The Question of Development

Abstract

Development policies and accompanying theories were an integral part of postwar U.S. foreign policy, designed to deal with the challenges of decolonization and the emergence of independent Third World states. They provided a model for the transition from traditional to modern societies that relied on the works of economists, sociologists, and political scientists, who formed part of the informal collective of modernization scholars identified with major academic institutions. Their objectives were closely aligned with those of U.S. foreign policy. Under very different national and global circumstances, there has been a revival of development and modernization policies that rest on claims of American “exceptionalism” and the commitment to export democracy. In practice, the implementation of such policies has less to do with promoting democracy than assuring compatible political and economic alignments in the states involved. The article that follows offers a critical analysis of the origins and nature of development and modernization policies in both postwar and later years.

Keywords:

• postwar foreign policy
• decolonization
• Third World
• poverty
• economic growth
• tradition
• modernity
• democratization
• American “exceptionalism”

JEL Codes:

• O10
• O20

Notes

1 See also Lockman 2016.

2 For Rostow, see (1962) and (1968). Of the latter, the second edition offers a more extensive review of Rostow’s deliberations on the subject.

3 See further discussion in Gendzier 1998.

4 See also Gendzier 2017.

5 See the discussion of “Social Science Research and the National Security” in Gendzier, Development against Democracy (2017: 56).

6 See Stiglitz 2002.

7 The following represent a selection of works by the aforementioned scholars: Samir Amin 1977; Celso Furtado 1971; Andre Gunder-Frank 1979; Peter Evans 1979; Walter Rodney 1972; Amartya Sen 1981; Immanuel Wallerstein 1979.

8 See also Wiarda 1983.

9 Consider some of the following books and articles dealing primarily with the Middle East: Omar Dahi 2011, 2016; Walid Hamdan 2016; Rachid Tlemcani 2015; Joel Beinin 2016; Alaa Al Aswany 2011; Fawaz Traboulsi 2012; Sara Roy 2016; Robert Vitalis 2007; Ervand Abrahamian 2009, 2013.

10 Gendzier [1997] 2006, [2015] 2017.

11 See Wolfgang Sachs 2010.

12 Joseph Morgan Hodge 2015.

13 As examples of works cited by Hodge consider the following: David Engerman et al. 2003; David Ekbladh 2010; Michael E. Latham 2000; Frederick Cooper 2005.

14 Consider the record of the hearings of the Subcommittee on International Organizations and Movements of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives, Dec. 6, 1965, as discussed in Irene Gendzier 1998.

15 Cited in Sean M. Lynn-Jones 1998: 7.

16 “Carothers Replies,” to Paula J Dobriansky, Democracy Promotion: Explaining the Bush Administration’s Position (2003), which is included in Ch. 6 of Carothers, Critical Mission, 79.

17 Carothers 2006.

18 See the discussion in Ch. 4., “Transparent Boundaries: From Policies to Studies of Political Development,” in Gendzier 2017 for a discussion of earlier experience.

19 The quotations that follow are taken from Leopold 2016.

20 “Inequality Is Not Inevitable—But the U.S. Experiment Is a Recipe for Divergence” (The Guardian, December 14, 2017), based on The Inequality Project, by Facundo Alvaredo, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman, which was released at the World Wealth and Income Database Conference held in Paris. For an instructive review of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, see John Bellamy Foster and Michael D. Yates 2014.