Synopses & Reviews
Robin Broad and John Cavanagh dive into the middle of the central challenges of Third World development that have bedeviled academics and policymakers alike: what should be the goal of development and what are the best means to achieve it? They do so by inviting readers on a journey through the rise and fall of the one-size-fits-all model of development that richer nations began imposing on poorer ones three decades ago. That model-called the Washington Consensus by its backers and neoliberalism or market fundamentalism by its critics-placed enormous power in markets to solve the problems of the poor. The book provides a key foundation for understanding how this model led to the current global economic meltdown, and why more trade and more aid are not the answer. Broad and Cavanagh guide us through the raging debates over the best routes to development for the poorer nations of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The authors have stood at the epicenter of these debates from their perches in the United Nations, the U.S. government, academia, and civil society. They lead us back in time to understand why the Washington Consensus dominated for so long, and how it devastated workers, the environment, and the poor. At the same time, they chart the rise of an alter-globalization movement of those adversely affected by market fundamentalism. Today, this movement is putting alternatives into action across the globe, and what constitutes development is being redefined. As the authors present this dramatic confrontation of paradigms, they bring into question the entire conventional notion of development, and offer readers a new lens through which to view the way forward for poorer nations and poorer people. This brief history of development provides the context to understand the contemporary global crises of finance, food, and climate.Read an article on the World Bank by Robin Broad and John Cavanagh in the Modesto Bee at World Bank Article. Read a piece on Swear Off 'Market Fundamentalism' by the authors in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.Development Redefined was featured in an oped in The Guardian in the UK: Guardian oped
Synopsis
Rejecting the "flat worldism" of the globalists as well as the peaks and valleys of trade and aid policies over the years, Robin Broad and John Cavanagh guide us through the raging debate over the best route to development for the poorer nations of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This book takes readers on a journey through the rise and fall of the one-size-fits-all model of development that richer nations began imposing on poorer ones three decades ago. That model-called the "Washington Consensus" by its backers and "neoliberalism" or "market fundamentalism" by its critics-placed enormous power in markets to solve the problems of the poor. The authors have stood at the epicenter of these debates from their perches in the United Nations, the U.S. government, academia, and civil society. They guide us back in time to understand why the Washington Consensus dominated for so long, and how it devastated workers, the environment, and the poor. At the same time, they chart the rise of an "alter-globalization" movement of those adversely affected by market fundamentalism. Today, this movement is putting alternatives into action across the globe, and what constitutes development is being redefined. As the authors present this dramatic confrontation of paradigms, they bring into question the entire conventional notion of "development," and offer readers a new lens through which to view the way forward for poorer nations and poorer people. This brief history of development connects an arcane world with contemporary forces of globalization, environmental degradation, and the violation of perhaps the essential human right: to be considered individually, equally, in an economically viable world and way.
Synopsis
Development studies are currently in a state of flux. Long-accepted wisdom is being dismissed by new generations of scholars who increasingly set development and globalization on the same continuum as colonialism, premised as they are on a shared reductionist assumption that progress and growth are objective facts to be measured, assessed, and controlled.
This book gathers contributions from a number of prominent scholars who are on the cutting edge of this transformation in development studies, and the result is a clear picture of where the field is today, and where it likely will be headed next. Positing a new “development from below,” one that foregrounds the perspective of previously marginalized groups and movements, the book enables us to reimagine development studies in a new, more productive, more radical way.
About the Author
Dip Kapoor is professor of international education in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Alberta.Dominique Caouette is associate professor in the Department of Political Science and directory of the East Asian Studies Centre at the University of Montreal.
Table of Contents
1. Beyond Colonization, Development and Globalization: Social Movements and Critical Perspectives -
Dominique Caouette and Dip Kapoor 2. From Colonization to Development and to Globalization: An Evolving Continuum? - Dominique Caouette and Timothé Feodoroff
Part One: Indigenous and Peasant Movement Perspectives
3. Subaltern Social Movement (SSM) Post-Mortems of Development in India: Locating Trans-local Activism and Radicalism - Dip Kapoor
4. Democratic Hopes, Neoliberal Transnational Government(re)ality: Grounded Social Movements and the Defense of Communal Natural Resources in Ghana - Jonathan Langdon
5. Indigenous Movement Politics in Bolivia: Forging New Citizens of a Plurinational and Decolonized State - Stéphanie Rousseau
Part Two: Acting Across Borders
6. What are Peasants Saying Development? La Vía Campesina and Food Sovereignty - Annette Aurélie Desmarais
7. Debunking the Productivist Myth: Food Sovereignty Movements - Eric G. Chaurette and Beatriz Oliver
8. Neoliberal Immigration and Temporary Foreign Worker Programs in a Time of Economic Crisis: Local/Global Struggles - Aziz Choudry
9. Working for a Day Off: Advocating for the Rights of Migrant Women in Southeast Asia - Michele Ford and Lenore Lyons
10. The Alterglobalization Movement: A New Humanism? A Case of the World Social Forum - Kléber Ghimire
Part Three: Reflections on Critical Knowledge, Culture and Pedagogy
11. Liberating Development from the Rule of an Episteme - Dia Da Costa
12. Globalization as the 'New' Colonization: Indigenizing Resistance - Sandy Grande and Naadli Todd Ormiston
13. Globalization, Culture and Development: Perspectives on Africa - Ali A. Abdi
14. Learning, Knowledge and Action in Social Movements - Brian K. Murphy
15. Conclusion - Dominique Caouette