Lecture 1 – Introduction
‘What’s in a word’?
• Poor countries, low-income countries, postcolonial countries, the Third World, the
South, agrarian countries, the Periphery, ‘marginal’ countries, the ‘global south’,
tropical countries, developing countries, underdeveloped countries, countries in
transition, ‘the rest’, ‘emerging countries’…
Why does it matter?
• Each name or label carries implications: an assumption about the conditions of the
country, emphasis, perspective
• The label may emphasize a specific aspect or characteristic of the area
o Climate, geography, income, history
• The label may also imply a certain theoretical perspective:
o Modernization theory (developing), dependency theory (periphery),
globalization (global south), postmodernism
• Labels emerged after WW2
Pitfalls of categorizing these countries under one label
• Abstraction and overgeneralization.
o Emphasizing a presumed shared, very general characteristic, such as low
income, poverty, resource dependence, tropical climate.
• Neglecting important differences:
o For example, varying levels of income, ranging from lowest income (the
‘Bottom Billion’, to middle income and ‘emerging’ countries, BRICs)
• Constructing a ‘generalized other’;
o Difference between ‘we’ and ‘they’, eurocentrism
Value of one label
• Shared objective features
o Relatively lower income
o High population growth
o Low levels of health and education
o Geographical similarities: tropical areas and dependence on natural resources
o Historical similarities: experience of colonialism
• Shared subjective identification
o Sense of collective solidarity, as expressed through the non-aligned movement
and various other international for a (Group of 77)
o Or sense of marginality, ‘subject’ position in the world order
Shared characteristics: economy
• Low income, operationalized as per capita income level
o Divide GNP by population, convert to constant US dollars, correcting for
purchasing power (purchasing power parity, PPP)
• Unit of analysis: states of the world
o World Bank categories: low income, lower middle income, higher middle
income and high-income countries
averages; hides certain characteristics
o Note that this unit of analysis has important consequences… is a development
a matter of states or of people?
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,A note about these official statistics
• Not always very dependable
• Official statistics are collected from national governments
o How dependable are they? Possibility of manipulation, and also simply lack of
capacity to collect data
• The statistics provide national averages and tell us nothing about distribution of
income
o Income equalities are hidden
o Poverty rates are hidden: even in middle income countries, poverty rates may
be high
An alternative, proxy variable: lights
• To overcome this problem electricity
• Correlates highly with levels of income
Weak Economic Structure
• Sectoral imbalance: high dependence of agriculture or primary resources, coupled with
a relatively small industrial or services sector
o This feature applies to different degrees: it is still prevalent in low-income
countries but has been largely overcome in the NICs (newly industrialized
countries) and BRICs, the so-called emerging countries
• High dependence on export earnings from one or a few primary products, natural
resources
o Sometimes they represent high value (oil), but they are generally subject to
fluctuating international prices and declining terms of trade
o NB: both of these features have been overcome to some extent by the NICs,
but debate on other forms of structural dependence
Demographic features
• High rates of population growth
o Population doubling time shortens
o Problem for development national income growth has to
keep us with population growth
• In initial stages a high share of population is young
o Population pyramid:
Vertical axis: age
Horizontal axis: numbers
High dependency ratio in initial stage lot of education needed, mouths to
feed but not yet contributing to national income
• In later stages, ageing becomes an issue
o Population pyramid shape in later stage
o Lot of elderly to care for
• NB China achieved lower growth through 1 child policy
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, • Demographic transition model
o But that doesn’t happen in developing countries takes longer for birth rates
to drop
Social features
• Inequalities in income, social status and power
• High incidence of (extreme) poverty
• Low literacy and education rates
• Poor health
o High incidence of preventable infectious disease, malaria, diarrheal, parasitic
diseases
o High child and maternal mortality
o Disastrous impact of epidemics or pandemics: HIV/Aids from the 1980s,
Ebola, Covid as of 2020
Concluding the shared features of our object of study
• Many features, including history of colonialism, geographic, social and economic
features are shared…
• But they exist to different degrees, leading to an increased diversity within the
category
o Later on, we will examine to what extent differences in the character and
capacity of states makes a difference for development…
• Choose your terms and labels, but beware of connotations and be ready to support
your choice
Our main concept: Development
• Dominant but complex concept (cf ‘developing countries’) with many implied
meanings
• Notion that change is toward something better: progress (roots: Enlightenment) not
neutral
o Process or end-state…: has the Western world reached it?
o Economic, social, political dimensions…: all inter-related?
o Normative elements…: what is desired outcome/end?
o Empirical elements…: what are the facts? How do we ‘measure’?
• Meanings are influenced by ideology, ideas, interests and (normative) goals
• They need to be made explicit
o Concept of development is not politically neutral (vs: ‘technocratic’ approach)
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, Post-war view: Development as economic growth
• Based on neo-classical economics, development is about economic growth
o Capital accumulation investment (machines) increased productivity
greater wealth
o Virtuous circle; crucial role of investment and technological innovations
improving productivity per labour or land unit
o Optimistic vision: see Truman speech 1949
Economic growth and structural change
• From an economy dominated by agriculture (often 80% of
active population and more than half the BNP) to industry and
services: the pie changes in composition
• In a developed economy, the three sectors feed each other:
forward and backward linkages
• In developing countries: agriculture is dominant and there are
not a lot of linkages within bc it is mainly focused on export
(goes outside the country).
Factors in economic growth
• Important role for human ‘agency’: savings, innovation and entrepreneurship
o See further in lecture 4 to contrast with structural theories
• Role of culture: risk aversion vs innovation; savings vs consumption
• ‘Trickle Down’ theory: economic growth will eradicate poverty trickle down to the
rest of society
• Optimistic vision
• See further lecture 3 on modernization theory
Criticism on traditional approach
• One-dimensional: too much emphasis on one factor: increase in economic growth and
income
• Level of analysis: states
• Invisible:
o Human beings: is their welfare increased?
o Is poverty reduced?
o How is wealth distributed?
o What about politics? Freedom?
Seers: development as ‘good change’
• As early as 1972, D. Seers argued that the goal of development should be the
‘realization of the potential of human personality’
• Development is a normative concept:
o Poverty
o Unemployment
o Inequality
should not increase
• ‘Basic Needs’ approach and focus on poverty reduction in 1970s (ILO)
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