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Contributions from
the Column
Books and Media
Development:
realistic, optimistic and utopian
UNDP Report:
an unfinished job
InWEnt:
new alumni portal
Dimensions of the Latin American crises
10/2004 |
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Development:
realistic, optimistic and utopian
In original philosophical and constitutional-political thought “development” meant “unfolding” (lat. explicatio) in the sense of a condition which tends towards a certain direction. The geopolitical changes leading to an interdependent world have kindled new debate on the meaning of “development”. While strategies throughout the past century and into the 1990s were determined by thoughts of growth and national economies, since then a paradigm shift has occurred: “development aid” has become “global development and structural policy”.
The author, professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration and member of the Mattersburg Circle for Development Policy, investigates this reorientation. The general consensus of opinion now is that the great theories (“modernisation theory”, “dependency theory”, “development through centralized state planning”, “Washington Consensus”) have failed. In particular, approaches based on economic growth are being replaced by the understanding that “development is a transformation of society” (Joseph Stiglitz).
One of Novy’s key sentences goes on to read: “Reviewing the neoclassical model (...) requires an interdisciplinary analysis of policy and economics”. What matters to Novy is that development is discussed in the sense of an interpretative effort to identify the context and structure of the condition of our world, to enable thinking in terms of space (ecology, economy, policy), conflict (systems of social order) and Utopia (One World). He conducts his call to “articulate development” in an analytical, historical and interpretative way. He provides plenty of examples of human activity to clarify individual points, and he makes it clear that he sees the roots of the problem in present (global) capitalist power structures.
Jos Schnurer
Andreas Novy:
Entwicklung gestalten. Geschichte, Entwicklung, Globalisierung
[Shaping development. History,
development, globalisation].
Frankfurt, Brandes & Apsel 2002,
160 pp, Euro 12.80, ISBN 3-86099-613-4
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