Introduction to Development

Studies

Presented By
Mr. Maake, S.M (Lecturer)
University of Mpumalanga
Objective of this chapter
• Understand the erstwhile events of
International Politics
• To understand and debate the theories of
development with reference to South
Africa’s development trajectory
• To gain insight into competing paradigms
& theories of development
Introduction
Historical Chronicles
The influence of Slave Trade by Westerns
(Merchant Capitalism)
Merchant Capitalism
Colonialism
 Scramble of Africa
• The process left Africa divided into thirty new colonies
and protectorates controlled by five rival European
nations-Germany, Italy, Portugal, France and Britain.
• Belgium held small territories of West Africa and Spain
much smaller regions.
• Africa was colonized to civilize and Christianize, but that
later turned to Chimurenga wars, Maji-maji wars, the
Herero Rebellion and Zulu-Anglo war.
• Characterized by modern military weapons against
indigenous people
Influences of
Colonization
 French-British rivalry (wealth and
power)
 They both wanted their respective
strong presence particularly on
political, legal and administrative
structure (establishment of authority)
 This has impacted on the lives of the
locals especially with regard to their
access to land, taxation and labor
regulations.
 Companies that were non agricultural
and mineral were squeezed out as
rural farmers lost land to companies
interested only in the new crops
(sugar, coffee, cocoa and tea)
 Those who lost their land had to sell
their labors for a wage at company
plantation or mines
 Apart from landlessness, many
people were compelled to look for
cash paying jobs to pay imposed
taxes (led to labor migration)
Development imperatives
• Thus richer countries have a role to play in
developing poorer countries
• The former president of US said that:
– We must embark on a new program for making the
benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress
available for improvement and growth of
underdeveloped areas
– Humanity possesses the knowledge and skill to relieve
the suffering of these
– I believe we should make available to peace-loving
peoples the benefits of our store of technical knowledge
in order to help them realise their aspiration for better
life
 Dualism
• Underdeveloped countries were/are characterised by
dichotomous or dualistic nature
• Advanced and modern sectors of the economy
coexist alongside traditional and backward sector
• Lewis did not differentiate between economic growth
and development
• He envisaged a division of the economic system into
two distinct sector, the capitalist and subsistence
• The subsistence sector, according to Lewis, consists
predominantly of small scale family agriculture and
has a much lower per capita output than the
capitalist sector
• This is where manufacturing industry and estate
agriculture, either private or state-owned, are
important elements
• Lewis suggests that development involves an
increase in the capitalists’ share of national
income due to growth of the capitalist sector at
the expense of the subsistence sector, with the
ultimate goal of absorption of the later by the
former
• Lewis was criticised for failing to appreciate the
positive role of small scale agriculture in the
development process
• Rural subsistence sector could
actually be an important objective
rather than a constraint in
development policy
• Some scholar would argue that the
development of certain areas at the
expense of others is likely to inhibit
the growth of the economy as a
whole
Assumptions of Dualism
 End of World War ii
• Developing countries remained poor despite
Capitalism
• Concern amongst Western leaders that poverty
will lead to communism (Western Democracy
and Eastern Communism)
• Why would the Western be concerned with the
spread of communism?
 Less partners to trade with
 Stronger support for communist ideologies,
weaker capitalism become
 Modernisation Theory

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 The economic approach

Tuesday 11 April 2023 Thanks 20

 Modernization has two main
aims:
• Seeks to explain why poor countries have
failed to develop economically and
culturally
• Provides a non-communist solution to
poverty that suggest economic change
and encouragement of certain cultural
values will lead to development (Prof. W.
Walt. Rostow, 1971)
• He worked for USAID after WW2
Tuesday 11 April 2023 Thanks 23
 Rostow’s stages of growth

Tuesday 11 April 2023 Thanks 24

Objective of this chapter
• Understand the erstwhile events of
International Politics
• To understand and debate the theories of
development with reference to South
Africa’s development trajectory
• To gain insight into competing paradigms
& theories of development
Introduction
Historical Chronicles
The influence of Slave Trade by Westerns
(Merchant Capitalism)
Merchant Capitalism
Colonialism
 Scramble of Africa
• The process left Africa divided into thirty new colonies
and protectorates controlled by five rival European
nations-Germany, Italy, Portugal, France and Britain.
• Belgium held small territories of West Africa and Spain
much smaller regions.
• Africa was colonized to civilize and Christianize, but that
later turned to Chimurenga wars, Maji-maji wars, the
Herero Rebellion and Zulu-Anglo war.
• Characterized by modern military weapons against
indigenous people
Influences of
Colonization
 French-British rivalry (wealth and
power)
 They both wanted their respective
strong presence particularly on
political, legal and administrative
structure (establishment of authority)
 This has impacted on the lives of the
locals especially with regard to their
access to land, taxation and labor
regulations.
 Companies that were non agricultural
and mineral were squeezed out as
rural farmers lost land to companies
interested only in the new crops
(sugar, coffee, cocoa and tea)
 Those who lost their land had to sell
their labors for a wage at company
plantation or mines
 Apart from landlessness, many
people were compelled to look for
cash paying jobs to pay imposed
taxes (led to labor migration)
Development imperatives
• Thus richer countries have a role to play in
developing poorer countries
• The former president of US said that:
– We must embark on a new program for making the
benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress
available for improvement and growth of
underdeveloped areas
– Humanity possesses the knowledge and skill to relieve
the suffering of these
– I believe we should make available to peace-loving
peoples the benefits of our store of technical knowledge
in order to help them realise their aspiration for better
life
 Dualism
• Underdeveloped countries were/are characterised by
dichotomous or dualistic nature
• Advanced and modern sectors of the economy
coexist alongside traditional and backward sector
• Lewis did not differentiate between economic growth
and development
• He envisaged a division of the economic system into
two distinct sector, the capitalist and subsistence
• The subsistence sector, according to Lewis, consists
predominantly of small scale family agriculture and
has a much lower per capita output than the
capitalist sector
• This is where manufacturing industry and estate
agriculture, either private or state-owned, are
important elements
• Lewis suggests that development involves an
increase in the capitalists’ share of national
income due to growth of the capitalist sector at
the expense of the subsistence sector, with the
ultimate goal of absorption of the later by the
former
• Lewis was criticised for failing to appreciate the
positive role of small scale agriculture in the
development process
• Rural subsistence sector could
actually be an important objective
rather than a constraint in
development policy
• Some scholar would argue that the
development of certain areas at the
expense of others is likely to inhibit
the growth of the economy as a
whole
Assumptions of Dualism
 End of World War ii
• Developing countries remained poor despite
Capitalism
• Concern amongst Western leaders that poverty
will lead to communism (Western Democracy
and Eastern Communism)
• Why would the Western be concerned with the
spread of communism?
 Less partners to trade with
 Stronger support for communist ideologies,
weaker capitalism become
 Modernisation Theory

Tuesday 11 April 2023 Thanks 42

 The economic approach

Tuesday 11 April 2023 Thanks 44

 Modernization has two main
aims:
• Seeks to explain why poor countries have
failed to develop economically and
culturally
• Provides a non-communist solution to
poverty that suggest economic change
and encouragement of certain cultural
values will lead to development (Prof. W.
Walt. Rostow, 1971)
• He worked for USAID after WW2
Tuesday 11 April 2023 Thanks 47
 Rostow’s stages of growth

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 Criticism of modernisation theory
• It could not easily accept that the third
world countries might differ
fundamentally from the first
• Traditional life is regarded as primitive
• Western materialisation is wrongfully
regarded as the ultimate goal of
development

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Why Modernization fail?
Criticisms…
 The influence of
Modernization Theory
 DEPENDENCY THEORY
• It originated in the Latin America during the
early 1960s
• This was as a results of failure of modernisation
paradigm to address the underdevelopment of
LDCs
• It argues that structuralist-inspired policy had
failed to break the link with the first world
• Dependency was a dominated development
thinking in the late 1960s and the 1970s
• Unfavourable terms of trade that existed
between these two groups of countries
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Andre-Gunder Frank (1971)
 Dependency Theory and Neo-colonialism
• Frank has noted that there has been a new form of
colonialism which continues to exploit developing nations
• He mentioned that their methods may be subtle but have
equally devastating consequences of slavery and
colonialism.
• Nkrumah of Ghana argued that “the essence of neo-colonialism is
that the state which is subject to it, in theory, independent and has all the
trappings of international sovereignty. In reality, economic system and
thus its internal policy is directed from the outside”.
• Just like Fernando Cardoso and Paul Baran, Frank believes
that poverty in developing countries is caused by its
exposure to the economic and political influences of
developed western countries (third world poverty is a reflection of
its dependency)
 Conti..
• The growth of Multinational Corporations (MNCs) and
Transnational corporations (TNCs) after world war 2 was
seen as a principal feature of neo-colonialism
• MNCs and TNCs use their world wide business structures
to control production from the raw material stages through
that processing to the final retail stage.
• These are the businesses that have branches or subsidiary
companies in more than one country
• Neo-colonialism means a new form if colonialism: a form of
a socio-economic domination from outside that does not
rely on direct political control.
• Dependency theory reiterate that under development is not
a natural circumstance, but an externally induced
phenomenon
Tuesday 11 April 2023 Thanks 58
• Core-periphery model helps to explain
underdevelopment
• Underdevelopment of certain countries and regions
is maintained by international capitalist economic
system which sucks resources from periphery to
the centre
• The movement of resources takes place in two levels:
• A national level: rural and urban areas in developing
countries
• International level: developed countries and developing
countries (international capitalist conspiracy) aimed as
keeping the developed world in a state of poverty and
dependency
• “There is a chain of dependency running down from
developed states into poor economies.
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 National level
• Human and physical resources are
continuously being sucked from rural
to urban areas
• Thus there will be shortage of resources
in rural areas
• This results in the development in urban
areas than underdevelopment in rural
areas

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 International level
• The terms of trade that exists between
developed and developing countries are
unequal and favour the developed
countries
• They draw highly needed skilled and
resources from developing to developed
countries
• This perpetuates underdevelopment in LDCs
• This keeps the developing countries in
poverty and dependency
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 Characteristics of the Dependency
Theory
• Underdevelopment is a historical process.
• It is not a condition intrinsic to LDC
• Dominant and developing countries together
form a capitalist system
• Underdevelopment is an inherent
consequence of the functioning of the world
system.
– The periphery is plundered of its surplus
– This lead to development of the core and
underdevelopment of the periphery
 Criticism of dependency
theory
• It pays much attention to external factors
and ignores the internal factors that could
explain the underdevelopment of developing
countries
• De-linking strategies
• It is argued that third world societies have
benefited from the contact with the
industrialised countries
• It tends to generalise about contemporary
third world countries
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 Competing paradigm
• From the end of world war II until the late
1980s, the attention of academics concerned
with development was essentially locked into
a conflicting discourse between 2 streams of
thoughts
• Although they have different philosophies
and ideological point of departure, they are
both prescriptive in nature
• They both propose an oversimplified macro
solutions to the development problematic in
LDC
• Dependency is rooted in the works of Karl Marx- a western
philosopher
• Thus, none of this paradigm can lay a claim to being rooted
either in African, Asian or South American history
• In fact they share a western genealogy of history
• Between 1950s to 1980s, the academic discourse between
the two competing paradigms grew in intensity and
complexity
• The living condition of the majority of Africans, Asians and
South Americans worsened to the extent that this period
can be described Development tragedy
• Neither paradigms succeeded in bringing about sustainable
development
• Consequently, development was labelled as obsolete and
irrelevant
• Socialism, the basis of the dependency theory, was
collapsing and it was becoming evident that the Western
economic growth model was been confronted with
environmental constraint
• Development theorist continued with their debates at times
unaware that the world on which many of their assumption
were based had disappeared
• Development theory and practices had reached
impasse/deadlock
 HUMANISTIC PARADIGM
• Failure of the competing paradigm to
address the underdevelopment
• Development cannot be studied merely
using theories
• Development had to be human centred
• In the 1980s saw a shift from the macro
theories to a micro approach
• This focused more on people and the
community

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• People centred paradigm incorporates
aspects of the macro theories
• People should decide for themselves
what constitute better life
• Development is:
– For people
– By the people

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 People centred development in
South Africa: past to present
• Against the background of SA’s colonial and apartheid history
of disempowerment and top down decision making
• SA’s first democratically elected government deemed
profound to embrace people centred development
• This was done through the 1994 economic policy framework
called RDP
• This have the potential address the injustices of the past
development efforts
• Its building block are empowerment, public participation,
social learning and sustainability

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• Prior 1994, development was far from the
people
• It was top down initiatives
• This country’s history chronicles how the
concept of development was abused by the
National party government
• Development became a tool of exploitation
and disempowerment
• Many people were made poor through the
social and economic engineering called
development
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 Legacy of the past
• Policy of separate development was promoted
• Development was promoted by dividing the
population into 4 racial groups, each with a political
and social position within the system
• It is only through separation could the interest of
group be promoted
• This system brought hardships for majority of the SA
classified as non white
• White privileges alongside black poverty and
deprivation (land, economy, salaries, health,
education, welfare services)
• All of this, illogical as it may seem, it was done in
the name of development
• The delay in putting all race in an equal footing
further undermined the credibility of separate
development
• Since it meant that coloured, Indian, African South
Africans had to pay for services
• This was brought by discriminatory laws such as
Group Area Act (1950), Native Land Act (1913),
Coloured Area Act (1963) and Asiatic Land Tenure
Act (1946)
 Post apartheid development
• Redefined development and the term integrated
(holistic), people centred development become the
buzzword used in the development lexicon
• Government policy following SA’s democratic elected
government reflected integrated, people centred
development approach
• It was committed to promote democratic, non racial
and non-sexist society
• This was characterised by integration between
decision makers from the public, private and
voluntary sectors, and the intended beneficiaries of
development
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• Unlike separate development, integrated
development approach acknowledges the
development of all people irrespective of
race, gender or race, or whether they are
living in urban or rural areas
• The principles of people centred
development, formulated as the building
block of development
– Participation
– Social learning
– Empowerment
– Sustainable
 » Participation
– This approach, which sees public participation as a basic
need and a democratic right
– Development is people centred development if it entails the
active and voluntary participation of its intended beneficiaries
– Public participation involves interchange of decision making,
views and preference
– It should be understood in the context of:
• Participation in decision making
• In implementation of development project
• In monitoring and evaluation
• In sharing the benefits of development
• Explore what are the following concepts mean: Social Learning,
Empowerment, and Sustainability.
In conclusion