SSL Week 5 - Development

Hello Everybody!

Since the other group of thursday’s presentation on development already gave you an insight about what will be discussed in this lecture,

I wanted to give some background information about the main focus on what Djibril and I are going to talk about Development in our SSL. We’d like to give you some of the reasons why development is an important issue of international relations and the international political economy.

Let me start with an outline of our presentation. Basically, we’ve divided our presentation into three parts. Djbril will start by giving you an overview about development and its characteristics and afterwards I will briefly theorise development looking at Rostow’s influential theory of the ‘Five Stages of Growth’. After taking a critical approach, Djbril will identify and examine the relation between developme

nt and the political in a sufficient overview. Finally, after the conclusion and an outlook, there will be enough time for questions and a discussion, of course.

To get in touch with the topic and make up your minds, I posted some quotations and information about what constitutes development and sustainable development as well as some videos.

Moreover, I found it important to give you a brief overview about the Human Development Report as well as the Human Development Index; as it is vital to know about these.

Bearing the relation between development and the political in mind, I found it important to shortly refer to the Legal framework of the Development Policy of the UN. Therefore, I posted a short summary to provide you with the foundational treaty of the UN outlining ‘development’. As the charter is a constituent treaty; its articles bind all 193 members.

THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT

I will be concentrating on explaining theories on development.

Is the path to development a direct line?

Two ideal types of development analysis can be split into two schools of thought:

1. Development through modernizing an economic growth – Rostow and Modernization theory
2. Self development to abolish the dependence – Guder Frank and Dependency theory

Basically, my part of our SSL is split into two parts. Firstly, I will explain W.W. Rostows model of ’The Five Stages of Growth’. The so-called ‘Rostovian take-off model of economic growth’ is one of the major historical models of economic growth. According to Rostow, it is possible to identify all societies, in their economic dimensions, as lying within one of five categories (shown below in the figure). As a matter of course, I will explain this and provide you with more information about what this model constitutes on Thursday. I will discuss Rostow’s understanding of development, take a critical approach and be asking if anyone has suggestions why his theory is out-dated today!

Rostow's five-stage model of development

(Source: Potter, Binns, Eliott & Smiith 1999: 51)

The following figure shows the different stages of different countries.

What do you think why Britain was the 1^st to develop fully the preconditions for take-off?

What do you think might be critical about this model?

If you want to know more about the person W.W.Rostow, since we will not have time to go into detail, here you find more background information:

http://www.utexas.edu/faculty/council/2003-2004/memorials/rostow/rostow.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2003/feb/17/guardianobituaries.usa

Further reading:

W. W. Rostow ‘The Five Stages of Growth’ in Mitchell A. Seligson and John T Passe-Smith (eds.) Development and Under-development: The Political Economy of Global Inequality (Lynne Reinner Publishers 2003): 173-180.

Development theory Rostow's five-stage model of development and its relevance in Globalization (2005)

http://jpkc.swu.edu.cn/data/gjzrzygl/web%20prepare20110608/paper/Rostow%20Development%20Model%201960.pdf

NORTH-SOUTH DIVIDE BETWEEN INDUSTRIALIZED AND DEVELOPING WORLD

Then, in the second part, I look at the the North-South divide between industrialized and developing world focusing on two main theories:

1. Liberalist/traditional:

• believes rich and poor countries alike benefit from free trade.

1. Structuralist/underdevelopment/dependency school:

• instead of emphasizing mutual interests, this group emphasizes the conflicts between rich and poor countries

Questions to think about

Has decolonization improved economic conditions of the Third World, or have the rich simply become richer and the poor become poorer?

Is the Third World still economically dependent on the Developed World?

Is the path to development a direct line?

This quotation is going to be discussed:

"We cannot forget that while the iron curtain has been brought down, the poverty curtain still separates two parts of the world community."

Javier Perez de Cuellar, UN Secretary General 1982-1991

I hope I could give you an overview about what is going to be talked and discussed about tomorrow. If anything might be unclear, I am sure during our SSL you will understand because we will be referring and explaining all the given information. We are looking forward to an interesting SSL!