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Paper short abstract:

We scrutinize two prominent research agendas in contemporary development economics and delineate the forms of silencing, disavowal and pathologizing of economic difference, which legitimates and facilitates practices that instigate and/or extend a particular understanding of human betterment.

Paper long abstract:

One way in which colonial practices continue to constitute social reality and knowledge production is through their representation of the “other” as pathology. This can be traced within the context of development, where categories of development and underdevelopment were constructed and reconstructed, and informed how the latter is represented, pathologized, and silenced within development economics. We approach the task of decolonizing development economics from this entry point and delineate the particular forms of silencing, disavowal and pathologizing of economic difference. We first trace the ontological and epistemological presuppositions of neoclassicism in a particular (colonial) worldview, highlighting how its individualistic and mechanistic nature implicates the discipline in general, and contemporary development economics in particular. We then unpack the current state of mainstream development economics after the late neoclassical turn in the discipline by focusing on two of its prominent research agendas: new institutional economics of development divergence, and the poor economics of development. We demonstrate that contemporary development economics silences, disavows and pathologizes the plurality of situated knowledges, behavioral modalities and institutional constellations as a byproduct of its claim to universality. As such it also reproduces a colonial world reordering as it legitimates and facilitates practices that instigate and/or extend this particular, yet universalized, understanding of human betterment, in particular through privileging a particular form of rationality and institutional that renders things commensurable, ownable, exchangeable, and objects of cost-benefit calculations. Finally, we formulate some perspectives for a decolonial development economics.

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We posit the concept of colonial encounter as a constitutive element in the process of postcolonial capitalist development. Focussing on informal economy and caste relations, we foreground a framework that centrally locates the encounter and provide illustrations from India to examine the dynamics.

Paper long abstract:

This article posits the ‘colonial encounter’, defined as a contradictory relation between the capitalist and non-capitalist segments of an economy, as a critical and constitutive element in the process of postcolonial capitalist development. It points to the obfuscation of this encounter in the prevalent theoretical approaches in development economics, particularly focusing on the discourse on informal economy and the role of identity relations. It then foregrounds an emerging theoretical framework on postcolonial economic dynamics that frames the development process as being marked by an on-going and ever-occurring colonial encounter. The persistently non-capitalist segments of proliferating informal economies, the economic locus of vast masses of surplus population excluded from burgeoning capitalist segments in the postcolonial economies in the global South, are identified to be intrinsic to the capitalist development process itself. The article then delineates a key lacunae in this theoretical framework to grapple with the role of identities in framing these development dynamics, and discusses some critical approaches towards identity that may be productively integrated to further develop this framework. Finally, it provides some empirical illustrations by drawing from nationally representative surveys on the informal economy in India to highlight the constitutive role of caste in structuring the nature of reproduction of non-capitalist informal enterprises that provide livelihood to excluded working populations, as well as in shaping the pattern of inclusion of a part of this population within capitalist segments as informal wage labor. Through this intervention, the article aims to contribute towards unmooring the discipline of development economics from the prevalent colonial frameworks and finding a productive and generative pathway towards building a decolonized approach towards making sense of economic development under capitalism.

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This paper argues that a focus on finance can be particularly productive in the study of racial capitalism. Finance is both a useful empirical angle and 'method' to approach variegated race-capital articulations. 'Raced finance' can help us rethink foundational claims about IPE and development.

Paper long abstract:

This article maps out existing arguments on what we term raced finance in International Political Economy (IPE), but also discusses the epistemological and methodological difficulties in theorizing the relationship between race and capitalism in IPE and beyond, including: (1) how to think together the role of contingency and history on the one hand, and abstraction and generalization on the other; (2) how to integrate perspectives and experiences that go beyond the usual focus on the Black Atlantic in studies of racial capitalism; (3) how to think together imperial, colonial, racial, and financial relations in the making and reproduction of racial capitalism. The article then develops the argument that a focus on finance can be particularly productive in the study of racial capitalism. Finance is not only a useful case or empirical angle from which to approach variegated race- capital articulations, it can also be conceived as ‘method.’ Following the money, studying the infrastructures, techniques, technologies, and practices of capitalist finance, analyzing power relations between financial actors and subjects and how finance transforms socio-spatial relations, and unpacking financial discourses, imaginaries, and other forms of knowledge, can help us understand how finance draws upon, remakes, and creates new processes of racialization and race-making across time and space. Based on these arguments, as well as on the findings of the various contributions to the special issue, the article reflects on the extent to which foundational claims on finance and IPE and economic development must be rethought, reformulated, or modified.

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Comparative historical analysis of two Indian states, Bihar and Tamil Nadu, to demonstrate how ideas of social justice promoting descriptive representation, interpreted as patronage in mainstream scholarship, were instrumental in generating the structural conditions for redistributive politics.

Paper long abstract:

India is widely described as a “patronage democracy”. Politicians in many regions have been known to prioritize narrow “identity politics” over development, as reflected in prioritizing ethnic quotas or appointing co-ethnics in positions of power. Existing scholarship explains this phenomenon as neo-patrimonialism, patronage, and even the politics of retribution. Most research, however, has focused on contemporary politics. This paper takes a longer perspective on the transformation of ethnic politics and development policy, through a comparative historical analysis of two states – Bihar and Tamil Nadu. Both states experienced strong lower-caste mobilization. Tamil Nadu’s robust welfare state is credited to lower-caste social movements, but caste politics in Bihar is believed to be detrimental to development. I challenge this dominant understanding by demonstrating that movements in both states were rooted in a broader notion of social justice that sought equalization of status, what I call the politics of dignity. The politics of dignity, manifested through descriptive representation, not only preceded redistribution, but in the context of ascriptive discrimination, representational policies also generated the structural conditions for redistributive politics. A closer examination of early twentieth century Tamil Nadu reveals decades of contentious politics surrounding identity before social development found political support. I draw on archival sources, memoirs of politicians and civil servants, public spending patterns, and evidence from fieldwork to uncover the mechanisms through which the identity of the individuals who run the state influences state capacity to deliver redistributive policies.

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Integrating a postcolonial perspective, this paper argues: disaster exposure risk is linked to spatial inequality and fragmented urban citizenship in the postcolonial South. Focusing on Jakarta, the study draws evidential support from a unique household-spatial dataset constructed for this analysis.

Paper long abstract:

In the ongoing discourse, disaster exposure risk is acknowledged as a manifestation of unresolved development problems. This paper revisits the relationship between risk and development dynamics from a postcolonial perspective, embedding this analysis within the broader framework of 'conceptual reanimation'—a process integral to the decolonization of ideas, involving both critique and reconstruction of discursive spaces. The paper posits that risk is intricately linked to the structural conditions of spatial inequality and fragmented urban citizenship in the postcolonial South. Anchoring these discussions in the specific context of Jakarta, the analysis relies on a distinctive household-spatial dataset created by connecting household-level data from the fifth wave of the Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS5, 2014–15) with neighborhood-level information on Jakarta's subdistricts and administrative regions. Supported by empirical findings, the paper presents an argument with two interpretations: a narrow perspective linking risk to deficits in ownership of productive assets and access to public goods and amenities, coupled with a higher level of natural hazards; and a broader interpretation viewing risk as a matter of 'internal exclusion' at the current juncture of unequalizing growth and changing engagement with welfare governance in the developing world.

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The paper proposes a rethink on the role of acquisition of land and it's impact on economic development from a decolonised perspective.

Paper long abstract:

Colonization of external territories through military conquest was the most common route to industrialization in the early stages of capitalist development. Overtime however, direct ownership of land became less important as the coloniser had similar privileges through transfer of use right rather than ownership right. Often in alliance with the local elite, devices such as trade treaties, debt bondage and tied-aid were used to usher in a new phase of neo-colonialism. While it often meant de facto colonisation on the poorer sections of the population even in formal democracies, direct land acquisition in the name of industrialization displacing poor peasants and tribals especially in natural resource rich areas resembled old fashioned colonization. . When the corporations become the main vehicle for industrialisation, the state tends to act as their promoter handing over land and natural resources to them at subsidised price. This version of corporate capitalism sustains itself in a democracy in developing countries by taking recourse to various forms of mutual dependence between the state and the corporations. Several variants exist, but the more the state depends on the corporation and the less accountable it is to its people, the more it resembles in content the colonial state with or without formal democracy.

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This article argues that the dominant approach to the mining sector in economic development is Eurocentric and, based on findings from AngloGold Ashanti in Obuasi, that a dependency research programme can better explain uneven outcomes observed.

Paper long abstract:

The article starts by laying out how the dominant approach to mining in development can be considered Eurocentric. To do so, it also introduces the idea of decolonization and Eurocentrism and the specific approach of this paper. As Ghana is important for understanding the dominant approach because the countries’ mining sector reforms have often been held up by international financial institutions as a successful model to follow for other countries in the global South, we focus specifically on how mining reform has been conceived of and implemented in Ghana in. Second, the article lays out an alternative way of understanding mining in the periphery through an expanded research programme of dependency theory. This is an important contribution because the paper situates dependency theory within a decolonisation framework and goes beyond the simplistic and stereotyped versions of dependency theory. We argue that mining is particularly useful to study through a dependency perspective, given its localized grounded operations that exist within national and global structures of accumulation. Third, the paper analyses mining by AngloGold Ashanti in Obuasi, Ghana, through the perspective of a dependency research programme, drawing on archival and field work. Generally, we find that AGA investments in Obuasi has not led to the progressive upgrading and modernisation that the dominant view of economic development would expect. Rather, the case study shows that the relationship between capital and labour has been violent, uneven, and contradictory throughout history. What’s more, the case study demonstrates the importance of power relations between (global) capital, the state, and labour for understanding how global structures of accumulation reproduce unevenness locally and globally. Finally, the paper concludes with some general reflections around what these theoretical discussions and empirical findings mean for the field of economic development at large.

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The Paper

Paper long abstract:

The North-South divide goes back, as its early pattern, to colonial rule and aggression by a number of powerful countries in regions (designated today as North ) over a large number of tropical countries . The expropriations made use of exportable crops, gold and financial resources as were available from the tropics . Use was also made of labour, initially as slaves and later as indentured human beings , to work in tropical plantations owned by the ruling countries of North. Examples of above can be provided in the expropriations from Indonesia, Africa and India among other tropical countries.

The pattern of expropriation by the North has changed in the post- World War years. Initially it took the form of a dependent path of changes in the newly independent tropical countries. This was linked to the financial flows linked to official aid from advanced countries and multinational financial institutions (MFI). Loans under conditionality from some of the MFIs brought in further changes in the South which opened up markets under the pressure of the conditional loans from the IMF. This brought in a new phase of domination , of North over the South- by putting market as the chief agent of expropriation by the North. This is the current phase of subordinated financialisation of the South , monitored and appropriated by the North.

We feel notions as above need to be highlighted in the basic text books which are used in the teaching of economics and in research

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I conceptually contribute to the discussion on the de-risking state from historical materialist state theory and bring it into dialogue with a South-centric lens on the state (Bhambra, Mbembe). The empirical part draws on the Senegalese formation in the context of renewable energy finance.

Paper long abstract:

Within the global climate finance arena, much effort is made to push the energy transition in the Global South with the help of private finance through so-called de-risking instruments. Scholars have taken issue with the role of de-risking and have criticized the emergence of the de-risking state (Gabor 2021). Despite growing literature on de-risking, the conceptualization of the state remains vague or is inexistent. This contribution aims to conceptually contribute to this discussion and empirically found it with material on renewable energy finance in Senegal. In the first theoretical part, I draw on historical materialist state theory (Hirsch, Poulantzas) beyond Western Marxism (Jenss, Gerstenberger, Pimmer) and bring it into dialogue with a South-centric lens on the state. Given that historic materialist state theory fails short of conceptualizing the state in the Global South, I complement it with insights from decolonial and postcolonial theorists like Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Mbembe and Bhambra. The goal is thus to develop a conceptualization of the de-risking state at the intersection of materialist state theory and post-/decolonial thought. These theoretical thoughts are henceforth empirically grounded with material from Senegal’s renewable energy financing landscape. Primary interview material has been collected during four field trips. The empirical argument will demonstrate how different actors across various state apparatuses at domestic scale and also the international realm provide a de-risking ecosystem to provide a safety net for international finance while reproducing global post-colonial power relations.

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This paper outlines the intellectual thought that emerged from India and Latin America, two outposts of the Global South, and seeks to recover the elided reflective traditions of thinkers, writers and activists from these peripheries. It seeks to highlight the distinctive ideas in their works.

Paper long abstract:

Recent events that have followed the outbreak of the Corona pandemic have exposed not only the deep-rooted flaws in global trade and global financial architecture arduously built up over the past four decades but have also laid bare the civilizational fault-lines of our times. Crises such as these are pregnant with possibilities and indeed, the multiple shocks to the neoliberal architecture combined with the pitched battles that are being waged by mass movements outside parliaments, in city squares and in villages across the world, clearly indicate that it will not be easy to go back to business-as-usual now that some semblance of normalcy returns to the post-pandemic world. Neoliberalism has reached a dead end and while the future is still far from certain, in this period where, as Gramsci once put it, “old is dying but the new cannot be born” what is clearly needed is a new hegemonic project. It is in this context that this paper outlines important intellectual themes that have emerged from India and Latin America, two outposts of the Global South, and seeks to recover the elided reflective traditions of thinkers, writers and activists from these peripheries. It seeks to highlight the distinctive ideas, alliances and parallelisms in their works, as well as the manner in which they articulated liberatory paradigms for the colonized and/or erstwhile colonized world. It underscores the contemporary relevance of this body of work as mass movements world over seek civilizational alternatives to capitalist modernity.

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By combining diverse economies approach of Gibson-Graham and decolonial thought, I examine Turkish cut flower cooperative auctions as an alternative market design generating diverse prices, which reward the value produced by farmers rather than exploiting them as in the existing capitalist markets.

Paper long abstract:

The pioneering work of JK Gibson-Graham challenged neoclassical orthodoxy by showing how market exchange, wage-labour, and capitalist enterprise constitute only one subset of a broader ensemble of diverse economic practices with multiple forms and outcomes, which cannot be reduced to the logic of profit, growth, and accumulation dynamics of capitalism. From their non-essentialist perspective practices such as wageless labour, non-monetised transactions and non-capitalist enterprises are not peripheral, but essential to our lives, both in the Global South and North. Recent scholarship (Bledsoe et al, 2022) qualified Gibson-Graham through racialised capitalism by revealing how diverse economies were a necessity for black and indigenous communities pushed to zones of deprivation by colonising powers.

In this paper I argue that a conversation between diverse economies and decolonial approaches can offer invaluable insights to demystify totalising discourses on capitalist economy and rethink alternatives. I use my own ethnographic research on Turkish cut flower farmers, who come from a history of forced migration and contributed to the building of a grassroots cooperative with several regional auctions. Auctions are not only sites of mutuality and solidarity for members. In its operations, market, price signals, supply and demand, often associated with an ideal capitalist economy, are subverted, manipulated and re-designed to serve fair exchange relations, which reward and compensate the value produced by farmers. Auctions generate diverse prices through complex relations of competition, support, and protection between participants. The principles of this design can inform alternative development policies which overlooked the positive role diverse markets can play.

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Dominant theory of commons focuses on resources to be exploited for growth, efficiency and profitability. This view limits commons to local, small-scale resources and ignores inequalities. Decolonial commons would emphasize enabling commoning for expansive, plural and egalitarian commons.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I discuss the eurocentrism in the work of Bloomington scholars (Ostrom et. al.) on commons. Ostrom’s work is the most influential development policy approach for the management of commons. Ostrom takes an optimistic position on the possibility of overcoming exclusion and subtractability problems of commons than do Hardin and Olson who argue that only external coercion can lead to collective good. Her case studies of commons in the Global South show that communities successfully extricate themselves from ‘commons dilemma’ if the State initiates decentralization of decision-making over commons and if local actors mobilize strongly to sustain this decentralization. Ostrom’s appeal to community-led development, participatory democracy and decentralization has led to the cooptation of commons by neoliberal institutions such as the World Bank and the UN. This universalizes certain policy prescriptions without regard for local and institutional particularities. Commons are coopted by capitalism’s imperatives of growth, efficiency and profitability. Similarly, only particular, localized, small-scale resources are considered suitable for commoning. In this paper, I argue that commons are a part of a community’s social, cultural being and a decolonial alternative would challenge the dominant ontology of commons as a Eurocentric concept that views commons as a resource to be exploited. Decolonial commons would not essentialize communities and recognize that commons reproduce social inequalities. Drawing from the new enclosures thesis of the Midnight Notes Collective, I contend that ecologically sustainable social reproduction (rather than economic production) needs to focus on commoning – everyday practices of creating and nurturing community.