agency e.g., local communities, people’s organizations, networks of solidarity 

Decentralization, which has not been without contradictions, but has opened up space for agents at the local level

Kerala’s decentralization strategy and the People’s Plan Campaign are organised on very different principles than the neo-liberal model of decentralization. Key Features:

Transfer of resources from central to local institutions

Local planning and social control Local self-government structures as

the main agents of local planning Involvement of mass-based

organisations

The question of power is central to human development. Human development cannot be seen as a sum of a number of strategic tasks disembedded from an overall structure of power

It is therefore important to think of human development as a reconfiguration of power rather than discrete policy measures

Institutions are as much a problem as a potential solution for human development