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Development Theories
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College 1 – 5-9-2013 – Development TheoriesGuus van Westen
Dualism in Development Thinking
(Groep 3 – student seminars)
Theory is a view on reality. In the social science almost always a subjective
element, you choose a perspective. Usually part of a certain community.
Selection of what matters more than other things.
Theories are contextual:
• Reactions to previous thinking, or builing upon and refining previous
thinking
• Informed by practice, used to distill policies and interventions
• Theories are reformulations of older thought, recycled.
• Development thinking is a practice to be rooted in colonial societies,
reflects preoccupations of certain historical times.
Theories are social constructs, never reality itself but a human picture of
reality.
Theories come in discourses, a toolkit of concepts, a language of ideas and
concepts. This steers your findings into certain directions.
Cypher&Dietz use a economic approach to development.
After WWII, economic development was considered development an sich.
After that, the view of development has broadened, more dimensions have
been added to it.
Diagram of main theories: divided in political left and right.
Approach in this course
1) Grand Theories, who try to explain all
2) More modest thinking
a. Perspectives (theories of development)
b. Themes (thinking within development)
Compare different viewpoints in your assignments.
Dualist Theories of Development
The Colonial Legacy
Development stems from certain societal contexts, building on Christian
notions, such as salvation. It is also rooted in 18th century Enlightenment
thinking movement: ‘the belief that the world can be made, your life is
makeable.’ This belief is progress started in the 18th century in Europe.
Notion like development fits within this framework of belief in progress.
Positivism: belief that reality can be understood, that theory can
effectively describe reality.
In the economic context it is linked to the Industrial Revolution, the
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, makeability of economic life, application of technology.
Dualist thinking:
Dualism is not a theory, but a way of looking at society. The key issue in
dualism is thinking in binaries, two models. Many social issues do not exist
in binaries, but are more like a continuum. The problem is then that you
stereotype to extremes and make them like closed systems that exist in
opposition to each other. That is the issue with dualism. Example: South
Africa.
If you start to behave like the opposites are completely different,
differences will become difficult to bridge and grow further apart.
Dualist thinking about development is rooted in the colonial context;
European powers considered themselves superior to local cultures. They
felt a calling to uplift these cultures, conveniently coming with a financial
compensation.
In social and cultural domains the problem is ‘othering’, essentialising
differences between people.
Economic dualism: thinking in separate sectors.
• Traditional sector, represents endogenous growth
• Modern sector, represents interaction with outside forces > related
to capitalism > enclaves
Don’t take every theory too literal, as an accurate description of reality.
Quite often, the modern sector, in developing countries, is still benefitting
from the traditional sector. Then the modern sector can pay lower wages,
f.e. people have their own gardens to grow their own food. Binary thinking
does not easily show these links.
First academic to elaborate economic dualism:
J.H. Boeke (1920-1930): gloomy view on two sectors in economy and
society. This was blocking process, we should breach the differences.
Modernist thinking: Lewis (1950s)
Critics of economic dualism:
• Two sectors are linked to each other, so that the powerful sector is
benefitting in a hidden way from the less powerful one.
• Colonial cities (like the French in Africa) were very dual, with a
separation between the central area (white) and the urban
periphery. This overlooks the fact that the two parts couldn’t exist
without each other, are interlinked.
Othering: an european view of the west, exotic, not trustworthy but
exciting. In this view, non-europeans are not seen as people to be taken
seriously.
Kipling – The White Man’s Burden
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