dependency theory and development
DESCRIPTION
A presentation for the learning program at Sussex on education and development, looking at dependency theory and developmentTRANSCRIPT
Critique of modernization and human capital theory in education. Focus on Papua New Guinea
• Modernization
Social, economic, cultural changes which lead to a more complex, differentiated and specialized society.
•
In SOCIOLOGY
• “Psycho-cultural approaches”: the modern man
- Capitalistic spirit (Weber)
- Values and need for achievement (McClelland)
• “Structural approaches”• - Spencer, Durkheim, Smelzer, Parsons
PARSONS
Imperatives:
• Adaptation• Goal attainment• Integration• Latency
Basic dichotomies of social roles:
• Affective/affective neutral• Self orientated/collective
behaviour• Universalism/particularism• Ascriptive/achievement• Functionally specific/
functionally diffuse
In ECONOMICS
• Rostow: the stages of economic growth- Traditional stage- Precondition for the take-off- Take-off- Maturity- Age of mass consumption
In Politics: (STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALISM)
G. Almond (SSRC)
political communication• Input- Political socialisation- Political recruitment- Articulation of
interests- Aggregation of
interests
• Output- Rule-making- Rule-implementation- Rule-adjudication
MODERNISATION and EDUCATION
Western schooling is western cultural reproduction = cultural imperialism.
Behaviouralism - (Skinner): Individual behaviour can be conditioned.
Humanism - (Dewey): Democratic values.Colonial Education: Training of Elites.Hidden curriculumCarnoy – Cultural imperialism
PAPUA and EDUCATION
Demerath’s writing on Papua New Guinea and colonisation of the mind (Fanon)
Traditional and modern identity are chosen, not simply granted or received
Historical beliefs about the ‘efficacy of knowledge’Ambivalence towards Western educationAllegiance with traditional identityColonisation of the Mind – Fanon
PAPUA and EDUCATION
Australia sends most of its development money to Papua.
Extractive industry – rich and poor divideCivil unrest and domestic violence high
Need more data…..
HUMAN CAPITAL THEORY
Mincer and Gary Becker of the "Chicago School“
Psacharopoulos: rates of return
HUMAN CAPITAL THEORY
Africa:Brain drainDore - Diploma Disease1960’sNarrow focus on economic growth but no jobs.World Bank and human capital investment. Education
is seen as a vehicle for economic growth.Eg. basic needs education, functional literacy.Can have high GDP but no social cohesion, or
creates educated pirates / criminals.
Gunder Frank Dependency Theory – Critical historical approach Underdevelopment is a function of the
position a country occupies in the international system
Structural approach at the global level Centre-Periphery dialectic Role of elites and Lumpenbourgoisie /
compardor class Critique of Ideal Type approach
Dependency theory solutions
Rupture with the capitalist world-economy Samir Amin, Delinking: Towards a polycentric
world (1985) Self-reliance through socialism (Tanzania) Import Substitution or Dependant
Development - Cardoso Socialist revolution – Gunder Frank
CRITIQUE OF MODERNISATION DEVELOPMENT THEORY
• Ethnocentric and ahistorical• Ignores the structural effect of capitalism /
colonialism with analysis on internal aspects• Dualism of modern and traditional is based
on the modern western ‘logos’.• Evolutionist & utilitarian • Cultural Imperialism (Michael Carnoy)
CRITIQUE OF MODERNISATION DEVELOPMENT THEORY
Economic rationalism is distorted by non-economic forces, racial, ethnic, gender bias.
Market liberalist economics ignores structural effect of the distribution of wealth.
Poverty or underdevelopment is nothing to do with Western or Enlightenment values, but to do with colonialism and capitalism.
Explains the dept crisis in Third World and civil unrest and dictatorships.
CRITIQUE OF MODERNISATION DEVELOPMENT THEORY
Deconstructs modernization using rational ‘systemic thinking’ to reveal the externalities in the macro picture.
Example: Corruption a big problem in developing countries. Can be seen as a market distortion or connected to a system of domination.
Give the structure to counter superstructure, reverses the ideal.
Colonialism and discourse of blaming the victim in modernisation: organised hypocrisy.
The model externalises harm with a system, makes pre-modern society liable for its ‘faults’, obscures colonial domination.
- Looks backwards from a ‘modern’ perspective- isolates harm in society with a focus on the individual or
the institution, not a function of the system. Eg corrupt officials at fault = disfunctional officials
- harm is norm referenced - maintained as deviation from an ideal type, not structural or created by domination
- focus on function as sufficient, no political responsibility for the outcome, closed within societal function
- -
Dependency theory can pop that bubble – not just about growth but how we grow.
It is not just about the individual but the structure that everyone participates in and the background conditions.
It is not what development can achieve but what it hides and has not done, or does not change that it important.
It focuses on the pathway that actions take in the structure.
Political responsability is now open, the burden is not just to follow the prescriptions of this model for economic growth but to try to bring about an independent outcome or change.
- -
Dependency as an ideology – Tony Smith’s criticism Tyranny of the whole over the parts “The error of this approach is not that it draws
attention to the interconnectedness of economic and political processes and events in global manner, but that it refuses to grant the part any autonomy, any specificity, and particularity independent of its whole.”
The Underdevelopment of Development Literature: The Case of Dependency Theory (1979)
Post modernism or new modernization?Beyond the Search for a Paradigm? Post-Development and
beyond – Escobar
Modernist Discourse and the Crisis of Development Theory – Kate Manzo
Universalism, Eurocentrism, and ideological bias in development studies: from modernisation to neoliberalism – Brohman
Ingelhart - Modernization, Cultural Change, and the Persistence of Traditional Values
Joel Samoff – Institutionalising International Influence
CONCLUSION
Development is an ethnocentric/western based project.
The process of development is not linear and it must be linked to the specific society involved.