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- Convenors:
-
James Copestake
(University of Bath)
Emmanuel Kumi (University of Ghana)
Mihika Chatterjee (University of Bath)
Aurelie Charles (University of Bath)
Send message to Convenors
- Chair:
-
Monica Guillen-Royo
(CICERO)
- Discussants:
-
Sooksiri Chamsuk
(University of Bath)
Max Nino-Zarazua (University of Bath)
- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Rethinking development
- Location:
- Palmer 1.04
- Sessions:
- Friday 30 June, -, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
The panel aims (1) to identify empirical examples of radical shifts in development thinking and the activities of development practitioners/organisations, and (2) to examine what caused them. We are especially interested in examples of shifts towards approaches with a lower material throughput.
Long Abstract:
Crisis, critical juncture, paradigm shift, pivot, reversal, revolution, transformation - development discourse is full of references to radical shifts. First, the panel aims to identify and document empirical examples of such shifts in development ideas and actions: in professional practice, organizational strategies, social movements or the mandates of international agencies, for example. Second, it will explore causal explanations for the selected changes, and how these are constructed. Shifts may be attributed to intentional disruption, unanticipated shocks (e.g. linked to climate change) or to changes internal to the selected agency (e.g. crises of performance or leadership). Or they may be attributed to a combination of factors. In a complex, uncertain and rapidly changing world being agile and innovative is widely viewed positively. However, the purpose of this panel is not to evaluate the identified shifts, but to improve understanding of the causal processes and power dynamics lying behind them, including causal interactions between changing aspirations, ideas, actions, and perceived outcomes. In the context of climate change, deep inequalities and other global challenges we are particularly interested in shifts that involve managed retreat from ambitions with higher material throughput.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 30 June, 2023, -James Copestake (University of Bath)
Paper short abstract:
Development studies exists to question what development is – but how? I propose an empirical approach based on sequential exploratory and confirmatory narrative stakeholder interviews in co-selected fields of practice informed by critical realism, discursive institutionalism and decolonial praxis.
Paper long abstract:
Self-identified development actors, practitioners, volunteers, professionals, academics, experts… tell themselves and others many stories about their evolving relationship to development as a historical process, aspiration and field of personal engagement. This paper proposes a theoretical framework and empirical strategy for investigating such accounts informed by critical realism, discursive institutionalism and decolonial praxis. The critical realism entails theorising development studies as a transdisciplinary field for sequentially identifying (a) unequal and stratified multidimensional wellbeing outcomes, (b) agent-centred causal mechanisms to explain these outcomes, and (c) structural and cultural factors conditioning these mechanisms. The discursive institutionalism entails linking causal mechanisms to the evolution of personal, shared and often fragmented mental models of progress and regress at multiple levels (from personal to global) emerging from tangled processes of personal reflexivity, interpersonal deliberation and contestation. The decolonial praxis entails empirically grounded, reciprocal, deliberative and transparent co-production of ideas informed by reflexivity about participants’ relationship to structures and cultures of inequality and injustice. A practical test of this approach would be what it reveals not only about the diversity of thinking about development, but also the mechanisms that prompt radical shifts in ideas and actions – e.g. concerning climate change. The proposed methodological strategy would rely on sequential use of exploratory and confirmatory narrative interviews among stakeholders selected through a participatory and evolutionary process.
Tadashi Hirai (University of Cambridge)
Paper short abstract:
Trust in society is a crucial factor in considering human activities in the Anthropocene but hardly studied in development policies and evaluations. The relation between environmental concerns and trust is examined in developed nations taking on greater responsibility for environmental disruption.
Paper long abstract:
The theme of development studies has evolved over time, from economic growth, social development and environment protection. Including all the three, SDGs is the manifestation of addressing development in a holistic manner. And yet, one crucial factor is missing in considering human activities in the Anthropocene – trust in society. Trust is a mirror image of the quality of society but hardly studied in development policies and evaluations.
The engagement with environmental preservation is assumed to be driven by trust in society, whereas undermined by distrust in society caused typically by human vice such as cheating, bribery and corruption. It would also move the other way around (i.e. trust is cultivated by the engagement whereas subverted by the breach). Trust and environmental protection would thus go hand in hand together. In this context, where trust is high, social movements such as protests and boycotts can be expected in case an act of destruction in the environment is observed by particular corporates or individuals; where trust is low, such destruction is ignored or even accelerated in pursuit of self-interest.
This assumption is examined by analysing the relation between indicators on environmental burdens (e.g. CO2 emission per capita, material footprint per capita) and those on trust (e.g. interpersonal trust, institutional trust and relevant factors) on a national level with a focus on developed countries taking on greater responsibility for environmental disruption, by means of secondary data available in international institutions (e.g. UN, OECD).
Sanchir Jargalsaikhan
Paper short abstract:
The paper will critically examine United Nations Development Programme's attempt to re-imagine development programming through its Accelerator Labs initiative by focusing on how innovation is conceptualized and delivered.
Paper long abstract:
There is a growing recognition in the international development sector that the business-as-usual, top-down, technocratic approach to development will no longer aid us in our pursuit of such lofty goals as Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda 2030. Due to this, organizations like UNDP are spearheading actions that radically re-imagine how development is conceptualized, delivered, and evaluated. As part of this direction, iterative (and inductive) approaches such as design thinking, ethnography, and positive deviance is being touted along with other deductive methods including systems science, foresight, and sensemaking within the mantra of 'adaptive management' are becoming widely adopted. I argue that the proliferation of innovative methods in the sector is necessary but not sufficient. First, innovation methods are still relatively new to international development and are premised on the value of plurality without explicitly stated theoretical assumptions (and theory of change). In this sense, it is similar to supposedly atheoretical methods such as RCTs. Second, innovation methods with varying theoretical (in terms of epistemology and ontology) assumptions can play a role in development programming as part of a mixed method to discover not 'what works', but 'why things work in a particular setting'. I will examine these developments as a reflexive self-evaluation of my journey as a Head of Solutions Mapping (UNDP Mongolia) within the world's largest development network - UNDP Accelerator Labs.
Clare Cummings (University of Manchester)
Paper short abstract:
This paper reviews two cases of institutional change; Nepal’s transition to federalism and the outlawing of gold mining in El Salvador. Both cases show how institutional change requires analysis of cultural as well as political and economic sources of power and of ideas as well as interests.
Paper long abstract:
The rules that govern how we distribute resources, protect rights, and confer respect are important for development outcomes. This paper reviews two cases of significant institutional change. One is the transition to federalism and inclusion of reservations in Nepal’s 2015 Constitution and the other concerns the 2017 outlawing of gold mining in El Salvador. The paper demonstrates how an analysis of the causal process in each case requires attention to cultural as well as political and economic sources of power and to ideas as well as material interests.
Drawing on insights from political settlements analysis, discursive institutionalism and cultural political economy, this paper presents and demonstrates a cultural political economy approach to institutional change. The paper argues, as per political settlements analysis, that institutions and their outcomes are shaped and transformed by societal power relations. However, contra political settlements analysis, the paper argues that actors’ power must be understood as ideational as well as material, drawn from cultural as well as political and economic sources. Applying a cultural political economy analysis of power to the two case studies, this paper shows how shifts in the way resources are governed and rights protected are not a reflection of material and political interests and power alone. Instead, each case shows how identities form around shared beliefs as well as interests and actors collaborate to claim rights and respect, not just to seize control of resources.
Lisa Eitinger
Paper short abstract:
This paper takes a critical look at the World Bank’s higher education policy. It argues that ignorance serves a strategic role in how the Bank devises its higher education policy and proposes a link to organisational goals and power considerations behind this.
Paper long abstract:
The international development sector’s approach to higher education has shifted fundamentally over the past decades. After years of relative neglect, tertiary education has received growing policy attention from international agencies like the World Bank as producing wide-ranging social and economic benefits. Yet the evidentiary base on its role in development is far from uncontested. This seems at odds with the touting of evidence-based policy making by many development organisations, especially the World Bank. In order to shed light on mechanisms behind the evolution of policy fields in institutions like the World Bank, this paper examines the approach to higher education with a view to how the corresponding evidence is treated. It builds on the idea of a strategic role of ignorance in policy making and asks how the World Bank advocates investing in higher education despite ambiguous evidence on its benefits. While the original concept of strategic ignorance assumes a state of true “not knowing” can be maintained, this essay develops it further for a context of evidence-based policy making, drawing on critical policy studies as well as international political economy. Through uncovering major discursive formations in the Bank’s argument for investment in higher education and scrutinising their evidentiary base, the paper shows that various forms of ignorance, ranging from more to less active, serve a strategic purpose in helping the Bank make its case. The observed patterns are viewed in relation to the Bank’s organisational structure and goals, suggesting that power considerations may take precedence over calls for evidence-based policy making.