The uses and misuses of uneven and combined development: an anatomy of a concept

Reframing development theory: the significance of the idea of uneven and combined development

“…But in the subsequent declining epoch of capitalist world development, dating roughly from the eve of the First World War, the space for a sustained process of industrialization was closed off by the preponderant weight of Western industry in the world market and the feebleness of local bourgeois classes aligned with conservative agrarian elites out of fear of popular 15 Rosenberg's reconceptualization of uneven and combined development not just as Ba concrete abstraction of the international impact of capitalist society, but as a general abstraction of the significance of inter-societal co-existence per se^(2006, p. 319) has generated a lively controversy in its own right. See (Callinicos and Rosenberg 2008;Ashman 2009;Davidson 2009;Allinson and Anievas 2009). mobilizations that could escape their control (Trotsky 1957, p. 80;1977, pp. 111-152;Mandel 1979, pp.…”

Putting the nation back into ‘the international’

“…Colin Barker has reached similar conclusions, suggesting that an 'extended' concept of U&CD is implicit in Trotsky's ownw ork: 'Onlyf rom the angle of world economy,o ft he combined development of the different countries within it, do words like "advanced" and "archaic" have any meaning, as measures of coercive comparison within al arger system of competitive transactions' (Barker2006,78). Allinson and Anievas (2009) also see this globalized view of U&CD as a'logical extension of Trotsky's original concept' (54). Ih ave more sympathy with these arguments than with those for transhistoricity,since, as Ihave argued above, U&CD is produced by the impact of different aspectso ft he international capitalist system (economic competition, military rivalry and colonial rule) on the societiesconstitutive of it.…”

Uneven and combined development: a fusion of Marxism and structural realism

“…As has been pointed out previously by others, in Rosenberg's earlier writings, combined development takes on several meanings: the 'coexistence and interactive development of all societies throughout history'; 'an interdependence of "the structures of material and cultural life"; and, finally the 'combination' of capitalism with various preceding modes of production to produce unique socioeconomic structures. 41 As others have pointed out, Trotsky's use of the term 'combination' is quite specific and should be differentiated from the more general term 'articulation'. Rather than simply denoting an interconnection between various modes of production, combination, should be regarded as 'a particular subset of articulation in which one of the modes … impels the simultaneous transformation and reconstitution of the other'.…”

“…As others have already pointed out, in Rosenberg's earlier writings (RUCD Part I), combined development takes on several meanings: the 'coexistence and interactive development of all societies throughout history'; 'an interdependence of "the structures of material and cultural life"; and, finally the process so well articulated by Trotsky, the melding of capitalism with various preceding modes of production to produce unique socio-economic structures. 30 In his initial works, Rosenberg contended that this temporally extended version of uneven and combined development could supersede the neorealist explanation of geopolitics, asserting that the 'very existence of "geopolitics", its imputed transhistorical "logics" and its varying forms and causal weight can all be explained via a generative sociological presupposition -the first two by reasoning from the general abstraction of "uneven and combined development" and the third by developing concrete abstractions of the latter's particular historical configurations'. 31 But Trotsky's version of uneven and combined development actually presupposed both the multiplicity of the international and the geopolitical competition that exists in this anarchic environment.…”