iConverge through iZation

After years of taking a number of courses on International Development from a variety of professors from a variety of fields, I've developed the ability to figure out what professors are trying to say with their reading lists. There is no more clear way to discern a professors ideological leanings than the reading list they present when trying to provide a comprehensive look at development. What's excluded or what's relegated to the "recommended" list is particularly glaring.

This week, we were given a variety of readings, all of which somewhat critical of development policy for somewhat varying reasons. We'd already read some stuff from the World Bank so I consider that point of view at least somewhat addressed.
A few notable absences:
Critique of the foundations of policy, or any real attempt to define what's in the way.
Several authors talked about "bottom-up" strategies. But, in Rodrik for instance, bottom-up refers to policies developed by the countries that are subjects of development policy. While this is certainly not the same as policy developed by the countries administering aid, it is not the same thing as policy developed by the people within this country. That is, it implies that if governments have total control, they will make the best decision.
Mamdani cleverly sets aside the question of socialism versus capitalism at the very beginning of his paper, and procedes to use a more marxist perspective of how economies work. The nice thing about this is suddenly you have discussion about communities. Mamdani discusses battling inflation and mentions that you can do it by cutting demand or increasing supply, and that they have different effects, a fact neo-classical economists regularly overlook. Mamdani also manages to critique trickle down theory, another weird off shoot of neo-classical economics.

I will argue, probably later, that what's missing from most discussions of development policy is not only a notion of what development is, but also a discussion of the real subjects of development policy. This is no more the country itself than a corporation is a person. People are ultimately the subjects of development policy. This brings in a whole wealth of questions I will discuss in some other post.



I am going to try very hard to post once a week here for the rest of the semester (God willing). I had a very in depth post going with serious summaries around each reading for this week, but it became completely over whelming. So instead what I'm going to do is pose this question, and then offer some links and citations.

The Question:
What do we mean by development?

Background:
Given that development policy is the programs, regulation, and aid that is delivered to inspire development, we can now distinguish between the two.
Development is good. Necessary. Something important to be attained.
Development policy may be good, but it may also be harmful. It may be working it may not. It is often delivered in a variety of different ways backed by different theories from different organizations.

Problem:
How do we generate effective development policy without identifying what we mean by development?

Preparation:
First, we attribute a word to development. This word is convergence. We expect the (developing countries/global south/third world) to converge with the (developed countries/global north/first world). We are surprised that it hasn't.
In what way do we want the former to converge to the latter? ERROR: not defined.
Okay, well, let's use "living standards." This is also poorly defined but most people (or at least most "developed" folks) have a vague conception of what this means. So, let's say in terms of living standards, the "developed" and the "developing" world do not look the same.

Method:
Second, we answer the following questions:
a) What is standing in the way of convergence?
b) How do we correct for this problem?

Data:
i) a) corruption. b) Democratization.
ii) a) agricultural economy. b) Industrialization.
iii) a) "primitive". b) Modernization.
iv) a) rural communities. b) Urbanization.
v) a) closed markets. b) Liberalization.
vi) a) culture. b) Westernization.
vii) a) lack of opportunity. b) Globalization.
viii) a) aid. b) Stop aid. (sorry, lost form.)
ix) a) colonialism, extractive development policy, neo-liberal world order. b) ERROR: not defined.

Readings:

Easterly, W. "Aid or Folly: Are the billions in aid to Africa helping or hurting?"Youtube. Al Jazeera English, 30 May 2007. Web. 4 February 2012.

Mamdani, M. “Contradictions of the IMF Programme and Perspective,” Development and Change, Vol. 21, no.3, pps.427-67, 1990.

Rodrik, D., One Economics Many Recipes: Globalization, Institutions and Economic Growth, Princeton University Press, 2007 a.

Add'l Resources:
Collier, P. Ted. Ted, May 2008. Web. 4 February 2012.
Rodrik, D. "One Economics, Many Recipes: Globalization, Institutions, and Economic Growth." IMF Book Forum. International Monetary Fund, New York, NY. 28 November 2007. Web. 29 January 2012.

Guns, Germs, Steel, and Diamond.

This is the second time in my education that I've been asked to read a review or response to Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel. For whatever reason, the book itself has never appeared on my reading list. To me this implies that this book is easily summarized if you're not actually interested in the history of it and that, more important than its explanatory power is the debates it brings up (at least among economists and agents of development).

The last time I didn't read Jared Diamond's book was my senior year in college in Development and Poverty, an Economics Course taught by Professor Nathan Nunn. Instead, he appeared in a text book (Weil, David N. 2005. Economic Growth, 1st edition. New York: Addison Wesley. ), summarizing his argument.

For those like myself who have not read Guns, Germs and Steel, Diamond argues that the reason why Eurasia (and especially Europe) conquered the rest of the world was for largely geographic reasons. That is, the climate was more favorable to fixed agriculture which many historians argue started civilization or something. I've been hearing this argument and not entirely understanding what "civilization" is and how "agriculture started it" since 9th grade. But I digress. Anyway, that gave Europeans the time to focus on other pursuits like making weapons. Naturally.

In Poverty and Development, Diamond entered the conversation because, when dealing with economic development, you run into this question of how did this happen? Citing the assignment I wrote dealing with this question (instead of going back to the articles (cough)), Sachs and Sachs and Malaney favor the geography explanation, while Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson attribute the underdevelopment of Africa to European colonialist strategies. Professor Nunn also has done some fascinating work on the subject all available here: http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/nunn/papers_nunn

Currently, I am not reading Diamond and instead reading a debate he and William H. McNeill had on the New York Review of Books in 1997. Diamond's explanation is the same as above. He concludes with the important caveat that leaving colonialism unexplained lets people invent racist explanations in their heads implicit or explicitly for the domination of the global south by the global north and the all-but-complete eradication of Native American culture. By so-doing he creates a brilliant buffer around his argument. "Don't disagree with me, World," Diamond seems to challenge, "that's racist!"

McNeill seems to concede that environmental factors do play a role, while also sticking to his claim that cultural autonomy is an important role as well.

Without having read any of McNeill's work (or, really, Diamond's either) I find him more convincing.

"Racist!" Jared Diamond yells from across time and space.

Well, that's one way to look at it, but what I think is most fascinating about Diamond's argument that "In the absence of convincing explanations, many (most?) people resort, consciously or unconsciously, to racist assumptions: the conquerors supposedly had superior IQ or culture (1997)" is what you have to take for granted to make that conclusion. I do think, without any evidence whatsoever, that many people do invent some explanation in their minds that Europeans were some bestowed with an innate conquering ability. But what I disagree with is, well, one, that this exists. And then two, that there is anything great about this.

The problem with a lot of historical explanations is the inclination toward ranking. There is a real habit of investigating one pattern of development and then extrapolating that this is necessarily the way cultures, economies, governments, whatever, progress. To say that Europeans surpassed other cultures in development already imposes a Euro-centric value structure.

Were the Europeans more developed? Or did they have a societal structure that favored brutalism? Were Europeans better at warring? Or were they more obsessive toward total annihilation?

I'm not saying that Europeans were the only people who warred against their neighbors, but the nice thing about not having guns is that your enemy then doesn't have guns. I don't know why each civilization fought each war with each neighbor they fought with, but for some reason (historical, cultural, geographical, whatever) the Europeans at that moment in time were intent on being the superior and perhaps only power on the entire globe. Some people sailed for exploration and knowledge, but many more people sailed to conquer. I'm not convinced that we can say with 100% certainty that if the Europeans did not go on a violent rampage for global domination, someone else would have.



Diamond's response to McNeill's response to his book and McNeill's subsequent response can be found here :
Diamond, Jared. 'Guns, Germs, and Steel.' The New York Review Of Books. 26 June 1997. web. 28 January 2012. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1997/jun/26/guns-germs-and-steel/?pagination=false

Other Related Readings.
Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson. (2001). “Reversal of Fortunes,”
Quarterly Journal of Economics, 117, 1231-1294.
Sachs, Jeffrey and Pia Malaney. (2002). “The Economic and Social Burden of Malaria,”
Nature, 415 (6872), 680-685.
Sachs, Jeffrey. (2001). “The Geography of Poverty and Wealth,” Scientific American,
284 (3) March, 70-75.

A year and some later

Welllllll there was an attempt.

Part of the issue I'm having with this blog is the general anxiety I feel as regards citing things. Then time inspiration etc.

Well now I'm in graduate school working on the same problems that I wanted to be working on when I started this. I'm considering using this as a place for response papers. To reflect on readings I've been assigned for a given week as a tool for me to collect my thoughts, while also opening the conversation to a somewhat public forum. And posting whatever readings are available online.

Perhaps in the form of obnoxious opinion pieces.

Which seems like a good outlet given that I may start writing for http://newschooljournal.com/ and it will help me keep the ranty-er aspects of my writing here. Maybe.