Global development and precarity: a critical political analysis

ABSTRACT

Precarity as a concept has come to be conceived as a distinctive experience of neoliberal development, especially in the European context. The experience of precarity, according to some, has influenced efforts aimed at living otherwise from the precepts of neoliberal development. Yet, for others, precarity is producing a ‘new dangerous class’. However, despite different perspectives of the effects and implications of precarity, the analytical purchase and political utility of the concept has received insufficient attention. In this article, we hope to contribute to critical debates on the limitations of ‘precarity’ as a concept for critical political analysis. We argue that in the dominant use of precarity as an analytic of inequality, particular experiences are rendered as historical universals. Consequently, these (particular) experiences are disconnected from global social and political relations of inequality, while at the same time reinforcing a linear and reductionist conception of development. We demonstrate that the temporal scheme represented by the notion of the ‘age of post-Fordism’, which serves as a crucial marker of the explanatory framework of precarity (in Europe), actually misconstrues the politics of global development through inequalities. Moreover, the tendency to focus on subjectification as conditioning the formation of a ‘new’ dangerous class, entails far-reaching omissions of actual transnational political struggles against domination and inequality. Instead of precarity, a critical engagement with the politics of global development ought to be the subject of analysis for understanding contested relations of affluence, insecurity and inequality.

KEYWORDS:

• Precarity
• politics of development
• inequality
• relational analysis
• poverty
• resistance

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for very helpful feedback. We would also like to thank Ritu Vij for organizing this critical discussion.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Samid Suliman http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6354-1750

Heloise Weber https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3583-354X

Notes

1. That is to say, precarity has been used more inclusively to apprehend vulnerable labour and work more generally, however, it has come to be understood quite specifically when linked with notion of the ‘precariat’; the latter only tends to include a specific group of persons (or a ‘class in the making’ to use Standing's terminology).

2. Standing represents this in terms of the dual identity of the precariat as ‘victim/hero’, which he argues makes for a lack of political coherence; hence ‘they’ constitute a ‘dangerous class’ (2011, p. 2); Others, such as Gill and Pratt (2008) in their very reflective and (sympathetic) critical discussion of the positions and perspectives on precarity, refer to this in terms of a ‘double meaning’. They observe that,

This double meaning is central to understanding the ideas and politics associated with precarity; the new moment of capitalism that engenders precariousness is seen as not only oppressive but also as offering the potential for new subjectivities, new socialities and new kinds of politics. (2008, p. 3)

A similar dynamic was already explicated by Polanyi in terms of the ‘double movement’ (1957: esp. pp. 68–76).

3. See also Munck on this point (2013, p. 748).

4. For instance, even Gill and Pratt in their otherwise critical and reflective engagement with the debates on precarity are not explicitly concerned with subjecting to critical scrutiny the fact that the notion of ‘post-Fordist societies’ is the analytical point of departure for most perspectives in these debates. Rather this premise is accepted (cf. Gill & Pratt, 2008, p. 4). There are, however, exceptions; see for example, Munck (2013) and Mitropoulos (2012). It should be noted here that both Munck and Mitropoulos do not advocate precarity as an analytic; rather, in their analysis of global development through inequality they account for precarious lived lives as part of the history of colonialism and colonial logics of capitalism. Our critique of precarity as an analytic of the politics of inequality is much more in alignment with their sentiments and approach.

5. For an excellent, critical discussion of welfare retrenchment in the USA and the justifications for same, see Somers and Block (2005). 

6. For example, the ‘Occupy Movement’ of 2011 is itself a reflection of resistance to social and political orders that have increasingly served to organise rising inequalities and vulnerabilities. It was also as much about articulating demands for entitlements necessary to live dignified lives. For a good discussion of the Occupy Movement see M. Weber (2013); for a more recent account of The Squatters Movement in Europe – Comons and Autonomy as Alternatives to Capitalism, see Cattaneo and Martinez (2014). Interestingly, there is no reference to precarity or precariousness in the index.

7. There are several excellent studies that are broadly premised on critical historical approaches to global development and inequality, drawing also on race and gender; indicatively see McMichael (1990, 2010), Mitchell (2002), Bhambra (2014), Shilliam (2008, 2015), Mintz (1986), Chakrabarty (2000), Enloe (2011), Wolf (2010), James (1963), Grovogui (1996, 2011), Walker (1998), Nandy (2002), Tilley and Shilliam (2017).

8. Modernization theory takes states to be discrete units disconnected in space and time. As a consequence, analyses operating from this premise adopt a state-centred perspective together with the idea of states progressing (realising development) according to the metaphor of the development ladder. The Euro-centric perspective that underlines dominant conceptions of precarity shares the ahistorical and normative premises of modernization theory even if the concept of class inflects such analyses. Modernization theory has no concept of class but rather presents development in an evolutionary ‘stages of growth’ logic; this is somewhat complicated, though, as interventions by the ‘advanced states’ in ‘less developed states’ are justified on the basis of superior scientific knowledge and thereby a responsibility to develop others for their own well-being and the security and well-being of the more developed. For an exemplary account of this perspective see Rostow (1960); this discourse resonates with justifications of colonialism based on the ‘dual mandate’ (see e.g. Lugard, 1922).

9. Oxfam (2017) recently released a report on global inequality, which shows that inequality has been rising and that the gap between the poorest and the wealthiest has also expanded. As India and China are hailed as economic success stories – the rising poverty in both (not to mention pollution) receive less attention.

10. See the World Social Forum; the Occupy Movement; The landless movement; La Via Campesina; For example, in early September 2016 there was a national labour strike in India. The strike went beyond specific issues/concerns of labour unions but rather they demanded rights – by way of a minimum wage – for those classified as being in the ‘informal’ sector (with little or no guaranteed social protection). On this see S. Bengali in the Los Angeles Times (2016). http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-india-strike-snap-story.html (accessed 18th January 2017).

11. This is, arguably not a ‘new’ experience either, see critical feminist political analyses of development; postcolonial and decolonial perspectives and even Polanyi (1957) on the attempt to comprehensively create ‘market societies’ premised on ‘fictitious commodities’. And in the words of Ranabir Samaddar, ‘For almost one century the critique of colonial life had originated from within the life of the colonised’ (2015, p. 141).

12. See Cerny (1997) on the changes to the ‘social contract’ as a consequence of commitments to what he has referred to as the ‘competition state’.

13. P. Inman in The Guardian recently (2016) reported that in the UK there are over 800,000 people on zero-hour contracts and over 400,000 had the same employer for one year. It also noted that there were about 1.7 million such contracts, indicating that several peoples probably had more than one job with zero-hour contracts. See https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/09/uk-workers-on-zero-hours-contracts-rises-above-800000 (accessed 18 January 2017).

14. See also Munck on this point (2013, esp. 760–761).

15. See James Scott (1990) on the problematic assumption that those subjected to unequal power relations and practices of domination accept such subjugation; see also Shilliam (2015).

16. See World Bank Operational Policy 1 (OP 1.00) of June 2014 (our emphasis). http://siteresources.worldbank.org/OPSMANUAL/112526-1124459412562/23585906/OP1.00_Final_July_2014.pdf (accessed 21st January 2016).

17. A recent review by Ranabir Samaddar (2015) of a book articulating ‘precarious life’ captures the paradoxes and contradictions of such expositions in a remarkable and astute way. It suggests the author(s) are inadvertently writing about ‘post-colonial life, as experienced by people of ex-colonial countries’ together with an insightful and nuanced critique of the use of the word ‘art’ as a qualifier of ‘living dangerously’ (as a way of depicting experiences of social suffering as a consequence of impoverishment).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Samid Suliman

Samid Suliman is Lecturer in Migration and Security in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science, at Griffith University. He is also a member of the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research. Samid is an interdisciplinary researcher interested in migration, postcolonial political theory, international relations and world politics, global development, climate change, and the politics of knowledge. He was awarded the Australian Political Studies Association’s 2015 Thesis Prize for his doctoral thesis, entitled Migration, development and kinetic politics (this is currently being revised for publication as a monograph). His work has recently appeared in Review of International Studies, Globalizations and Mobilities.

Heloise Weber

Heloise Weber is Senior Lecturer in International Relations and Development at the School of Political Science and International Studies, The University of Queensland, Australia. She has published on the politics of poverty reduction strategies, including microcredit schemes and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, as well on theory and method in global development and IPE. She is the co-editor (with M. T. Berger) of Recognition and redistribution: Beyond international development and editor of Politics of development (2014). She is co-author (with M.T. Berger) of Rethinking the third world – International development and world politics.