Reconstituting the ‘Third World’? poverty reduction and territoriality in the global politics of development

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between the politics of international development and the reproduction of global inequality. I argue that contemporary discourses about— and the practices of—‘development for developing countries’ represent an attempt to reconstitute the political utility of the ‘Third World’. In an era of globalisation the deployment of the notion of a Third World of ‘developing countries’ which require immediate, systemic attention through the discourse and practice of international development continues to provide a way of both disciplining and displacing the global dimension of social and political struggle. I refer to this dynamic in terms of the political utility of the Third World, which, I argue, has been conducive to the organisation of global capitalism and the management of social and political contradictions of inequality and poverty. I develop this argument by drawing on the historical implications and legacy of ‘international development’ as practised in and on the Third World and through a critical analysis of the methodological premises that constitute international development. I illustrate this by drawing on a key strategy aimed ostensibly at development: the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (prsp) approach, promulgated by the World Bank and the imf, which I discuss in relation to the ‘development agenda’ inaugurated during the 1999 wto meeting in Doha (Qatar). I argue that the ideology and practice of the global politics of international development reinforce the conditions of global inequality, and must be transcended as both an analytical framework and an organising principle of world politics. While the prsp and related approaches are currently presented as key elements in the building of the ‘architecture for (international) development’, what is emerging is a form of governance that attempts to foreclose social and political alternatives.

Notes

Heloise Weber is in the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Aberdeen, Edward Wright Building, Dunbar Street, Old Aberdeen AB24 3QY, Scotland. Email: [email protected].

My thanks to Mark Berger for very helpful comments and suggestions, and to Martin Weber for comments and discussions.

The use of international rather than inter-national is intended to capture conceptual problems and political implications of some fundamental assumptions about the territorial and spatial framing of global politics; these will become evident as I develop my critique of the politics of development.

See for example, Marc Williams, International Economic Organisation and the Third World, Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1994, p 4. See also Caroline Thomas, In Search of Security: The Third World in International Relations, Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books, 1987, pp 1–4.

I use the term ‘state’ rather than ‘nation-state’ at this point in the argument in order to address the problem of Westphalian assumptions about the idea of the permanence of sovereignty and territoriality. See, for instance, RBJ Walker, ‘Claims about history are also usually indispensable to claims about nation. By contrast, claims about state sovereignty suggest permanence; relatively unchanging territorial space to be occupied by a state characterised by temporal change; or a spatial-cum-institutional container to be filled by the cultural or ethnic aspirations of a people. Governments and regimes may come and go, sovereign states, these claims suggest, go on forever.’ Walker, Inside/Outside: International Relations and Political Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, p 166. For interesting discussions of the state and nation-state see the collection of essays in Joseph A Camilleri, Anthony P Jarvis & Albert J Paolini (eds), The State in Transition—Reimagining Political Space, London: Lynne Rienner, 1995.

David Held & Anthony McGrew (eds), Governing Globalization—Power, Authority and Global Governance, London: Polity, 2002, p 7. Pursuing a similar analytical approach, Mathias Albert and Tanja Kopp-Malek observe ‘the way in which both academic and political discourses express a substantial shift in the way in which the political is unbound from the structures of the modern state/system of states’. M Albert & T Kopp-Malek, ‘The pragmatism of global and European governance: emerging forms of the political “beyond Westphalia” ’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 31 (3), 2002, p 469.

Of course (and as Berger has argued in this special issue), in practice non-alignment really meant a diverse set of political alignments and an ideological mix of political development strategies.

For example, both Williams and Thomas take this association as a given with (among other things) reference to development indicators, both internally and in relation to ‘developed’ states. Williams, International Economic Organisation, p 7; and Thomas, In Search of Security, pp 2–3. That these two concepts have sometimes been conflated and/or informed each other for political goals is critically addressed in MT Berger, ‘The end of the “Third World”?’, Third World Quarterly, 15 (2), 1994, pp 257–274.

Williams, International Economic Organisation, p 4.

Caroline Thomas, ‘Where is the Third World now?’, Review of International Studies, 25 (5), 2000, p 225.

William I Robinson, Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, US Intervention and Hegemony, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp 341–342.

Berger, ‘The end of the ‘Third World”?’, p 270.

In the remainder of this article the term ‘politics of development’ will simply be used to imply the politics of international development.

For exce llent critiques of these foundational assumptions see Walker, Inside/Outside, 1995; RBJ Walker, ‘The territorial state and theme of Gulliver’, International Journal, 3, 1984, pp 529–552; Richard K Ashley, ‘Untying the sovereign state: a double reading of the anarchy problematique’, Millennium, 17 (2), 1988, pp 227-262; John Maclean, ‘Marxism and International Relations: a strange case of mutual neglect’, Millennium, 17 (2), 1988, pp 295–320; Steve Smith, ‘Singing our world into existence: International Relations theory and September 11’, International Studies Quarterly, June 2004 (forthcoming); Richard Devetak, ‘Incomplete states: theories and practices of statecraft’, in John Macmillan & Andrew Linklater (eds), Boundaries in Question, London: Pinter, 1995, pp 19–39; Julian Saurin, ‘The end of International Relations? The state and international theory in the age of globalization’, in Macmillan & Linklater, Boundaries in Question, pp 244–261; and A Claire Cutler, ‘Critical reflections on the Westphalian assumptions of international law and organization’, Review of International Studies, 27 (2), 2001, pp 133–150.

There were of course some efforts directed at what seemed like alternative approaches—even if premised on the territorial form—such as Julius Nyerere’s experiment of the ujamaa system. This too, however, was contingent on the modernisation approach. See Thomas, In Search of Security, 1987, p 30.

Mark T Berger, ‘The rise and demise of national development and the origins of post-cold war capitalism’, Millennium, 30 (2), 2001, p 211.

Saurin, ‘The end of International Relations?’.

See Stephen Gill, ‘Constitutionalising inequality & the clash of globalizations’, paper presented at the International Studies Association Annual Convention, Chicago, IL, 21–24 February 2001, p 2.

Roland Robertson, ‘mapping the global condition: globalization as the central concept’, in Mike Featherstone (ed), Global Culture, Nationalism, Globalisation and Modernity, London: Sage, 1990, pp 15–30. See also M Albert, L Brock & KD Wolf, Civilizing World Politics—Society and Community beyond the State, Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000.

See Albert & Kopp-Malek, ‘The pragmatism of global and European governance’.

For example the UK government's recent White Paper on International Development is entitled, Eliminating World Poverty: Making Globalisation Work for the Poor, Norwich: Stationary Office, 2000.

For a critique of globalisation theory, see Justin Rosenberg, The Follies of Globalisation Theory, London: Verso, 2000.

See for example, William I Robinson, ‘Remapping development in light of globalisation: from a territorial to a social cartography’, Third World Quarterly, 23 (6), 2002, pp 1047–1071, esp pp 1062–1065.

See Saurin, ‘The end of International Relations?’, p 246 [original emphasis].

See for example, Teivo Teivainen, ‘The World Social Forum and global democratisation: learning from Porto Alegre’, Third World Quarterly, 3 (4), 2002, pp 621–632; Emir Sader, ‘Beyond civil society—the left after Porto Alegre’, New left Review, 17, 2002, pp 87–99; Michael Hardt, ‘Today’s Bandung?', New left Review, 14, 2002, pp 112–118; Tom Mertes, ‘Grass-roots globalism—reply to Michael Hardt’, New left Review, 17, 2002, pp 101–110; Franc¸ois Houtart & Franc¸ois Polet, The Other Davos—The Globalization of Resistance to the World Economic System, London: Zed, 2001.

A brief word is due here on the premises of my own argument. First, I do not see the territorial state as a progressive form of global politics. Second, I reject a state-centric approach because it is analytically limited for understanding social relations in the ordering of global politics. Third, modern deprivation and immiseration is not external to capitalism but integral to its reproduction. For a good explication of the latter, see Julian Saurin, ‘Globalisation, poverty and the promises of modernity’, Millennium, 25 (3), 1996, pp 657–680, esp p 675.

See A Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, London: Verso, 1992, pp 292–293.

See Peter Worsley, ‘How many worlds?’, Third World Quarterly, 1 (2), 1979, pp 100–107; Shu-Yun Ma, ‘Third World studies, development studies and post-communist studies: definitions, distance and dynamism’, Third World Quarterly, 19 (3), 1998, pp 339–348, p 340.

See Berger, ‘The end of the “Third World”?’, pp 268–269.

This is based on the recognition of the complexity of sovereignty-cum-territoriality in the context of decolonisation. It does not, however, negate the point made by Walker (see note 78) and Ahmed (see note 25).

See Saurin, ‘Globalisation, poverty and the promises of modernity’, pp 656–657.

See also Berger, ‘The end of the “Third World”?’, p 269.

See, for example, Sandra Halperin, In the Mirror of the Third World: Capitalist Development in Modern Europe, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997.

There have been many studies on this; one is Teresa Hayter, Aid as Imperialism, London: Penguin Books, 1971. For excellent analyses of ‘development theory’ see Colin Leys, The Rise & Fall of Development Theory, Oxford: James Curry, 1996; Bjorn Hettne, Development Theory and the Three Worlds, Essex: Longman, 1990.

See for instance Robert L Ayres, Banking on the Poor—The World Bank and World Poverty, London: mit, 1984.

Many of the contested policies which underpin the wto Doha development round evolved through elite lobby groups during the crisis of the 1970s in the advanced capitalist states. The 1980s and 1990s did much to ‘hard sell’ re-regulation within these states by relating these trends to the issue of cheap labour and production potential to be exploited in developing states.

H Weber, ‘The imposition of a global development architecture: the example of microcredit’, Review of International Studies, 28, 2001, pp 537–555.

One example that illustrates this and also shows its relevance to the contemporary context is the case of the Bangladesh and the way in which the ideological struggles that ensued internally were shaped through the politics of aid. For instance, the origins of the now much flaunted example of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh can be located in this context. Indeed, its founding director refers to the approach as ‘grassroots’ capitalism. For more on this, see Heloise Weber, ‘Global governance and poverty reduction: the case of microcredit’ in Rorden Wilkinson & Steve Hughes (eds), Global Governance—Critical Perspectives, London: Routledge, 2002.

Saurin, ‘Globalisation, poverty and the promises of modernity’, p 671.

See Sol Picciotto, ‘Private rights versus public standards in the wto’, Review of International Political Economy (forthcoming); Markus Krajewski, ‘Democratic legitimacy and constitutional perspectives of wto law’, Journal of World Trade, 35 (1), 2001, pp 167–186; and Robert Howse & Kalypso Nicolaidis, ‘Enhancing wto legitimacy: constitutionalization or global subsidiarity?’, Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions, 16 (1), 2003, pp 73–94.

By ‘new economy’ is meant the rise of the so-called ‘services sector’ which includes, for instance, financial markets. On the politics of risk production and implications for governance, see Timothy J Sinclair, ‘Synchronic global governance and the international political economy of the commonplace’, in Martin Hewson & Timothy J Sinclair (eds), Approaches to Global Governance Theory, New York: State University of New York, 1999.

For a discussion of the way in which microcredit (and microfinance) facilitate the imperatives of the new economy, though presented in terms of a poverty reduction strategy, see Heloise Weber, ‘The new economy and social risk: banking on the poor?’, Review of International Political Economy (forthcoming, 2004).

See, for example, RW Cox et al (eds) International Political Economy: Understanding Global Disorder, London: Zed, 1995.

For more on the wef, see www.weforum.org.

Stephen Gill, ‘Constitutionalizing inequality and the clash of globalizations’.

See wto, Doha Ministerial Conference, Fourth Session Doha, ‘Ministerial Declaration’, 14 November 2001, paragraphs 2 and 38 respectively, at www.wto.org; and wto, ‘Changes in the multilateral trading system: challenges for the wto’, wto News, 5 July 2001, at www.wto.org/english/news_e/spmm_e/spmm66_e.htm.

For a detailed account of these initiatives see Development Assistance Committee, oecd, ‘Development co-operation 1999 report’, dac Journal, 1 (1), 2000.

World Bank, A Proposal For A Comprehensive Development Framework, Washington, DC: World Bank, 1999.

imf–World Bank, ‘Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (hipc) initiative—strengthening the link between debt relief and poverty reduction’, Washington, DC: imf and World Bank, 1999.

oecd, ‘Development co-operation 2000 report’, dac Journal—International Development, 2 (1), 2001, p 11.

oecd, ‘Development co-operation 1999 report’, p 3.

wto, ‘Ministerial Declaration’, 2001.

Formal agreements of co-operation have been signed between the wto and the imf and the wto and the World Bank. These agreements fulfil the mandate of the wto Marrakesh Declaration on Greater Coherence in Global Economic Policy Making. See Christian Tietje, ‘Global governance and inter-agency co-operation in international economic law’, Journal of World Trade, 36 (3), 2002, pp 501–515. For an indication of how these inform policy co-ordination, see wto, ‘Coherence in global economic policy-making: wto cooperation with the imf and the World Bank’, WT/TF/COH/S/3, 1999, at www.wto.org.

I use the terms ‘form’ and ‘content’ here to capture a similar logic in the way it is employed by Claus Offe and Volker Ronge to explain the way governance is constructed in the course of managing the contradictions of the capitalist state. See Offe & Ronge, ‘Theses on the theory of the state’, in Robert E Goodin & Philip Pettit (eds), Contemporary Political Philosophy: an Anthology, Blackwell, 2001.

International Development Association (ida) (World Bank) and imf, ‘Review of the poverty reduction strategy paper (prsp) approach: main findings’, 15 March 2002, p 3 (emphasis added), at www. worldbank.org/prsp/PRSP_Policy_Papers/prsp_policy-papres.html.

For decisions taken early on about this issue, see imf and ida, ‘Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers—progress in implementation’, Washington, DC: World Bank and imf, 7 September 2000, pp 19–21, 32. A follow-up review has reiterated this premise and reinforced the strategy of alignment by linking this also to implementation. See imf and World Bank Development Committee, ‘Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (prsp)—progress in implementation’, Washington, DC: World Bank and imf, 13 September 2002, sections on Donor Alignment and Collaboration under the prsp and Harmonization and Donor Coordination Efforts, pp 28–34.

Nearly all donors have agreed in principle to align their programmes with the contents of respective prsps. The recent review stipulates the following: ‘There is considerable scope for alignment with prsps even without programmatic lending’. See ida and imf, ‘Review of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (prsp) approach, p 22, emphasis added. See also ida and imf, ‘Review of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (prsp) approach: early experience with Interim prsps and Full prsps’, 26 March 2002, pp 75–79, at www.worldbank.org/prsp/PRSP_Policy_Papers/prsp_policy_papers.html.

See World Bank and imf, ‘Update on the hipc initiative and the prsp program’, Washington, DC: imf and World Bank, 6 February 2001, pp 3–4.

World Bank Group, Operations Policy and Strategy, ‘Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers—internal guidance note’, 21 January 2000, p 6, at www.worldbank.org/poverty/strategies/intguid.pdf.

Ibid, p 15.

See the Joint Note to World Bank and imf staff (approved by the Joint Implementation Committee), ‘Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (i-prsps): guidance on i-prsps and joint staff assessments of i-prsps’ , 7 September 2000, Washington, DC: World Bank, pp 1–6. In this context, those countries eligible for the hipc initiative were given an extension of two years of the ‘sunset clause’ in order to allow them to adopt World Bank and imf-supported adjustment programmes. See World Bank Goup and imf, ‘Memorandum: Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative and Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers—progress reports’, Washington, DC: imf and World Bank, 7 September 2000, pp 1–7, p 3.

World Bank Group, Operations Policy and Strategy, ‘Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers—internal guidance note’, p 15.

The Integrated Framework (if) of the wto is being developed as a key mechanism by which this process could be co-ordinated, which would (also) then be consolidated, and implemented, through the prsps. See World Bank and imf, ‘Review of the prsps: early experience’, p 72; wto (Sub-Committee on Least-Developed Countries), ‘Report on the seminar by the if core agencies’, WT/LDC/SWG/IF/15/Rev.1, 17 April 2001, pp 3–4, at www.itd.org/ldc_iii/ldciii_e.htm; and wto, ‘Progress report on the integrated framework for trade-related technical assistance to least-developed countries’, WT/LDC/SWG/IF/17/Rev.1, 17 April 2001, p 5, at www.itd.org/ldc_iii/ldciii_e.htm.

See World Bank and imf, ‘Review of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (prsp) approach’, pp 72–75.

World Bank, World Development Report 2000/2001, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, p 195 (emphasis added).

See World Bank and imf, ‘Review of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (prsp) approach’, p 8. For the decision to accord primacy to the content of the prsps see also World Bank and imf, ‘Review of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (prsp) approach: main findings’, p 7.

See World Bank and imf, ‘Review of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (prsp) approach’, pp 62–63.

For an idea of the status of i-prsps and full prsps (it is expected that the full will reach over 40 by late 2004), see World Bank and imf, ‘Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (prsp).

Bernard Hoekman, ‘Strengthening the global trade architecture for development: the post Doha agenda’, World Trade Review,1 (1), 2002, p 24.

Ibid, p 35.

Ibid, p 35.

For an excellent study on the political making of private commercial law, see A Claire Cutler, Private Power and Global Authority—Transnational Merchant Law in the Global Political Economy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

See World Bank and imf, ‘Progress report on Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers’, 13 April 2000, n 1, available at www.imf.org/external/np/pdr/prsp/2000/041400.htm.

See Pierre Sauve, ‘Developing countries and the gats 2000 round’, Journal of World Trade, 34 (2), 2000. ‘As was often the case in those days, Brazil and India led the resistance, arguing that services were primarily a matter of domestic regulatory conduct’ (p 85).

In this context it must come as no surprise that those advocating alternatives to the given policies have in some instances been excluded from the prsp process. See, for example, Malawi Economic Justice Network, ‘The status of civil society involvement in the Malawi prsp’, World Bank Watch (South Africa), 3, 2001, p 9, at see www.aidc.org.za. For more criticisms of this process see also, Focus on the global South, 2002. ‘Structural Adjustment in the Name of the Poor: The prsp experience in the Lao PDR, Cambodia and Vietnam’, at www.focusweb.org.

Ministerial Declaration of the Group of 77, New York, 15 November 2001, at www.nam.gov.za/ documentation/mindec177.htm.

See an interesting study by Siba N Grovogui, ‘Regimes of sovereignty: international morality and the African condition’, European Journal of International Relations, 8 (3), 2002, pp 315–338. See also H Radice, ‘Responses to Globalisation: A Critique of Progressive Nationalism’, New Political Economy, 5 (1), 2000, pp 5–19.

Immanuel Wallerstein, ‘Entering global anarchy’, New Left Review, 22, 2003, pp 27–35. Wallerstein qualifies this point with reference to certain tendencies he highlights, which include the possibility of the political potential of the wsf (or the political resistance it has come to symbolise in global politics) becoming stronger or becoming co-opted.

See, for instance, Christopher Arup, The New World Trade Organization Agreements—Globalizing Law Through Services and Intellectual Property, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

RBJ Walker, ‘International/inequality’, International Studies Review, 4 (2), 2002, pp 21-22.

See, for example, the study by Kurt Burch, ‘Property’ and the Making of the International System, London: Lynne Rienner, 1998.

See for example David Harvey, Spaces of Hope, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000; Hannes Lacher, ‘State centrism and its limits’, Review of International Studies, 29 (4), 2003, pp 521–542; Neil Brenner, ‘Beyond state-centrism? Space, territoriality, and geographical scale in globalization studies’, Theory and Society, 28, 1999, pp 39–78.