Book: History of Development Theory
WHY IS THE WORLD POLARIZED?
A HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT THEORY BEFORE NEOLIBERALISM
Copyrighted unpublished book manuscript (1992)
I utilized this book throughout my years of teaching graduate seminars, and I edited it repeatedly to add ideas from emergent authors. When I wrote the first draft in 1989, there were no textbooks like this yet on the market. However, a few development theory books emerged while I was writing my dissertation and publishing a book from it in the early 1990s. Even though this manuscript received good reviews from my students and peers who used it in their courses, I prioritized other research projects that no one else was likely to undertake and never set aside time to finalize this manuscript. Once I began utilizing websites to teach my courses, I "published" this book electronically in order to make a free development theory book available to students and community groups in the Global South and to activist groups and lower-income students in the USA, Eastern European and the Middle East.
This book differs quite bit from most development theory books on the market!
1. I argue that each theory is grounded in its own "civilizational myth." For that reason, I compare two major paradigms: those theories that advocate structural reform and those that advocate revolutionary change.
2. I analyze European neo-institutionalism alongside the (largely) American modernization school, as the two major western models to emerge during the Cold War. These two approaches had great impact on international development policy formation, neo-institutionalism being the origin for the United Nations “basic needs strategy” in the Third World.
3. There was NOT one homogeneous "dependency" school of thought like most development textbooks lead students to believe. Therefore, I carefully distinguish between ECLA, dependency, articulation of modes of production, and dependent development. The work of these authors emerged in different political and historical contexts, and they disagreed rancorously with each other in their own time.
4. Unlike most authors, I carefully distinguish the theories that are nationalistic from those that are global in approach.
Feel free to use this book in your courses by linking your syllabi to this website. My course websites are no longer available electronically, but I have stored copies of course syllabi. Typically, I had students read case studies grounded in a particular theory alongside the theory itself, so I can save you some time searching for older examples of works that applied each of these theories. Email me if you would like suggestions.
Click the section you would like to view.
Part I: Legitimating the Capitalist Civilizational Project: The Structural Reform Paradigm
Chapter 1 The American Rivalry for Hegemony: The Mystification of Developmentalism
Chapter 2 The European Myth of Planned Change: Neo-Institutionalism
Chapter 3 Third World Demands for a Fairer Share: The Latin American Myth of Structural Reform
Chapter 4 A Theoretical and Methodological Critique of the Structural Reform Paradigm
Part II: Attacking the Capitalist Civilizational Project:
The Revolutionary Change Paradigm
Chapter 5 Emergence of a Civilizational Counter-Myth: The Orthodox Marxist Model of Modernization
Chapter 6 Dependency and Underdevelopment: The Neo-Marxist Civilizational Myth
Chapter 7 Revising the Neo-Marxist Civilizational Myth: Dependent Development Theories
Chapter 8 Formulating a Myth of Civilizational Coexistence: Articulation of Modes of Production
Chapter 10 Capitalism as Worldwide Historical System: World-Systems Analysis
Chapter 11 A Theoretical and Methodological Critique of the Revolutionary Change Paradigm