INTD 200: Intro to International Development - Midterm (McGill)

Productivity approach

A development approach that prioritizes increasing economic output, seeing a higher economic output as a choice for development

Amartya Sen

The foremost human development scholar, a Nobel prize-winning economist who came up with the idea of freedoms and unfreedoms, seeing maximizing the former and minimizing the latter as the goal of development

Mahbub ul-Haq

A Pakistani economist known for his role in establishing the Human Development Index (HDI), acknowledged as its creator.

Human Development Index (HDI)

Measures life expectancy, education, and income to measure level of development of a country, and shift away from purely economic measurements.

Multidimensionality

Looking at multiple factors to determine development, not just income. The idea of Human Development is a multidimensional one.

Freedoms

In development, something which enhances human rights and allows for someone to exercise agency

Unfreedoms

Policies or conditions which limit freedoms, whether they be economic (such as poverty) or human rights (such as discrimination)

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

A worldwide organization, and part of the United Nations (UN), which coordinates development and gives human development reports

Human Development (HD)

An approach to development that views it as a way to maximize freedoms such as the ability to express oneself freely and mitigate unfreedoms such as hunger

Basic Human Needs approach

An approach to development that looks at filling basic needs (eg food)

Human Rights Approach

An approach to development that looks at maximizing human rights

Rights-holders, duty-bearers, monitoring bodies

Actors in a human rights-based approach (HRBA), where the rights-holders are for the most part individuals who deserve rights, duty-bearers are the ones who have to protect their rights (the State), and monitoring bodies designated by conventions and treaties to ensure rights are being granted

Harry Truman

President of the United States following World War II, Truman introduced the modern idea of development and modernization theory as governmental policy in his 1949 speech on development.

Decolonization

The process of European powers leaving their colonies, leaving behind independent nations which often underwent bloody wars due to often-arbitrary borders, but also granted sovereignty to these new countries.

Cold War

A “cold” conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union which led to the need for “soft power”, and spurred dueling development programs including the American USAID

Walt Rostow

The foremost scholar of modernization theory, he argued that development came in stages along with economic growth, and that Western, capitalist states were the most developed

The take-off

Stage 3 of Rostow’s theory of modernity, where societies begin to develop rapidly in economic terms on their own

Traditionality

The root cause of underdevelopment according to modernization theory, a complete lack of modernity

Evolutionary Universals

Patterns of social organization and structural innovation that are necessary for societal evolution, as they increase that society’s adaptability. Created independently across societies.

Dual-sector model

W. Arthur Lewis, development as industrialization from subsistence (agricultural) to urban (industrial) sectors

Underdeveloped areas

Areas that are less far along in development, particularly in modernization theory

Euro-centricity

Approaching things from a European mindset, assuming that it is the default and superior way of doing things, often failing to consider other perspectives

One-size-fits-all

An approach to development that comes with modernization theory, assumes that all nations and cultures will develop the same way under the same conditions.

Teleological vision

A vision of development that looks at a predetermined end goal as the purpose of development

The Hungry World (Cullather)

A book where Nick Cullather argues that the US fought communism in the Cold War through the Green Revolution and reducing hunger, with some success (but less than generally claimed)

Aid as Diplomacy (Cullather)

The idea that international aid is used to build a foreign policy, and support efforts for soft power and economic access abroad.

Dependency theory context/background

Developed by previously-colonized countries who were often purposefully kept underdeveloped and specialized in limited, usually low-output industries.

Raúl Prebisch

An Argentinian Economist who worked for the Economic Commission of Latin America (ECLA), and developed many ideas of dependency theory

Hegemony

In Dependency Theory, the control held by the Global North over the Global South to ensure an unequal global system.

International division of labour

An idea in dependency theory that the Global North extracts lower-value items from the Global South and itself creates the higher-value ones with more expensive labour, resulting in an unequal division between them.

Monopolistic pricing of primary commodities

The importing nations (core) being able to effectively set the prices of the exporting nations (periphery) due to relatively inelastic demand for primary commodities.

Core vs Periphery

The core are the wealthy nations of the world, who produce more advanced goods (secondary and tertiary commodities) whereas the periphery is dependent on the core and produces mostly primary commodities.

Samir Amin

A communist development theory economist who saw the condition of underdeveloped countries as inherent under a capitalist world system.

Unequal Exchange

Global trade imbalance, where the core exports more produced goods which have increasing demand while the periphery exports primary goods which have stable demand, resulting in trade and wealth imbalance.

Delinking

The belief that Global South nations must break away (“delink”) from the global capitalist system to free themselves from their dependency on the Global North

Keynesianism

A compromise of governments and the free market that believed in total market output with a strong welfare state, the dominant economic policy after the Great Depression and World War II

Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI)

A mode of development which substitutes imported products for domestically-produced ones, through a combination of protectionism, government industries, and branch plants.

Limitations of ISI

Import Substitution Industrialization has a number of limitations, primarily that it does not establish economies of scale and leads to market inefficiencies. It can also increase reliance on branch plants of foreign companies, and prevent truly competitive domestic industry.

Consequences of ISI

Import Substitution Industrialization does not create a competitive economy in relation to others in the world, is expensive for consumers, and leads to a rather closed, noncompetitive domestic market for goods.

Chile’s example

Pinochet’s coup, the resulting neoliberal but authoritarian regime that shifted it from dependency theory to neoliberalism for its economic planning

Contexts of neoliberalism

Gained steam in the late 20th century, when Keynesianism was viewed to cause more problems than it solved for economic problem due to its large governments

State-centric vs market-centric

State-centric sees the government (state) as the driver of development, market-centric sees it as NGOs and corporations (market)

David Harvey

British marxist economist, criticized the sustainability of infinite growth, saw development as expansion of human capacities

Bretton Woods Institutions

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), who regulate, oversee, and stabilize global finance

Washington Consensus

A 10-point plan to be adopted by Latin American countries to liberalize, and hopefully develop them

Structural adjustment programs

Changes to economic policy that reduce government spending, required by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to give debt relief

Win-win-win solution

The idea that microfinance benefits the low-income borrowers, microfinance institutions, and investors

Retreat of the State

The State reducing its power, with that being filled by transnational corporations, international markets, and others

Neoliberal State

The reorganization of the state to benefit the elites of society from a financial standpoint, opening up contradictions within neoliberalism

Accumulation by Dispossession

The centralization of power in large capitalist organizations by stripping others of land through cheapening it (David Harvey)

Labour Disposability

Treating workers as temporary and easily-replaceable, often happens to lower-skilled forms of work

Robyn Rodriguez

Author of Migrants for Export, talks about how the Philippines’ economy became dependent on sending workers abroad

Sachs vs Easterly

Jeffrey Sachs believes in massive, coordinated aid exercises consulting with stakeholders, William Easterley believed in decentralizing it to those who need aid

A big push

Investing large amounts in every aspect of economic development to energize developing economies (Jeffrey Sachs)

Millenium Development Goals

Goals established by the United Nations for development by the year 2015, focused on human development goals but did not adopt the full approach

Planners vs Searchers

Planners support centralized aid distribution, searchers support looking at community needs and finding a way of decentralized distribution

Poverty traps

The idea that less developed nations do not have the resources to get out of poverty, keeping them in it (Jeffrey Sachs)

USAID and political missions

Aid being used for political as well as development purposes, United States Agency for International Development (closed by Donald Trump)

Aid paternalism

The idea that those distributing the aid know best

Social determinants of health

How structural violence (poverty, colonialism, etc) affects the health of certain communities (Paul Farmer)

Structural Violence

Elements in society that specifically make things worse for marginalized groups, eg poverty, colonialism, racial heirarchy

Madukhar Pai

Professor of global health, argued that the polycrisis is worsening every aspect of the world

Allyship

Letting the marginalized communities themselves lead what they need, and standing with them rather than dictating their actions

White Saviourism

A belief that those who caused the problems (European countries and settler-colonies) will solve them (they are also white)

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) 1979

A United Nations human rights treaty that protects the rights of women and aims to establish gender equality

Gender mainstreaming

When feminist ideas enter the general consensus, but often get diluted and achieve little

Gender division of labour

Assigning roles to men and women based on cultural factors (gender roles) rather than individual ones such as skill

Homogenization

The viewing of a diverse group as being essentially the same (eg gender)

Sanctity of Culture

According to Patricia Nilsson, the idea that some argue, wrongly, that culture takes precedence over rights

Grameen Bank Model

The main model of microfinance, an idea of giving loans to low-income women in developing nations

Muhammad Yunus

Nobel prize-winning economist, creator of the Grameen Bank and its model

Productivity-based empowerment

An idea that making women able to contribute to the economy will give them agency

“Poor women are bankable”

Created by Muhammad Yunus, this idea is that there is a market of women who have not been able to participate in the economy who can do so if given microfinance

Microfinance

Small loans specifically targeted at women in developing nations to allow them to participate in the broader economy effectively

Lamia Karim

Scholar of development, views microfinance as broadly doing less than it claimed and sometimes having negative effects

Shadow State

Development-related non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and corporations replacing much of, or all of, the role of the State in development

The economy of shame

Cultural norms and interpersonal interactions that enforce economic norms and encourage productivity

“High repayment rate” and gaps

Claims of 95%+ microfinance loan repayment ignores that it often comes due to more borrowing, and that husbands (not the women) often control the spending of money

Social collateral

The belief that the community will pressure women into repaying loans, thus not needing as much (or any) actual collateral

The Charter of the United Nations

Establishes a number of principles for how international relations should be conducted, including things such as non-interference

2005 UN World Summit

A summit on a broad range of development items, most notably the Right to Protect (R2P)

Responsibility to Protect (R2P)

A growing international ideal that people should be protected from severe abuse of human rights, even at the cost of a degree of national sovereignty

Three-pillar strategy (R2P)

Says that States have a responsibility to protect their people, that the international community has a responsibility to help them, and that if they fail the international community must step in

Westphalian Sovereignty

The principle established in the Treaty of Westphalia that States have the right to their own affairs (non-interference)

State security vs human security

The difference in the prioritization of how much agency the state can exercise vs how much freedom from abuse the people have

Rwandan Genocide 1994

A human crisis in Rwanda where the Hutus genocided the Tutsis. Inspired the idea of the Right to Protection.

Two kinds of prevention

Structural prevention aims to reduce the chances of abuses happening, operational prevention reduces how bad abuses get

Limitations of the R2P

Limited adoption, limited willingness to interfere in sovereignty (even if justified), limited consensus, some contradictions

Failing states vs weak states

Failing states are states which can no longer carry out their duties at all, and have broken down. Weak states are those which cannot effectively protect their citizens to the best degree, but have not yet failed.

Price of Rights

The cost to sovereignty or direct monetary cost for hosting states to extend rights to migrant workers

Martin Ruhs

An economist and development scholar who focuses on migrant workers

A blind-spot of the human rights approach

The human rights approach to migrant workers’ rights fails to consider the costs to host countries for these rights

International Convention on the Protection of Rights of All Migrant Workers and their Families 1990 (CMW)

A comprehensive convention that aims to protect the rights of migrant workers, the least-ratified convention of all those relating to human rights

Global Compact for Migration (GCM) 2018

A comprehensive non-binding treaty aiming to formalize norms around migration.

Trade-off between openness and rights

Countries with higher openness to immigrants generally have fewer rights for migrants, those with lower openness have more.

Comprehensive vs limited set of rights

A comprehensive set of migrant rights is very broad with no exceptions and does not take cost into account. A core set would take cost into account, and be more limited on those without exceptions.

Migrant Rights exclusion

Excluding migrants from certain rights based on status