Short Abstract:

Globalization and Human Development, by Roni Kay M. O'Dell and Devin K. Joshi (published by Rowman and Littlefield, February 2024) investigates the relationship between globalization and the human development and capability approach (HDCA) promoted by the United Nations (UN).

Long Abstract:

This research (from the authors' recently published book by Rowman and Littlefield, February 2024) reveals the relationship between globalization and the human development and capability approach (HDCA) promoted by the United Nations (UN). We argue that HDCA functions as an ideology of international development and globalization. Triangulating research methods of process tracing and qualitative and quantitative content analysis, we demonstrate how certain HDCA ideas promoted by the UN are discussed and cited more often than those stemming from other development paradigms. Process tracing of international development history reveals how the HDCA was influenced by Global South development thinking, as seen initiatives from the Non-Aligned Movement of states challenging the primacy of the US and USSR during the Cold War along with mobilizations to end all forms of colonialism, neocolonialism, and imperialism. As famously articulated in the first Human Development Report (HDR) in 1990, the HDCA re-oriented global development thinking and practice away from state-centric and profit-focused development models to prioritize individual well-being and freedoms.

Excerpt: "A signature contribution of this book is its examination of the globalization of the HD paradigm as an ideology promoted by the UN. Employing a constructivist international relations (IR) lens, our approach is multi-disciplinary and heavily influenced by Karl Mannheim’s approach to the study of ideas in the world as outlined his famous book Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge (1936/2015). Mannheim claimed that ideology has a profound effect on how we act and interpret the world and that the functioning of ideology always happens within a broader sociological context. Following Mannheim’s perspective, we examine the global emergence, deployment, and reception (i.e., the globalization) of the HD ideology within a broader international political sociology. Rejecting a reductionist approach, the chapters in this volume incorporate a historical and sociological focus that combine different methodologies rather than employing a single analytical lens. As Mannheim argued, “in the social realm, if we can learn to observe carefully, we can see that each element of the situation which we are analyzing contains and throws light upon the whole” (1936: 74). Our approach to the subject is therefore broad and sociological. In assessing how the HD ideology and its associated norms have been globalizing, we analyze the structures and functions of international organizations (especially the UN) and nation-states (particularly those of the Global South) in setting the international development agenda. The chapters of the book also assess how other important actors have contributed to spreading the HD message, including mass media, civil society, and individual critical actors (including academics and practitioners).

While examining the relationship between globalization and HD, we are interested in multiple facets of the relationship including 1) correlations between globalization patterns and HD outcomes, 2) whether HD and globalization may be one and the same phenomenon, and 3) how the HD ideology has been globalizing to become a worldwide phenomenon (i.e., how globalization has contributed to the emergence and diffusion of HD). Departing from previous studies on the HD paradigm, we examine how HD has evolved from a counter-ideology to a possibly quasi-hegemonic ideology, deeply influencing the thinking and practice of international development in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The HD ideology refers to a particular set of ideas, beliefs, and concepts that guide policies and actions. To many observers, the HD paradigm may be seen as rather scientific, technical, and neutral, but from a social scientific standpoint, the HD public narrative is invariably ideological even if those who follow its tenets are unaware of its ideological dimension" (O'Dell and Joshi 2024, pp. 3-5).