Study Of Development

The History of Development

Industrial Revolution in Britain

The Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the late 18th century with the introduction of machines and factories powered by steam engines. This replaced the previous system of cottage industries and manual labor.

The development of the steam engine was revolutionary, allowing the efficient conversion of heat energy into mechanical work. James Watt patented a steam engine design in 1769 that was vastly more efficient than earlier versions.

The mechanization of textile production in factories marked the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The spinning jenny, water frame, and spinning mule enabled the mass production of cotton textiles. The shift from hand production methods to machines dramatically increased the productivity of textile workers.

Britain’s supplies of coal and iron ore fueled the Industrial Revolution. Coal powered steam engines while iron was used to make machines, tools, and buildings. British inventors developed machines and manufacturing techniques that spread across Europe and America in the early 19th century.

The factory system concentrated workers and machines in one location under a central authority. Factories emerged across Britain’s coalfields and textile regions during the Industrial Revolution. This new system led to rapid economic growth along with urbanization and social changes.

Colonialism

European powers dominated and colonized large parts of Asia, Africa, and the Americas from the 16th to the 20th century. This allowed them to extract valuable raw materials and establish trade outposts that benefitted their industrial development.

Some key aspects of colonialism:

• Trading companies like the British East India Company in India and Dutch East India Company in Indonesia first established footholds for European powers. They were followed by direct colonization and imperialism.
• Colonies became sources of cotton, spices, tea, sugar, rubber, and other agricultural products that were in high demand in Europe. The colonizers built plantation economies optimized for export rather than supporting local needs.
• The superior military technology of European powers allowed them to conquer local groups despite being vastly outnumbered. Colonized people staged many rebellions, but Europe managed to maintain control in most areas.
• Infrastructure like railroads and ports were built to efficiently extract resources from colonies and transport them back to Europe. This benefited the colonizers much more than local populations.
• The colonizers imposed their language, religion, culture, and values on local groups, fundamentally disrupting traditional ways of life. The legacy of this cultural imperialism continues to impact former colonies.
• Independence movements grew across colonies in the early 20th century, accelerated by the devastation colonial powers suffered in World War 2. Most colonies became independent countries in the postwar era.

Economic Growth

The Industrial Revolution brought immense economic growth to Western nations like Britain. New inventions like the steam engine enabled mass production of goods, while imperialist ventures provided colonies to extract raw materials from. This combination led to a massive rise in incomes and purchasing power in the West.

With more disposable income, Western citizens dramatically increased their consumption of products. They demanded more of everything - clothing, household goods, processed foods, and more. This allowed Western companies to scale up production to meet this growing demand. It became a self-reinforcing cycle, as economic growth enabled more consumer spending, which then cycled back to fuel further industrial expansion.

The trajectory of economic growth varied across Western nations, but the broad trend was consistently upwards. This growth provided one foundation for the emergence of modern consumer societies. It also contributed to global inequality, as Western nations industrialized rapidly while colonized regions were extracting resources for export rather than developing local economies. The prosperity gap between colonizers and the colonized grew wider.

So in summary, the economic growth of the West, founded in industrialization and colonialism, increased incomes and purchasing power. This fundamentally reshaped societies and geopolitics, for better and worse. It set the stage for aid and development efforts trying to address these global disparities in the post-WW2 era.

Global Inequality

However, there is instability between developing and developed countries. Poor countries such as those in Asia feel inequality because the demand for western countries’ products does not match the region. This imbalance was caused by the Western countries experiencing tremendous economic growth and industrial development from the Industrial Revolution, while the developing countries remained largely agrarian and unindustrialized.

The producers in the West experienced rising incomes, standards of living, and accumulation of wealth. Meanwhile, developing countries did not have the means or capacity to produce and export value-added manufactured goods to the global market. Their economies were still based on low-productivity agriculture and resource extraction. This massive gulf in economic development and inequality in global wealth distribution began in the 19th century as Western nations embraced mechanization and modern industry. It persisted into the mid-20th century, as many Asian, African and Latin American nations found themselves far behind.

Post-WW2 Aid

After the second World War, many developed countries began providing economic and development aid to poorer, developing countries, especially former colonies. This aid took the form of financial loans, grants, technical assistance, and access to technology and expertise.

The motivations for providing such aid included spurring economic growth in developing countries, stemming the influence of communism during the Cold War era, securing access to raw materials and new markets for exports, and addressing poverty and basic needs.

Major developed country donors included the United States, United Kingdom, France, Japan, Canada and multilateral institutions like the World Bank. The amount of aid grew substantially through the 1960s and 1970s.

However, by the 1980s and 1990s, aid became more explicitly linked to reforms and policy conditions on the part of recipients. There was also criticism that aid was not achieving development and was being misused by corrupt leaders. This led to debates about aid effectiveness and coordination among donors.

Still, foreign aid from developed to developing countries continues to play a major role in global development efforts today. It represents a significant resource flow from richer to poorer nations.

Millennium Development Goals

In the year 2000, all 189 United Nations member states and 23 international organizations committed to help achieve 8 international development goals by the year 2015. The United Nations Millennium Declaration, signed in September 2000, was the first step toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The 8 MDGs were:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Global partnership for development

The MDGs aimed to spur development by improving social and economic conditions in the world’s poorest countries. They established measurable, universally-agreed objectives for tackling extreme poverty and hunger, preventing deadly diseases, and expanding primary education to all children, among other development priorities.

Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the year 2030. The SDGs build on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which spanned 2000-2015, but take a broader approach to development.

The 17 SDGs incorporate economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development, with an emphasis on leaving no one behind. The goals cover poverty eradication, food security, health, education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, affordable clean energy, decent work, infrastructure and industrialization, inequality, sustainable cities, responsible consumption, climate action, life below water, life on land, peace, justice and institutions, and partnerships.

Unlike the MDGs which focused only on developing countries, the SDGs apply universally to all countries. The SDGs provide a shared framework for action on sustainable development worldwide, balancing the three dimensions of sustainable development - economic, social and environmental. The 2030 Agenda emphasizes multi-stakeholder partnerships at global, regional, national and local levels to achieve the goals. Countries are expected to incorporate the SDGs into their planning processes and policies.

Development Thought

Development thought refers to the knowledge and understanding of how societies change over time. It encompasses the ideas, concepts, and theories that help explain and guide development processes.

Some key aspects of development thought:

• It is informed by real-world practice and facts on the ground. Academics study development through frameworks and models, while policymakers apply these concepts to real situations.
• Development thought helps define abstract notions like state, security, and wellbeing in more concrete ways. For example, linking concepts like social protection, transitional justice, and global health to higher ideals.
• Theories of development draw from related concepts to explain issues in the developing world. Theories on poverty, inequality and inclusion stem from ideas around economic growth. Theories on sustainability come from concepts like climate adaptation and food/water security.
• Changes in society are driven by changes in thinking. As people’s ideas and debates shape their choices and actions.
• Development thought emerges from academic inquiry but is also influenced by real-world ideologies, experiences and social/cultural norms.
• It is filtered through the political process as leaders balance pragmatism and public aspirations in policymaking. Citizens push governments through open debate and periodic leadership changes.
• Study of development expanded after WWII alongside growth of institutions like development agencies and aid providers. It focused on generating knowledge to guide developing countries and foreign assistance.

Political Factors

As ideas evolve over time, politics mediates between public aspirations and policy outcomes. The tremendous advances in access to education, electricity, water, health and other services encourage further rises in what citizens expect of development.

By necessity, political leaders must be pragmatic - to define and pursue the art of the possible, to navigate among established interests and opposition. In a public debate with periodic changes in leadership, opportunities exist for government by discussion, for people to understand each other’s positions.

Ultimately, governments do what their citizens force them to do. The interplay between ideas, public debate and pragmatic policymaking drives development forward.

Institutionalization

The study of development was formalized and institutionalized in the post-World War 2 era with the creation of bilateral and multilateral development agencies focused on providing foreign aid and generating policy prescriptions for developing nations.

Key institutions established during this period include:

• The World Bank, founded in 1944 to provide financing and advice to developing countries for capital programs.
• The International Monetary Fund (IMF), also founded in 1944 to promote international financial stability and monetary cooperation. The IMF provides policy advice and financing to members experiencing balance of payments difficulties.
• The United Nations, founded in 1945. Relevant UN agencies for development include the UN Development Programme (UNDP), which provides expert advice, training, and grants in developing countries, and UNICEF, focused on providing humanitarian and developmental aid to children worldwide.
• USAID, founded in 1961 as the lead U.S. agency providing economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide.
• The UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), founded in 1997 to lead the UK’s work to end extreme poverty.
• The OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC), formed in 1960 to coordinate aid efforts between OECD member countries.

The establishment of these formal organizations institutionalized the study and practice of international development. This provided structures for rich nations to provide aid and advice to developing countries based on poverty reduction, sustainability, human rights and other goals.

The Origin of The Study of Development

The study of development originated in the post-Second World War period, with concerns about development encompassing various aspects of human well-being, from material needs to personal security and political freedom. The field has been characterized by three tensions since its inception:

1. Generating widely applicable knowledge and policy prescriptions versus generating knowledge of particular development successes and failures.
2. Generating knowledge of “development” as a process of structural transformation versus generating knowledge of the particular problems and issues associated with a lack of development.
3. Economics as the primary discipline within which development was studied versus the contribution of other academic disciplines (politics, area studies, anthropology).

The study of development has evolved over time, with a broadening of its scope and an increasing focus on the distribution of well-being. This has led to a progressive expansion of the notion of development, incorporating aspects such as education, health, and gender disparities. The development discourse has also seen a shift in perspectives, with a growing recognition of the importance of contextual knowledge and the need for a more diverse range of disciplines and approaches.

Some key themes in the evolution of development thought include:

• The expansion of the notion of development, from a focus on economic growth to a broader understanding of well-being and distribution.
• The broadening of disciplinary perspectives, with social science perspectives from outside of economics becoming more prominent in the development discourse.
• The persistence of tensions in the development discourse, such as those between growth and distribution, state and market, and broad prescriptions and specific applications.

Overall, the study of development has advanced by overcoming these tensions and incorporating a wider range of perspectives and approaches. This has led to a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of development, which is essential for addressing the complex challenges faced by the world today.