Class 8 Development & International Relations PDF

Class 8. Development and international relations Key figures: - Immanuel Wallerstein - Johan Galtung - Karl Marx - Lenin - Samir Amin - Henrique Cardoso - Enzo Faletto Concepts: - World-economy/World-system - Centre/peripher...

Class 8. Development and international relations Key figures: - Immanuel Wallerstein - Johan Galtung - Karl Marx - Lenin - Samir Amin - Henrique Cardoso - Enzo Faletto Concepts: - World-economy/World-system - Centre/periphery/semi-periphery - Disconnection - Unequal exchange - Human development index - Millennium development goals Foreword: Development aid and development indexes I. Inequalities and Marxism a. Living in a world of inequalities b. The extension of Marxism to international relations II. The neo-Marxist interpretation of international relations a. The Dependency School b. Structuralism Foreword Development aid has come through different stages: - Before World War II, it was rather rare and always linked to strategic interests and political support. - After Word War II, it intensified with the programme launched by Harry S Truman and its “point IV” that marked the emergence of technical assistance as an essential objective of foreign policy. - In 1960 was created the OECD Comity for development aid. - In 1970, developed countries, within the United Nations framework, accepted to commit themselves to contribute to development aid proportionally to their gross domestic product (0,7%). But this objective was never reached. 1  - The 1980s were marked by conditionality politics from the International Monetary Fund. After the Cold War, classical development aid (not linked to conditionality) decreased with the rise of liberal values. - In the 2000s, development aid evolved with the Declaration of the Millennium and the associated development goals, aiming at eradicating half of the world’s extreme poverty by 2015. This brief chronology presents the quantitative side of development aid but it is important to note that development aid also known a qualitative change. Development aid progressed from a dominant approach to an alternative approach. The dominant approach defines poverty as a lack of material goods; development as a linear process linking traditional systems to modern ones; hunger as a consequence of a lack of food production. This model is monetarist and consumerist. The alternative and critical approach defines poverty as a lack of both material and immaterial goods (for instance social goods like equity); development as a process that can follow different paths and that is driven by the local level; hunger as a consequence of power distribution problems. This social and political extension of development is also visible in the definition of development indexes. Initially, economic indicators such as gross domestic product measured development. Later on, in 1990, the United Nations Development Programme created the Human Development Index (HDI). The HDI is an average value calculated from three indicators: health and life expectancy; knowledge; and way of life (which was the former unique economic indicator). The HDI adds social components to development: health and education, just as the Millennium Development Goals. To better visualize the change operated with this new measure of development, one can take examples. In 2010, Norway was 24th in terms of gross domestic product but 1st according to the HDI index. To the contrary, China, 3rd world economic power, was classified 89th according to the HDI. Building on the HDI, the United Nations have developed other indexes that are “corrected” to take gender disparities into account for instance. I. a. The inequalities game enables you to experiment some strong inequalities that are still present today, all over the world. b. Marxist theories appeared rather lately in International Relations because they were initially judged as normative, biased and political, due to the socialist regime of the Soviet Union. At the end of the Cold War, and with decolonisation, several authors realised that Marxism could propose an elaborated view of capitalism, its dynamic and its contradictions that was increasingly topical. Karl Marx (Capital, 1867). Workers are free individuals who, in order to survive, can only count on their working force that they sell to the Capitalist class in exchange of a salary. The profit generated by this working force belongs to the Capitalist class (Bourgeoisie), which controls production. Class struggle characterises history. 2  Marx never talked about international relations. Lenin (Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism, 1917) did. The State represents the interests of the economically dominant class (the elite of the empires). International relations are in conflicts. Lenin observes the colonisation dynamic that booms at the end of the nineteenth century. For instance, Leopold from Belgium launch the exploration of Congo in 1879 that lead to some reactions of Portugal (Mozambique), France (Egypt, Congo, Tunisia, Madagascar, etc.), Britain and Germany (as soon as 1883). 500 million people were under European colonial influence by 1900. The decrease of profit rates explained by the pauperisation of the European Proletarian class lead to a raw material race in the colonies. Whereas Marx thought that the spread of Capitalism would engender its own destruction, Lenin has been pessimistic and saw international relations as a perpetual fight among empires. II. a. In the 1970s, the historical context changed: the initial 50 States became 160 (decolonisation). 1955-1961, non-aligned movement (Nasser, Tito, Nehru) and creation of the G77. Political equality on paper, but not real in practice. There are also strong economic inequalities. The Dependency School. Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Faletto Enzo, Dependency and development in Latin America, 1969. Or for instance Samir Amin, Accumulation at world Scale, 1970. The unequal exchange and degradation of the exchange rate. Commercial, financial, technological and social dependency. Solution: the disconnection to avoid the « development of under-development » or « growth without development ». b. Structuralists propose an extension of dependency theories in view of its limits. Johan Galtung, “A structural theory of imperialism”, Journal of peace research, 1971. Immanuel Wallerstein, The Capitalist World Economy, 1979. The world is made of Nations from the centre and Nations from the periphery (and even from the semi-periphery for Wallerstein). The elite of the centre links up with the elite of the periphery to exploit the periphery. Interests divergences among the peripheries prevent them from creating alliances. It is more efficient than military imperialism. Theories about development share a number of grounds but they also follow different trends. Glossary Development in IR The concept of development has been central to the theory and practice of international relations since the Second World War. At the core of international development are a multitude of bilateral as well as multilateral aid programmes involving above all the World Bank and various agencies of the United Nations. The project of international development – the notion of helping poor countries 3 achieve improvements in economic growth and welfare – is a relatively recent concept, despite having many historical precedents, including colonialism. Modernization theory A liberal theory of development; the basic idea is that Third World Countries should be expected to follow the same developmental path taken earlier by the developed countries in the West: a progressive journey from a traditional, pre-industrial, agrarian society towards a modern, industrial, mass-consumption society. Development means overcoming barriers of pre-industrial production, backward institutions, and parochial value systems which impede the process of growth and modernization. World Systems Theory An approach developed by Immanuel Wallerstein. A world system is characterized by a certain economic and a certain political structure with the one depending on the other. In human history, there have been two basic varieties of world systems: world empires and world economies. In world empires, such as the Roman Empire, political and economic control is concentrated in a unified center. World economies, in contrast, are tied together economically in a single division of labor, but politically, authority is decentralized, residing in multiple sites, in a system of states. Wallerstein’s key focus is the analysis of the modern world economy, characterized by capitalism. Dependency Theory Dependency theory draws on classical Marxist thought but is different from Marxism in a basic respect. Unlike Marx, dependency theorists do not expect capitalist development to take root and unfold in the Third World in the same way that capitalist first took place in Western Europe and North America. The main aim of dependency theory is to critique the dependency form that capitalist development is seen to take in the Third World. Dependency theory is an effort to provide the theoretical tools by which Third World countries can defend themselves against globalizing capitalism. Human Development Index The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistic composite index of life expectancy, education, and per capita income indicators, which are used to rank countries into four tiers of human development. Thus, the HDI is a summary measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable, and have a decent standard of living. The HDI was created to emphasize that people and their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country, not economic growth alone. Sustainable Development Goals The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a "blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all". The SDGs were set up in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly and are intended to be achieved by the year 2030. 4