1. Introduction to Development Theory AI2201 - Lecture 1, Massimo De Angelis

2. Two questions Q1: What is development theory? Q2: What is development? The two questions are related. –The definition of the object of the theory/discourse depends on the theory/discourse

3. Q1. Development theory Q1.1 Development theory as a form of social theorizing. Q1.2 Development theory and conceptions of “social change” Q1.3 Development theory and the question of agency (who are the actors)

4. Q1.1 The theorists commitments ST is founded on 4 commitments –Ontological (and phenomenological) Claims on what the world is and how it manifests itself –Epistemological Claims on what knowledge is and how it is produced. –Methodological Claims on what are the methods to be used to produce knowledge –Practical Claims on what are the practical implications of the theory (e.g. policy implications, business implications, political implications...)

5. Q1.1 Epistemology’s classic dichotomy Empiricism => Knowledge as essentially the product of experience –social science must be like a natural science –Concerned to describe how things are in fact Rationalism => Knowledge as essentially the product of thought. –social science is a variety of social philosophy –Interested in understanding patterns of culture. Dialectic between “facts” and “thought” – you construct facts depending on rules of explusion/inclusions (values) –you think of patterns of culture on the basis of “facts”

6. Q1.1 Social theorizing: the bottom line All practices of social theorizing (ST) are forms of narratives, i.e. story telling (st). All forms of st are –self-referential (i.e. their narrative construction refers, explicitly or, more often, implicitly, to given premises) –Predicated on inter-subjective agreements and conceptual grids => The given premises are shared among a community of scholars/actors –Values (rules of inclusion-exclusion or “goods” and “bads”) are embedded in inter-subjective agreements

7. Q1.2 Development theory and different conceptions of social change Two basic metaphors: –continuity (evolution) and rupture (revolution) –“evolution” Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer Metaphors such as –“Survival of the fittest”, –inreasing complexity (from traditioal to modern social forms, –Unitary direction of change –“revolution” Karl Marx and Ivan Illich Lenin Interplay of class interests through history provides motor of changes History is history of class struggle –“to be truly reformist [I.e. evolutionary] one has to be a revolutionary” (Toni Negri)

8. Q 1.3 Ethic of change: “progress” The notion of “progress” –For the liberal-democratic Analysis of society within a general evolutionary framework Evoked model of “man” as the consumer. Humankind acts on the basis of selfish wants Historical change is implausible and unintelligible –For the radical-democratic “man” as the doer Humankind act in light of changing social goals Historical change is plausible and intelligible

9. Q. 2. What counts as “progress” or “development”? Liberal market discourse –Progress = economic growth –Send the experts to implement free market policies –Represents the view of the hard core of development experts (mostly neoclassical economists working in IFIs or UN) Social market discourse –Progress is equated with planned/ordered control –Common sense view of development among other- than-economists “experts” –Often work in association with first group Radical democratic discourse –“Progress” must be defined from below –Range of critiques of official development discourses –link to social struggle and bottom up alternatives.