Poverty, Development & HungerOrthodox and Critical Approaches

Intro. to International RelationsI35006 Yong, Hyemin02.06.14

Presentation Outline

●Historical background ●Orthodox vs. Critical alternative approaches●Poverty●Development●Hunger●Discussion questions

Background● 1960s-2002 - GDP/capita of the richest 20 countries increased 300% - GDP/capita of the poorest 20 countries increased 20% - The overall global increase in GDP in the past 60 years is due to the rich countries getting richer - The relationship between increasing globalization and increasing wealth gap between rich and poor countries became more evident

Background● International relations theory on poverty & development - Traditionally, mainstream realists and liberals neglected the issue - Dependency theory developed to explain the persistence of unequal conditions between the poor (periphery) countries and the rich (core or center) countries - Early 1990s: Fall of Soviet Union and the end of cold war created theoretical vacuum where scholars began to explore other issue areas of importance, such as poverty and hunger

Background● Multilevel efforts to fight poverty - Since 1945, attempts to combat poverty have been taken by governments, NGOs, IGOs, and other advocacy groups - Two approaches 1) Orthodox or dominant mainstream approach - focus only on the material needs 2) Critical alternative approach - include both material and non-material needs, such as equal opportunity, provision of basic human rights, etc

Poverty● Historical development - Orthodox conception of poverty by most governments, IGOs, and peoples - “a situation where people do not have the money to buy adequate food or satisfy other basic needs” - Global adoption of this mainstream conception of poverty is largely due to the globalization of Western culture - This definition of poverty based on material needs has been almost universalized since 1945

Poverty● Mainstream orthodox view - Poverty: an economic condition dependent on cash transactions (whether you can buy sufficient food, shelter, clothes) - Poverty is measured by development level defined as economic growth - An economic yardstick is used to measure and judge all societies and individuals - Argument: further integration of the global economy and of the marginalized populations will help overcome global poverty

Poverty● Critical alternative view - Emphasis also on non-material factors, such as spiritual values, community ties, and availability of common resources - Focus on developing world’s view - Dependence on an unpredictable market or unreliable government does not offer attractive solution - Focus on community-regulated, grassroots solutions to combat poverty - Argues that Western values of individualism and consumerism are destructive

Poverty● Growing importance of the critical alternative approach - The UN Development Programme distinguished between income poverty (a material condition) and human poverty (human dignity, agency, opportunity, and choices, etc) since early 1990s - The UN Millenium Development Goals in 2000 - Eradication of extreme poverty by half by 2015 - The financial crisis of 2008 - 2009 Millenium Development Goals Report indicates from 2005 to 2009, people living on less than $1.25/day increased from 1.4 million to 90 million

Development● Mainstream orthodox view - Development as economic growth within the context of a free market international economy since WWII - Economic development as a prerequisite for combating poverty - World Bank conception of development: categorizing and ranking countries according to their income levels - Less developed countries need to be more integrated into the global marketplace with liberal market policies

Development● Critical alternative view - recognizes the importance of material poverty - also focus on non-material aspects, such as concern over human rights issues - emphasis on entitlement and distribution Poverty as “the absence of an environment conducive to human well-being broadly conceived in spiritual and community terms” (political empowerment, participation, self-determination of the majority, protection of the commons, emphasis on pro-poor growth)

Development● Historical overview of critical alternative approaches to poverty - Since the 1970s, grassroots movements gained momentum in response to wealth gap created by neo-liberal market policies - Democracy at the heart of alternative conception of development - Emphasis on local control & local empowerment (bottom-up) - Developed in response to the exploitation of TNCs - Values diversity over universality - NGO Forum at the Copenhagen Summit - principles of community participation, empowerment, equity, self-reliance, and sustainability

Development● Sustainable development - The idea developed by Brundtland Commission in late 1980s - Argues that the pursuit of development by the present generation should not be at the expense of future

generations - Importance of maintaining the environmental resource base - Emphasis on both inter-generational and intra-generational sustainable development - UN Conference on the Environment and Development in 1992 - resulted in the legitimation of market-based development for sustainable development and self-regulation for TNCs

Hunger● Two schools of thought 1) Orthodox, nature-focused view - Thomas Malthus in 1798 - argued that population growth naturally outstrips the growth in food production, so that a decrease in the per capita availability of food in inevitable - Human overpopulation as the cause of the problem - Proponents argue that Third World countries need strict family-planning policies to limit population growth

Hunger● Two schools of thought 2) Entitlement, society-focused view - argues that despite enormous increase in food production per capita, still huge numbers of people suffer from hunger - Third World people produce much of the world’s food, while those who consume most of it are located in the Western developed countries - ⅓ of the world’s grain is used to fatten animals for meat consumption in the wealthy countries

Food for a Week (Germany)

Food for a Week (Chad)

Food for a Week (Italy)

Hunger● Critical approach - Problem is distribution and entitlement of food sources - Amartya Sen (Nobel prize in economics) - Poverty and Famines (1981) e.g.) Even though there is plenty of foods available in

the shops, if a family doesn’t have the money to purchase that food, and doesn’t have the means of growing their own food, then they are likely to starve - landless rural laborers and pastoralists can’t assert their entitlement to food, even when global production increases

Hunger● Critical approach - Focus on system of food production - David Goodman & Michael Redclift (1991) - TNCs’ role in incorporating local systems of food production into a global system of food production

creates more hunger e.g.) local subsistence producers traditionally producing meet for family consumption now produces cash- crops for a distant market - Sharp decline in the production of subsistence crops in developing countries in the post-war period

Conclusion● UN Millenium Development Goal targets unlikely to be met● Development challenges still persist● The orthodox approach to poverty, development, and hunger

still dominates the functioning of many governmental, IGOs, and NGOs’ works on this issue

● The idea of “Sustainable development” incorporated some elements of the critical approach but still focuses largely on market-oriented approaches

● With the world population expected to reach 10 billion by 2050, mostly by the increases from developing countries, the issues of poverty, development, and hunger are increasingly important

Discussion• The main difference between the orthodox and critical

approaches lies in how narrowly or broadly one defines poverty. Should the global poverty reduction programs focus only on the material conditions or should they include non-material conditions, such as political empowerment or provision of equal opportunity? What are the advantages and disadvantages of tackling the non-material or environmental conditions conducive to poverty? And which method (the orthodox or critical approach) do you think is more effective in both short-term and long-term efforts to combat global poverty and hunger