Development and regional development definitions

According to Hettne (1995) quoted by McEwan (2009), development can be explained by theories, strategies and ideologies. McEwan (2009) pointed out that across history, development has been defined in correspondence with an economic model of developed countries, and communicating its directions to underdeveloped countries. It is about what underdeveloped countries have to do to accomplish development.

The next table, adapted from McEwan (2009), summarizes the development models proposed since 1945, looking at different trends in development approaches, evaluating them from a post-colonialism point of view. As the table shows, notions about developing countries have been deeply discussed. In fact, there is also a debate about which designation is appropriate for these countries: underdeveloped, developing, latecomers or peripheral countries. Again, each of these designations has been proposed by different approaches.

Table 2.5. Approaches to development since 1945

Decade Main development approaches Key proponents

1950s Modernization theories: based on European model and notions of

‘trickle-down’.

Structuralism theories: Southern countries need to limit interaction with the global economy to allow for domestic economic growth.

1960s Modernization theories.

Dependency theories: Southern countries are poor because of exploitation by Northern countries.

Basic needs approaches: focus of government and aid policies should be on providing for the basic needs of the world’s poorest people.

Furtado Hirschman Prebisch

47

Neo-Malthusian theories: need to control economic growth, resource use and population growth to avoid economic and ecological disaster.

Women and development: development recognized as having differential effects on women and men.

Fajnzylber

1980s Neoliberalism: focus on the market; governments should retreat from direct involvement in economic activities.

Peripheral countries. Grassroots and community-based approaches.

Importance of considering local context and indigenous knowledge.

Sustainable development: balancing the needs of current generation against environmental and other concerns of future populations.

Gender and development: greater awareness of the ways in which gender is implicated in development.

1990s Latecomer countries. Neoliberalism. Post-development: ideas about

‘development’ represent a form of colonialism and Eurocentricism and should be challenged from the grassroots.

Sustainable development.

Culture and development: increased awareness of how different social and cultural groups are affected by development processes.

2000s Neoliberalism: increased engagement with concepts of globalization.

Sustainable development. Post-development. Grassroots approaches.

Source: Quoted and adapted from McEwan, 2009 (McEwan, 2009:93)

In this research, the development concept assumes that different theories define development according to the ideologies in which they are based and it proposes strategies to achieve development in concordance with its historical and economic framework and with a specific geographical expression as well.

It is necessary to point out here that these theories have special characteristics according to the region of the world they refer to. In the 1970s for instance, Dependency theories were the main point of the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC). The idea was to express position and participation in the economic world. No doubt that there is a particular situation named underdevelopment and it requires necessarily to produce a specific framework in order to achieve an “autonomous theorization” (Furtado 1964: 140) and to explore alternatives for countries which are identified like that.

48

On this point, Furtado (1964) explains that each country has a position in the economic structure and underdevelopment cannot be considered as a moment in the process but as a role in the economic structure of the world. In fact, even developed countries confront uneven development between them and, inside each country, between the regions.

In addition, even though developed and underdeveloped countries confront fragmentation and uneven development inside them, the solutions seem to be different for each country. In underdeveloped countries for instance, underdevelopment “occurs in a number of forms and in various stages” (Furtado, 1964: 139). Its manifestation have for example, forms such as “1) a subsistence structure, 2) a structure oriented mainly towards exports, and 3) an industrial nucleus connected with the domestic market and sufficiently diversified to produce a part of the capital goods it needs for its own growth” (Furtado, 1964:139).

Furtado (1964:140) pointed out how these three conditions explained above are part of underdevelopment. However, the challenge to resolve external connections is totally different for each country. More struggle is required if the challenge is to resolve regional development inside the countries.

For example, foreign companies are producing export commodities while subsistence activities survive around them (Furtado, 1964:139). As Hirschman (1958) explained fifty years ago, this “dualistic character of development” is a consequence of new technologies acting upon traditional economies. It is still the case and it is probably a phenomenon present not only in underdeveloped countries but also in deprived regions in developed countries as well (Hudson, 2009).

Martinelli (1997) also pointed out that regions have their own role in the economy in terms of – for example - their link with markets. To acquire a different role is difficult or even impossible, given that virtuous circles concentrated opportunities:

“In central regions, a virtuous circle of services development is nourished by the continued interaction between services and advanced centres of decision-making and production. […] Peripheral regions are the most disadvantaged.

49

The limited development of an industrial base is generally a first bottleneck for the spontaneous development of producer services” (Martinelli, 1997:80-81).

These disadvantaged peripheries are a significant challenge for new proposals on regional development. Moulaert (2000) explained that some regions have internal fragmentations which basically mean difficulties connected to their endogenous resources, while other regions have external fragmentation which means difficulties to build external connections.

Both of these problems are structural in terms of the economic role that each region can play inside the capitalist global economy and they are equally negative. Consequently, regional development with a community approach also recognizes the necessity to promote internal coherence and external connections of the region.

Studying regions in a Latin-American context demands special consideration. According to Coraggio (1983), in the Latin-American context regional development studies are not only about economy but they are also about social processes.

This is because of the contradiction between spatial organization and reorganization of the social process, uneven development in peripheral regions, appropriation of land and also ideological conceptualizations about the territorial distribution of groups, all these aspects are modified by capitalist effects (Coraggio, 1983:30). Because of this, regional development is also about the study of the complex relationship between social structures and the spatial manifestation of these social structures. Coraggio’s proposals (2009) will be discussed in section 2.5.3 of this chapter.

In summary, each development definition promoted from developed countries includes a specific approach, inherited from the context where it was proposed. It is necessary do contextualize regional development, in particular for underdeveloped or developing countries context. The KBE can be considered part of recent models proposed from developed countries to promote development. Drawing on recent literature, the next section makes a brief presentation of this model from a critical perspective.

50