The politics of development

Abstract

Global poverty and inequality, in the context of current capitalist crisis, will remain a daunting challenge in the twenty-first century. This reality will unleash an era of post-democracy bedeviled by multifaceted meltdowns in political, cultural and economic structures. The outcome will be a catastrophe that will be beyond any human intervention unless we think self-critically and fast. This article seeks to theorize the main processes that thwart the rational–humane logic of development in the “post-American world”.

Keywords:

• human–social development
• poverty of culture
• post-American world
• developmental paradox

Notes

Notes

1. Which I often refer to as Enlightenment Two (Mohan, 2007).

2. See Michael Grunwald's excellent article “How Obama is using the science of change” in Time (13 April 2009, pp. 29–32).

3. The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 8, 2009, from http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-mcmanus8-2009mar08,0,1315383.column

4. A Letter to the Editor, Column perverts economic term, The Advocate, 23 April 2009. Retrieved April 23, 2009. from http://www.2theadvocate.com/opinion/43499877.html

5. Retrieved March 28, 2009, from http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090328/ap_on_re_as/earth_hour

6. The New York Times. Retrieved April 2, 2009. from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/opinion/02kristof.html

7. Retrieved March 28, 2009, from http://books.google.com/books?id=QDbNhec98iEC&pg=PP1&dq=Earth+in+the+Balance&ei=tk7OSd_kG5D6zQTgpZW7DA#PRA2-PA236,M1

8. The New York Times. Retrieved March 28, 2009. from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/opinion/28bergen.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

9. This is how the British brigadier Neil Baverstock views this army-oriented national building as key “to the international coalition's project in Afghanistan” (Lowry, 2009, p. 6B).

10. The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March, 28, 2009. from https://email.lsu.edu/exchange/[email protected]/Inbox/Top%20of%20The%20Times:%20Saturday%20March%2028,%202009.EML?Cmd=open

11. “Rampage in Pakistan shows reach of militants”, The New York Times. Retrieved March 31, 2009, from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/world/asia/31pstan.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

12. Robert D. Kaplan was told by Vijay Chauthaiwale, a member of the Hindu nationalist movement (Kaplan, 2009, p. 77). This is an irony that both Hindu and Muslim fundamentalists, apparently at daggers drawn, are closest allies in engineering mayhem and carnage. Indeed their evil existence depends on this nefarious alliance of political expedience.

13. See Sarlia (2006); see also Guha (2008), Khan (2007) and Luce (2007).

14. In a CNN interview with Fareed Zakaria, Ambassador Richard Hallbrook and Pakistani author–journalist Ahmed Rashid confirmed the dangers that El Qaida presents to South Asian stability. Hallbrook, and indeed the whole western establishment, including the ruling elites of Pakistan, have begun to realize that their “enemy” (India) does not harbor any nefarious motives; it is their own Inter Service spy agency that created its own Frankenstein by supporting terrorism against India (CNN, 19 April 2009). See Ahmed Rashid's (2008) Decent into chaos.

15. The 53-year-old dalit leader Mayawati, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh – a woman with lust for power and vast following – has horrified “India's English-speaking elite”. The Economist reports from Rajgarh on India's general elections: “Venal, autocratic and nakedly opportunistic, Miss Mayawati is the epitome of the wrecking regional leader, a type that has helped ensure, during two decades of coalition rule at the centre, that India's governments have mostly been quarrelsome, inefficient and corrupt … The BSP has no ideology … ‘Our party wants growth of capital and not development of capitalists in the country’” (The Economist, 2009c, p. 46).