Showing papers on "Underdevelopment published in 1990"

Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance

Abstract: Over the past five centuries, advances in Western understanding of and control over the material world have strongly influenced European responses to non-Western peoples and cultures. In Machines as the Measure of Men, Michael Adas explores the ways in which European perceptions of their scientific and technological superiority shaped their interactions with people overseas. Adopting a broad, comparative perspective, he analyzes European responses to the cultures of sub-Saharan Africa, India, and China, cultures that they judged to represent lower levels of material mastery and social organization. Beginning with the early decades of overseas expansion in the sixteenth century, Adas traces the impact of scientific and technological advances on European attitudes toward Asians and Africans and on their policies for dealing with colonized societies. He concentrates on British and French thinking in the nineteenth century, when, he maintains, scientific and technological measures of human worth played a critical role in shaping arguments for the notion of racial supremacy and the "civilizing mission" ideology which were used to justify Europe's domination of the globe. Finally, he examines the reasons why many Europeans grew dissatisfied with and even rejected this gauge of human worth after World War I, and explains why it has remained important to Americans. Showing how the scientific and industrial revolutions contributed to the development of European imperialist ideologies, Machines as the Measure of Men highlights the cultural factors that have nurtured disdain for non-Western accomplishments and value systems. It also indicates how these attitudes, in shaping policies that restricted the diffusion of scientific knowledge, have perpetuated themselves, and contributed significantly to chronic underdevelopment throughout the developing world. Adas's far-reaching and provocative book will be compelling reading for all who are concerned about the history of Western imperialism and its legacies.

Investment dependence and alternative explanations of third world mortality: a cross-national study.

Abstract: Dependency perspectives contend that foreign investment promotes underdevelopment in the Third World whereas diffusionist perspectives argue that it promotes development. Earlier cross-national research conceptualized development as economic growth or inequality. This study conceptualizes development as basic needs satisfaction focusing on infant mortality and life expectancy at 1 year of age. Mortality effects of 1967 multinational corporate penetration and foreign aid dependence are assessed for 63 underdeveloped countries in panel models expanding to 1980. Other variables affecting mortality include multinational corporate investment flows secondary school enrollment and changes in birth rates and government health spending. Aid dependence has no effects. Multinational corporate penetration has significant harmful effects on mortality that tend to increase with time. In addition to harmful effects on infant mortality penetration has small benefits for infant mortality via promotion of health spending. The influence of multinational corporate penetration on mortality appears to be mediated in part by inequality. (Authors).

A New Path to Development? The Significance and Impact of Hernando De Soto's Ideas on Underdevelopment, Production, and Reproduction

Abstract: Hernando De Soto, a Peruvian economist and entrepreneur, is probably the most important contemporary Latin American writer on production and reproduction. His book The Other Path is an international best-seller, he has been extensively discussed in the world's news media, and he has strongly influenced Peruvian public policy and politics. His central concept of “informality” focuses on income-generating and expenditure-saving activities that contravene official regulations but do not break conventional moral codes. De Soto's ideas, which lead to deregulation, debureaucratization, and privatization, are contrasted with the International Labour Office's “informal sector” concept, which advocates increased state support for small manufacturing and repair enterprises through credit, technical assistance, and training. Though conventionally portrayed as right-wing, his views are radically different from those of many conservatives and he has played a “maverick” role in Peruvian politics.

Islamic Identity and Development: Studies of the Islamic Periphery

Abstract: Introduction Part One The Islamic Identity Crisis 1.Identity Crisis in the Islamic Periphery Part Two The Islamic Dilemma 2. Islamic Underdevelopment: Cause and Response 3. The Islamic Social Contract: The Quest for Social Justice and the Problem of Legislation 4. Islam and Economic Development: The Problem of Compatability Part Three Development in the Islamic Periphery: The Nationalist Phase 5. Nationalism confronts Islam: The Modernisation Debate in Malaysia and Turkey 6. Turkish Etatism: Creation of a Non-competitive Economy 7. Malaysian Development by trusteeship: The Broken Trust Part Four Development in the Islamic Periphery: The Modern State and the Privatisation Challenge 8. Islam, the Modern State and Imperfect Competition: To Ban or to Regulate 9. Privatising the Malaysian Economy: Transition from a National to a Market Ideology 10. Privatising the Turkish Economy Part Five Conclusion 11. Responsible Development in the Islamic Periphery: Regulation, Competition and Public Policy Glossary References Index

The Origins of Dependency Analysis

Abstract: It is widely recognised that dependency analysis developed out of two traditions of economic thought, Marxism and Latin American structuralism, associated with the UN Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA). Although structuralism is acknowledged as a progenitor, Marxism is usually viewed, implicitly or explicitly, as the primary tradition from which dependency arose. This is perhaps because dependency per se is so widely perceived as having begun with two books for which Marxist antecedents were claimed. Dependencia y desarrollo en America Latina (1969), by Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, and Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (1967), by Andre Gunder Frank, ‘stood out as the leading theoretical and systematic efforts to construct a dependency perspective for Latin America’, and remain ‘the landmarks to which assessment of dependency perspectives inevitably return’.1

Landlessness and migration in Nepal

Abstract: A theoretical framework an historical perspective on institutional policies and underdevelopment and migration contemporary development policies and migration - a macro analysis frontier migration and landlessness in the Tarai - a household-level analysis conclusion - implications for development policies.

Industrial Decision-making under China's Reform, 1985-1988

Abstract: The intention of China's economic reform programme has been to shift the governance of economic relations from bureaucratic towards market co-ordina tion. The decentralization of decision-making from administrative bodies to enterprises and, by extension, the delegation within enterprises of specific deci sions to a trained body of managers, have been key elements in this programme. This paper examines the changes in levels of decision-making experienced by six State enterprises between 1985 and 1988, a period during which the reform was being introduced nationwide. It concludes that the managers of these enterprises did secure additional autonomy to make decisions of strategic significance, but that this autonomy is uncertain and bounded. It is liable to be rescinded as the result of sudden changes in government policy and it is bounded by local rela tional obligations. These constraints upon management expose the dynamics of negotiated dependency relations in a context characterized by underdevelopment ...

Weak foundations : the economy of El Salvador in the nineteenth century

Abstract: Hector Lindo-Fuentes provides the first in-depth economic history of El Salvador during the crucial decades of the nineteenth century. Before independence in 1821, the isolated territory that we now call El Salvador was a subdivision of the Captaincy General of Guatemala and had only 250,000 inhabitants. Both indigo production, the source of wealth for the country's tiny elite and its main link to the outside world, and subsistence agriculture, which engaged the majority of the population, involved the use of agricultural techniques that had not changed for two hundred years.By 1900, however, El Salvador's primary export was coffee, a crop that demanded relatively sophisticated agricultural techniques and the support of an elaborate internal finance and marketing network. The coffee planters came to control the state apparatus, writing laws that secured their access to land, imposing taxes that paid for a transportation network designed to service their plantations, building ports to expedite coffee exports, and establishing a banking system to finance the new crop. "Weak Foundations" shows how the parallel process of state-building and expansion of the coffee industry resulted in the formation of an oligarchy that was to rule El Salvador during the twentieth century. Historians and economists interested in the "routes to underdevelopment" followed by Latin American and other "Third World" countries will find this analysis thorough and provocative.

Minorité nationale, territoire et développement : les Albanais en Yougoslavie

Abstract: The purpose of this research is to study the problems of national integration of the albanian minority within the yugoslav society and the development problems of the area inhabited by this minority, considering that these two questions are linked together. The first part examines the concepts of national minority and development and the problems we meet when applying them to the yugoslav context. The second part delimits the albanian inhabited regions in yugoslavia, describes their main geographical features, identifies them as the most underdevelopped area of the whole country, then examines the types of contact between the albanians and their neighbours and compares them with these people, specially from a demographic point of view. The third part explains how the albanians became a national minority in serbia, later in yugoslavia, and deals with the historical background of the present day underdevelopment. The fourth part examines the yugoslav regional development policy experiment, its results and the polemics which arose about its failure to resolve the economic and social problems of the albanian inhabited regions. The last part deals with the crisis of the eighties, both as a general crisis in yugoslavia and as a political and inter-ethnic one in the albanian inhabited area, specially in the kosovo province. This crisis is now stopping and reversing the national integration and regional

Mauritius and the NIC Model Redux: Or, How Many Cases Make a Model?

Abstract: The search for a model of economic development for the less-developed countries (LDCs) has occupied the time and academic journals of economists, political scientists, development specialists, and others for many decades. Several major development models have become fashionable for a time, only to fall out of favor because of a lack of broad applicability and the absence of empirical verification. Contemporary models of development generally proceed from Rostow's five stages of economic growth.' Rostow's model, however, has encountered heavy criticism. The consensus seems to be that it adds little more than new terminology to the work of Marx and the classical theorists.2 Equally unsatisfying are the various theories of underdevelopment, attributing economic miscarriages to factors ranging from tropical soil and climate,3 "cultural dualism,"4 and the absence of "achievement motivation,"5 to exploitation by and dependency on the developed countries.6 While useful in exploring the causes of underdevelopment, this literature contributes little to our knowledge of how to attain development. Like the work of the classical economists, its intellectual origins are not particularly relevant to the situation of the LDCs.' Much of the recent development literature, including that of neoclassical economists and "structuralists," has sought to address pragmatically the question of how an LDC can best achieve development. Development, once synonymous with economic growth, is now widely recognized to embrace the concept of "growth with equity." A rise in per capita GDP should be accompanied by reductions in poverty, inequality, and unemployment, and an expansion in personal choice.8 But how is such development to be attained by an LDC? Through

Perpetuating Underdevelopment in Kenya: The Link between Agriculture, Class, and State

Abstract: The Republic of Kenya is a land of stark contrasts. Its precapitalist policies have long attracted multinational investment and international loans. External capital is apparent to Western tourists in the capital city of Nairobi, an urban area with luxurious hotels, modern corporate and government offices, expensive automobiles, large sports stadiums, and numerous stores. But the modern features of Nairobi do not represent the real Kenya, the Kenya known to the vast majority of those in the country. The average Kenyan is not wealthy and does not possess Western-style amenities. Most Kenyans work in agriculture-related activities which range from subsistence farming to wage labor on large estates or plantations. In fact, recent statistics show that the agricultural sector employs over 81 percent of the labor force, contributes 65 percent to the value of total exports, and accounts for 31 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (World Bank, 1986a). In addition to an appreciable disparity in income between urban elites and agricultural laborers, there is also an uneven distribution of resources within the agricultural sector. The present structure of agriculture is closely linked to the colonial period, when Europeans controlled large-scale farms in areas with fertile land. Although few Europeans farm in Kenya today, the agricultural system is still inequitable and biased toward Africans with large farms. Inequality is evident in the distribution of farm land, the flow of capital in and out of agriculture, and the class structure that perpetuates this situation. The Kenyan state remains closely aligned with elite interests in both rural and urban areas, thereby maintaining an unproductive agricultural system that contributes to underdevelopment.

Socioeconomic Dimensions of Reconquista and Jihad in Morocco: Portuguese Dukkala and the Sa did sus 1450–1557

Abstract: Among the results of recent scholarly interest in the “World-Systems” perspective has been a revival of the debate concerning the origins of capitalism and the modern world economy. Despite the fact that the World-Systems approach at times seems as Eurocentric as some of the theories it purports to oppose, since the origins and “core” developments of both mercantilism and capitalism are considered to have been uniquely rooted in the socioeconomic experience of early modern Europe, it nonetheless offers historians the promise of studying social structural and economic changes in non-Western societies without recourse to the value judgments and prejudices implicit in models of development that employ such terms as “traditional society,” “underdevelopment,” or “modernization.” By demonstrating that market and productive forces external to a particular regional economy and social system can intrude upon that system, dominate it, and eventually stimulate its transformation, thus creating wider changes in intrasocietal social relations, the World-Systems model has the potential of offering a conceptual point of departure of great value to students of social change in regions other than Europe during the early modern era.

The Purpose of Forests: Follies of Development

Abstract: Part 1 The promise the role of the forest industries in the attack on underdevelopment prospects for expanding forest products exports from developing countries the forester as agent of change world forest development - markets, men and methods one world forestry - New Zealand's role. Part 2 Rethinking: changing objectives of forest management forestry education a note for discussion on behalf of the uninvited guests responsibility making trees serve people. Part 3 New directions: "making green the Motherland" - forestry in China forestry and the Chinese Revolution forest industries for socio-economic development forestry, foresters and society forestry and underdevelopment revisited foresters and politics.

The Tentacles of Progress: Technology Transfer in the Age of Imperialism, 1850-1940

Abstract: Daniel Headrick examines why the massive transfer of Western technology to European colonies did not spark an industrial revolution in those countries. Rather than spurring economic progress, he argues, the transfer of stock technology between 1850 and 1940 caused the traditional self-sufficient economies of the colonial regions to be stuck in a state of underdevelopment, a legacy which burdens these countries to this day.

Human issues affecting construction in developing countries

Abstract: The inhibiting effect of underdevelopment of human resources on construction in developing countries is examined and the need for education, training and research emphasized. Developed-world involvement and its often adverse effects, social and otherwise, are discussed, the provision of shelter being given as one major example. The fact that most large-scale infrastructural work is undertaken through arrangements with developed-world organizations is given prominence, the inappropriate nature of many contract procedures being emphasized. The importance and extent of informal construction is also highlighted.

From Outpost to Outport: A Structural Analysis of the Jersey-Gaspé Cod Fishery, 1767-1886

Abstract: Using the extensive papers of the firm Charles Robin and Company of Jersey and Paspebiac, and the records of the Jersey mercantile establishment, Rosemary Ommer presents a detailed case study of commodity trade, uncovering the development, function, and strengths and weaknesses of all aspects of the fishery. Her analysis clearly reveals a functional three-point trading system: production in Gaspe, management in Jersey, and markets in the Mediterranean, the West Indies, and Brazil. Employing a new set of methodologies developed for this study, Ommer is able to escape the myopic perspective of works which assume that staple-based development comprises only "good" and "bad" staples that inevitably lead to development and underdevelopment respectively. She has instead produced a rich and complex analysis which broadens our understanding of colonial staple development and commodity trade and introduces new insights on regional development.

Disability and Afghan Reconstruction: Some Policy Issues

Abstract: Conflicts within Afghanistan have severely disrupted the few formal rehabilitation services for disabled Afghans. The unsettled situation, together with prevailing socio-economic underdevelopment, poses massive problems for reconstruction. Realistically, Afghans with disabilities will have to manage their lives largely with traditional skills and community resources for many years to come. Their indigenous resources may be supplemented with modern rehabilitation information (skills and knowledge) using an ‘information-based’ approach to planning. Some implications of this approach are examined, with examples of information systems in practice.

The Economic Effects of Military Expenditure in Third World Countries

Abstract: Three recent books by three experts on defence economics analyse the economic impact of military expenditure on economic growth and development in Less Developed Countries (LDCs). Saadet Deger's theoretical economic analysis betrays a strong bias against militarism and militarization in contemporary society. Nicole Ball presents a more general analysis, studying a large number of concrete cases, and taking their political and sociological characteristics into account. Both Deger and Ball see armament as a cause of underdevelopment. Robert Looney engages mainly in econometric analysis. He provides a comprehensive analysis of data from 77 LDCs, distinguishing between producers and non-producers of armaments. Looney's empirical results indicate that domestic political-bureaucratic influences are more important than international rivalries, and that the economic environment of arms producers differs significantly from that of non-producers. To us, however, these results seem unconvincing: data are incomplete, the econometric methods employed are very simple, and the theoretical background is weak. As regards economic analysis, Deger's study seems more rigorous, but its assumptions are heavily slanted in favour of the ideas of the peace research movement. Nicole Ball's analysis is the most interdisciplinary of the three, and also more empirical, historical and descriptive than the others. These three important books should be read by every specialist on defence problems. Their various approaches, their different perceptions of the economic impact of military expenditure and their different philosophical backgrounds provide a broader view of the economics of defence.

Entre inconformismo e reformismo

Abstract: This is a paper-synthesis where the author summarizes his theory of development and underdevelopment. Some basic ideas are here presented: the economic theory of development must start wiht the study of history; underdevelopment is a specific historical and economical phenomenon, that cannot be thought in terms of linear stages of history; this historical phenomenon must be studied in structural terms, relating the historic and the economic aspects; the basic characteristic of underdevelopment is the dependency relation, expressed in the center-periphery system; in the study of development the basic concept to start with is the concept of social surplus, its forms of appropriation and utilization. The paper ends with an analysis of the frustrations of a reformist. Protectionism, that was justifiable in a first phase of industrialization, was maintained too long in Latin America; in a second phase, an active economic policy for exports was necessary. On the other hand the populist risk was always present, while the real social problems related to a high level of income concentration were not solved.

Theorizing underdevelopment: Latin America and Romania, 1860-1950

Abstract: try, market failure, social upheaval, and access to the continuing Russian debate led to new theoretical responses, in both Marxist and non-Marxist discourses; in Latin America, the perceived success of the export-driven economies, combined with institutional factors and the absence or feebleness of certain critical traditions known in Romania, resulted in a prolonged inability to mount a theoretical attack on the "outward-directed development" prescribed by the Ricardian thesis of comparative advantage. Thus in Latin America, with which this essay is principally concerned, both Marxist and non-Marxist challenges to the region's place in the international division of labor were relatively ineffective before the War's end. Industrial development was well underway in some countries before government policy pushed in the same direction, and a theoretical justification of industrialization came last even if it was the first important Third World contribution to development economics. The essay first considers the economic experience of four major countries in the region Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico and then turns to the social situation of the Latin American intellectuals

The Tentacles of Progress: Technology Transfer in the Age of Imperialism, 1850-1940

Abstract: Daniel Headrick examines why the massive transfer of Western technology to European colonies did not spark an industrial revolution in those countries. Rather than spurring economic progress, he argues, the transfer of stock technology between 1850 and 1940 caused the traditional self-sufficient economies of the colonial regions to be stuck in a state of underdevelopment, a legacy which burdens these countries to this day.

Emerging Human Rights: The African Political Economy Context

Abstract: Introduction: The Political Economy of Universal Human Rights: The African Context Theory The Right to Global Distributive Justice: An Enquiry into the Problems and Prospects of Creating an Equitable World Order African People's Rights: The Third Generation in a Global Perspective Underdevelopment and Human Rights Violations in Africa Theological Perspectives on Human Rights in the Context of the African Situation Human Rights Issues and Violations: The African Experience Issues and Violations Revolutionary Violence, Development, Equality, and Justice in South Africa The Effect of Militarization on Human Rights in South Africa A Continent in Crisis: Migrants and Refugees in Africa The African Context of Human Rights: Development, Equality, and Justice Some Impressions of the Ghanaian Version of Black Feminism Human Rights and Militarism in Nigeria Human Rights and Self-Reliance in Africa Selected Bibliography Index

Farewell to Socialism? A Comment on Recent Debates

Abstract: The revalorization of democracy by the left has led many to bid farewell to socialism, at least in its present forms. The antagonism between authoritarianism (of all forms) and democracy has largely superseded that posited between capitalism and socialism. Or rather, it is widely argued that this is the case. This note does not attempt to set out a socialist project for Latin America but simply seeks to demonstrate the continued relevance of socialism to the contintent, in spite of all the reservations expressed. Norbert Lechner has expressed a general feeling among Latin American intellectuals in stating that "If revolution was the articulating axis of the Latin American debate in the 1960s, in the 1980s the central theme is democracy" (Lechner, 1986b: 33). In the 1960s a rather apocalyptic vision of the "development of underdevelopment" (things could only get worse) led to a rather stark political choice between "socialism or fascism." The victorious Cuban Revolution meant that socialism was possible: The condition of "dependency" meant that it was necessary. The forthcoming socialist revolution was seen as an inexorable product of the explosive social contradictions and the perceived failure of capitalist modernization in the 1950s. When the military coups occurred in the 1970s and produced something akin to fascism, this momentarily strengthened the illusion that socialism and fascism were the only alternatives open to Latin American societies. In defeat, much of the Latin American left accentuated its previous dogmatism. Indeed it is not an exaggeration to refer to a quasi-religious concept of politics: hence the current call of the 1980s to "desacralize" politics. Under the military regimes of the 1970s, intellectual endeavor turned from the social and economic aspects of "dependency" to the origins and nature of the new "bureaucratic authoritarian" states.! Around 1982, with the growing international economic crisis shaking the stability of the military

Wallerstein's world-systems theory and the cook islands: a critical examination

Abstract: Wallerstein developed world-systems theory as an attempt to correct the inadequacies he saw in the development orthodoxy of the 1950s and the 1960s--the modernization school (Skocpol 1982: 1075). In common with many other dependency theorists, Wallerstein defined his theory of development (and underdevelopment) in opposition to modernization theory in two critical ways. First, whereas modernization theory tended to examine nations as discrete and independent units, world-systems theory made the interstate context of development its main source of explanation: A nation developed the way it did because of its position on the world-system (Wallerstein 1974:351). Although Wallerstein incorporated national and subnational factors into world-systems theory (particularly his more recent versions), these remained in a subordinate role as intervening variables. Second, Wallerstein stressed the importance of historical factors in development. In his first book on the world-system he said that he wished to avoid the “intellectual dead-end of ahistorical model-building” (presumably a reference to modernization theory) and claimed that it was possible to build a universal theory of development on the analysis of the specific histories of individual nations (Wallerstein 1974:338). This article examines world-systems theory in the light of Wallerstein’s claims for its validity and usefulness by using information collected on the Cook Islands. I will attempt to show that world-systems theory overemphasizes the global context of development, misinterprets

Manager in the Middle: A Case of Underdevelopment and Underutilization

Abstract: Middle managers play a crucial role in ensuring that the activities inside an enterprise are well-coordinated, that employees act responsively and responsibly, and that the organization continuously generates creative alternatives to grapple with its problems. Further, it is at the middle level that the organization's policies and strategies get translated into decisions and actions. However, it is more than evident that the nature of middle management dynamics in organization has remained largely unexplored and there has not been enough understanding of the strategies appropriate for effective utilization of this critical resource.In this article, Nilakant and Ramnarayan draw on their study of four medium and large sized business organizations in the private and public sectors in India to examine aspects relating to the performance of middle level managers. They discuss the implications of the findings for organizational performance and change and offer suggestions for enhancing middle management potential in similar contexts.