The Postcard Project:

Future Directions in International and Comparative Administration

The Original Six Postcards

Introduction
Postcards from
... Paris
... Seoul
... Bamako
... New York City
... Rio de Janeiro
... Washington, DC
References

Further Contributions

... Derick Brinkerhoff
... Marc Lindenberg
... Fred Riggs
... Ted Thomas
... Tjip Walker

Contribute a Postcard
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

by Ted Thomas
President, The James P. Grant Trust

A couple years ago I made a frustrated comment in a session of the Development Management Network to the effect that "development is dead." I have been thinking about that comment now for quite some time and I am not yet dissuaded from my assertion. This chance to contribute a postcard offers the chance to expand a bit on what my assertion means for future directions in comparative and international administration. 

The invitation speaks of our sub-field, as "on the edge between yesterday and tomorrow", and suggests that the sub-field faces "something of a mid-life crisis." Perhaps we will have to reword or revise our uses of human life metaphors in the course of this examination, but my own analysis suggests something much more than a 'mid-life crisis'. 

From the title I am using you will see that I am hedging my bets some and trying to claim both sides of this self-defined issue. Fundamentally, however, I am talking about very different conceptions or constructions of development: one that is dead or dying, and the other rather alive and thriving. 

Below I offer some views of the international development enterprise as we have come to know it. Then I review the outlines of evidence that suggest a failing or dying enterprise, followed by some indications of a continuing life for the concept, as opposed to the practice, of international development. I conclude with three suggestions for a renewed or "born again" development activity. 

I. Development as we have known it. 

Our professional specialization--that of development management, if I may make this claim for a number of us--is a sub-field of international development, a professional activity. For our purposes international development is a distinct, identifiable activity that arguably fits the criteria of a profession. Development management, as a sub-field, may be more problematic in this respect, yet we have been making a rather vigorous effort to so justify ourselves. Development management, however, is not the direct focus of my inquiry--the broader 'industry' (to use a term from sociology) of international development is the focus. 

International development has over the past 50 years become a large professionalized activity, an 'industry', if you will. A large community of organizations now exists to promote development in low-income countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. By one count, there are approximately 250 multi-laterals agencies, 40 bilateral organizations, and 5000 international, non-governmental organizations worldwide engaged in this industry. 

So what is the mission of the development industry? Gunnar Myrdal wrote in 1957 that: 

The emergence in underdeveloped countries of this common urge to economic development as a major political purpose, and the definition of economic development as a rise in the levels of living of the common people, the agreement that economic development is a task for governmentall this amounts to something entirely new in history. 

Another interpretation of the mission of this international development enterprise comes from Philip McMichael at Cornel who defines the 'development project' as "an organized strategy of national economic growth, including an international system of alliances and assistance established within the competitive and militarized terms of the Cold War." (Development and Social Change, Pine Forge Press, 1996) 
 

II. Evidence of a dying enterprise. 

There are a number of indications of decline leading to the death of development. Most of them are well recognized and I will not elaborate other than to indicate the circumstances and events that are contributing to the decline. For those indications that you may not agree with or that you think are inadequately defined or misinterpreted, I trust you will offer some constructive questions or suggestions. 

Official Development Assistance (ODA) has been steadily declining over the past several years. Most developed nations continue to fall substantially short of their agreed target of 0.7% of GNP for contributions to development programs. Private investment in the developing world is generally increasing. 

U.S. Congressional support for foreign aid and technical assistance is lukewarm and getting colder over time. The absence of the Cold War for bolstering political support for development is a critical factor, and the development mission for supporting economic growth, meeting basic needs, reducing inequality, and achieving sustainable development does not by itself carry sufficient political power. 

Humanitarian and disaster relief is resurgent in donor and NGO agency programs, reversing several decades of a gradual shift from relief work to development work. Political instability, ethnic cleansing and genocide are making increasing demands on the development enterprise, diverting attention from development back to relief. 

Throughout both the developed and developing worlds the general trend is toward downsizing governmental operations, privatizing much of what was considered a government activity, and outsourcing much of government work. The effects of this trend on the success of development efforts are not clear at all. 

The critics of development are becoming louder and more numerous. The Cato Institute and the Hoover Institution are active in this endeavor with research reports and other representations to the public. It may well be that the counter arguments to these challenges are weakening and slowing in number. 

Professionals in the fields of economics, the social sciences, engineering and management from the Third World continue to increase in numbers and competence, undercutting the argument for a need of professional expertise in development from the developing countries. I recognize an apparent continuing and even increasing need for capital flows from developed to developing areas, but clearly the need for "armies" of technical assistants from the developed world as the core of the development industry is declining. 

The superiority and effectiveness of the industrial West/North for "developing" the countries and the poor of the South/East are increasingly questioned on both technical and moral grounds. Post-modern, post-developmentalist arguments building on or supplementing theories of dependency and imperialism are whittling away at the fundamental cornerstones of the development enterprise. Perhaps central to this challenge is an attack on the cornerstone of 'Western' as 'modern', exposing, among other things, a contradiction between an alleged superiority of Western systems and the also Western notion of 'participation' with the full involvement of all stakeholders. 

Finally, globalization, as seen in the emergence of trans-state or supra-state economic structures, political networks and social integration (across professional, gender, religious, race lines, supported by the Internet and other communications systems), is undercutting a development enterprise premised on nationally focused strategies for economic and social development. The development problem has been a national problem which rich nations help poor nations to solve. With globalization the relevance and the effectiveness of the nation-state as cornerstone of both the problem and the solution declines. 

In summary, two major issues substantiate the "dying" metaphor. One is that support for international development as we have been practicing it is softening and declining with little optimism for a reversal. The second is that the challenge to the theory and value premises of international development as we have known it undercuts the underlying concept of rich nations helping poor nations to develop by means of economic growth. 

If indeed this development enterprise shows signs of disease and possible death, are there any prospects for renewal, resuscitation, or perhaps transformation? 
 

III. Development is potentially alive and well. 

Can we agree that the primary conditions generating the first Five Decades of Development still exist and in some respects appear to be worsening? An unconscionable number of the poor are still with us. Economic and social inequality in many respects continues to widen rather than narrow. Political instability continues and the desire for political independence grows. And millions throughout the world continue to 'want' many of the things that some of us in Western societies have. 

The word 'development' continues to hold power for most of us, the poor and the rich alike. I was deeply impressed by the sixty young social entrepreneurs from 40 countries elected to the Common Futures Forum and meeting with the Global Meeting of Generations in Washington in January this year. In their organizing workshop there was constant reference to development as a need for their local community organizations and their societies. References to development were frequent despite a carefully couched antipathy to and questioning of the 'rich' nations and the donor agencies (in the presence of their sponsors, the Development Community). I came to the conclusion that these young social entrepreneurs want and are searching for 'development' but are not comfortable with what the development banks and development agencies have been providing as solution to their needs. In honesty, I did not pose this question to them--my role was as listener and observer--but I will offer them the opportunity to comment on this essay to test my conclusion. 

If we examine the use of the word development in society in general, as opposed to that within our professional boundary, we find that our use of the term 'international development' comes well down the scale of popular understanding. 'Child development' and the use of 'development' as the title for fund-raising professionals represent just two uses with much greater currency than that for our profession. If our profession is to grow and thrive, to be alive rather than dying, then we need a basic core of norms and practices that appeals both to the broader community that provides our support and to the client communities we hope to serve. I see the environment in which we are living as potentially responsive to a different or a broader conception of development than that we have been honestly and diligently pursuing for the past five decades. 

The international development concept is premised on the nation-state and associations of nation-states (the multi-laterals) as the actors in development, both as donors and as recipients. It is also premised on growth, in economic terms, despite continual additions of "equity" and "sustainability" (i.e., growth with equity), one of the major foundations of Western civilization. To make this contrast more evident, consider one of the other major foundations of Western civilization--freedom, rule of law, self-determination, government of the people, by the people, for the people! Can we say with pride and confidence that our international development programs promote these two major foundations of our developed societies equally? 

Development, in fact, may be alive and well as we cross the century mark if we succeed in getting out of the box of understanding development as, in McMichael's terms, "an organized strategy of national economic growth." 

The relevance of this analysis to international and comparative administration should be obvious if my analysis has any cogency. Our 'industry', in the terms of one new theory, is highly institutionalized. Our national and international agencies are thoroughly embedded in the concepts, the norms and the practices of international development as we have come to know it. With some, but not enough, explorations in university programs for "working out of this box," professional education and training for the greatest majority of practitioners in this industry remains 'in the box.' There is much for international and comparative education academics to do. There is much for practitioners to do as well. Three suggestions for working toward getting out of the box follow. 
 

Conclusion

First, development as we know it needs to be redefined in ways that eclipse the national and economic premises that currently underpin the industry. Rather than nations as the actors, people and communities are the central premise. Included in this change is a shift from thinking of developed nations helping developing nations. People and communities in all nations are the central actors. Rather than economic criteria of growth, development can be defined, as just one alternative, as increasing the capacity of people and societies to meet their current challenges. Such a definition does not eliminate economic growth as a desirable goal but rather places it among other value criteria for consideration. 

More troublesome in redefining development is the question of setting our values for self-determination and participation in things that affect our lives against a deeply embedded sense of the "good" and of "progress." Consider the implications of Huddleston's dilemma (PAR, March/April 99, p. 155), "Our error was rather more fundamental, rooted in an arrogant 'We know what is best for you' mentality," and his following reflection that "I remain convinced of the essential integrity of our recommendations." His article is a comprehensive recounting of the difficulties in doing technical assistance and of the fundamental quandary I am addressing. Apparent contradictions between the individual's self definition of the good for him or herself and that of an assumed virtue of Western progress must be addressed. 

The most troublesome aspect of this redefining development challenge is getting it done in a way that generates 'an idea in good currency,' or, in effect, an idea that gains institutional status as solidly as the one that it must replace. 

Second, if it is to be a redefined development that is alive and viable, we must be looking toward identifying and supporting those activities currently underway consistent with the redefinition process. Much of what is underway is in our own work and in bits and pieces of U S AID and the World Bank and others' programs. It is not a new invention or a new discovery that I am writing about. The ideas and concepts have been germinating for decades, if not longer. There are well-defined norms and practices consistent with a redefined development extant in our literature and somewhat in actions of development agencies but our frustration is essentially that these norms and practices are nowhere near 'institutional' status. 

Perhaps we are a part of the well-recognized expansion of both academic and professional disciplines with increasingly impermeable boundaries between. Perhaps we could pay more attention to a 'systems' issue that Huddleston referenced from John Muir: "Everything is hitched to everything else." The technical assistant's role, as Huddleston effectively describes, is constrained by multiple linkages to contracting issues, to personnel issues, to goal and 'success' issues, among many others. The project mode in the hands of donor agencies and contractors alike is a "blunt instrument" that defeats flexibility, responses to changing circumstances, and targeting support toward progressive rather than corrupt segments of the society. Institutionalizing norms and practices consistent with a redefined development requires networking with many other parts of the system. 

Third, I offer three specific (I would hope, practical) suggestions: 

1. We need a model strategy to supplant Gittinger's good, valuable, but perhaps outdated primer. Will someone or several rise to this task or will we have to discover some way to get it done? (J. Price Gittinger, Economic Analysis of Agricultural Projects)

 
2. One next agenda for the Development Management Network is to network seriously with important representatives of other elements of the international development industry. Policy specialists; personnel specialists; contracting officers, among others from the donor agencies (would I dare use the word 'stakeholders' here), should be involved in our future meetings, specifically to address the systemic issues that hamper the development process. Ideally such a networking effort might be set for a two or three-year period, designed to work out constructive policy recommendations together with designing an advocacy network to seek implementation.

 
3. Another important agenda for the DMN, or perhaps SICA, is a similar two or three year continuing networking with a cross-disciplinary group from IR, Political Science, Policy Science, Sociology, Anthropology, and Economics. Quite possibly, others from related disciplines such as Systems Sciences and/or Cybernetics and Social Systems might be helpful. Excellent work is being done in all these disciplines that can and should contribute to our understanding of the development dilemma, and perhaps we could even contribute something to their understanding of the way the world works. 

 

 

[Another way to go about this would be to consciously schedule additional meetings, seminars, or panels at the annual conventions of these other academic groups]

Note: It is not only Huddleston's piece that I have recently seen. I have recently dipped into Keck and Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders; John Gerard Ruggie, Constructing the World Polity; and, Philip McMichael, Development and Social Change. All are very useful to the issue I am addressing. To thank them as well, I have used a couple references to work by Colette Chabbott and Robert Biller.