Thinking Politically about Development

Abstract

Contemporary discussion of the politics of development typically focuses on such intra-national issues as class-state relations, the social and cultural contexts of development politics, the connections between regime-types and development patterns, and empowerment of the poor; and such international issues as North-South relations, militarization versus development, and the implications for development of the crisis in the global political economy. Both the coverage of issues and the sophistication of arguments have been notably uneven, no doubt in part for the reason suggested by Robin Luckham: Deveiopment studies . . . has had more success in assimilating some areas of political and social enquiry (such as the role of the state in development) than others (like international conflict, military power, nationalism or fundamentalist religion), perhaps because the latter raise more serious difficulties for the assumption that development can be managed by national decision-makers if they can only implement appropriate policies. (Luckham, 1985: 83) Certainly there is much more work to be done in 'assimilating areas of political enquiry'. The premise of this essay, indeed, is that notwithstanding the growth of interdisciplinary development studies and a many-stranded tradition of critical development theory,' a great deal of thinking about development remains politically uninformed, to its clear detriment. In 'political economy', for example, which in both its radical and market variants is supposedly built upon a recognition of the ultimate inseparability of politics and economics, it is still not unusual for politics to be either relegated to the sphere of the superstructural or allotted a conditioning rolesomething that might influence outcomesrather than being made integral to the analysis. The typical result is political simplism.2 Development and Change (SAGE,

Public Service Reform in Malta, 1988‐95: Lessons to be Learned

“…"Lack of political will" usually means that political will is being applied in a different direction (Goldsworthy 1988).…”

“…None of this is to say that a more manageable program could have substituted for missing political will. "Lack of political will" usually means that political will is being applied in a different direction (Goldsworthy 1988).…”

Thinking Politically about Sustainable Development in the Tropical Forests of Latin America

“…They concentrate on diagnosis and policy prescriptiona crucial stepbut they stop short of addressing the conditions under which their policy prescriptions might become public policy (Hurrell, 1991). If they do venture that far, they are usually limited to invocations of the need for political will to carry out policy reforms (Goldsworthy, 1988). This suggests a technocratic conception of policy-making and politics (Galjart, 1993;Galjart and P. Silva, forthcoming).…”

“…Public authorities know that they ignore these coalitions at their own peril. This implies that governments usually challenge those interests only when alternative coalitions of value, interests and power support them (Goldsworthy, 1988;Silva, 1993).…”

Well-Being in Development: Comparing Global Designs with Local Views in Peru

“…When shared, these become the value-laden and path-dependant foundation for the norms and rules governing human interaction as institutionalised patterns of activity (Denzau and North, 1994). The term shared mental model is broader than the concepts of paradigm, collective mindset and epistemic community (Kuhn, 1970;Goldsworthy, 1988;Haas, 1992). But it is also more precise than the loose amalgam of conscious and subconscious meanings, metaphors, images, stories and beliefs that constitute a discourse.…”