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- Convenors:
-
Pritish Behuria
(University of Manchester)
Tom Goodfellow (University of Sheffield)
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- Formats:
- Papers
- Stream:
- Rethinking development
- Sessions:
- Friday 2 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel invites papers that critically examine apparent paradigm shifts in how Development Studies is being re-imagined or the recent 'mainstream' re-discovery of heterodox policies and 'older' development priorities (industrial policy, infrastructure, political analysis).
Long Abstract:
The 2008/9 financial crisis, along with the rise of China's influence within global political economy, contributed to optimism that a paradigm shift was underway in development policy and Development Studies. Industrial policy was re-discovered, infrastructure was back on the agenda, some low-income countries were enjoying newfound policy space and even international financial institutions were re-discovering long-lost topics (inequality, industrial policy and the importance of political analysis). As these topics were rediscovered, debates have ensued about the consequences of this shift in development thinking. International Financial Institutions and mainstream economics have been widely accused of diluting heterodox approaches to fit attempts at paradigm maintenance. More recently, the pandemic, cuts to aid and the merging of development and foreign policy in the UK have further fuelled debates on what 'development' might mean in the 2020s.
Alongside these policy shifts, new academic discourses like 'Global Development' have emerged, based on notions of convergence between OECD countries and the rest of the world but without clarity on whether this is a fundamental shift in global political economy or what it implies for development policy. Meanwhile the welcome ongoing movement to decolonize development and take greater account of multiple positionalities and home-grown 'development alternatives' has challenged conventional approaches to the political economy of development.
This panel invites papers that critically examine whether new academic paradigms or the rediscovery of alternative development priorities constitute fundamental change. It urges contributors to consider whether new trends constitute paradigm shifts, or represent opportunistic moves that ultimately serve paradigm maintenance.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 2 July, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
For all the talk of decolonising knowledge and global convergence, this paper explores contemporary dynamics of the global economy in terms of control over the productive capabilities and financial resources associated with knowledge.
Paper long abstract:
The question of who gets to produce knowledge and technology, commercialise it and disseminate it are essential for thinking about the nature and process of development in the age of the so called ‘knowledge economy’. Nonetheless, the development studies community has so far paid insufficient attention to these questions with regards to economic policies. It is time we connect scholarship on decolonisation with scholarship on knowledge and technology's role in economic development and global inequality. We argue that while funding for African higher education has revived in recent years and there is much talk about strengthening the knowledge economy, current global research and technological arrangements remain trapped within an unequal system whereby the division of labour sets the global North as the home of theoretical and technological production and innovation, while the global South largely remains the ground for data-collection and the consumption and use of knowledge and technological innovations. With funding and investment coming mainly from institutions in the North, northern collaborators have disproportionate influence over the scientific agenda and its execution. As they come under increasing pressure to demonstrate impact through increasingly commercial publishing infrastructures and justify their research in line with the commercial interests of their economies, transnational knowledge and technology partnerships can serve to reinforce extractive systems of knowledge production, commercial surveillance and economic control. For all the talk of decolonising knowledge and global convergence, current dynamics continue to drive global divergence in the control over the productive capabilities and financial resources associated with knowledge.
Paper short abstract:
By tracing the shifts from MDGs to SDGs and from basic needs to human development, this paper explores the implicit power of the mainstream in past and present alternatives in order to predict future directions in the discourse of development.
Paper long abstract:
As the idea of development evolves, it is subject to both intellectual and technological innovation, while the process remains deeply political. However, the range of innovations does not necessarily change the discourse, and this has resulted in the dominance of the economic growth model over time. Indeed, too radical an alternative approach would be eliminated by the mainstream. The development discourse has evolved through a delicate balancing act between the mainstream and its alternatives.
Environmental protection as an aspect of development has come under the spotlight in recent years, leading to the recommendation for its adoption in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Even so, the environmental perspective plays a supplementary role at best. The strong sustainability model remains too controversial for explicit mention or for incorporation in SDGs. Instead, bland terms such as ‘green economy’ and ‘circular economy’ have proliferated. Before the rise of environmental protection, similar trends could be observed in the context of human-centred development. As history shows, the basic needs approach lost impetus by undervaluing economic growth, while the human development approach seeks to consolidate its role as an alternative by making common cause with the mainstream, as for example in the construction and evolution of the Human Development Index.
By tracing the shifts from Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to SDGs and from basic needs to human development, this paper explores the implicit power of the mainstream in past and present alternatives in order to predict future directions in the discourse of development.
Paper short abstract:
If the current popularity of the GVC approach in the international development community is to be used to contribute to a true paradigm shift, there is a need to put more emphasis on the importance of the domestic integration of emerging GVC-oriented industries in developing countries.
Paper long abstract:
It has been argued that the proliferation of the GVC approach in the international development community has the potential to contribute to the emergence of a more heterodox post-Washington consensus. Others have criticized that its selective application has allowed for the continuation of business-as-usual. I argue that to not squander the opportunity that the approach’s popularity provides, there is a need to put more emphasis on the importance of the domestic integration of emerging GVC-oriented industries in developing countries, ensured through proactive state intervention. When industrialization strategies are solely focused on linking up to and upgrading within GVCs, there is a risk that such strategies miss out on another key aspect of economic development, i.e. the thickening of the industrial structure of the domestic economy. In this paper, I revisit some of the key arguments of the structuralist development economists. I go on to show that while the East-Asian catch-up experience was certainly built on successful export industries, the domestic integration of these export industries and associated increases in domestic intermediate demand were of equal importance. Reflecting on some more recent contributions from the GVC literature that make similar points, I show that a focus on the domestic integration of emerging industries and on the technological capabilities of local firms in developing countries provides a powerful conceptual addition to the GVC framework that can contribute to a real paradigm shift beyond the over-emphasis on external economic integration. I use the case study of the automotive GVC to illustrate my points.
Paper short abstract:
Since the 2008 financial crisis, cracks appeared in the neoliberal consensus that dominated development thinking. The pandemic prompted renewed attempts at formalising new development paradigms. This paper examines whether the recent reinvention of development has set back progressive possibilities.
Paper long abstract:
The financial crisis contributed to cracks in the New Institutional Economics-inspired market-led paradigm, which had dominated development policy since the 1990s. As questions were raised about the validity of donor-fed solutions, the rise of China forced a re-think for multi-lateral organisations. The UN, responding to the more diverse demands of its members, by calling for new (Global) SDGs replacing the national MDGs. To some, this signalled a shift to a reformed multi-lateral system that recognised the urgent need to think globally and avoid selfish nationalist thinking. To skeptics, 'Global Development' was an all-things-to-everyone rhetorical device, with no acknowledgment of the heavy weight of shifts in economic thinking, which shaped dominant 'paradigms' of the past.
As Global Development became synonymous with the new development agenda, there was an opportunity for entrepreneurial academics to battle over an intellectual case for this new name. A Development and Change forum followed, with debilitating criticisms for the main paper. Global Development discussions then temporarily took a back-seat. Until the Covid pandemic provided a new opportunity to re-state the case for Global Development. Ironically, just as countries were shutting their borders, some argued that the Global Development had never been more salient. Never mind, the stark inequities of vaccine distribution that unsettle any claims of 'converging divergence'.
This paper analyses whether renewed attempts at self-anointing 'Global Development' as the new development paradigm are convincing or whether the silences obscured by such discourses sustain the dominant market-led paradigm.