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Reading summary for Politics of Development
- Cours
- C231
- Établissement
- Universiteit Gent (UGent)
This is a comprehensive summary of all the mandatory readings from Politics of Development course of professor Iniesta.
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Readings politics of developmentClass 1: why a politics of development? Concept and theories
Podcast “Global Development Institute Podcast”. In conversation: The future of development studies
• Is development compatible with identities?
o Yes, not like Fukuyama saying we will all be similar BUT there are some losses (languages, cultures, and
common practices now… e.g running in Africa has changed) but no cultural conversion
o Impact of technology and media in how we view culture and culture never stays still – development is an
ongoing process (not an endpoint)
• Values of development research/intervention/….? And are they compatible with the local identities?
o Personal attachment of some things as cultural so you should accept them
o A degree of uncomfortableness of globalization and dev process (don’t see it as a process of change,
where you think of how other disciplines can help pull certain questions and not only eco, pol and soc)
• Technological advancement: how can we as students keep up changes and are dev studies
o Notion that we tend to overestimate the impact of technology on development in the short term and
underestimate the impact in the long run → don’t get caught up with the hype with the new updates,
step back and think about the technologies that are having a scaled impact + trying to look at big pictures
(what are the deeper changes going on in economics, politics,…. E.g. De-initialization of technology)
o Technology is always there and how it impacts society for example for labour demands (eg tractors) and
the consequences of it (e.g. climate pollution,…) →tech always keeps evolving and you have to keep up
and look especially at the implications (who wins and looses and what are the implications of that)
• Many paradigms of development based on changing priorities (climate, peace and security,…) BUT when thinking
of development you think always moving forward while some ppl think it might move backwards instead
• Today multipolar with new actors, no specific paradigm (all is linked, no easy agenda that organisations can all
agree on bcs you recognize that development is much more complex)
• Mainly present in francophone and Anglo-Saxon countries linked with previous colonizer countries – dev studies
come from the idea that global north countries have ideas,… to bring transformation for change (link with China
doing dev studies in global south) BUT it also changed and ideas of development moves on
Historical video: US President Harry Truman’s 1949 inaugural address
• Promises to the citizens to do all he can for the welfare of the US for the peace of the world and asks for the
encouragement and support of the people
• The task they face are difficult and can only be accomplished if they work together
• Special challenges today that mark influencing not only the US but the world
• First mark of the century marked by unprecedented and brutal attacks on the rights of man and by the two
biggest wars in history so now we have to learn to live together in peace and harmony since there is lots of
uncertainty now (great hopes and fears where now the role of the US is important)
• Take this occasion to proclaim to the world the principle of faith by which the US lives and to declare their aims
to all peoples the American people stand firm in the faith which has inspired the US from the beginning
o Believe that all man have the right to equal justice under law and equal opportunity to share in the
common man + freedom of thought and expression + all man are created equal
• The US desire and are determined to work for a world in which all nations and all ppl are free to gov themselves
and to achieve a decent and satisfying life + work for peace on long lasting peace
• US & other like-minded nations find themselves directly opposed by regime with contrary aims and a totally
different concept of life – with poverty and tyranny
o Against communism that believes that men are so weak that they can’t govern themselves & opposition
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, o Pro democracy thinking that men has the ability to govern himself with reason and justice
▪ Protecting rights of the individual
▪ Feminism things that social wrongs can be corrected only by violence while democracy has
proved that social justice can be achieved through peaceful change
• The opposition of democracy and communism concerns the whole world → communism philosophy is a threat
to the efforts of free nations to bring about world recovery and lasting peace
• Aim for stronger structure of international order and justice, with diff partners that want to improve the
standards of living of all their people
o Ready to undertake new projects to strengthen a free world: 4 main course of action in their programme
for peace and freedom: continue to support the UN & related agency and strengthen their authority and
increase their effectiveness, continue their programs for world economic recovery (EU recovery
programme) , continue to reducing barriers to the world trade and increase its volume (economy and
peace depend on increased world trade), strengthen freedom-loving nations against the dangers of
aggression (joint agreement for security in north Atlantic agreement for collective defence), provide
military equipment to free nations which will cooperate with us in their maintenance of peace and
security
• For first time in history humanity possesses knowledge and skills to relieve the suffering of people (industrial and
scientific techniques) + to help them realize their bad situation
• Must be a worldwide effort for the achievement of peace and freedom & fair deals
o All countries will benefit from a constructive program for the better use of the wolrd’s human and natural
resources experience sure that our commerce with other countries expand as they progress industrially
and eco
• Going towards international security and growing prosperity aided by all who wish to live in freedom (speech,
religion, …) and importance of allies
• New influence and responsibilities of the US
Susanne Hoeber Rudolph (2005) The Imperialism of Categories. Situating Knowledge in a Globalized World”.
Perspectives on Politics 3 (1): 5-14.
• Talks about own survey on political consciousness in South India and realised the weight of American ideology & liberalism
in shaping the research → racial disconnect as model assumes individualism while in India the individual is not unit of
opinion and it’s all matter of collective deliberation & assumption of all equal importance is wrong due to castes systems
o Illustrated the problem of exporting homegrown concepts and methodologies to alien places
o “imperialism of categories”: imposing concepts on the other, categories crafted in a dominant sociocultural
environment and exported to a subordinate one (logic of centre applying “universal” concepts to periphery)
o Categories as modes of creating and controlling- dominant ppl use types and stereotypes to control the dominated
by ranking and creating cultural social registers
• American social scientists, influenced by Lockean universalism, struggle to understand foreign societies due to their belief in
a common human nature. This complacent liberalism lacks the self-awareness of European liberalism, often projecting its
values onto other cultures. It questions whether American liberalism can genuinely engage with diverse cultures
o Having been “born free” makes the American liberalism lack the self-consciousness and reflexivity of EU liberalism –
they assume that the whole world is eager for a similar condition
• Historical connection between liberalism and imperialism, highlighting how liberal thinkers like Locke and Mill justified
colonial rule by portraying colonized peoples as less evolved (justification of empire). It contrasts this with Burke's approach,
which values cultural differences and emphasizes the importance of place in identity formation
o Critique of American academia for its lack of sensitivity to other cultures, exemplified by the dismissal of foreign
language requirements & stresses importance of understanding/respecting cultural differences in a global context.
• Distinction between models of and models for: models-of become models-for
o modernization theory's enduring influence, which sees Western development as the blueprint for global progress
(driven by inner reason). This theory, rooted in macro-historical paradigms, portrayed traditional societies as
inferior and advocated for their emulation of Western institutions. BUT it oversimplified the complexity of social
change & failed to recognize the plurality of modernities (said either high road to modernity or dustbin of history)
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, o critique of the dichotomous framework of modernization theory, arguing that social change is gradual and adaptive,
leading to diverse manifestations of modernity.
• new iterations of universalism, such as rational choice theory and globalization, share similar assumptions with
modernization theory. Rational choice theory, particularly prominent in economics and political science, emphasizes
methodological individualism and utility maximization, disregarding collective motives and cultural preferences. This
approach oversimplifies human behaviour, ignoring the role of sentiment and cultural variation. Unlike modernization
theory, which had a differentiated vocabulary to characterize different societies, rational choice theory tends to attribute
singular motives to actors without investigating their complexity. This disregard for cultural diversity undermines scholarship
that aims to understand and characterize diverse cultures and societies.
• Area studies as countermovement & importance of understanding and preserving cultural distinctiveness with globalization
o evolution of modernization theory and the emergence of countermovement’s like dependency theory, globalization
theory, and postcolonial criticism. Dependency theory, in particular, challenges modernization theory by
emphasizing exploitation and power differentials in global development & introduces idea of exploitation into its
understanding of development
o critiques the formation and goals of area studies, initially created to counter Communist influence during the Cold
War. However, area studies have evolved into a platform for understanding and respecting diverse cultures,
challenging imperialist narratives – learned to enter into the life of the other & “become” the other
o clash between area scholars and epistemological universalists, highlighting the moral implications of different
research methodologies.
o critiques of area studies from globalists who argue for a focus on fluid identities and transnational processes.
▪ Globalist see regional worlds converging on a single pattern but they often fail to confront the society and
politics of the other on the presumption that homogenizing global processes will make “local” knowledge
irrelevant (not yet)
• Situated knowledge acknowledges the influence of time, place, and circumstance on individuals and societies, emphasizing
specificity and local understanding. Unlike universalist theories, it constructs theories from the bottom-up, recognizing
diverse futures based on cultural backgrounds. It prioritizes interpretative modes of inquiry, valuing local knowledge and
understanding rather than imposing a single worldview.
Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson. “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development.
An Empirical Investigation.” American Economic Review, 2001
• evidence supporting the hypothesis that the institutional legacy of colonization has a profound and enduring
impact on the economic development of nations, highlighting the importance of fostering inclusive institutions
for sustained growth and prosperity.
• Abstract: We exploit differences in European mortality rates to estimate the effect of institutions on economic
performance. Europeans adopted very different colonization policies in different colonies, with different
associated institutions. In places where Europeans faced high mortality rates, they could not settle and were
more likely to set up extractive institutions. These institutions persisted to the present. Exploiting differences in
European mortality rates as an instrument for current institutions, we estimate large effects of institutions on
income per capita. Once the effect of institutions is controlled for, countries in Africa or those closer to the
equator do not have lower incomes
• Summary of arguments:
1. Institutions and Development: The quality of institutions, particularly those inherited from colonial powers,
significantly influences economic development outcomes in different countries. Institutions such as property rights
protection, rule of law, and constraints on executive power are crucial determinants of economic prosperity.
2. Colonial Legacies: Former colonies with extractive institutions, where power was concentrated in the hands of a
few elites to exploit resources for the benefit of the colonizers, tend to have worse economic performance compared
to those with inclusive institutions, which distribute power more broadly and encourage economic participation.
3. Persistence of Institutions: Even long after gaining independence, former colonies often retain the institutional
frameworks established during the colonial period, which continue to shape their economic trajectories.
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, 4. Geographic Determinism vs. Institutional Theory: The paper challenges the notion of geographic determinism,
which attributes differences in economic development primarily to geographical factors such as climate and natural
resources. Instead, it emphasizes the role of institutions as the primary driver of economic success or failure.
Class 2: Historicizing International Development and its Racial Logics
Getachew, Adom. Worldmaking after Empire (2019), pages 1-36.
• Independence of Ghana with speech of Nkrumah →birth of new Africa “ready to fight its own battles and show
that after all the black man is capable of managing his own affairs” - need liberation of all African continent
o Connection btwn Ghana’s independence and African emancipation →formation of new African states +
national independence as the first step in constituting a pan-african federation and transforming the
international order
• Today: failure and limits of postcolonial state of Ghana
• Book: studies global project of decolonization black Anglophone anticolonial critic and nationalist spearheaded in
the three decades after the end of the WWII →claim: decolonization: project of reordering the world that sought
to create a domination-free and egalitarian international order
o Actors reinvented self-determination reaching beyond its association with the nation to insist that the
achievement of this real required juridical, political, and eco institutions in the international ream that
would secure non-domination
• Argument: In casting anticolonial nationalists as wordmakers rather than solely nation builders, the book
illustrates that the age of decolonization anticipated and reconfigured our contemporary questions about
international political and economic justice
o Anticolonial nationalism: project of worldmaking is the history of EU imperialism as itself a world-
constituting force that violently inaugurated an unprecedented era of globality
• The contradictions and tensions between the nineteenth-century rise of the democratic nation-state within
Europe as well as in the settler colonies and the scale and scope of imperial expansion were a central
preoccupation of European intellectuals who offered a series of ideological and institutional sutures for the
divides between nation and empire (eg Marx)
• This book demonstrates that instead of marking the collapse of internationalism and the closure of alternative
conceptions of a world after empire, anticolonial nationalism in the age of decolonization continued to
confront the legacies of imperial hierarchy with a demand for the radical reconstitution of the international order
➔ decolonization was not just about nation-building but also about reordering the world to create a more
egalitarian and just international order. They highlight the efforts of anticolonial nationalists to address
unequal integration and domination on a global scale, advocating for self-determination not only at the
national level but also in international institutions. The text traces the historical roots of this global project of
decolonization and asserts that it continued to confront the legacies of imperialism by demanding a radical
restructuring of the international system.
The worlds of Pan-Africanism
• interwar black internationalism transcended imperial boundaries and gave rise to political collaboration and
intellectual exchange between British and French colonial subjects (London at the centre)
• anticolonial worldmaking extended beyond the central figures of the book to include broader movements like
the Bandung Conference and the Non-aligned Movement. These movements advocated for self-determination
and a New International Economic Order. Within the Black Atlantic, anticolonial worldmaking had a unique
trajectory, rooted in the critique of New World slavery's foundational role in shaping the modern world and its
contribution to racial hierarchy in the international order.
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