The Geopolitical Imagination and The Enframing of Development Theory

TIe OeopoIilicaI Inaginalion and lIe EnJvaning oJ BeveIopnenl TIeov
AulIov|s) Bavid SIalev

Bevieved vovI|s)
Souvce Tvansaclions oJ lIe Inslilule oJ BvilisI OeogvapIevs, Nev Sevies, VoI. 18, No. 4 |1993),
pp. 419-437
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419
The
geopolitical imagination
and the
enframing
of development
theory
DAVID SLATER
Associate
Professor of
Social
Geography, Interuniversity
Centre
for
Latin American Research and
Documentation
(CEDLA), Keizersgracht
395-397, 1016EK
Amsterdam,
The Netherlands
Revised MS received 9 June 1993
ABSTRACT
It is
argued
that all the
major conceptualizations
of
development
in the
post-war period
contain and
express
a
which has had a
conditioning
effect on the
enframing
of the
meanings
and relations of
development.
The Occidental
deployment
of modernization
theory
for the
developing
countries reflected a will to
geopolitical power.
It
provided
a discursive
legitimation
for a whole series of
practical
interventions and
penetrations
that
sought
to subordinate and assimilate the Third World Other. In a connected but far from identical manner,
neo-liberal
readings
of
development
in the 1980s have
accompanied
and been
inspired by rapidly changing geopolitical
conditions.
Similarly,
it is
argued
that on the other side of the North-South divide the radical
dependencia
perspective
of the 1960s and
early
1970s cannot be
separated
from a series of
geopolitical
events such as the Cuban Revolution,
nor from the
perceived
need on the
part
of critical Latin American intellectuals to confront and
challenge
the relevance
of modernization
theory
for the
periphery. Finally,
it is
suggested
that in
any attempt
to rethink
development
for
global
times the nature of our
geopolitical
imagination
must be a
key element, just
as the theorization of the
geo-political
is
equally
relevant for
development
theorists and
political geographers.
KEY WORDS: Universalism, Ethnocentrism, Occidental
gaze, Dependencia, Democracy,
State
GEOPOLITICS AND NORTH-SOUTH
RELATIONS
In the wake of the
disintegration
of the Second
World and the sudden
evaporation
of the erstwhile
'Soviet threat', a new
spectre
is
haunting
the West.
Visions of
unruly, unpredictable
and
destabilizing
regimes
and
religions
of a non-Western world
increasingly appear
to
occupy
and
perturb
the
Occidental
gaze. During
the same
moment, ex-
ponents
of a more critical
persuasion
are
placing
on
to the
agenda
the moral
question
of North-South
relations. H6sle
(1992, 229),
for
example, suggests
'the
increasing gap
between First and Third Worlds
raises some of the most difficult moral
questions
of
the modem
world', and
similarly, Arrighi
(1991, 40)
writes,
'the
increasing inequality
of the
global
dis-
tribution of income is ...
rapidly becoming
the
central issue of our times'.
Along
a
potentially
connected
analytical track,
a
variety
of critical scholars invoke the name of
Trans. Inst. Br.
Geogr.
N.S. 18: 419-437 (1993) ISSN: 0020-2754
'geopolitics'
or
'imperialism'
to mark a central
feature of
contemporary global power. Mohanty
(1992, 88),
for
instance, writes of the USA of the
1990s as a
geopolitical power 'seemingly
unbounded in its effects' and of the
logics
of
imperialism
and
modernity sharing
a common
notion of
'space
as
territory'. Or,
in other
previous
instances,
a differentiation has been drawn between
global capitalism (exploitation
in
economics)
and
nation-state alliances
(domination
in
geopolitics).1
Going
further, it can be
argued
that across a broad
spectrum
of intellectual
enquiry, through literary
theory,
cultural
studies,
political
and
philosophical
investigation,
social and
anthropological
research,
feminist
theory,
international relations and
political
geography,
one can discern a
growing
focus on
issues of
space
and
power,
in which
questions
of
inside and
outside, global and
local,
de-territorialization and
re-territorialization, connec-
tions and
separations punctuate
the
emerging
debates.
Interspersed through
these
discussions,
we
Printed in Great Britain
can locate an
expanding
interest in a critical
geo-
politics.
In the domain of international relations the
work of, inter
alia,
Ashley (1987),
Der Derian and
Shapiro
(1989)
and Walker
(1993),
has shown the
fertile
possibilities
of
deploying post-structuralist
and
post-moder thought
in new
attempts
to
re-conceptualize
the
spatiality
of
political power.
In
a not dissimilar
vein,
recent contributions from a
number of
political geographers (Dalby,
1988 and
1991;
O Tuathail and
Agnew,
1992;
Corbridge,
1993)
have
begun
to
emphasize
the
openings
offered
by
a more discourse-orientated
approach
to
global aspects
of the
geopolitics
of
power.2
Despite
the existence of differences in
concep-
tual and thematic
emphasis,
the above-mentioned
literature is
generally
characterized
by
a double
tendency. First, there is a
strong
inclination to
equate
the
analysis
of
geopolitics
with the inter-
national or
global, including
the
question
of
nation-state formations and relations.
Secondly,
although certainly
not in all
cases, there seems to
be a
predisposition
to associate
geopolitics
with
the
ways
in which a whole
community
of state
bureaucrats, leaders and
foreign-policy experts,
the
'intellectuals of
statecraft',
spatially represent
inter-
national
politics.
This twin
tendency
can lead us to
pose
two interwoven
questions:
(a)
in the first
place,
is it sufficient to constitute the
analytical
field of a
geopolitics
on the level of international
or
global
relations,
and
(b)
to what extent can we
accept
the notion of a centred
subjectivity
for the
analysis
of
geopolitics?
In other words, can
we indicate a
variety
of interconnected
analytical
levels for
geopolitics
and also is it
possible
to
identify
a
heterogeneity
of
geopolitical imagin-
ations with
contrasting capacities
for
deployment?
In
attempting
to answer both these
questions,
the
analytical
context is formed
by
what I shall refer
to as the
enframing
of
development theory
across
the North-South divide.
The
questions
I am
posing
here could take us into
a
very
extended discussion.
My objective, therefore,
is to
attempt
to
clarify
certain
general
issues of
geopolitical analysis
before
dealing
in some detail
with continuities and discontinuities in the forma-
tion and
deployment
of
development theory. By
effecting
an encounter between
geopolitics
and the
constitution of
development theory,
the intention is
to shed some further
light
on the
ways
in which
development theory
has been enframed, since in
many
critical accounts of the
emergence
of ideas on
development,
the
geopolitics
of
global power
has
not
infrequently
remained
unexplored. Similarly,
it
can be
argued
that in the
growing
literature on
geopolitical analysis, including
the more critical
currents, the nature of North-South relations
and,
in
particular,
the
representation
of societal
develop-
ment in the
South, have tended to receive less
attention than
might
have been
expected given
the
increasing importance
attached to
globalization.
In
this
sense, therefore, it is to be
hoped
that such a
critical encounter
might help
to stimulate new
questions
in two fields of
enquiry
as well as
generating
a
dialogue
which could be
mutually
beneficial.
In its most basic form
my
first
question
on
geopolitics
concerns the
object
of
analysis.
Tradi-
tionally,
this
might
have been taken to be a series of
states conceived of as
living organisms capable
of
growth
and
development.3
Such an
approach
has
found recent
application
in the
writings
of the Latin
American
military but,
in these cases
(primarily
in
the Southern
Cone)
owing
to the difficulties of
territorial
acquisition,
the
geopolitical strategy
has
been transformed from
conquest
of
physical space
into that of
political space,
while still
preserving
the
organic concept
of the state.4
On a broader
canvas,
the
object of
geopolitical
reflection,
as
brought
into
being by
the
practitioners
of statecraft in the United States, has been the
changing
constellation of
global political
forces. The
terrain of
analysis
and of
potential
intervention has
neither been restricted to one
part
of the
globe,
nor
to an
interpretation
of the
'global'
as constitutive of
a level that is
essentially
'above' or 'over'
(the
notion,
for
example,
of
superimposition).
It has
rather been conceived in terms of an imbrication of
spheres,
or an
interlocking
of
'global',
'national',
'regional'
and 'local'.5
Although very
different from both the theoretical
and
political starting points,
there is a critical French
current
which,
not
entirely
unlike the above-
mentioned
practitioners
of
statecraft,
has also
emphasized
the
importance
of
seeing geopolitics
in
terms of both the external and the internal. Thus, in
a
special
issue of H rodote on
geopolitics
in
Africa,
Foucher
(1987),
Lacoste
(1987)
and associated
authors have
put
on to the
agenda
the
changing
territoriality
of
political power
inside African states.6
Similarly
inside Brazil,
the relations between
space
and
power
in the context of the colonization of the
Amazon
region,
for
example,
have also been con-
sidered as an inherent
component
of
geopolitics
(Becker, 1982).7
420 DAVID SLATER
The
geopolitical
imagination and the
enframing of development
theory
What I want to
argue
here, therefore,
is that
when we
pose
the
question
of how we
might
best
characterize the terrain of a
geopolitical analysis,
it
will be
necessary
to
keep
in mind the differential
imbrication of
transnational, national and
regional/
local
political spheres. Secondly
and
crucially,
since
the
ways
of
seeing
and
interpreting
the terrain or
object
of
analysis vary,
often
quite dramatically,
some clarification of the
approach
to be
adopted
is
required.
Faced with a related
requirement, Ashley
(1987)
has
developed
what he refers
to, after
Foucault, as a
genealogical approach
to an
analysis
of
geopolitical space.
For
my perspective
on the
enframing
of
development theory,
I shall derive
support
from those
contemporary
currents of critical
thought
that are
enabling
us to re-structure
many
of
the
questions
of social and
political analysis
as well
as to destabilize the
apparent solidity
of the official
discourses of
development.
It is
my
contention that
all the
major conceptualizations
of
development
in the
post-war period
contain and
express
a
geo-
political imagination
which has had a condition-
ing
effect on the
enframing
of the
meanings
and
relations of
development.
Thus,
I shall
argue
that the Occidental
enframing
and
deployment
of modernization
theory
for the
so-called
developing
countries was a reflection of a
will to
spatial power.
It
provided
a discursive
legitimation
for a whole series of
practical
interven-
tions and
penetrations
that
sought
to
subordinate,
contain and assimilate the Third World as other. In
a connected but far from identical
manner,
neo-
liberal
readings
of
development
in the 1980s have
accompanied
and been
inspired by rapidly changing
geopolitical
conditions.
Similarly,
in a
previous
period
and on the other side of the North-South
divide,
the radical
dependencia perspective
of the
1960s and
early
1970s cannot be
separated
either
from the
geopolitical impact
of the Cuban Revol-
ution, or from the
perceived
need on the
part
of
critical Latin American intellectuals to confront and
challenge
the relevance of modernization
theory
at
the
periphery. Finally,
in
any
treatment of the
possible
new horizons for 'critical
development
theory',
one of the
key
dimensions will be formed
by
a
questioning geopolitical imagination. My
own
perspective may
be seen as
forming
one
possible
pathway
within what is
broadly
referred to as
critical
geopolitics
wherein
post-structuralist
and
post-marxist
reflections can
help
us move forward. I
shall return to these
questions
at the end of the
article.8
WAVES OF WESTERN DEVELOPMENT
THEORY
Modernization, Euro-Americanism and the Three
Worlds
of Development
It is
important
to remember that it was the
Enlight-
enment that created the
language
in which
concepts
of the 'modem' first came to be defined. In
Enlight-
enment
discourse,
the West was the model, the
prototype
and the
gauge
of social
progress.
It was
Western
progress,
civilization, rationality, thought
and
development
that were
proclaimed. Equally,
however, these
projections
were
intimately
related
to the discursive
couplets
of 'civilized versus bar-
baric
nations', of
'peoples
with
history
and those
without', which were reflections of the need to
create an
opposed
non-West other so as to cement
a
positive identity
for the West itself. It is in this
sense then that 'the West' is much more an idea
than a fact of
geography.9
Further,
not
only
is the
rise of the West a
global story,
but
also, as Hall
(1992, 291)
puts
it, the 'discourse of the West about
the Rest' has been and continues to be
deeply
implicated
in
practice.
This was
particularly
evident in the Western
construction of the idea of
modernization,
during
the
early post-War period.
The
development
of the
modernization
paradigm,
based as it was on a
dichotomous view of 'modern' and 'traditional'
societies, or West and
non-West, took
place
in a
world characterized
by
a new and
expanding
threat
-
Communism. In 1947, President Truman drew
up
a
picture
of two
antagonistic 'ways
of life'."0 On the
one hand there was freedom and
liberty
and on
the other terror and
oppression.
The
West,
led
by
the United
States, defined the former and the
Communist world the latter. Truman concluded
it must be the
policy
of the United States to
support
free
peoples
who are
resisting attempted subjugation
by
armed minorities or
by
outside
pressures.
(Ambrose,
1988, 78)
Two
years later,
a related
policy
statement
helped
to define the
place
of the
'underdeveloped
areas' in
the
projection
of US
power.
Truman's 'Fair Deal' for
the world embraced a bold new
programme
'for
making
the benefit of our scientific advances and
industrial
progress
available for the
improvement
and
growth
of
underdeveloped
areas'. The
poverty
of more than half the
people
of the world was
viewed as a
'handicap
and a threat both to them and
to more
prosperous
areas'
(emphasis
added).
Truman
421
went on to
propose
that 'what we
envisage
is a
common
program
of
development
based on the
concepts
of democratic fair
dealing' (quoted
in
Escobar, 1993).
Subsequently,
and in close
affinity
with the Truman
doctrine,
a
group
of
experts
convened
by
the United Nations
designed
a
programme
for the economic
development
of
underdeveloped
countries. This
programme,
whilst
affirming
the Western vision of
development,
also
recognized
that the
developmental
transition for the
non-West,
the
underdeveloped
countries,
would not
be an
entirely
smooth one. The authors wrote that
there is a sense in which
rapid
economic
progress
is
impossible
without
painful
adjustments;
[emphasis
added]
... ancient
philosophies
have to be
scrapped;
old social institutions have to
disintegrate;
bonds of
caste, creed and race have to
burst; and
large
numbers
of
persons
who cannot
keep up
with
progress
have to
have their
expectations
of a comfortable life frustrated.
(United Nations, 1951)11
This
report,
as Escobar
(1993, 2)
emphasizes,
ad-
vocated a total
restructuring
of
underdeveloped
societies and reflected an
emerging
will to convert
two-thirds of the world to the Western
'way
of life'.
In an associated manner
whereby,
a decade or so
later,
a connection was made between the Cold War
and
development,
an eminent North American
geographer suggested
that the
way
in which the
underdeveloped
nations are
taught
to
develop,
and assisted in
developing
their
geographical
space
to
support
their
burgeoning populations
would be a crucial factor in the
waging
of the Cold
War and the
preservation
of the Western
way
of life
(Ackerman, 1962, 297)
[emphasis
added].
From these
examples,
it can be
argued
that the
knowledge
which a discourse
produces
constitutes a
modality
of
power
which is exercised over those
who are known as the
other,
the non-West. Further-
more,
when that
knowledge
is
deployed
in
practice,
those who are so known will be
subject,
or more
exactly subjected,
to it. Moreover, the
political
will
that fuels such a
knowledge
has
great difficulty
in
accepting
difference as
autonomy;
there is a
pro-
found fear of 'the
shadowy
outside' which must be
made safe
through penetration
and assimilation;
Ashley (1987, 423)
defines one vital vector of such
a will as 'the
geopolitical
domestication of
global
political space'. By
the same
token, when,
within a
structured ensemble of
meanings,
definitions about
the other are
made, they
are made to stick. And
always
one of the crucial
objectives
of resistance
discourses is to deconstruct and
displace
those
subordinating
definitions of the other.
Occidental
inscriptions
of
'development'
were
further elaborated within the frame of moderniz-
ation
theory
which traversed an extensive field of
enquiry.
As is well
known,
within this theoretical
configuration,
the societies of the West were
characterized as
being
modern, advanced,
the
centres of scientific and technical
progress,
as ef-
ficient, democratic, rational and free. In terms of the
Western
polity,
there was a stress on the
posited
combination of:
(a)
a
high degree
of structural differentiation;
(b)
a secularized
political
culture with a
pragmatic
attitude towards
'ideological
movements',
and
(c)
an
autonomy
of
sub-systems
within the
system
as a
whole,
referring
in
particular
to the notion of an
enabling pluralism
of
groups
and associations.
Not
surprisingly,
it was further
conveyed
that
rational and
analytical
secularization had reached its
zenith in the
political
cultures of Britain and above
all the United States. In his
cogent interrogation
of
these and related
expressions
of modernization
theory
in
political
science, Cruise O'Brien
(1979,
53-4)
presciently
remarked that not
only
did the
idealized versions of
modernity
have an American
face,
but that
this ideal
type
is in effect the end of
history,
the
terminal station at which the
passengers
to moderniz-
ation can
finally get
out and stretch their
legs.
During
the 1950s and
beyond, political modernity
was couched in terms of
representative democracy.
And,
since the realization of the democratic ideal
had reached its
highest point
in the United States,
the modernization
process
for the less advanced
nations was to be understood as one of 'transition'
in which backward
polities
would
increasingly
come
to resemble the American model. Hence, as one
key
protagonist
of
political
modernization, Gabriel
Almond,
expressed
it
in the new and
modernizing
nations of Asia, Africa and
Latin America, the
processes
of
enlightenment
and
democratization will have their inevitable
way.12
Writing
at a similar time, another North American
political
scientist,
Apter,
celebrated modernization
as a
special
kind of
hope
which
DAVID SLATER 422
The
and the
theory
embodied ... all the
past
revolutions of
history
and all
the
supreme
human desires; indeed, the desire for
modernization reaches around the world.
(Apter,
1987,
54)
But the
modernizing
societies - countries such as
Indonesia,
Egypt,
Ghana,
Tanzania and India - were
seen as almost all
populist
and
'predemocratic'.
For
Apter
(1987),
'such
systems require
both
sympathy
and
understanding',
but,
in addition,
to
approach
such societies as
predemocratic
allows us
to view certain institutions of coercion as
perhaps
necessary
to the
organization
and
integration
of a
modernizing community.
Already
in this
passage
there is an
early
indication
of the
rising
concern for
political
order.
From the 1950s
through
to the mid-1960s there
was much
emphasis
in the work of
political
scien-
tists such as Almond and
Apter
on the combination
of industrialization,
technological
advancement
and the diffusion of Western democratic ideals,
practices
and institutional
arrangements.
However,
by
the late 1960s and
early
1970s,
the
emphasis
had shifted to one of
political
order and
stability.
This
emerging
focus was
expressed
in the work of
Huntington,
Pool and
Pye. Pool,
for
example,
in
a well-known
passage published
in 1967, wrote
that
order
depends
on somehow
compelling newly
mobil-
ised strata to return to a measure of
passivity
and
defeatism from which
they
have been aroused
by
the
process
of modernisation.
(quoted
in
Higgott,
1983,
19)13
Huntington,
in his classic text on
political
order,
distanced himself from the earlier unilinearist visions
of modernization and stressed the
significance
of
breakdowns and dislocations in the
political
tran-
sition to
development.
In the
mid-1960s,
he
argued
that not
only
does social and economic moderniz-
ation
generate political instability,
but the
degree
of
instability
is related to the
speed
of modernization.
He also
pointed
to the fact that within 'traditional
polities',
it was the areas
undergoing
modernization
rather than those which remained traditional that
were the 'centres of violence and extremism'
(Huntington,
1968, 45).
He
concluded, after a
sharp appraisal
of Leninism and
revolution, that
political organization
was crucial for
stability
and
liberty;
the vacuum of
power
and
authority
which exists in
so
many modernizing
countries
may
be filled
tempor-
arily by
charismatic
leadership
or
by military force,
. . .
but it can be filled
permanently only by political
organization
...; in the
modernizing
world he controls
the future who
organizes
its
politics. (Huntington, op.
cit., 461)
In
Huntington's
text,
the
portrayal
of the Second
World exhibited a certain characteristic
duality.
The
Soviet Union was no
longer
seen as a
'mystery
wrapped up
in an
enigma'
but rather as a world
endowed with a certain
rationality,
as
expressed
in
the
scientific,
technological
and
military
achieve-
ments of Soviet
development
since the 1920s.
Nevertheless,
its
political system
was
subjected
to
fierce criticism for its
totalitarianism,
its lack of
freedom, and its
ideological/Communist
founda-
tions. In this context it was
generally argued
that
the absence of
political
freedom and the continuance
of state
repression
would
eventually
lead to the
overall debilitation of the Soviet
system.
Moreover,
the
posited expansionist
drive of Soviet totalitarian-
ism was
represented
as a threat to the 'free world' in
general
and to the vulnerable societies of the
non-Western world in
particular.14
The
change
of
emphasis
from the transference of
democratic ideals and the values of the Western
Enlightenment
to
problems
involved in
maintaining
political
order and
stability
was
closely
related to a
further clarification of
geopolitical thinking
in the
United States. From the
early 1960s,
particularly
in
the aftermath of the disastrous
Bay
of
Pigs
invasion
of Cuba in
1961, the National
Security
Council of
the United States came to
approve
a
grand strategy
toward the
peripheral
societies of the South. Within
this
strategy, confronting
internal disorder and in-
surgency
in the
developing, modernizing
world was
viewed as essential. Even more than under
previous
administrations,
it became the
purpose
of the US to
ensure that
'developing
nations evolve in a
way
that
affords a
congenial
world environment'.15 Under
the new
Kennedy
administration, all the relevant
agencies,
such as the State and Defense
depart-
ments, the CIA and the
Agency
for International
Development
met
frequently
to
analyse
what Kolko
(1988, 130)
reminds us were
officially
defined as the
'problems of
development
and internal defense'. At
this time
programmes
of
counter-insurgency
were
initiated and
Washington's military
modernization
strategy
for the Third World
began
to be
put
in
place. Already by
1962 a National
Security
Council
document stated
423
it is US
policy,
when it is in the US interest, to make
the local
military
and
police
advocates of
democracy
and
agents
for
carrying
forward the
development
process.
(Kolko, 1988, 133)16
Whilst it is true,
as Cruise O'Brien
(1979)
showed in
his seminal article on the
politics
of modernization,
that there was an erosion of the democratic ideal
and a
gradual
shift towards a concentration on
problems
of order and
stability
in the
modernizing
world,
it is
equally important
to bear in mind that
orthodox Western visions of
democracy
did not
wither
away.
Rather,
in a context where the
exigen-
cies of order and defence
against
the threat of
Communism
acquired
a
higher profile,
democracy
for the traditional
polity
was conceived of in much
more circumscribed forms.
Neo-Liberalism and
development
under
Western eyes
Between the late 1960s and the onset of a new
wave of Western
development theory
in the
1980s,
between a
phase
characterized
by
the
waning
of the
modernization
paradigm
and the
resurgence
of a
highly
confident economic liberalism, there was an
unstable transition
period.
In the
sphere
of
political
science,
the 1970s saw a
growing
concern with
specific questions
of
public policy,
and a
greater
interest in the connections between
politics
and
economics
(Higgott,
1983, 21-30).
Defeat in
Vietnam,
the
continuing vitality
of resistance move-
ments in the non-Western world and a
growing
realization of the
shortcomings
of modernization
theory,17
nurtured a
greater
awareness of the need
for more
empirically-based knowledge
of Third
World societies
(including
their rural
peripheries),
as
well as for more aid to counter the
challenges posed
by poverty
and backwardness.
In a landmark
speech,
delivered before the Board
of Governors of the World Bank and the Inter-
national
Monetary
Fund at their annual
meeting
in
1973,
former US
Secretary
of Defense Robert
McNamara
argued
for a
greater
concentration of
World Bank resources on
helping
to alleviate the
problems
of the
developing
world's rural
poor.
Following
the McNamara
speech,
a series of sector
policy papers
on rural
development,
basic edu-
cation,
basic health and low-cost
housing
were
produced
by
the World Bank's
Development
Research Center. The reorientation towards anti-
poverty programmes
was
dramatically
reflected in
changes
in the Bank's
lending
activities for devel-
opment.
In 1968 Bank
lending
for
agriculture
and
rural
development
amounted to
only
$172.5 million,
181
per
cent of its total
lending,
whereas
by
1981
it had risen to $3-8 billion,
or 31
per
cent of its
lending (Ayres,
1985, 5).8
However,
as Escobar
(1991, 664) argues
the new focus on 'the rural
poor'
was more the result
of
increasing
radicalism in the
countryside
and of the
demise of modernization theories than of a real
change
in the
thinking
of the World Bank.
In the mid-1970s,
whilst the World Bank
began
to
emphasize poverty-oriented
and basic needs
approaches,
the US
Agency
for International Devel-
opment
(AID)
called for a more
community-centred
approach designed
to deal with the basic human
needs of the
poor
and
especially
'the
poorest
of the
poor'.
In addition,
US AID came to insist on the
design
of
grassroots participatory approaches
that
would
encourage
the active
participation
of the
poor
themselves (Escobar, ibid.).
But for such
programmes
to be effective,
empirically-based
knowledge
and
understanding
of rural communities
were deemed essential and, as a
consequence,
a
growing
number of social scientists,
especially
anthropologists,
came to find a role in
organizations
such as the US AID.19
By
the end of the 1970s,
an
increasing
number of
Third World societies were burdened with
growing
debt
problems;
for
example,
from 1970 to the end of
1980 their
foreign
debt had increased
dramatically
from 67-7 billion US dollars to 438-7 billion
(World
Bank, 1981a, 57).
In 1980 the World Bank of-
ficially approved
what became known as 'structural
adjustment lending',
that is
lending designed
to
support major changes
in
policies
and institutions of
developing
countries that would
reduce their current-account deficits to more
manage-
able
proportions
in the medium term while
maintaining
the maximum feasible
development
effort.
(World
Bank, 1981b, 69)
The
argument might
have sounded
quite
technical
but as it was
developed
and extended it became
clear that the
implications
were
far-reaching.
On the institutional front, it was made clear that
structural
adjustment lending by
the Bank was
complementary
to
support
for
adjustment pro-
grammes provided by
the International
Monetary
Fund. This
required,
as was stated in the Bank's
1981 Annual
Report,
'the
development
of
pro-
cedures for
ensuring
closer collaboration between
DAVID SLATER 424
The
and the
enframing of development theory
the staffs of the two institutions ...'
(World Bank,
1981b, 70).
For the World Bank, structural adjust-
ment was
closely
connected to the
stipulated
need
for
policy
and institutional
changes
within
develop-
ing
countries. In
many
cases such
policy changes
were
designed
to correct 'biases in incentive
sys-
tems that deter
exports
and
promote
uneconomical
import
substitution';
in other instances institutional
changes
were related to
reforms of the
public-sector
institutions
responsible
for
agricultural development
...
improvement
in the ef-
ficiency
of state economic
enterprises,
or
improve-
ments in
support
to nontraditional
exports.
(World
Bank, 1981b, ibid.)
In
surveying progress along
these lines, the Bank
somewhat
laconically
observed
the
difficulty
that
governments
find in
gaining political
acceptance
for the
adoption
and
implementation
of
structural-adjustment programs
has been and continues
to be the
single
most
important
obstacle to
rapid
progress by
the Bank with
structural-adjustment
assistance.
(World Bank, 1981b, ibid.)
At the
beginning
of the 1980s, the World Bank
re-asserted the cardinal
importance
of economic
growth.
It was
argued
that there was
already
sufficient evidence to indicate that 'economic
growth generally
contributes to the alleviation of
poverty'
and
that,
in a more
general
sense,
'human
development depends
on economic
growth
to
pro-
vide the resources for
expanding productive
employment
and basic services'
(World Bank,
1981a, 67 and
97).
As the decade came to a close
private
sector
development
was
becoming
increas-
ingly significant20
in
shaping
the Bank's
strategies
for
development.
In its Annual
Report
for
1992,
the Bank noted
that two out of
every
three
operations
included
components
that
explicitly supported private
sector
development,
an increase of 40
per
cent from four
years
earlier. In the
promotion
of
private-sector
development,
three crucial tasks were
distinguished:
the creation of an
affirmative business environment,
restructuring
of the
public
sector, and the
development
of the financial
sector for
entrepreneurial
activities.
(World Bank,
1992a, 61)
Public-sector
restructuring
was seen as
involving
both the
improvement
of
efficiency
in critical func-
tions of the state, such as the
provision
of social and
physical
infrastructure, and the creation of
'space
for
private
initiative
through
a shift in the
boundary
between the
public
and
private
sectors'
(ibid.).21
Looking
back on the
1980s,
the Bank took the
view that 'adjustment
policies help
most
poor
people
- at least in the medium term',
although
it
was
acknowledged
that economic reform
pro-
grammes
could cause
'temporary
welfare declines
for some'
(World Bank,
op.
cit., 69).
In the related
Development Report
for
1992,
a
similarly up-beat,
almost
Panglossian
view was offered for the future.
Now
with near
unanimity
on the central
importance
of
markets and human resource investments for successful
development,
the
coming
decades offer
great prospects
for
progress.
. . . within the next
generation,
wide-
spread poverty
could be eliminated.
(World Bank,
1992b, 178)
As is
known,
the World Bank has not been
deploy-
ing
a
strategy
for
development
in isolation from
other International
Organizations. Apart
from the
IMF, the Inter-American
Development
Bank
(IDB),
which is
charged
with
responsibility
for Latin
America, has also been active in
drawing up
neo-
liberal
policies
for
development.
In its 1991
Report
on Latin
America, four
'strategic
directions' are
suggested
for future
change
and reform. In the first
place, emphasis
is
given
to the
importance
of
outward orientation and
hemispheric integration.
Reforms are needed to
open up
Latin American
economies to
greater
international
competition
while,
at the same
time,
proposals
for
greater
market
integration
within Latin America should be encour-
aged
as
envisaged
in the
Enterprise
for the Americas
Initiative,
launched
by
former US President
George
Bush. NAFTA
(the
North American Free Trade
Area)
is accorded an overall welcome since all
parties
are set to benefit.22
Secondly,
from the
standpoint
of the Inter-
American
Development
Bank
(IDB),
Latin America
has to modernize
through private
sector
develop-
ment. This is
explained
in terms of the fact that the
public
sector is seen as
being
involved in the
'process
of
closing
down or
privatizing
most of its
public enterprises'
(IDB, 1991, 13).
In
addition, there
is a connection to the
underlying
belief in the
general superiority
of the
private
over the
public,
which is seen as
especially
relevant for
strategies
of
modernization and
development.
The
priority given
to
private
sector
development goes together
with
425
the identification of a
variety
of
required
reforms -
financial, labour and
regulatory.23
Next,
what is
referred to as
'public
sector reform' calls for a
reduction in the size of
government,
cutbacks on
public expenditures
and the
development
of a
minimal technocratic state. The
process
of
privatiz-
ation and acceleration of the
'deregulation
and
debureaucratization of the
economy'
is seen as
'complementary
to the dual
strategy
of
greater
outward orientation and
stronger emphasis
on
private
sector
development'
(IDB, 1991, 14).
Finally,
a fourth
strategy
relates to what is
referred to as 'human resource
development'.
Because it is
anticipated
that the
process
of outward
orientation and modernization of the
economy
'will
encounter critical obstacles on the human resource
side', it is
argued
that
'improvements
in education
and health need to be a
top priority during
the
1990s'
(IDB, 1991, 17).
The
problems
associated
with
poverty
are also touched on -
although
no
mention is made of the increase in
poverty
in Latin
America
during
the 1980s24 and the view is
expressed
that in the
long
term the solution to the
poverty problem
lies in the
improvement
of
professional
skills, which
will allow an
increasing
number of
people
to
partici-
pate
in the
process
of economic
development
and to
share in the fruits of
progress.
(18)
To
complete
this
very
brief but illustrative review of
the official discourse on
contemporary develop-
ment, one
may
turn to the recent OECD
(1992)
report
on
development cooperation.
In a section on
privatization,
which summarized a
two-day
review
on the
subject organized by
the
Development
Assistance Committee
(DAC)
in the
early part
of
1992,
many
of the ideas referred to above are
again
to be found. Notions of
deregulation,
of the
pro-
vision of an
'enabling
environment' for the
private
sector and of 'macroeconomic
stability'
are inter-
spersed through
the text. A
key concluding
rec-
ommendation on the
private sector/public
sector
balance was that
progress
has resulted from actions
'that foster
competitive
markets,
private
initiative,
and investment in
physical
and human
capital'.
Therefore,
donors ... should limit investments in
public
enter-
prises
and focus institutional
support
on areas that
help
foster
competition
and the
private
sector and that
improve
a
government's ability
to
provide
basic social
services.
(OECD, 1992, 20)
What is
clearly
reflected in the various
positions
expressed
in the above documents is the revival of
an economic liberalism that is couched in terms of
market-orientated
development strategies,
a mini-
mal
state,
free trade, financial
discipline, comparative
advantages
and
prosperity through
economic
growth.
These are not new ideas.25 Classical liber-
alism,
for
example,
rested on a view of
society
in
which certain fundamental areas of life were
de-politicized, notably religion
and economics.
Religious
toleration and a market
economy
made
belief and the
pursuit
of wealth
'private'
matters.
Looking
at market economics as a
political project,
Przeworski
(1986, 219)
has
argued
of the
early
1980s that, for the first time for several decades, the
Right
has an historical
project
of its own: to free ac-
cumulation from all the fetters
imposed upon
it
by
democracy.
In this
context, market economics became a self-
legitimating process
-
a
political project
in
itself,
in
which
any
effective
political regulation
over the
economy
was
rejected.
It was deemed
necessary
to
rethink and restructure the
public
sector but the
private
sector was to be
protected
from
public
control and involvement.
As ostensible
examples
of the success of the
market-orientated
strategy
of
development,
the East
Asian model is
frequently
cited;
for
instance,
the
OECD
Report
for 1992 asserts that from 1983
onward the 'East Asian economies
enjoyed
boom
years
based on
market-oriented,
outward-looking
policies'
(OECD, 1992, 35).
What is
glossed
over is
the historical fact that in the cases of Taiwan and
South Korea the state
played
an
indispensable
role
in
developing
an industrialization
process.
It was the
state that led the market rather than the other
way
around. Even in the cases of
Singapore
and,
more
especially,
of
Hong Kong
(where
the state,
through
its
ownership
of land and massive investment in
housing, directly
intervened in the
economy),
it
would be
highly misleading
to assume that it was
independent private
sector
development
that
explained rapid
economic
change.26
In contrast to the historical
reality
of a
strong
state in the
dynamic processes
of East Asian indus-
trialization,
the official
protagonists
of
today's
development
doctrine
equate
the idea of a
strong
Third World state with
inefficiency,
waste,
corrup-
tion and centralism. On the other hand, a minimal
426 DAVID SLATER
The
and the
state - a
lean, fit,
streamlined centre of
political
authority, effectively nurturing
an
'enabling
en-
vironment' for
private enterprise, providing
social
services,
and
training
new
generations
of human
capital
- is seen as the desirable
junior partner
to an
expanding private
sector.
Permeating
all discussions of social and economic
development,
of the
public sector/private
sector
balance,
of
poverty
and welfare, of science and
education, of trade balances and financial flows, of
recommendations for
governmental policy,
and so
on, there exists a
deeply-rooted
belief that all
things
'economic' have been
purified
of the
political.
Market mechanisms and
rationally-operating
indi-
viduals,
dynamic entrepreneurs
and efficient inter-
national investors, sound
policies
and effective
actions,
help
to constitute solid
building
blocks for
the official
language
of
development.
The overall
objective
is to
place
an
unruly
set of contestable
orientations and
approaches
to
development
under
the control of a settled
system
of
understandings
and
priorities
- a
particular regime
of truth.
The
statements,
conceptual priorities,
lines of
classification and the
meanings
that
guide
are all
characterized
by
a
politics
of
forgetting,
which is
vital in the construction of a new truth. It is as if the
societies of the South have never
experienced
previous
waves of
capitalist penetration
and mod-
ernization, as if their economies have never been
open
to the world market, as if the
post-War
diffusion of modernization
theory
had never
occurred. It is as
if,
in the historical annals of real
development, progress
is set to
begin
with struc-
tural
adjustment. Moreover, an
image
has been
created that what went before was detrimental to
the
'body
economic' of the
developing
countries.
The existence of a
malaise, most
clearly
embodied in
the debt
crisis,
required
a
long-term strategy
for
cure,
including,
where deemed
appropriate,
shock-
therapy,
rehabilitation, infusions, donors,
special
treatment for
debt-distress, relief
measures,
support
against adjustment fatigue
and,
always,
continual
monitoring.
The
monitoring
and
supervision belong
to a
sense of mission and a belief in the need for
tutelage.
The World Bank reminds
us, for
instance,
that adjustment
lending
has been
part
of the 'land-
scape
of the
developing
world for over a
decade',
and a few countries 'have
clearly graduated'
(in this
case, Chile and
Thailand),
whilst others 'are on the
road to
graduation' (World Bank, 1992a, 68).
The
firm belief in the need to instruct and
guide
the
'developing
other' is, of course, one more reflection
of a much broader ethos of Occidental
supremacy.
Nor can we assume that the
tutelage
is
applied only
in the economic
sphere.
More
recently
there has been a notable shift or,
more
accurately,
an extension of the terrain on
which
development strategy
is to be
pursued
and
implemented.
In its 1992
report
on
Development
Cooperation,
the OECD notes that the
subject
of
participatory development
and
good governance
is
receiving priority
attention and that
support
is
needed for
developing
countries
going through
their 'democratic transition'
(OECD, 1992, 6).
Developing
this
argument
further, the
Report
notes
that what is
required
is a
general
framework for
establishing key
characteristics of
good governance
within which
support
for the
strengthening
of
judiciary systems,
election
monitoring,
adminis-
trative decentralization and ethnic relations, and
protection
of minorities, conflict resolution and
demobilization are all
key
features
(OECD, 1992, 7).
Fundamental to this new
approach
is the
priority
given
to
building
institutional and economic
capac-
ities in the
developing
countries. In
fact,
it is
commented that 'the
key
to
mastering development
and other
global challenges'
lies
precisely
in this
task of construction for the
developing
countries.
Equally,
it is
argued
that
policy
makers in the West
are
finding
that
solutions to the domestic
problems
for which
they
have
responsibility
are
increasingly
associated with
the economic and institutional
functioning
of other
societies; .. . this creates new
scope
for mutual under-
standing
and
synergy among policy
makers in donor
goverments
as
they
tackle
development
as
part
of
achieving
a
global agenda. [emphasis
added] (OECD,
1992, 49)
The OECD
report
echoes and
emphasizes
related
World Bank orientations. In the
early part
of
1992,
the Bank
organized
a
workshop
on
participatory
development
and has come to
recognize,
so we are
informed,
the
key
role of
intermediary organizations
in
development.
Thus in
Africa,
for
example,
there
is an
increasing
association with local NGOs in the
design
and
implementation
of the Bank's assisted
projects;
for
instance,
in 1991
forty-four
were in
partnership
with NGOs
compared
to
only
seven
each
year
in the
period
1973-87
(Landell-Mills,
1992, 565).
In his article on
governance,
cultural
change
and
empowerment
in
Africa, which follows
427
the World Bank
lead,
Landell-Mills avers that civil
society
will be
strengthened by
the economic liberalization and
privatization
measures that
typically
form a
key part
of
the
on-going
structural
adjustments being
undertaken
in most countries.
(567)
Apparently, giving high priority
to
education,
pub-
lic
management
reform,
privatization,
the informal
sector and
lighter
fiscal controls 'are consistent with
the
goal
of
strengthening
civil
society' (565).
With the new orientation in official
thinking
on
development,
it is clear that the former concen-
tration on
essentially
economic issues is
being
widened to establish what is in a
very
real sense an
all-encompassing agenda.
Whereas in the
past,
dur-
ing
the first wave of orthodox Western
theory,
one
encountered
important
notions of
'political
order',
now we read of the
growing significance
of
'good
governance'. Yesterday,
there was a 'Communist
threat'
helping
to cement into
place rights
of
enforcement and rituals of
order,
whereas
today
the
will to
global power
can rest more
confidently
on
the
presumed superiority
of the West's
develop-
ment
project
-
markets,
good governance
and
rational,
achieving
individuals. This is the future
for the
developing
world if it is able to learn
effectively.27
Just under
twenty years ago,
Castoriadis,
in
a critical
essay
on the orthodox vision of devel-
opment
wrote that,
according
to this
orthodoxy,
if
the countries of the Third World were to 'be
developed' they
would have to
undergo
a 'total
transformation';
he went
on,
the West had to assert not that it had discovered the
trick of
producing
more
cheaply
and more
quickly
more commodities,
but that it had discovered the
way
of life
appropriate
to all human
society. (Castoriadis,
1991, 181)
In the current debates on the
politics
of multi-
culturalism,
on
questions
of
identity
and
difference,
and on the varied modalities of Western universal-
ism and ethnocentrism,
the connection with the
deployment
of Occidental
development
doctrine is
not
always brought
out. It has to be said here that,
as with modernization
theory,
the neo-liberal dis-
course of the
contemporary
era bears within it a
supreme
belief in the universal
applicability
and
rationality
of the Western
development project.
The
Third World other has to be instructed and
helped
to
graduate
into mature
development. Knowledge
has to be diffused to and institutionalized within the
developing
countries. For
example,
in its discussion
of education in Latin America,
the IDB advises the
reader that most universities in this
part
of the
South have been concerned
'largely
with
repro-
ducing knowledge
as
opposed
to
producing
it'
(IDB, 1991, 17).
In other words, they
have not
been
capable
of
generating
their own
knowledge
and, therefore, have had to transmit or
reproduce
knowledge coming
in
from
outside.28
Within the field of aid and
development,
inter-
national
organizations
endowed with financial
capabilities
and donor
responsibilities
and driven
by
adherence to a
particular way
of
constituting
knowl-
edge,
social
practices,
forms of
subjectivity
and
power
relations, need,
if
they
are to be seen as
effective,
to be able to instil and to internalize their
norms, values and
ways
of
thinking
into the
recipient
other. This is done
through
discursive
persuasion
and external inducement. Of the
former,
dialogue
on the basis of an
already
constituted
agenda
is
central. The OECD for
example highlights
the
importance
of
expanded dialogue
with the devel-
oping
countries on the
complex
issues
surrounding
political
transition,
improved governance
and econ-
omic reforms ... solid
progress
has been made ...
[and] encouragingly,
the
dialogue
indicates that the
developing
countries themselves -
especially
in Africa
and Latin America
- are
taking
the lead in
supporting
change. [emphasis
added] (OECD, 1992, 9)
Of the
latter,
varying
forms of
conditionality
are
crucial. The
politics
of financial aid and
supervision
through
the IMF and World Bank have been dis-
cussed in detail
by Payer (1991).29
The
power
to
monitor,
discipline
and intervene in the
economy
of
the other
generates profound
effects, and the lan-
guage
of
expert
omniscience
helps
to
camouflage
and also
legitimate
this
disciplinary power.
I alluded above to the
parallel
between 'political
order' and
'good governance'. Similarly
it is
pos-
sible to discern
key emphases
on modernization and
democracy
in both waves of Western
development
theory.
In this context then,
there is a sense of
continuity. Equally,
however (and
leaving
aside the
significant question
of the varied content of these
terms as between the two waves of
theory),
there is
at least one crucial difference. In terms of the
public
sector/private
sector balance, neo-liberal ideas break
with the
previous
sense of the need for some kind of
public/private
articulation in the
economy
and set
428 DAVID SLATER
The
and the
down a
quite
new
agenda
which
consistently
and
assertively privileges
the
private.
This is not to
suggest
that modernization theorists were advo-
cates of state
enterprises
and nationalization,
but
neither were
they
the brash
champions
of
privatiza-
tion and market economics.
They
were, however,
advocates of
capitalist
modernization and democ-
racy through processes
of
geopolitical
diffusion and
adoption.
At this juncture,
the
dependentistas
entered,
left of
stage.
THE SOUTH THEORIZES BACK
In
going
back to certain elements of the
dependency
perspective
I want to recover some notions which
are still relevant to our time. Whilst there is a
politics
of
forgetting,
there is also a
politics
of
memory.
Development specialists
in the North
frequently
assume that in terms of the
history
of ideas,
radical
views on
dependency
and
underdevelopment,
though perhaps vividly
inscribed,
remain rooted in a
fading past.
In Latin America,
since the first critical
incursions of
dependencia thinking,
a
very
varied and
rich literature has been
developed
on,
inter
alia,
issues of state and
democracy, poverty,
welfare and
the informal sector, social movements,
women's
struggles
and
power,
environmental
change, politi-
cal culture,
and
modernity
and
post-modernity.
Whilst in this other America,
the critical
pathways
have been extended and diversified,
dependency
thought
has not been
rejected
but rather situated in
its time as a
necessary
and fruitful
critique
of both
modernization
theory
and the erstwhile
strategies
of
the Communist
parties
of Latin America.
Together
with all its limitations and
shortcomings,
it is
generally
seen as an
important part
of the critical
intellectual
heritage
of
post-war
Latin America.30
With a view to our
previous
consideration of the
two waves of Western
development theory,
I want
to summarize three of the
original propositions
emanating
out of the
dependency
literature.31
First,
it was
emphasized
that within moderniza-
tion
theory
the characterization of the
'developing
world' was little more than a caricature. Third
World societies were not
given any history
of their
own;
their
history began only
with their contact
with the West.
Secondly, following
a linear view of
development,
the
already
modernized societies were
presented
as
offering
a
horizon,
a future for the
traditional
society which, by adopting
Western
innovations, could
eventually
modernize. Critical
philosophers,
such as the Mexican Zea
(1970)
argued
that in 'our America' the evolution of
analytical thought
had its own
specificities
and
complexities
and it
belonged
on no such subordi-
nating
continuum. The
counter-position
to the
Western
development
canon was that Latin
America not
only
had the
right
to
independence
but
also the
right
of
recognition.
Thirdly,
within the modernization
paradigm,
rela-
tions between the West and
non-West,
and between
the
already
modernized societies and the traditional
societies of the
periphery,
were contextualized as
being essentially
beneficial for the
developing
world. The critical
reply
was that the
reality
of these
relations showed that the
impact
on the Third
World was
fundamentally negative. Through
sla-
very,
colonialism and
imperialism,
the relations
between First and Third Worlds were characterized
as
being exploitative
and
oppressive
and conducive
of
poverty
and
underdevelopment.
Of course,
these
ideas were not
only expressed
in Latin America.
Fanon,
for
example,
underlined the crucial cultural
dimensions of colonial domination in
Africa,
noting
the
poverty
of the
people,
national
oppression
and the
inhibition of culture are one and the same
thing.
(Fanon, 1967, 191)
More
recently,
the
Kenyan
writer
Nguigi
(1985,
118)
has
appropriately
observed that economic and
political
control can never be effective without
mental control:
to control a
people's
culture is to control its tools of
self-definition in
relationship
to others.
In the Latin America of
approximately
two decades
ago,
theoretical
analyses
of
marginalization
and the
combination of external economic
integration
with
internal
disintegration provided
an alternative series
of
starting points
for further
conceptual
and
empiri-
cal
enquiry
(Nun, 1969; Quijano, 1974; Sunkel,
1972).32 Today,
new studies of
marginality
and
informalization are
being developed,
more in rela-
tion to issues of
democracy,
social movements and
violence
(Camacho, 1990; Tironi, 1990)
and the
context is
quite
different. Nevertheless,
in terms of a
critical ethic and a counter narrative to the tradi-
tional canon of
development thinking,
there is a
clear
connecting
line.
Furthermore,
the
spirit
of critical
enquiry
is still
very
much alive as Castells and Lasera
(1989),
for
429
example,
show in their article on 'La nueva
dependencia'.
In the context of an examination of
technological change
and socio-economic restruc-
turing, they argue
that the
worsening
social and
economic situation in Latin America
originates
in
the combination of new and old forms of
depen-
dency;
new in relation to the
technological
revol-
ution as a
moving
force of the new
system
of
production
and old in terms of financial
dependence
and the
imposition
of
policies
of
austerity by
foreign capital.
A similar
position
is taken
by Kay
(1989).
From his discussion of Latin American
theories of
development
and
underdevelopment
and, indeed,
from even a
cursory analysis
of the
present
state of North-South relations,
it can be
ascertained that the
reality
of financial
dependence
has
hardly
declined. Moreover,
with the new
deployment
of
political
conditionalities and the
call for
Western-style democracy,
other forms of
dependence
are
already being
installed.
The
objective
of
my argument
here is not to
draw a veil over the deficiencies of the
dependency
persuasion including
the relative absence of a theor-
etical
analysis
of international relations;
the often
over-generalized portrayal
of the
state-society
nexus;
the
tendency
toward class essentialism;
and
the
presence,
in some texts,
of terminal abstractions
employed
to
capture
fluid
processes.33
Instead,
I
want to
suggest
that in a
geopolitical
conjuncture
characterized
by
the Cuban Revolution,
the estab-
lishment
by
the United States of an Alliance for
Progress,
the
persistence
of
foreign penetration
(military, political,
cultural),
the
increasing
evidence
of financial,
technological
and cultural forms of
dependence,
and the diffusion of a
theory
which
purported
to
legitimize
and rationalize a new colon-
ization of the
imagination,
an
intellectual/political
movement
emerged
which
argued,
wrote and theor-
ized back. This was the
significance
of
dependencia.
The facts that associated modes of reflection
emerged
in other
parts
of the South
during
the same
years
and that the ideas of the Latin American
writers
spread
to other
parts
of the Third World
expressed
the
depth
of the
challenge.
In the encom-
passing
context of North-South relations,
the
dependency
writers constructed and
deployed
a
which
sought
to
prioritize
the
objectives
of
autonomy
and difference and to
break the
subordinating
effects of
metropolis-
satellite relations. To the Western mind inculcated
in the Cartesian tradition,
'dependency'
seemed
little more than a
vague
discontent,
but in fact it
was a
key body
of alternative critical
thought.
The
West
might
believe that it had a 'Manifest
Destiny'
to transmit and
implant
its
way
of life across the
globe,
but the ethnocentric
presumption
inscribed in
its discourse of
development
was now
challenged,
interrupted
and destabilized. However,
as we have
seen,
it was not
long
before the non-West came
under the
impact
of a second wave of
development
truth.
CRITICAL PATHWAYS FOR GLOBAL
TIMES
Under the influence of a somewhat melancholic
sentiment,
it has been
suggested
that in our new
times,
critical
development theory
lies in ruins. For
others,
development
itself is the antithesis of
democracy,
a kind of 'elastic
prison'.
In times of
perplexity
and disenchantment, of the dissolution
of meta-narratives, of
living
what can seem like a
continuous
present
-
in all these moments of
being,
there is a sense in which the future is
immanently
precarious
and
fragile.
Must
every
horizon exist
only
as
mirage;
are we
living
a time of
perpetual
deconstruction,
or are there interstices and
margins
in which forms of reconstruction
might emerge
and
grow?
How do we think the social and the
political
without revolution, beyond
the traditional Marxist
paradigm
with its old certitudes and informed truth
of
capital
and class?34 How do we think
develop-
ment
critically,
in a world of limits and uncertain
survival?
In a world where the relations of
power
that
undermine the conditions for a sustainable
develop-
ment are themselves sustained,
what does
'sustainability'
mean?
Connolly (1988, 1), reflecting
on the order of
modernity, suggests
that
perhaps
'modernity
is the
epoch
in which the destruction of
the world followed the collective
attempt
to master
it'. The
prevalence
of master discourses on devel-
opment
and the environment has been the focus of
much feminist
critique (Moghadam,
1992; Tickner,
1993)
and it is
certainly
the case that moderniz-
ation, neo-liberalism,
dependency
and Marxism
have, overall,
tended to move within the orbit of
androcentrism.
There is,
perhaps,
in some of the new critical
literature a trend towards
greater prudence,
and
attention to what the other is
thinking
and
saying.
The bearers of master discourses are no
longer
assured of an attentive and
accepting
audience. But
perhaps
also there is a need for adventure, for what
DAVID SLATER 430
The
and the
Nietzsche
(1983)
referred to as the
plasticity
of
human
potential,
the
capacity
to transform and
incorporate
into oneself what is
past
and
foreign,
to
replace
what has been lost,
to recreate broken
moulds. The new social movements have
expressed
this sense of
plasticity, renewing
amidst the
ruins,
living beyond
the
ghosts
of old
paradigms.
In our new more
global
times where do we locate
our frame of
meaning
and
analysis
and how do we
develop
new
geopolitical imaginations?
One
pos-
sible entrance can be found in the
contemporary
discussion of
globalization.
Let us take as an
example
a recent article
by
Held
(1991).
Held
suggests
that the
meaning
and
place
of
democracy
have to be
rethought
in relation to a series of
overlapping
local,
regional
and
global
structures and
processes.
Globalization has at least three main
consequences (p.
222);
(a)
the
way processes
of
economic,
political, legal
and
military
interconnectedness are
changing
the
nature of the
sovereign
state from
above;
(b)
the manner in which 'local and
regional
nationalisms' are
eroding
the nation-state from
below;
and
(c)
the
way global
interconnectedness creates
chains of
interlocking political
decisions and out-
comes
among
states and their citizens which in turn
impact
on national
political systems.
There is here an
interesting geopolitical imagination
at work.
First, we have the idea of
global connectivity,
the
increasing
need to link the different levels or
spheres
of
problems
and
issues;
secondly
we have the
place
of the
nation-state,
as a
two-way
nodal
point
of
power,
conflict and dissonance
and,
thirdly, placed
in a broader
frame,
we have the
importance
of social
movements and
political
culture. The terrain of our
geopolitical analysis, therefore, can be constituted
by
the
intermingling
of
global
relations,
nation-
states and local and
regional
movements and
op-
positions.
Our
imagination
can be focused on
questions
of the nature of
identities, difference and
justice
at all levels but
increasingly
in a
global
frame.
Within the more
specific
territorial
setting
of
par-
ticular
peripheral
societies,
the
analysis
of democ-
racy
and
emancipation
can be
given
its
required
spatiality.
The
struggle
for
democracy
has its local
and
regional
domains so that in the debate on the
possible meanings
of
democracy, territoriality
enters
as a crucial
component. Democracy
has its horizon-
tality. Also, and within a
global
frame, the need to
extend the
principles
of democratization and
accountability
to the major institutions of world
development,
within which the voices of the South
must receive their
legitimate representation
in
decision-making processes,
has to form
part
of a
critical
geopolitical imagination.
Such an
imagin-
ation can
help
us subvert the traditional frames of
meaning
and
practice
which have constituted
North-South relations for so
long.
Within the
approach
sketched out above,
impor-
tance is attached to
broadening
the terrain of
and of
connecting
that
ampli-
fication to North-South relations.
However, there
still remains a
deeper
theoretical
question
concern-
ing
the status of the
political
in this kind of
analysis.
In the first
place,
I would
argue
that there can be no
effective
single-shot
fixed function for the
political.
It is not desirable to assume that the
political
can be
separated
off as a 'level'
apart,
differentiated from an
economic and an
ideological
level.
Very
often the
political
has been circumscribed within the domain
of the state,
against
which a civil
society
must
organize
its institutional and interactive mechanisms
of defence.
Similarly,
it is common to encounter the
assumption
of a
binary
division between the realm
of the
political
(bounded
within the state and
including political parties)
and the domain of the
social
(framed
around the
family, religion,
education,
the citizen,
group
relations, civic
associations, move-
ments and so
on).
In
dissolving
this
binary split,
as the
post-Marxist
would transcend the base-
superstructure
division or a
post-structuralist
would
subvert
any
idea of a
pre-supposed separation
between institutions and
discourse, we can
suggest,
after Lefort
(1988),
that
any
discussion of the
political
confronts us with a crucial
ambiguity.
This
ambiguity
resides in the fact that it is
possible
to
talk both of the
political
and of
politics.
Political
sociologists
and scientists
acquire
their
object of
knowledge by delineating political
facts
which
they regard
as
particular
and
separate
from
other
specific
facts such as the
economic,
the
juridi-
cal, the
aesthetic,
the scientific or the
purely
social.
In this
context, modern societies are
characterized,
inter
alia, by
the delimitation of a domain of
institutions, relations and activities which
appears
to
be
political,
as distinct from other domains which
appear
to be
economic, juridical, religious
and so on.
However, the
problem
here is that the
very
fact that
something
we call
politics
should have been demar-
cated within social life at a
given
historical moment
has in itself a
primal political meaning.
Lefort
(1988,
431
217)
defines this
originary meaning
as the
political,
suggesting
that this term refers to the
principles
that
generate
different forms of
society.
Rather than
accepting
the social as
given,
Lefort stresses the
necessity
of
investigating
the
principles
of interal-
ization which account for both the
specific
modes of
differentiation and articulation between
classes,
groups
and social ranks,
as well as the
specific
modes of discrimination between
economic, juridi-
cal, aesthetic and
religious
markers which condition
the
experience
of the social. In a
slightly
more
complex
formulation, it is
argued
that the
political
is
revealed in a double movement
whereby
the mode
of institution of
society appears
and at the same
time is obscured. It
appears
in the
ways
in which the
process whereby
society
is ordered and unified across its divisions
becomes visible,
. . . it is obscured in the sense that the
locus of
politics
(the
locus in which
parties compete
and in which a
general agency
of
power
takes
shape
and is
reproduced)
becomes defined as
particular,
while
the
principle
which
generates
the overall
configuration
is concealed.
(Lefort, 1988, 11)
Hence,
revealing
what is concealed -
examining
the
underlying generative principles
that
govern
the
'temporal
and
spatial configuration
of
society'
(218)
- constitutes for Lefort a
key
aim of
political
theory.
Before
situating
these ideas in a
specifically
geo-political
frame,
I want to make one observation.
With reference to the thesis that the
political
is
rooted in the
principles governing
the
development
of
society,
it needs to be
emphasized
that the
temporal
and
spatial
dimensions of these
principles
are
quite
crucial for
any
effective
analysis.
As
regards
the
temporal
dimension,
when the
socially-
given
is
questioned
and referred back to the initial
act that led to its constitution, the unstable sense of
the
given
can be reactivated. This de-sedimentation
of the social can be seen as a
continuing process
which reveals what Laclau
(1990, 213)
calls the
political
essence of the social.
Expressed
more
concretely
we can
argue
that what is and what is
not
political
at
any
moment
changes
with the
emergence
of new
questions, posed by
new modes
of
subjectivity
- for
example,
the
personal
is
politi-
cal. Nevertheless,
the
political
does not eliminate
the social conditions from which its
question
was
born;
gender
relations,
religious
belief, environmen-
tal
degradation
and
regionalism may
become
politi-
cal at certain moments but
they
are not
only
political.
This
suggests,
therefore,
that in the
analy-
sis of the
principles
which
govern
the constitution
of
society
there
may
be a foundational
meaning
which Lefort,
for
example,
traces back to the French
Revolution and the idea of a historical break in the
political grounding
of the social.
Equally,
however,
through
the
emergence
of new modes of
subjec-
tivity
and new
points
of refusal and resistance,
the
challenging
of the content of
specific
social
forms can also
reveal,
through
the
process
of
de-sedimentation,
a more
dynamic
formulation of
the
political.
If we now return to our context of the
geopoliti-
cal
imagination
and
development theory,
the first
point
that needs to be made concerns the
impor-
tance of
making
a related distinction between
geo-
politics
and the
geopolitical. Aspects
of the former
were
previously
discussed
and,
after the above
consideration of the
political,
we are now in a
position
to
suggest
what
might
be meant
by
the
geo-political. Although
Lefort refers to the
'spatial
configuration
of
society',
no further
development
of
this
conceptual
orientation is offered. There are two
points
that can be made.
First,
the
generative
principles
that
govern
the constitution of a
society
must have a territorial
grounding
and the
way
the
principles
themselves
emerge,
as
during
the French
Revolution,
cannot be divorced from the territorial-
ity
of the
political
forces that are in conflict.
Secondly,
and more
directly
relevant to the context
of North-South relations,
in the
peripheral
countries
of the
South,
the international dimension has been
quite
fundamental. For the societies of Latin
America,
Africa and Asia the
principles governing
the constitution of their mode of social
being
were
deeply
moulded
by
external
penetration.
The
phenomenon
of colonialism,
for
example, repre-
sented the
imposition
and installation of
principles
of the
political
that violated the bond between
national
sovereignty
and the constitution of social
being.
In this sense then the
geopolitical
for these
other societies has been
grounded
in the violation
of their
right
to bear their own
principles
of social
being.
Furthermore,
as the
history
of this
century
shows, the end of colonialism has not
signified
the
demise of such violations.
This
approach
to the
geopolitical
is embedded in
the imbrication of the external and the internal, but
we can also think the
geopolitical
in relation to
changing
modes of territorial
subjectivity
within
peripheral
societies. The
ways
in which
insurgent
ethnic-regional
identities have been
emerging,
DAVID SLATER 432
The
and the
enframing of
development
theory
whereby
the
meanings
invested in
particular
internal
regions
or territories have
acquired
a
refusing,
challenging
dimension to the
encompassing
author-
ity
of the central state, define another form of the
geopolitical.35 Similarly,
the
struggles
for the terri-
torialization of
democracy
and the installation of
regional governments express
a
challenge
to the
socially
and
spatially given.
In both
components
of the
geopolitical
men-
tioned
above,
one
relating
more to the
interlocking
of the external and the internal and the second to
the more
specifically
internal,
we can
posit
a clear
connection to our
previous thoughts
on
develop-
ment and
power. Clearly,
in both waves of Western
development theory
there has been a belief in the
superiority
of the Occidental model and a
general
acceptance
of the
supposedly
beneficial
impact
of
the West's will to
geopolitical power
over the
non-West. In
contradistinction,
dependency
think-
ing
called into
question
the
geopolitical principles
governing
the
varying
modalities of the West's
impact
within the societies of Latin America. As far
as the more
particularly
internal
component
of the
geopolitical
is
concerned, the new forms of ethnic-
regional identity
and the
struggles
for a territorializ-
ation of
democracy provide
an
emerging
frame for
rethinking development along
the lines of
popular
empowerment
and a more
enabling politics
of social
justice.
Finally,
it
may
be
suggested
that future theoriz-
ations of
development
need to
give greater priority
to the
challenge
of
geopolitics,
whilst
political
geographers might give greater
attention to the
relevance of the North-South divide for
today's
politics
of
spatial power.
At the same
time, and in
the
way
in which feminist writers have used the
term
'politics
of location', new
imaginations
will
need to include more
self-reflexivity
for the writer
who
imagines
since, across the interface between
development
studies and
political geography,
the
decolonization of the
imagination
is as critical as is
the need for
critique.
NOTES
1. This differentiation is to be found in
Spivak
(1988,
279).
Although positing
a
relationship
between
glo-
bal
capitalism
and domination in
geopolitics,
in her
critique
of Foucault and
Deleuze,
Spivak emphasizes
the
continuing validity
and
vitality
of the Marxist
analysis
of the international division of labour and
distances herself from what she
argues
to be their
underprivileging
of
global (economic)
power.
2. Of course
has a
longer
and much
more
chequered history,
which it is not the
purpose
of this article to
pursue;
for a recent overview of
many
of the relevant themes, see
Taylor (ed.), 1993.
3. In the work of Rodolf
Kjellen,
for
example,
the
organic metaphor
was further extended into the claim
that states were conscious, rational entities with
interests,
prejudices
and an instinct for self-
preservation.
For a detailed consideration of
Kjellen's
work, see Holdar
(1992).
4. For an overview of some of the most central features
of this
'genre'
of
geopolitical strategy,
see Child
(1979)
and Pion-Berlin
(1989).
For a
specific
text see
Augusto
Pinochet's
(1968) Geopol
tica.
5. In the context of what I refer to as the
interlocking
of
spheres,
there are a number of contentious issues. Der
Derian
(1990),
for instance, has
argued
that when
analysing
simulation,
speed
and
surveillance, chronol-
ogy
can be elevated over
geography,
and
pace
over
space
in their
political
effects. Here, Der Derian
follows Virilio,
noting
that we can think of
'geo-
politics' being displaced by 'chronopolitics'
(Der
Derian, 297). Now whilst this
might
be
possible
in
certain kinds of discussions
concerning
war and
intelligence questions,
it is much less relevant in
issues
pertaining
to Gramscian 'wars of
position'.
Here the intricate
intertwining
of territorial identities
and
contesting
social forces
requires
an
analysis
which
prioritizes
the
politics
of
territoriality,
an
analysis
which is
grounded
in
space
as well as
situated in time.
Furthermore, I would
argue
that
Virilio's
(1986)
treatment of
speed
and
politics
is
primarily
concerned with nuclear
strategy
and mili-
tary technology,
in which a certain
reading
of
geo-
graphical
localization and its
posited
loss of
strategic
value is
unduly generalized.
In the
protracted
dis-
cursive war for
people's
minds,
knowledge
of and
power
over
particular spaces
and territories remains a
crucial vector of (inter)national
politics.
We do have
to remember, however, that Virilio's
original
French
text was written in 1977.
6. In the
English language
literature, the recent contri-
butions of
Sidaway (1991, 1992)
on
Mozambique
also draw the reader's attention to the
significance
of
the internal in
geopolitical
formulations.
7. However, in the Brazilian case, one can also find
interpretations
of
geopolitics
that
prioritize
the exter-
nal
dimension; see, for
example,
Martinez
(1980)
and
Vesentini
(1987).
8. On other occasions I have
gone
into more detail on
the
post-modern, development
and the
politics
of
difference across the North-South divide; see, for
instance, Slater
1992a, 1992b and 1993.
9. It is worth
noting
here that in the case of
military
intervention in the Southern Cone and,
specifically
in
relation to state terror in
Argentina,
defence of the
'West' as a
mythical construction, was an
important
433
element of the junta's overall discourse. One Admiral
commented, 'the West
today
is a state of the
soul, no
longer
tied to
geography',
and another
posited,
'the
West is for us a
process
of
development
more than a
geographical
location' - see Graziano
(1992,
123 and
271).
10. The continuance of what we
might
call the
geo-
politics
of
'ways
of life' found
expression
in the
work of
highly
influential
geographers.
In the
early
sixties, for
example,
in a discussion of the Cold
War, Ackerman
(1962, 296) wrote, 'we are
fighting
for the adherence of nations and social
groups
to a
way
of life on which we believe the future of
mankind
depends'.
At the same
time, Cuba and
North Vietnam were described
by
Ackerman as
'geographical
losses', so that decisive
positions
in
the Cold War 'must be measured
ultimately
in the
coinage
of
geography'.
11. I am
particularly grateful
to Arturo Escobar for
communicating
this reference - see Escobar
(1993).
12. This is a 1970 citation taken from the influential work
of Gabriel Almond who was Chair
(1954-63)
of the
American SSRC Committee on
Comparative
Politics
- see Cruise O'Brien, 1979.
13.
Similarly,
one of Pool's
colleagues,
Lucien
Pye,
a
founder of
counter-insurgency,
and Almond's succes-
sor as Chair of the SSRC Committee on
Comparative
Politics, wrote in 1966 of the
importance
of
'protect-
ing
a traditional
society politically
and
militarily
from
the calculated
attempts by
well
organized
enemies of
freedom to use violence to
gain
totalitarian control of
vulnerable societies' -
quoted
in Cruise O'Brien
(1979, 62). Pye's
statement
clearly
echoed the Tru-
man doctrine.
14. As one critic noted in the
mid-1980s, certainly
not
without
justification,
since the late 1940s the
'depic-
tion of the international scene as one of chronic threat
has colored the
thinking
of
governments
of the
US and its NATO allies ever since'
(Horesh, 1985,
504).
15. This statement is taken from a National
Security
Council
paper,
referred to
by
Kolko
(1988, 130),
in
his well-documented
study
of US
strategy
towards
the Third World in the
post-war period.
16. It should also be remembered that the
strategy being
developed
was
closely
linked to the role
played by
a number of
key
social science advisors. W. W.
Rostow, for
example,
who
argued
that Communism
was an 'international disease' of the transition to
modernization, was
highly
influential in the
policy
circles of the time
(Kolko, 1988, 130-3).
17. I shall return to the deficiencies of the modernization
approach
in the section on
dependencia perspectives.
18. It
ought
not to be
forgotten,
however, that most of
the Bank's
lending
continued to be orientated toward
large-scale projects
to
promote
economic
growth
but now, for the first time, key
resources were
devoted to
programmes targeting
the rural and urban
poor.
19. For
example,
while in 1974 the number of anthro-
pologists working
on a full-time basis for US AID
was
one, the number had
grown
to 22
by
mid-1977
and to at least 50
by
mid-1980. In addition, the
number of
anthropologists working
for other
govern-
mental
development
bodies also increased substan-
tially
in this
period
(see Escobar, 1991, 665).
20. At the
beginning
of 1988, the World Bank set
up
the
Private Sector
Development
Review
Group
to stimu-
late initiatives for the further extension and
strength-
ening
of the
private
sector in
developing
countries.
As was noted in
1989,
'the World Bank
Group
has
long emphasized
the
advantages
of market
discipline
and
private
initiative in
promoting
efficient
development'
(World Bank, 1989, v).
21. The
following examples
are
given:
in
Argentina,
a
$325 million Bank loan,
approved
in 1992, was to
support
reforms which are to include a reduction of
about 20
per
cent in federal
employment
and a
reversal of
wage compressions
from 3:1 to over
10:1. Other related
operations
were
approved
for
Madagascar,
Mauritania and Pakistan; further, struc-
tural
adjustment operations
in
Bolivia,
Bulgaria,
Burundi, India, the Lao
People's
Democratic
Republic,
Peru and Romania all had
public-sector restructuring
components
(see
World Bank, 1992a, 62).
22. Mexico and the United States are seen to have
complementary
economies and,
through
NAFTA, the
access of US firms to Mexico's low-cost
production
conditions will be
improved
whilst Mexican com-
panies
will benefit from an 'infusion of
technology',
'the
disparity
in
per capita
income levels between
Mexico and its northern
neighbours
would narrow
rapidly,
and the excess
supply
of labor in Mexico
would be absorbed
locally' (see IDB, 1991, 11).
23. For instance, investment should be
encouraged
to
flow to those activities with the
highest expected
economic return; workers should be
encouraged
to
move to
occupations
and sectors in which
they
are
most
productive
and
hiring
and
firing procedures
should be
reasonably flexible;
private entrepreneur-
ship
should be facilitated
by eliminating
bureaucratic
and
legal impediments,
and
price
controls and sub-
sidies should be
phased
out - all these recommen-
dations and others are to be found in IDB
(1991, 14).
24. For
example,
as the data collected
by
ECLAC show,
from 1980 to 1989 the
percentage
of the Latin
American
population living
in
poverty
increased from
41
per
cent to 44
per
cent
(see
United Nations,
ECLAC, 1991, 66).
25. In a related article,
I have
briefly explored
some
features of the
history
of these ideas
(see Slater,
1993).
For a recent and useful discussion of the
political
sources of
privatization
in Latin America and
Western
Europe,
see Schami
(1992).
DAVID SLATER 434
The
and the
theory
26. For a detailed
analysis
of the Taiwanese case
see,
for
example,
Amsden
(1985)
and for an excellent
review of some recent
analyses
of East Asian
industrialization see Henderson
(1992).
27. In a recent intervention in the debate on the
political
conditionalities of aid in
Africa, Barya (1993)
makes
a number of relevant
propositions noting
the
emergence
of a
global
scheme
by
the West to create
a new economic and
military
world order
following
the
collapse
of state socialism and the end of the Cold
War.
28. The
point
here, of course, is that not
only
does the
perspective put
forward
by
the IDB
represent
a lack
of
knowledge
of the rich
heritage
of Latin American
social and economic sciences, which have been
very
much characterized
by
an
impressive
and autochtho-
nous
generation
of
knowledge,
but the Bank's
approach already
assumes that the West is the carrier
of
knowledge
and the Latin American other, is, in the
main, its
dependent recipient.
I have discussed some
of these issues in Slater, 1992a and 1992b.
29. Also, Ayres (1985, 71)
has indicated that in the case
of Chile, for instance, the World Bank
produced
a
report
in late 1975 that
painted
an
exceedingly grim
picture
of the economic situation in that
country
but
by early
1976 a number of
key
loans were
approved.
As
Ayres suggests
'it was difficult to
explain
these
actions with reference to
arguments
about credit-
worthiness'. The
approval
or
withholding
of loans is,
of course, only
one
aspect
of the
politics
of economic
policy.
30. For the seminal Latin American text on
dependency
see Cardoso and Faletto
(1969);
the
English
trans-
lation
appeared
ten
years
later.
31. For a useful overview of the
history
of
dependency
writing
in Latin
America, in which attention is
paid
to
the lesser-known earlier literature of the 1950s, see
Chilcote
(1984) and, more
recently, Kay (1989).
32. In the African
context, work
by
Amin
(1976)
devel-
oped
a similar series of
arguments
on the
specificities
of
peripheral capitalism
in which the
phenomenon
of
marginalization
was related to the
particular
forms of
incorporation
of African economies into the world
system.
33. In the limited
space
available here, it is not
possible
to
go
into the different currents within
dependency
thinking,
but this is
by
now a well-known theme
-
see
Kay's (1989)
detailed
analysis,
as well as the more
general
treatment
provided by
Larrain
(1989).
It
remains the case that the more cultural and
philo-
sophical
strands
informing
the overall evolution of
dependency thinking
in Latin America have received
far less attention in the West than the more social and
economic formulations.
34. On other
occasions,
I have tried to indicate what
were the main
problems
with the Marxist
approach
to
development theory
and
practice (Slater, 1992a
and
1993).
I am not
advocating
an anti-Marxist
perspective,
since there are still
many
relevant orien-
tations within Marxism seen in its fullest
scope
and
this is
especially
the case for the
lineage going
back
to Gramsci.
35. For one recent account of such a
phenomenon
in
Colombia, see
Findji's (1992) interesting essay.
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