Development and International Relations E-Book

Anna Dickson

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 310

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

This introductory textbook examines the role of the Third World and the processes of development from the study of international politics and argues that in an increasingly globalized world development can no longer be seen as an isolated practice.

Leseprobe

Development andInternationalRelations

Anna K. Dickson

Polity Press

Copyright © Anna K. Dickson 1997

The right of Anna K. Dickson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 1997 by Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

Reprinted 2004

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

Polity Press65 Bridge StreetCambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press350 Main StreetMaldon, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

ISBN 978-0-7456-6620-4 (Multi-user ebook)

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and has been applied for from the Library of Congress.

Typeset in 10½ on 12½ pt Palatino

by Ace Filmsetting Ltd, Frome, Somerset

Printed and bound in Great Britain by

Marston Book Services Limited, Oxford

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

For more information on Polity visit our website:www.polity.co.uk

To my parents and David

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

Part I Development Revisited

1 Development and International Relations: Theory and History

2 A Question of Terminology

3 Theories of Development

Part II The Global Economy and Development

4 The East Asian NIEs

5 The Environment and Development

6 The Social Dimension: Poverty, Population and Hunger

7 International Commodity Trade and Development

Part III The Third World in the Emerging World Order

8 The Post-Cold War World and the South

9 Development in a Global Context

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Preface

The compelling impetus for this book arose from my desire to include questions of development in the teaching of international relations. This forms part of an on-going attempt to introduce students of the international system to the whole, rather than just the most powerful part, of that system. I found there were few texts which covered the Third World, its problems and aspirations, as an integral part of international relations. Caroline Thomas’s In Search of Security (1987) stands out, and a second edition has been commissioned. I have subsequently unearthed new material, from disparate sources, and in the process met a number of people working in similar areas. Indeed at the 1995 British International Studies Association Conference the sub-group on Development and International Relations was launched, linking people from both disciplines.

Development and International Relations is both a critique of the exclusion of development from the discipline of international relations, and an attempt to rethink what development in the 1990s might mean in the context of a changing global order. In the process it examines the relationship between the global and the local and assumptions about universal progress, and highlights the increasing differentiation between and within states. In writing a book of such potentially wide scope I have been forced to make choices about what to include and what to leave out. I cannot claim to have covered all the relevant issues. I have chosen to concentrate on issues which both are relevant to the 1990s and beyond, and highlight the diversity of the Third World.

The writing of this book has proved both arduous and enjoyable. It would not have been possible without the help and support of a number of people. The Department of Politics at Durham has supported me throughout; indeed the bulk of the book was written while on research leave from my normal teaching duties. Encouragement to keep going has been provided in particular by Steve Welch, Jean Richardson, Soran Reader and Elvira Belaunde. Outside of Durham I am grateful to Caroline Thomas for feedback at the beginning of the project. Rebecca Harkin at Polity Press has never, it seems, doubted my ability to produce a good book and has always seen the positive side of feedback from anonymous referees. I am, of course, indebted to those referees for all their comments, which have helped to guide the book through its various stages. Last, but by no means least, my husband David has provided continuous emotional support and useful academic criticism, and typed my bibliography. Without all of this the book would not have been completed. It nevertheless remains my project and I am wholly responsible for the analysis and interpretation it contains.

Acknowledgements

The author and publishers wish to thank the following for permission to use copyright material:

Oxford University Press, Inc. for tables 4.1, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 from World Development Report, 1994 by The World Bank. Copyright © 1994 by The World Bank. And for table 7.4 from World Development Report, 1986 by The World Bank. Copyright © 1986 by The World Bank. For material from the Commission on Global Governance, 1995, Our Global Neighbourhood. Also material in table 6.2 from Dreze and Sen (eds) Hunger and Public Action, 1989.

Cornell University Press for table 4.2 reprinted from Stephan Haggard: Pathways from the Periphery: The Politics of Growth in the Newly Industrializing Countries. Copyright © 1990 by Cornell University.

Diana Tussie for table 7.5The Developing Countries in World Trade published by Lynne Rienner Publishers in 1993.

Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders but if any have been inadvertently overlooked, the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangement at the first opportunity.

List of Abbreviations

ACP

African, Caribbean and Pacific (states)

ACS

Association of Caribbean States

ASEAN

Association of South East Asian Nations

BNA

Basic needs approach

BOP

Balance of payments

CAP

Common Agricultural Policy

Comecon

Council for Mutual Economic Assistance

DFI

Direct foreign investment

ECLA

Economic Commission for Latin America

EU

European Union

FAO

Food and Agriculture Organization

FTA

Free trade agreement

G77

Group of 77

GATT

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

GNP

Gross national product

GSP

Generalized System of Preferences

HDI

Human Development Index

ICA

International commodity agreement

ICCH

International Commodities Clearing House

ILO

International Labour Organization

IMF

International Monetary Fund

IPC

Integrated Programme for Commodities

IPE

International political economy

IR

International relations

ISI

Import substitution industrialization

ITO

International trade organization

LDC

Less developed country

LPE

Liberal Political economy

MDC

More developed country

MFA

Multifibre Agreement

MFN

Most Favoured Nation

MTN

Multilateral trade negotiation

NAFTA

North American Free Trade Agreement/Area

NAM

Non-Aligned Movement

NGO

Non-governmental organization

NIC

Newly industrialized country

NIE

Newly industrialized economy

NIEO

New international economic order

NTB

Non-tariff barrier

OPEC

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

PED

Political economy of development

PQLI

Physical Quality of Life Index

RIPE

Review of International Political Economy

SAP

Structural adjustment policy

TNC

Transnational corporation

UNCED

United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development

UNCTAD

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development

UNDP

United Nations Development Programme

UNEP

United Nations Environmental Programme

UNESCO

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

WCED

World Commission on the Environment and Development

WHO

World Health Organization

WTO

World Trade Organization

Introduction

Development is both a concept and an activity. The trend towards globalization and greater integration of the world means that development can no longer be seen as an isolated practice. The prevalence of appalling poverty despite many years of development dialogue suggests that the concept, as it has been defined, is in need of rethinking. The phrase ‘the question of development’, used throughout this book, refers to the open-ended nature of this debate.

The empirical focus of this book is on the linkages between the Third World and the international system in the 1990s. Arguably the end of the Cold War has affected approaches to the study of development and international relations (IR); in particular, state-directed and non-market approaches have been dismissed. ‘Openness’, ‘liberalism’, ‘market orientation’ and ‘competitiveness’ (on a global level) are the buzz words for the Third World and the newly ‘liberated’ and post-communist societies. Does this scenario offer a brighter future for most of humanity? Have all other possibilities been obliterated by the logic of global change? These are important questions for any rethinking of the question of development.

The title Development and International Relations implies consideration of development questions in the discourse of the international system, which is IR. That is the discipline to which I am, broadly speaking, attached. The title does not assume that development is smaller than, and can be contained within, IR. Rather, questions of development are potentially much larger than any single social science discourse, because development is multifaceted and because, in its broadest sense, it is an issue which all societies face.

Yet to what extent is it meaningful to talk in terms of global development? Does it imply the sum of all developments, or is there something more? Can global development be a goal or an end in itself? What is at stake here are assumptions about universal progress, the nature of the relationship between the local and the global, and questions of homogeneity and differentiation. Development is not simply a technical solution; its history, both theoretical and practical, reveals the contested nature of these issues.

For example, European development theory viewed all states as treading a common path to the stage of high mass consumption. If global development meant anything, it meant industrialization (modernization) for all. Blockages to this end were to be found not in the global structures but in the domestic (internal) affairs of a given state. The dependency perspective, on the other hand, stressed the external constraints, linking underdevelopment in the periphery with development in the centre. The world was viewed as a single capitalist economy, the periphery a category of states almost doomed to perpetual poverty. Development has never been as simple as either of these perspectives, and they are not entirely mutually exclusive. A combination of internal and external factors is necessarily at work. Importantly, the context of development theory and practice is constantly changing; solutions applicable in one decade may not be applicable in the next. Thus the expansion of the global market place has tremendous implications for development. As Leys (1996) rightly points out, it is in the nature of an unregulated competitive system that some parts of the world will benefit, and others, unless they acquire the capacity to compete in the market, will not. They may nevertheless choose to chart ‘another’ type of development (see chapter 1).

The chapters in this book explore policy areas and issues which I consider to be important because they rethink traditional relationships between the North and the South and explode the myth of homogeneity in the Third World. The study is thus multifocal. It is concerned with several different dimensions of development. On the one hand it is based on the assumption that development should be seen not as something unique to poor states, but as part of the processes of change and transformation facing all societies. On the other hand it is clear that the development debate (surveyed in part I) has leaned too heavily on European ideas about economic progress and that development has been equated with economic growth and industrialization. Thus a recurring theme in the book is that although the question of development is universal, its interpretation will need to be contextualized in different societies. The issues covered here have been chosen to illustrate this.

The newly industrialized economies (NIEs) of East Asia demonstrate the success of economic growth through industrialization to an unprecedented degree. However, the ability of the environment to sustain such industrial growth throughout the world is questionable. The tension between preserving the environment and getting on with development can only be resolved if a new concept of development is embraced: sustainable development?

An often forgotten dimension of development is the social one, and here difficult questions about what makes life worth living reinforce the particularity of development. At the same time, the fact that many people cannot meet even their basic calorific requirements throws into question the global market as an efficient allocator of resources.

Trade has always been seen as crucial to the development process, trade being the engine of growth. Yet many societies have not benefited from the trade regimes they have been involved in. Nevertheless it is important not to fall into the trap of making assumptions about the perpetual poverty of Third World commodity producers. Some states (the NIEs) threaten the position of older industrial ones. The Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) demonstrated quite clearly that increasing diversity meant there was no single Third World interest.

The end of the Cold War has had significant implications for the question of development, for example through increased donor conditionality. Yet it also opens the door for a reconsideration of many of the issues which remain important to the development debate: security, the environment, peace, population and so on, all of which are interlinked. At another level there are no general solutions and no grand theories, simply individual case studies and comparative analyses of different states, regions and peoples.

As well having this empirical focus the underlying approach is one which attempts to steer between what O. O’Neill (1993) refers to as an idealized (or universal) and a relativized (or particular) account of what development means. The former approach argues that we are all moral equals, regardless of the accident of nationality. Consequently the presence of widespread and unnecessary poverty is a problem which should concern us all. This in turn has implications for the theory and practice of IR, the discipline of the international system. In particular, the prominence given to the principle of state sovereignty creates problems for dealing with, for example, the global distribution of resources, or the use and misuse of the biosphere.

The latter approach argues that development is not about a single universal ideal; rather it is particular to different social arrangements. Change and transformation have to be related to the particular values and aspirations of the social grouping under investigation. The development debate has relied heavily on European ideas about progress.

The approach taken here is that there are some universal parameters, such as meeting basic needs, but there are nevertheless different weights and mechanisms for the evaluation and interpretation of such needs. While development is concerned with the problems of all human societies, its interpretation must be contextualized.

Part I, ‘Development Revisited’, explores the theory and practice of development and argues for the question of development to be seen as an on-going discourse. Chapter 1 asks what the question of development in IR might mean. Chapter 2 questions the current terminology of development and the categories used to group different countries together. Chapter 3 surveys, as simply as possible, the main theories which have dealt with the question of development to date. Chapters 4–7 come under the heading of part II, ‘The Global Economy and Development’. They variously survey the issues of industrialization, the environment, poverty, population and hunger, and trade. They challenge homogeneity in the Third World and are designed to show that different states face different domestic issues, and have responded differently to global ones. Part III focuses on ‘The Third World in the Emerging World Order’. Chapter 8 looks at post-Cold War adjustments and the implications these have for development. Chapter 9 returns to the question of development, and what it might mean in this new global context. Importantly, the book tries to point towards a way to make the development debate meaningful.

Part I

Development Revisited

Development andInternational Relations:

Theory and History

Introduction

This chapter examines the uneasy relationship between the question of development and the discipline of IR. While this uneasiness may in fact be the logical outcome of the manner in which both the development discourse and IR are constructed, it is not inevitable. This chapter begins by looking at the theory and practice of IR, and how the question of development has been excluded from the discipline. The chapter then explores what the question of development might contribute to the debate. The next section examines what a focus on the question of development in IR might mean. Does it imply that development theory is contributing its concepts and techniques to IR, or that IR is providing the case materials for the study of development? I suggest that IR should by definition include the question of development in a global context within its ambit. This demands at the very least a more inclusive and globally focused discipline.

The theory and practice of IR

‘The systematic study of the relations between states had begun to take shape by the middle of the seventeenth century’ (Olson and Groom, 1991, p. 1). Olson and Groom point to the emergence of the European state system with the Peace of Westphalia (1648) as the birth of world politics as we know it today. Der Derian and Shapiro (1988), on the other hand, argue that the French Revolution and its repercussions signalled the end of interdynastic relations and the beginning of modern international relations between states.

Both these examples refer to the emergence of the practice of modern ‘Western’ IR. In contrast, it is often claimed that IR as an academic discipline emerged in the aftermath of World War I. For example, in Britain the first chair in IR was established at Aberystwyth in 1919. Others argue that IR has always existed and been studied through political theory, law or history.1

The distinction being made here is between IR constituted as a formal academic discipline, supported by networks of academic staff, specialized journals and specific theoretical traditions, and IR as international affairs or events explained through different disciplines. Thus it is possible to characterize IR as the academic discipline, and as that which the discipline seeks both to explain and understand (and sometimes to predict).

The distinction is a positivist one, between the theory of IR and its practice. Positivism assumes it is possible to observe and know an objective reality, independent of our subjective values. It assumes that our subjective values and beliefs do not influence, or are not part of, the way in which we view the world, and that it is possible to view world events impartially and explain them in a rational manner. Post-positivists, on the other hand, would argue that theory always precedes any observations we might make about the world; that is, theories of IR have been constructed to explain particular realities which they have already defined and circumscribed. IR is by this account a discipline which has constructed its own boundaries, its own ways of theorizing about the world, and its own means of knowing and explaining the nature of international practice. The discipline of IR is also able to influence the way international practice is carried out because it has a legitimating effect. For example, hopeful diplomats may study theories of diplomacy before entering the foreign services of their countries, or theories of deterrence could be said to have influenced the nature of the Cold War. Thus theory and practice are intimately related to each other. It is this latter assumption that informs this book.

However, this book is concerned not so much with the relationship between social practice and discourse as with the claim that the discourse has been a partial one. Thus it is possible to say that IR, the discipline, has been selective in its collection, recording and understanding of events, and so has ignored a significant part of the international system it seeks to explain. As such it has been a more partial explanation than it should be if its definitional focus is international; IR by definition should be at least international2 in its scope.

It is perhaps worth mentioning here that there is an on-going debate about the assumed universalism of IR and particular cultural traditions. IR (among other disciplines) has often assumed the desired replication and universalization of particular Western traditions, norms and values whilst ignoring non-Western ones; this amounts to what S. Amin (1988) refers to as ‘Eurocentrism’. While this book does not specifically seek to highlight non-Western traditions of IR,3 one of its aims is to incorporate the study of the ‘developing countries’ and their processes of development within the discipline of IR. Perhaps the means to do so lies outside of the discourse as it is presently construed, although I do not think this is inevitable. The intention is to grasp at a more inclusive discipline (that is, inclusive of the particularity of development) rather than assume the universalism of Western experience. The first step towards this is to look at how IR has excluded the question of development from its ambit.

How has development been omitted from IR?

IR began as an interdisciplinary field drawing insights from law, philosophy, history, sociology and political theory. This has proved both its weakness and its strength. It has left the discipline open to the criticism that it is not really a discipline in its own right, and consequently IR has been amalgamated with various others, most often with the study of politics. It has also, however, meant that those studying IR can draw widely from other fields of study.

What then is the focus of IR, and how has it omitted the question of development? It is important to recognize that IR has been constructed by the West, typically in the UK after World War I and in the USA after World War II. Consequently IR has reflected the concerns of academics (and of policy makers) from these countries, and has not always been keen to engage in theoretical debates originating outside them.

The first of the so-called ‘great’ debates in IR occurred between two rival interpretations and understandings of the international system: the idealist (or Utopian) and the realist perspectives. While idealism perhaps had the potential to create a more inclusive discipline, realism, reflecting very much the post-war hegemony of the USA, narrowed the scope of the debate significantly.

After World War I, the victorious powers, namely the USA and the UK, agreed that war, a legitimate tool of conflict resolution, was catastrophic in its consequences and should therefore be avoided at all costs. This consensus, the idealist tradition, held that international society was essentially social in character, with various norms and values creating a fundamentally moral context within which states act. Thus war was seen as the product of misunderstandings amongst potentially moral beings in an international society (Hollis and Smith, 1991).4

Realism in contrast, ushered in by the publication in 1939 of E.H. Carr’s The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919–39, challenged the idealist belief that politics could be the realization of ethics, and that an orderly international society of states could exist. Realists argued that states, unlike individuals, could not act in response to an abstract moral ideal; they were by their very sovereign nature destined to compete with all other states for power and security in an essentially anarchical international system. ‘Anarchy’ in this context refers to the absence of any supranational authority; that is, to the fact that there is no world government or sovereign power to monitor or regulate the behaviour of states.

A large volume of realist literature was therefore concerned with the causes and consequences of conflict in the international system, and specifically conflict amongst the great powers. When realism triumphed after World War II, the focus of IR became one of maintaining the external security (and in effect the sovereignty) of the state in the face of international anarchy. International politics was termed high (read: ‘important’) politics. In contrast domestic issues, such as development, were considered to be low politics and not the concern of IR. Realism thus made an explicit distinction between the international and the domestic, based on the presence or absence of sovereignty.

While economic processes are clearly related to state capacities, IR also made an explicit distinction between the economic and the political. IR was about politics. The question of development, on the other hand, was an economic one. Thus the lens through which IR viewed the world was one which highlighted the importance of international political concerns and did not therefore include the concerns of national economic development.

The focus on power and security5 (see chapter 9) was given credence by the Cold War, which provided fodder for the growth of security or strategic studies. Framed in realist terminology, power became the means and the end by which the state survived. Importantly, the Cold War emerged at the same time as the process of decolonization was accelerating. This had implications for the manner in which the Third World was viewed.

Historically, most of the Third World was incorporated into large empires and was studied as part of colonial policy, mainly through international history. Independence struggles were approached from the point of view of how to devolve power peacefully, the potential effects of the loss of empire, or the study of those politicians who paved the way for decolonization. International history was written from the more powerful nations’ point of view.

The emerging Third World states were not major power players. Reason dictated that those states which had no influence on (power in) the international system were not the focus of IR. Instead the Third World became a matter of foreign policy concern; a place where Communism must be contained. Crisis in the Third World was recognized; the Vietnam War, the invasion of Grenada, the existence of Cuba, even the success of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) have all been part of the study of IR. To the extent that the developing countries have presented a threat to international security, they have been watched and studied not so much for their own contribution to the extant international system, but as part of the wider concern for international order.

Finally, IR did not seek to be a discipline which concerned itself with normative questions; that is, with questions about prescribed forms of conduct or with moral standards (Barry, 1981). Indeed in its recent past IR has sought to rid itself of its more normative tradition in idealism, believing that there is no room for morality between states (C. Brown, 1992). Realism claimed that international politics should be approached in a more rational and scientific manner, with careful analysis of the cause and effect of states’ actions. Realism contended that the rights and duties of states did not go beyond political boundaries. Consequently questions about international justice, the distribution of resources between states, or the extent of poverty in the world could not properly be addressed (O. O’Neill, 1993, p. 308).

Political realism remains the predominant, but not the only, perspective in IR. It has greatly influenced the manner in which IR has evolved. Subsequent to the debate between idealism and realism there was another (less significant) debate between realism and behaviouralism.6 Since the 1980s it has often been argued that there are three rival paradigms in IR: realism/neorealism, liberalism/pluralism and neo-Marxism, each offering a different view of the world. The debate between these perspectives is termed the ‘Inter-Paradigm’ debate.

However, the three paradigms start from different assumptions about the nature of the international system, the character and significance of its units, and the processes at work.7 Thus there is no objective means for choosing between them, and hence not much real debate (Hollis and Smith, 1991). Despite their incommensurability, both the liberal/pluralist and the neo-Marxist perspectives have challenged a number of realist assumptions and altered the focus of IR, so that questions of development (albeit in a limited form) have not been entirely excluded.

Briefly, the liberal/pluralist school of thought encompasses both transnationalism – that is, the claim that the state is no longer the dominant actor in the international system but is challenged by other, non-state actors – and interdependence – that is, the belief that increasing links between national economies make states more vulnerable to events in other parts of the world (Keohane and Nye, 1977). The existence of other actors and their activities in various spheres means that power no longer resides in states alone, and that the national (or state) interest becomes difficult to define or identify. The transnational approach points to new types of actors and activities, which changes the nature of international relations from interstate relations to a more multifocal approach. The interdependence perspective claims that increased trade, investment and technology linkages lead to increased vulnerability and sensitivity between actors. IR thus becomes a function of economic linkages as well as of world politics.

The liberal/pluralist perspective has held a certain appeal for the Third World because it seems to imply that all states are linked by their mutual vulnerability. No longer, as in realism, are weak states unimportant; interdependence implies there is a mutuality of interests between the North and the South. Thus in 1974, the call for a new international economic order (NIEO) argued that changes in the global economic order which would help to develop the Third World were essential for the future progress of the whole world. However, interdependence, as it was conceived, applied only to the North. Some states (in the North) were more equally interdependent than others (in the South). The NIEO was in effect stillborn, and the South quickly lost faith in the myth of the universality of interdependence. (For more discussion of the NIEO, see chapter 7.)

The Marxist tradition has traditionally only occupied a small part of IR. It was revitalized in the nineteenth century through the study of imperialism, but was ignored again by mainstream IR until the 1970s. The neo-Marxist tradition which emerged out of Latin America in the 1950s, provided an analysis of a capitalist world economy which incorporates an industrialized centre, or core, and an underdeveloped periphery. In this sense, by including the periphery in its analysis, it is more ‘international’ than the other paradigms have been.

The neo-Marxist or dependency paradigm became for scholars in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa, as well as Marxists scholars in the West, the theoretical and ideological perspective through which they viewed the world. At its heart was the question of development; that is, how best and under what conditions development can occur, and what the obstacles to development are. The catalyst for interest in neo-Marxism by IR scholars was provided by the confrontational nature of North–South relations in the 1970s and its impact on the international system. However, since then neo-Marxist approaches have tended to be depicted as fringe elements of the discipline (Olson and Groom, 1991). Although the neo-Marxist paradigm is recognized, and listed (Korany, 1986), it is not used to explain phenomena. This may in part be due to the deficiencies of the paradigm in terms of its explanatory potential (and this will be explored later). However, it is also a result of the discipline being seen through the lens of the hegemonic powers and their concerns. Consequently only relatively few IR scholars have grappled with the question of development.

Thus it is possible to argue that the manner in which the discipline of IR has been constructed has made it inhospitable to engaging with questions of development, in particular in the Third World. There is in effect an institutionalized inertia in traditional IR which discourages research on the question of development.

What can the question of development contribute to IR?

Implicit in the term ‘development’ is some degree of teleology; that is, it implies a process of change and transformation in a particular, purposeful direction. As a starting point we shall assume development to be an on-going process of qualitatively ameliorated social, political and economic change – that is, progressive change which improves and sustains the quality of life of human society. (The means by which this will be achieved does not concern us immediately.) This definition does not assume a single specified end point; the act of development is an on-going process (rather than a stage).

If we ask whether the process is the same for all societies, the answer must be negative. Nor is it the same in all historical periods. Different temporal and cultural environments make possible different development outcomes. This should not imply that there is no value in comparative studies of development policy and practice. Comparative studies help us to make sense of, or organize, processes which have enough in common to make their differences significant. Even if particular development experiences appear to be unique, we can only understand them as such with reference to other experiences of development.

The way we decide what constitutes meaningful development will necessarily include some element of subjective choice. Anthropologists argue about whether tribal societies should be left in their traditional state or be given the benefits of civilization as we know it. Conservatives, in general, argue that traditional society is necessarily good because it upholds tested values. Yet societies do change, through internal dynamism and external responses, and what we seek to understand when studying development is the nature of these changes and the forces which influence them.

Development studies, as a field of enquiry, has sought to examine (national) development processes and to formulate theories of development. It has focused on the Third World and in particular on issues of poverty, inequality and growth within these states. It is thus very much problem-oriented, dealing with questions of how to achieve increases in national income or improvements in the quality of life. While IR has sought to describe the world as it is, the study of development is explicitly normative. It not only seeks to explain, but also embodies, certain ideas about what development should mean and seeks to effect the desired changes. Like IR it is multidisciplinary, drawing insights from a variety of fields including economics, anthropology, politics and history. The result is an increasingly complex and open-ended discipline.

Following Hettne (1995a), it is possible to identify three main categories of development theory. The first, European (or orthodox) development theory, is based on the idea of the replicability of the European experience (in particular the necessity of industrialization) in the former colonies. It assumes that development is an automatic process if the right preconditions exist. It also assumes that development follows a specific and universally applicable path, ultimately arriving at the point of modernity. This theory does not deal with the specificity of development in the periphery.

The second category of theories is largely structuralist in its orientation, focusing on the global structure of capitalism. Importantly, these theories originate in the Third World, and are explicitly concerned to make the development experience relevant and indigenous. In this category one would find the neo-Marxist/dependency paradigm adopted by IR. Here (in its extreme variants) explanations for the lack of development are assumed to be the logical outcome of the structure of the world economy, which is divided into core and periphery. The periphery (the Third World) consists of weak and vulnerable actors, and there is little that can be done about this.

Finally, and more recently, dissatisfaction with the whole development discourse has led to what may be called an anti-modernist school of thought. The proponents of this group argue that ‘the idea of development stands like a ruin in the intellectual landscape’ (W. Sachs, 1992, p. 1), and that it is necessary to get rid of the whole Western-inspired debate and create ‘another’ development in order to deal with, for example, the environmental crisis (see chapter 5).

It would be difficult to identify any single theory as being dominant in the current literature, although the resurgence of orthodox (European/Western) theory, in the guise of neo-liberalism (see chapter 3), is increasingly pervasive. However, there is also an increasing interest in the diversity of development experience and comparative research. This can be attributed to a number of factors, not least the increasing diversity of the Third World itself, which presents a challenge to a discipline that has too often made inappropriate generalizations.

First, incorporating the question of development in IR demands an approach which recognizes the interaction between the economic and the political. Although the study of development was initially (in European development theory) concerned with economic growth, and indeed its preoccupation with economic indicators remains, it was soon recognized that development is a multidimensional process, and that the links between the economic and the political were important. Thus political economy of development (PED) approaches emerged (Hettne, 1995a) which, it can be argued, tie in with international political economy (IPE) approaches within IR. IPE examines the links between the economic and the political, as well as the national and the international.8 It may be that the most fruitful link between development and IR lies in creating a (new) global political economy of development (see chapter 9