Toward development ethics

The approach to economic development that is emerging among the First Nations in Canada emphasizes the creation of profitable businesses competing in the global economy. These businesses are usually collectively owned, and often partnerships with non-First Nation corporations. At the same time, my research shows that a growing number of non-Aboriginal corporations are adopting business alliances with aboriginal people as a part of their strategy for long-term corporate survival. Four factors motivate this corporate behavior: (a) society’s changing expectations about what constitutes socially responsible corporate behavior, (b) legal and regulatory requirements and restrictions, (c) the growing aboriginal population, and its increasing affluence and level of education, and (d) the rapidly growing pool of natural and financial resources under the control of aboriginal people. This augurs well for First Nations’ economic development in the future. It also has implications for economic development among Indigenous Peoples elsewhere.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2492865_code1081380.pdf?abstractid=2492865&mirid=1

Corporate/Indigenous Partnerships in Economic Development: The First Nations in Canada

Corporate/indigenous partnerships in economic development: The first nations in Canada

(1993). For a renewal of development studies: Latin American theories and neoliberalism in the era of structural adjustment. Third World Quarterly: Vol. 14, No. 4, pp. 691-702.

For a renewal of development studies: Latin American theories and neoliberalism in the era of structural adjustment

This study investigates administrative reform in seven Arab states, delineates common problems and describes general tendencies via content analysis of official statements. The study deals with reform in three major phases: defining administrative problems and needs; developing strategies for reform; and developing instruments of action for implementation. Appraisal of reform efforts discloses mediocre results based on a poor implementation record attributable to incongruities of methods and objectives of reform. Among such incongruities are the conventional limitations of bureaucracy, the copying of Western administrative rationality in form if not in substance, and insufficient attention paid to traditional, cultural, religious, and political contexts of administration. Recognizing the difficulties involved in conceptualizing and implementing reform in any society, the analysis offers several recommendations to improve the outcome of reform efforts, among them: encouraging employee involvement in reform decisions; improving collected diagnostic data; providing special training for employees responsible for managing reform; soliciting unwavering political commitment; developing incentive systems; and replacing the piecemeal approach with reliance on a systems perspective.

Administrative reform in developing countries: A comparative perspective

Rejection of the Western i.e. North-West European and US model of development in its several varieties is now widespread throughout the 3rd world and there are many new and existing efforts on the part of intellectuals and political elites throughout these areas to assert new and indigenous models of development. These efforts represent serious and fundamental challenges to many cherished social science assumptions and understandings and to the presumption of a universal social science of development. Underestimating or continuing to disregard such changes raises the risk of both perpetuating malcomprehension of the 3rd world areas and retaining a social science of development that is parochial and ethnocentric rather than accurate and comprehensive. The 3rd world critique of the Western model and pattern of development as inapprorpiate and irrelevant or partially so to their circumstances and conditions is both widespread and growing. Recent trends differ from earlier critiques of Western modernization theory because the attacks have become far more pervasive they are shared more generally by society as a whole they have taken on global connotations and the criticisms are no longer solely negative but are now accompanied by an assertion of other alternative often indigenous approaches. The debate is no longer policy implications as well. A nonethnocentric theory of development is coming to the fore. The implications of dealing with indigenous institutions and of nonethnocentric theories and concepts of development are enormous. 3 major areas of impact may be noted. The first concerns the 3rd world and nonwestern nations themselves e.g. their efforts to overcome historical inferiority complexes their reconceived possibilities for development the newfound importance of their traditional institutions the rediscovery of many and complex routes to development and their new sense of pride and accomplishment. It will take a while before the 3rd world can articulate and mold these diverse concepts into viable and realistic development models. Second it is necessary to reexamine a host of essentially Western science assumptions and to be prepared to accept an Islamic African and/or a Latin American social science of development and to strike some new balances between what is particularin the development process and what does in fact conform to more universal patterns. The third area is major foreign policy implications.

Wiarda Hj

Papers

Toward a nonethnocentric theory of development: alternative conceptions from the Third World.