DS 102

DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVES

By Dr. Lily Makalanga

INTRODUCTION
TO
DEVELOPMENT
AND
DEVELOPMENT
STUDIES
 What is Development?

• There is no one definition of development as

persons have different interpretations of
development
• Development is a concept and multi-faceted
phenomenon
• According to Todaro (1981:56) development
refers to as a multi-dimensional process involving
the re-organization and re-orientation of the
entire economic and social systems.
 According to Todaro….
• Development is process of improving the
quality of all human lives with three equally
important aspects.
• These are:
1. Raising peoples’ living levels, i.e.
 incomes and consumption,
 levels of food,
 medical services,
 education
 According to Todaro….
2. Creating conditions conducive to the
growth of peoples’ self-esteem/respect
through the
• establishment of social, political and economic
systems and institutions which promote human
dignity and respect

3. Increasing peoples’ freedom to choose by

enlarging the range of their choice variables,
e.g. varieties of goods and services
 What is Devel……..
• According to Tayebwa (1992:261),
development is a broad term which means
economic development, economic welfare or
material wellbeing
• According to Perroux (1978:65) defines
development as a combination of mental and
social changes among the population.
 What is Develop….
• According to Rogers (1990: 30), development
is a long participatory process of social change
in the society whose objective is the material
and social progress for the majority
 Definition Cont….
Development is a process rather than an outcome: it is
dynamic in that it involves a change from one state or
condition to another.
Ideally, such a change is a positive one - an
improvement of some sort (for instance, an
improvement in maternal health).
Development is often regarded as something that is
done by one group (such as a development agency) to
another (such as rural farmers in a developing country).
Development is a political process, because it raises
questions about who has the power to do what to whom.
 What is Development….
According to Mabogunje, development as a
process of economic growth
• Too often commodity output as opposed to
people is emphasized-measures of growth in
GNP (Gross national Products).
• GNP include income earned by citizens and
companies abroad, but does not include
income earned by foreigners within the
country
 The formula for GNP is:
• Consumption + Government expenditures +
investments + exports + Foreign production by
Tanzania Companies - Domestic production
by foreign companies = Gross national product
North South Divide Map
Therefore development can be concluded that
•As a Vision: a vision or description of how
desirable a society is. The visions of development
briefing explores these further.
•As a historical process: social change that takes
place over long periods of time due to inevitable
processes.
•As Action: deliberate efforts to change things
for the better.
Indicators of Development
There are hundreds of indictors but are
condensed into:
1.Economic,
2.Political and
3.Social indicators of development
ECONOMIC INDICATOR
Economic Growth Means
 Indicators… Cont
• Economic growth may be one aspect of
economic development but is not the
same
• Economic growth:
– A measure of the value of output of
goods and services within a time period
• Economic Development:
– A measure of the welfare of humans in a
society
 Economic Growth
• Using measures of economic performance in terms of the
value of income, expenditure and output

• GDP – Gross Domestic Product

– The value of output produced within a country during a
time period

• GNP – Gross National Product

– The value of output produced within a country plus net
property income from abroad (or income from foreign
investments)

• GDP/GNP per head/per capita

– Takes account of the size of the population
 Social Indicators
• Social measures of development use
a wide range of information and
include health, education, gender
equality and access to democracy.

• The most commonly used measure of

social development is the Human
Development Index (HDI) produced
by the United Nations Development
Programme.
 What is Human Development
Index
• Is defined as the composite statistics used to
rank countries by levels of human
development
• The HDI is a measure of health, education and
income
• It measure the average achievements in a
country in these three basic dimensions of
human development calculated into index
 Social Indicators Cont…..
• This considers the three most important
measures of development to be
 Longevity (average life expectancy –
years)
 Education (2/3 adult literacy); 1/3 combined
school enrollment rate
 GDP per capita (PPP US$)
 Political Indicators
• Political freedom,
• Human rights
• Labour rights,
• Democratization
• Political participation
 Development in Africa
• Africa is Huge & Diverse Continent 2nd
Largest in World, 54 countries, over 1000
Languages/ethnic groups, with rich natural
resources
• African Regions (5-categories- East, West,
Central, North, and Southern, the Horn of
Africa
• According to World Bank, Africa is divided
into 5 categories based into income
classification -
• Colonial Experience- see table 2.6-All African
States were former colonies of Europe,
except Ethiopia
Economic Diversity in Africa
• Basic indicators of development show income
diversity ranging from per capita income of $10,600
in Seychelles and about $8,000 in Botswana, and
$448 in Rwanda in terms of PPP measure.

• GDP is highly correlated with other indicators of

human development such as life expectancy, infant
mortality, and Education. How?

• Africa’s economies are poor due to bad or misguided

policies, aid dependence, and high population
growth, in spite of potential in natural resources.
• Most of the problems in Africa are human-
made problems with very few are natural

Mostly these problems are the results of

• tribalism, superstition, gender inequality, the
education system, poverty, lack of self-
confidence,

• economic dependence, corrupt leadership,

disease and lack of health care, complex, and
arms and militarism.
• misappropriation of public funds,
colonialism and neo-colonialism, religion,
selfishness, genocide, ethnic cleansing
and wars, fear and lack of identity,
inferiority
• With this regard development should
encompasate;
People;
Their cultures
their potentials
 Development in Africa seems to
be ‘Development Without’

•  According to the 1993 UNICEF State of the

World’s Children, there are seven deadly sins
of development, most of which have been
committed in the previous decades of
development:
Development in africa is seems to be
• development without infrastructure
• development without participation
• development without women
• development without empowerment
• development without the poor
• development without the do-able
• development without mobilization.
 Development Discourse
The argument here is that
• Development has been defined as
synonymous with ‘modernity’ which is
presented in the discourse as a superior
condition.
• This means development constructed in
the North as ‘modernity’ and imposed on
the South.
• Thus, it is argued, the South is viewed as
‘inferior’.
• For example, ‘traditional’ or non-
modern/non-Western approaches to
medicine, or other aspects of society, are
perceived as ‘inferior’.
• Edward Said,
• who has developed some of these ideas,
argues that
• political–intellectual representations of the
‘Third World’ have been integral to
subordinating the Third World through the
concept of ‘Orientalism’
 What is Development Studies

• A development study is a multidisciplinary

branch of social science which addresses
issues of concern to developing countries.
• It has historically placed a particular focus
on issues related to social and
economic development, and
• its relevance may therefore extend to
communities and regions outside of the
developing world.
• The initial emphasis falls on the rather
diverse concept of poverty and all its
manifestations.
• This subject addresses the numerous global
challenges that are faced in the developing
world and identifies the possible solutions
• Development Studies deals with
development efforts through reform,
capacity building and empowerment
(Kamanzi, 2010).
Why Development Studies
• Development studies is a course which uses
an interdisciplinary approach to examine
development processes. 
• Development studies course is aimed at
providing us with an analytical tool to carry
out a critical and in-depth analysis of our
situation.
• Highlights the increasing reality that an
effective understanding of the process of
development is vital. 
• This subject endeavours to create "new
professionalism" among those involved in
development that will enable people at the
grassroots level to take responsibility for
their own development.
 
• Finally, this subject can give context and
understanding for the person not directly
involved in development, but nonetheless
fulfilling a function in developing countries.
 The subject matter of
Development Studies
• Previously Development Studies was a
shared interest in ‘less developed
countries’, or ‘developing countries’, or ‘the
South’, or ‘post-colonial societies’,(1950’s
and 1960’s) formerly known as ‘the Third
World’,.
• Currently the concerns of Development
Studies extend beyond developing
countries.
• This is because development studies
deals with issues such as:
 Poverty and wealth is in every country.
 Economic growth
 Inequalities
 Life expectancy
 Dependence ratio etc….
• Of which every country in the world is of
concern
 CHAPTER TWO
THEORIES OF SOCIAL
DEVELOPMENT
 What is Theory?
 Marxist Theory and Conflict
Bourgeois/Orthodox/Modernization Theory
of development
Rostow’s Theory of Underdevelopment
Nurkses Vicious Circle of Poverty
Modernization Theory Vs Dependency
Theory
 Theory of Social development
What is a Theory
 A Theory is a statement or group of
statements established by reasoned argument
based on known facts, intended to explain a
particular fact or event.
 OR a formal idea or set of ideas that is
intended to explain something (Collins English
Dictionary, 2010).
 Social Development Theory
cont…….
 In this regard, a theory of social development
is aimed at explaining the process of social
development.
 Social Development Theory ……
cont
 As social scientists we need a set of working
assumptions to guide us in our study of
understanding the dynamics of social development.

 These assumptions will help in determining and

suggesting which problems are worth investigating
and they offer a framework for interpreting the
results of our findings on development.
•  
 Marxist Theory of Social
Development
• Marxist theory is commonly known as
Marxism
• The founder of Marxist theory was Karl Marx,
a German philosopher who lived during the
nineteenth century in Europe.
What is Marxism?
• Marxism is a philosophy of history as well as
an economic doctrine.
 The Marxist Theory of Social
Development cont….
•  The founder of Marxist theory was Karl Marx, a
German philosopher who lived during the 19 thC in
Europe.
• Marx lived during a period when the overwhelming
majority of people in industrial societies were poor.

• This was the early period of industrialization in such

nations as England, Germany, and the United
States.
• Those who owned and controlled the factories
and other means of production exploited the
masses that worked for them.
• The rural poor were forced or lured into cities
where employment was available in the
factories and workshops of the new industrial
economies.
• In this way the rural poor were converted into
urban poor.
• In the United States, children some as young
as five or six years old, were employed in the
cotton mills of the of the South.
• They worked 12 hours a day at the machines, six
and seven days a week (Lipsey and Steiner, 1975),
and received only a subsistence wage.

• The "iron law of wages”-the philosophy that

justified paying workers only enough money to
keep them alive-prevailed during this early period
of industrialization.

• Meanwhile, those who owned the means of

production possessed great wealth, power, and
prestige.
• Marx tried to understand the institutional
framework that:.
- Development of society, may be seen as
the history of class conflict:
- the conflict between those who own and
control the means of production and
those who work for them-the exploiters
and the exploited.
• According to Marx ownership of the means of
production in any society determines the
distribution of wealth, power, and even ideas
in that society.

• The power of the wealthy is derived not just

from their control of the economy but from
their control of the political, educational, and
religious institutions as well.
 Main Elements within Marxism

1. The dialectical Approach: This is a class

struggle to knowledge and society defines
the nature of reality as dynamic and
conflictual.

• Changes are due to class struggle and the

working out of contradictions inherent in
social and political phenomena. .
2. Materialist Approach to History: The
development of productive forces and
economic activities is central to historical
change and operates through the class
struggle.
• Struggle over distribution of the social
product/surplus- The primacy of class
struggle.
• Thus Marx made class domination central to
his conception of social order, and class
conflict a defining feature of change in
society.
To Marx, the fundamental division in every
society is that:
• between the exploiters and the exploited,

• between the owners of the means of

production those who have to sell their labor
to the owners to earn a living.

• Society is more and more splitting up into two

hostile camps, directly facing each other:
• bourgeoisie and proletariat.
 Marx's 5 Stages of Development
of Society
Marx identified 5 stages of development of society.
1.Primitive Communalism/Communal Mode of
Production:
• It marks the rise of society from sheer animal to
human society.
• Productive Forces: The instruments of labour were
crude, underdeveloped.
• Due to this the primitive man was unable to
engage in production alone i.e.
• without the help of others.
Ownership of the means of production was
communal owned.

Relations of production were collective; people

lived together and jointly conducted their
economy for survival.

Labour productivity: Was low with no surplus.

• There was equal distribution of the products
Organization: No classes and therefore no
states, kingdoms etc. People organized
themselves in clan or family.
It is notable that at this stage there are no
classes and no class struggles.
 2. Feudalism/Feudal Mode of Production
• Emergence of surplus in production and the
emergence of classes
• This mode of production was based on class
antagonism- Conflict/struggle between opposing
classes.
• Was based on private property in land, it
consisted of two classes: the landowners and the
serfs.
• Serfs were not slaves because they had a land
holding to build their shelters.
• They rented this land holding from the
landlord.
• However, the serfs owned their means of
labour
• The landlords exploited the serfs and the serfs
struggled to free themselves from this
exploitative relationship.
• Contradictions and growing class struggle led
to the disintegration of feudalism.
 3. Capitalism.
• Emerged as the result of the Industrial
revolution in Europe
• Capitalism led to the emergence of commodity
production.
• Under capitalist commodity production, all
products became commodities being produced
for exchange.
• Human labour also became a commodity.
• Private ownership of means of production is a
basic characteristic of capitalism
• Relations of production are exploitative:
• capitalists- who are owners of means of
production, exploit the workers.
• The working class is exploited by selling their
labour power.
• According to Marxists, capitalist economies
expand through export of capital and this
become a driving force for imperialist
expansion
• The contradictions between capital and labour
lead to the downfall of capitalism.
 4. Socialism
• Logical stage of social development after
mature capitalism.
• It is the consequence of the growth of
productive forces.
• Socialism establishes the dictatorship of
the proletariat/working class
• Public ownership and control of the major
means of production and distribution.
• All means of production are in the hands of the
working class

• Relations of production are

non-antagonistic/non-exploitative relations.

• There is no exploitation of any man’s labour by

any other man.
 5. Communism
• This is the highest level of social development

• Absence of exploitative relations of

production

• In a communist or socialist economy,

investment and consumption are primarily
determined by the national plan.
 Criticisms to Marxist Theory of
Social Development
• Marxist theory is criticized for concentrating
too much on conflict - class struggle and
change and too little on what produces
stability in society.
• They are also criticized for being too
ideologically based.
• Marxist theory is descriptive and predictive of
social life
 Criticisms to Marxist Theory of
Social Development
• Others criticized Marxist analysis that the
theory does not give particular attention to the
African situation.
 Bourgeois/Orthodox/Modernization
Theories of Development
• Most Bourgeois theorists argue that countries
pass through phases during the course of
development.
• To most bourgeois theorists development is
commonly defined as gradual advance or
growth through progressive changes.

• In other words to develop implies a move

from one stage to another- a higher stage
than the previous stage (Rostow, 1960)).
• The basic argument of this theory is that the
society changes from a traditional form to a
modern form

• Thus, development means striving towards a

modern society.
Major Features of Modernization
Theories
• Development i.e. modernization
• Path to development- only through capitalism
and industrialization
• Development- essentially (linear process)
• Development process-stage by stage
• Development can be stimulated either by
“internal dynamics or “external forces”
• Economic growth is both the means and end
in this process.
 Cont…..
• Examples of the bourgeois theories of
development include
- Rostow’s Stages of economic growth
- Nurkse's Vicious Circle of Poverty and
 Rostow’s Stages of Economic
Growth
• Rostow’s stage of growth model is the best
known bourgeois view of historical
development.

•  In his book, The Stages of Economic Growth

in 1960 presents a political theory
 Rostow’s stages are distinguished by
consideration of the stages

• Productive capacity and technology

• Manufacturing industry
• Transport
• Savings and investment and trade
 Rostow’s 5 Stages of Growth
1. The “traditional society”
2. The emergence of the pre-conditions for take-
off
3. The “take-off' (transitional stage) – The “take –
off” is meant to be the central notion in
Rostow’s schema and has received the most
attention.
• The drive to maturity
• The age of high mass consumption
Rostow Model of Development
Stage 5: High Mass
Consumption

Stage 4: Drive to Maturity

Stage 3: Take off

Stage 2:
Transitional Stage
Stage !: Tradional
Society
 I: The Traditional Society
• A traditional society is one whose structure is
developed within limited production function
characterized by;
- Very little production.
- Men had little knowledge of the outside
world
- Low level of science and technology
The Traditional Society
- their resources was devoted to agriculture.

-A high proportion of the workforce is

also engaged in agriculture

- Family and clan/tribal connections played

a large role in social organization.

- The unit of production was the family.

 2: Emergence of the Pre-Conditions for
“Take-off” (Transitional Stage)
• The stage between traditonal and take-off
Rostow calls the transitional stage and
characterized by the following:
- level of investment should be raised to at
least 10 per cent of national income to
ensure self-sustaining growth.
- Advance of modern science
- Improvement of infrastructures
2. Emergence of the Pre-Conditions for
“Take-off” (Transitional Stage
 3. The “Take-Off”:
• The Take-off is a decisive transition in a
society’s history
• The Take-off is a period “when the scale of
productive economic activity reaches a critical
level
• The Take-off is a period leads to a massive and
progressive structural transformation in
economies and the societies of which they are
part.
3. The “Take-Off”:
 Take off ….Cont…
• The Take-off may also come about through a
technological

• The Take-off may take the form of a newly

favorable international environment
 4. The Drive to Maturity
• Is characterized by continual investments
• New forms of industries emerge e.g electrical
engineering, chemical or mechanical engineering

• As a consequences of this transformation social

and economic prosperity increases.
• Generally the “Drive to Maturity” stage starts 60
years later after the “Take-off” stage in Europe
• Import decreases and replace by home
indigenous production.

• Reduction in poverty and rising standard of

living.
 5. Age of High Mass Consumption

• This is the final step in Rostow’s five stage of

economic development
• Here most of parts of the society lives in
prosperity and persons living in this societies
are offered both at abundance and multiplicity
of choices .
5. Age of High Mass Consumption
Age of High Mass Consumption
Cont…….
• Large number of persons gained command
over consumption which transcended basic
foods, shelter, and clothing.
• Use of automobiles, electric powered
household gadgets, luxurious goods increases.
• Structure of working force changed.
Age of High Mass Consumption
Cont…….
• Increase in urbanization.
• Skill oriented jobs .
• Allocation of resources for welfare of the
society and environment concerns.
 Criticism on the Rostow’ Model
• Rostow failed to include the idea of
contextualization in his model. The model
makes the presumption that all countries start
with the same natural resources, climates,
population sizes, and structure
 Criticism on the Rostow’ Model
• Too simplistic
• Necessity of a financial infrastructure to channel
any saving that are made into investment
• Will that investment yield growth? Not
necessary
• This model was based on European countries,
and hence does not include development of
developing countries that were colonized.
 Criticism on the Rostow’ Model
• Need for other infrastructure – human
resources (education), roads, rail,
communication networks
• Rostow argued economies would learn from
one anotherand reduce the time taken to
develop- has this happened?
• Assume that each country is economically and
politically free
Rostow’s Theory on Underdevelopment
• Application of Rostow's model as a framework
to development the developed countries were
once underdeveloped and that all countries
move through all these stages of growth.

• This, as historical experience indicates is not

the case for many third world countries,
particularly African countries that suffered
from slavery and colonialism.
Rostow’s Theory on Underdevelopment

• The persistence of underdevelopment in the world

economy poses some problems that were absent in
earlier cases of successful development.
• It is difficult to situate African countries in
Rostow’s stages of development

N.B: Do you think Rostow’ stages of economic

growth relevant to development in the context of
Tanzania?
 Discussion Questions
1. Is the theory of Rostow’s model applicable
today?
2. What are Rostow’s model assumptions?
3. What is Rostow’s modernization model?
4. What are the five stages of growth and
development?
5. Advantages of Rostow’s theory of
development
 Nurkse's Vicious Circle of Poverty

• Ragnar Nurkse (1907 – 1959) was a prominent

economist professor who attempted to
examine problems of capital formation in
underdeveloped countries.
• Nurkse’s theory expresses the circular
relationships that afflict both the demand and
the supply side of the problem of capital
formation in economically backward areas.
• Nurkse stresses the role of savings and capital
formation in economic development.
.
• According to Nurkse a society is poor because
it is poor.

• A society with low income has both levels of

savings and low levels of consumption.
 Nurkse's Vicious Circle of Poverty
Low Income

Low Savings
Inability to
productive Low
capacity Consumption

Low
Investment
Lack of
markets
 Relevance of Nurkse’s Theory
• Third world countries, particularly those in
Africa, are locked in a vicious circle of
poverty the historical causes of poverty are not
underlined by Nurkse’s theory.

• Thus Nurkse's theory, like that of Rostow,

only succeeds in indicating the extent of
poverty/backwardness of the underdeveloped
countries
 What is Poverty?
Oxford English Dictionary
• The condition or quality of being poor.   
• The condition of having little or no wealth or
material possessions;
• Deficiency, lack, scantiness, dearth, scarcity;
smallness of amount. 
• Want of or deficiency in some property, quality, or
ingredient; the condition of being poorly supplied
with something.
• Poor condition of body; leanness or feebleness
resulting from insufficient nourishment, or the like.
• Poverty is multidimensional
 Deprivation in income, illiteracy, malnutrition,
mortality, morbidity, access to water and
sanitation, vulnerability to economic shocks.

 Income deprivation is linked in many cases to

other forms of deprivation, but do not always
move together with others.
•
 Poverty is defined in different ways as
follows:
According to World Bank (2000) poverty is
pronounced deprivation of people’s wellbeing.
Poverty is pronounced deprivation in well-
being, and comprises many dimensions.
•According to Mahatma Gandhi poverty is the
worst form of violence where people have been
deprived of their security and wellbeing
including social services such as food, clothing,
shelter, education and health
 Poverty Cont……
• According to WHO poverty is defined as a
disease that eats people’s mind, erodes their
thinking capacity and drives individuals into
total despair.

• It is a disease that blocks individual’s ability to

enjoy their well-being, erodes humanity and
turns them into mere animals.
Critique of Bourgeois /Modernization
Theories
• Bourgeois/modernization theories fail to
explain the structure and development of
the capitalist system
• Bourgeois/modernization theories failed
to explain the causes of these symptoms
 Bourgeois Theorists and Marxists
Theories: A Comparative Analysis
Similarities
• Both attempts to interpret the evolution of
whole societies primarily from an
economic perspective.
• Both recognize that economic change has
social, political and cultural consequences
 Differences between Rostow and Marxist
analysis:
Marxist
Marx highlights the problems of class conflicts, Rostow and other bourgeois theorists ignore
exploitation and inherent stresses within the
capitalist process.
The Marxists development involves people,
class relations/class struggle.
Karl Marx also did not give particular attention
to the African situation i.e. what kinds of
classes existed in Africa, the nature of the
relations of production, the class struggle in
Africa
Rostow
these aspects
Rostow avoids the Marxian assertion that the
behavior of societies is uniquely determined
by economic considerations.
In general Rostow and other bourgeois
theorist's outlook of development is that
many things are involved in the process of
development: markets, resources,
infrastructures, organization,
Entrepreneurship and investments. These
are related to one another.
 Dependency Theories of Development
and Under Development
Basic Features of Underdevelopment:
• Different authors have described the process
of dependency.

• These include Frank (1969), Palma (1978),

Evans (1979), Szentes (1970), Gilbert and
Haralambidis (1973) and others pointed out
the basic features of underdevelopment:
• The economic system of the
underdeveloped countries is dependent
upon foreign trade and foreign
investment.
• Dependency on imported technology and
finance is very great and is, furthermore,
increasing at a rapid rate.
• Underdevelopment expresses a particular
relationship of exploitation.
• Features of underdevelopment include
poverty, low labour productivity, backward
technology, inadequate equipment, science,
technology and a heavy dependence upon a
primitive agrarian sector.

• Underdevelopment also manifests itself in

cultural, military and economic aspects.
 Arguments of Dependency Theorists on
Underdevelopment:

• Dependency theorists are concerned with the whole

relationship between advanced countries and third
world.
• Dependency theorists concentrate on explaining the
fundamental specific flows of modernization
approaches.
• A central argument of the dependency school is that
dependence generates underdevelopment
 Arguments cont…..
• Dependency theorists argue that the
underdeveloped state of third world countries
was attributed not to the fact that they were at
an earlier stage of history than the advanced
countries, but to the fact that the impact of the
advanced countries on the third world had
caused their underdevelopment.
 Critique of Dependency Theory

• The theory neglecting the role of contemporary

internal political and economic conditions.
• The ultimate causes of underdevelopment are
not identified apart from the thesis that they
originate in a c.
• So much stress is put on the external obstacles
to development that the problem of how to
initiate a development process, once these
obstacles were removed, was rather neglected
 Critique Cont….
• Dependency analysis neglects the
anthropological level of analysis, i.e. the local
community. What happens at the local level is
in dependency theory a reflection of processes
going on in a remote center.
 Changing Theoretical Approaches to the
Study of African Development

• Goran Hyden (1994) points out that one of the

most striking things about the development
debate in Africa is how little it has been
shaped by political leaders and persons
• Goran argues that it is the international
community that has helped set the African
development agenda.

• It is to the ideological perspective of the donor

community that Africa has to respond.

• Goran Hyden identifies four shifts in

development theory during the past forty years
or so.
 1: Structural Functionalism
• Pulling together various threads in non-
Marxist social science,
• This theory implied that societies regardless of
their peculiarities inherently perform the same
basic functions, but they are differentiated in
terms of which structures perform these
functions.
• Structural functionalism was built on the
assumption that development is a linear
evolution, involving structural differentiations
and cultural secularization.
• Structures were the facilitators of development.
• Structural functionalism was meant to be a
counter point to the Universalist ambitions of
Marxist theory.
• By the second part of the 1960s, the critique of
structural functionalism had grown to such an
extent that its leading role was in question.
• A careful scrutiny of its basic premises
suggested that they were untenable.
• Future development theory had to seek its
inspiration from other sources.
 2: Neo-Marxist Political Economy
• Are leading advocates of the dependency theory.
• Neo Marxists attempt to apply Marxism to
advance Marxist political economy on a “new’
framework to suit existing conditions.
• Neo Marxists provide a critique to structural
functionalism.
• They argue that structural functionalism was
naive in assuming that development is the best
pursued in conditions of social harmony or
equilibrium.
• To the neo-Marxists, development grows out
of conflict, notably those stemming from
changes in the material conditions of life.
• Furthermore, structures are not only
facilitating but are also constraining, holding
back human potential.
• Neo-Marxists stressed the international
character of these structural constraints, and
• hence the need for the poor countries of the
world to emancipate themselves from their
dependence on the richer countries.
• Class analysis, in its orthodox form (Marxism),
was also brought back into development theory.
• Drawing much of its inspiration from Frantz
Fanon’s scathing critique of the new leaders in
third world countries (1963), this analysis
focused primarily on the weakness of ruling
classes in these countries.
• An example of this analysis is Issa Shivji’s account
of the class struggles in Tanzania (1975), where
he ridicules the ‘petty-bourgeoisie’ and makes
heroes of the country’s suppressed workers and
peasants.
 3: Neo-Liberal Political Economy
• Foremost of these was the neo-liberal ‘rational
choice’ theory which began its impact on
development theory in the latter part of the
1970s.
• Contrary to both structural functionalism and
neo-Marxist political economy, this new theory
stressed the importance of individual actors.
• To them development is the aggregate outcome
of a multitude of individual decisions.
• Operating in a market context, people make
their own decisions in a voluntary fashion.
Samuel Popkin (1979) and Robert Bates
(1981) are among the leading neo-liberals.
• Theirs is essentially a theory of the market.
 4: The New Institutionalism
• This theoretical approach is concerned with
‘institutions’, the layer between individual
actors and societal structures.
• The theory retains what is largely a voluntarist
perspective, but argue that social action is
primarily integrative, aimed at going beyond
self -interest.
• This theoretical perspective corresponds to the
ideological concern with an ‘enabling
environment’.