Intrinsic Issues

Anti-Development/Post-Development Theory

As Cowen and Shenton have observed, the meaning of ‘development’ has been ambiguous since the nineteenth century. In one conception, development is inexorable, a juggernaut that remakes societies and sweeps away vestiges of the past. Respectable Victorians may have labelled this ‘progress’ but others drew attention to its destructive, harmful, and exploitative nature, especially as experienced by workers (Cowen and Shenton 1996 ). In the words of Marx and Engels, ‘the bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionis- ing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society…. All that is solid melts into air’ (Marx and Engels 1848 /2010: 16). Meanwhile, ‘the modern labourer … becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth’ (Marx and Engels 1848 /2010: 20). Th e contrasting conception regarded development not as inexorable but as an intentional reforming pro- cess. It was the remit of ‘development’ in this sense to clean up the mess left behind by ‘development’ in the former sense (Cowen and Shenton 1996 : 6).

By the end of the twentieth century, anti-development (or ‘post- development’) thinkers had reworked these ideas in novel ways. Following Foucault, Arturo Escobar ( 1995 ) argued that development is a nexus of knowledge and power that begins by conceiving of people as ‘underdeveloped’ and therefore in need of development as a project. Neocolonial aspects of this enterprise have been highlighted by Gustavo Esteva ( 1992 ). Other anti- development thinkers gave greater attention to development as an inexorable process, especially insofar as it is environmentally destructive (Sachs 1992 ). Th e central point on which they agreed is that development (whether project

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or process) is inherently harmful and destructive. It cannot be reformed; it must be replaced with projects or processes that are fundamentally diff erent. Later the approach was given a new name, ‘post-development’, but the central idea was the same (Rahnema and Bawtree 1997 ; Rist 2008 ; see also Noxolo, this collection). Its opponents have criticised it for inconsistency (Nederveen Pieterse 2000 ) and for overlooking important diff erences both among devel- opment strategies and among political alternatives (Kiely 1999 ). Th e idea that outsiders can sometimes make valuable contributions to local development, without colonising it, has been explored by David Crocker ( 2006 ).

Worthwhile Development Versus Maldevelopment

Alternatively, we may want to discriminate between cases in which development goes badly and cases in which it goes well (or, at least, not so badly). Th is requires starting from a conception of development that is descriptive rather than nor- mative, a sense in which good development and bad development alike can be categorised as ‘development’. If we choose the concept of economic growth for this role, then the question becomes when growth is worthwhile and when it is undesirable. However, in contrast, we may also want to talk about ‘development’ with a normative connotation, as we do when we say things like ‘Th ere is more to development than growth.’ What is meant here is that worthwhile development

is not reducible to growth. What this reveals is that two concepts of development are actually in use: a descriptive concept of what development is and a normative concept of what development ought to be. In the former sense, development is a mere means; in the latter sense, it is a goal or standard of achievement.

Drawing on earlier work by his mentor Louis-Joseph Lebret, Denis Goulet ( 2006 : 50–62) began to champion this approach in the 1970s. In his 1971 book Th e Cruel Choice, he characterised worthwhile or ‘authentic’ develop-

ment as a process of change leading from practices and conditions of life perceived as ‘less human’ to a better, ‘more human’ life. As he was fond of say- ing, the goal of authentic development is not having more , but having enough

to be more, that is, to lead a more full and fl ourishing human life (Goulet

2006 : 128–138). To achieve this kind of change, he argued, there are two fur- ther requirements. One is human solidarity: recognising that the good of any people is both causally and morally interdependent with the good of all—and acting on this recognition. Th e second and last requirement is broad popular participation in decision-making (Goulet 2006 : 144–152).

While many people were infl uenced by Goulet (Crocker 2008 : 4–5; Gasper

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been taking place for as long as development policy had been proposed and debated after the Second World War. Much of the debate over what develop- ment is was at least implicitly concerned with what development ought to be ,

though at the time the values distinguishing worthwhile from undesirable development were not often made explicit, much less discussed systemati- cally. In retrospect, then, Goulet’s distinction can be fl eshed out more fully by reviewing those debates to discern which values were used to distinguish what development ought to be from what ought to be avoided. When this is done, seven broad values stand out (Penz et al. 2011 : 116–152; Drydyk

2011 : 251–254). Worthwhile development consists not merely in economic growth but in (1) enhancing people’s well-being, and, indeed, (2) doing so equitably, not in ways that create or reproduce social inequality or elite cap- ture of advantage. It should also (3) involve people’s free participation, and (4) it should be environmentally sustainable. Worthwhile development sup- ports and enhances (5) human rights along with (6) cultural freedom and social inclusion; and, fi nally, (7) it is carried out not by corrupt means or for corrupt purposes but with integrity.

It is best to leave these broad values somewhat undefi ned, understand- ing that their meaning and interpretation is subject to further debate among development theorists, practitioners, policymakers, and stakeholders. Th is approach also expands and enriches the fi eld of development ethics consider- ably by including many of the signifi cant debates in development policy over the past six decades (see Gasper 2004 ).

Over the past 25 years, one school of thought has had more infl uence within these debates than any other: the human development and capabil- ity approach, initiated by the collaboration between Mahbub ul Haq and Amartya Sen to create the Human Development Index (HDI). Th is school of thought has become a sizeable network worldwide, organised by the Human Development and Capabilities Association (www.capabilityapproach.com), and its members have made signifi cant contributions to the meaning and interpretation of six of the seven values defi ning worthwhile development. A full presentation of ethical and philosophical debate and discussion of the capability approach exceeds the scope of this article; readers wishing to delve deeper into this debate can begin with Robeyns ( 2011 ) and Qizilbash ( 2008 ).

With the aim of putting people and human welfare back into a develop- ment discourse that had become too narrowly economistic, ul Haq proposed a human-centred conception of development as the cornerstone of the human development approach. Th us, ‘the basic purpose of development is to enlarge people’s choices … to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy, and creative lives’ (Haq 1995 : 14). Hence, development is not

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reducible to economic growth, since the kinds of gains that people value ‘do not show up at all, or not immediately, in income or growth fi gures: greater access to knowledge, better nutrition and health services, more secure liveli- hoods, security against crime and physical violence, satisfying leisure hours, political and cultural freedoms and a sense of participation in community activities’ (Haq 1995 : 14). While this is the primary characteristic that dis- tinguishes worthwhile development for ul Haq, it is not the only one. Th e human development paradigm, as ul Haq understood it, also called for equity (reducing inequalities of choice and opportunity for living well), environ- mental sustainability, expanded human productivity, and empowerment (Haq  1995 : 17–20).

Over the past 25 years, the capability approach has added a more pre- cise understanding of the basic concepts of human development as well as methodologies for measuring poverty, inequality, and change (Alkire 2005 ; Robeyns 2005 ; Crocker 2008 : 107–214; Deneulin and Shahani 2009 ). Th is approach has been rich in implications for ethics in development (Esquith and Giff ord 2010 ).

Th e starting point of the capability approach is actually not the concepts of capability or capabilities but the concept of functioning: the project begins by identifying those ways of being and doing that constitute essential dimensions of living well . Sen ( 1992 : 39) typically gives examples that ‘vary from such elementary things as being adequately nourished, being in good health … to more complex achievements such as being happy, having self-respect, taking part in the life of the community, and so on’. Th e capability approach does not prescribe these as elements of living well; rather, it derives its ideas of liv-

ing well from observation of what people have reason to value . Th e approach also assumes that these functionings, abstractly conceived, can be realised in diff erent ways in diff erent cultures. Th e extent of a person’s overall capabil- ity is the extent of those functionings, in combination, that this person can actually manage to achieve. Th is is, in short, the person’s substantive freedom to live well, or well-being freedom (Sen 1993 ). Capabilities can also be con- sidered individually, for instance, capabilities to be well nourished, to be in good health, to learn, to have good personal relationships, and so on. Martha Nussbaum has argued for a list of ten central capabilities: to live a life of nor- mal length, to be in good health, bodily integrity, using senses, imagination and thought in truly human ways, emotional life and associations, practical reason, engaging in social and personal relationships conducive to self-respect, living with concern for other species, play, and having control over the social, economic, and political environment (Nussbaum 2000 : 75–85; Nussbaum

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for a more contextual approach (Sen 2005 : 157–160). Once a capability that everyone (or everyone in a particular context) has reason to value has been identifi ed, measures can be devised for comparing the magnitude of that capability among diff erent persons and over time. Poverty, then, can be con- ceived and measured as a shortfall in capabilities (Sen 1999a : 87–110).

In this way, capability concepts have played a formative role in develop- ing the non-monetary measures of poverty included in the HDI and related indices published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Th e HDI was fi rst released in 1990. It was followed in 1995 by a Gender Empowerment Measure and a Gender Development Index, which were replaced by a Gender Inequality Index in 2010, at which time an Inequality- Adjusted HDI and a Multidimensional Poverty Index were also introduced (see http://hdr.undp.org/en/data). One reason why the capability approach has become infl uential in development ethics is the extent to which it has con- tributed to the ongoing task of interpreting the broad values of development ethics, to which I turn next.

Specifi c Values of Development: Interpretations

1. Well-being . Agreement that development ought to enhance well-being broaches the question of how well-being ought to be conceived and mea- sured. One persistent proposal argues for basic needs (Streeten et al. 1981 ; Doyal and Gough 1991 ) rather than income measures. Th e capability approach also argues against income or resource measures of well-being on grounds of human diversity: two people with equal resources may be far from equal if one has much greater needs, for example, due to a disability (Sen 1992 : 73–87). Th e capability approach also opposes subjective satis- faction as a criterion for well-being, due to adaptive preferences, which arise when ‘deprived people tend to come to terms with their deprivation because of the sheer necessity of survival, … and they may adjust their desires and expectations to what they unambitiously see as feasible’ (Sen

1992 : 63). Someone in this condition may feel as little dissatisfaction as someone with much better life conditions (see Nussbaum 2000 : 135–147; Khader 2011 ).

2. Equity/equality . Similarly, opposition to unequal or inequitable develop-

ment raises the question of which inequalities matter. Th us, the philosoph- ical ‘Inequality of what?’ debate is central to ethics in development. Once again, the capability approach answers with well-being freedom or capa- bilities rather than resources or subjective satisfaction. Since implicitly we

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are asking which inequalities are most signifi cant for distributive justice, it is natural to ask for criteria of justice or, as Sen has proposed, for compara- tive justice (Sen 2009 : 15–17). In particular, does justice unrelentingly call for continuous reduction of inequality, or only to a point of suffi ciency where everyone has enough ? For Sen, the imperative of justice is for equal-

ity, though he also recognises a need to balance this against an imperative of effi ciency, to raise the well-being freedom of all (without merely sub- tracting it from others). For pragmatic reasons, Martha Nussbaum con- tends that it is suffi cient to work out how to ensure that everyone has suffi cient capabilities: achieving full equality may well be the ultimate goal, but this is a goal that can be consigned to the future; for the present, achiev- ing suffi ciency for everyone will be diffi cult enough. Th ere is one caveat: for civil and political freedoms, only equality is suffi cient (Nussbaum 2006 : 291–295). For all capabilities, what is suffi cient must be determined by public reason both in the context of each particular society (Nussbaum

2000 : 77) and as a global standard set by the international community (Nussbaum 2006 : 291).

3. Participation/agency/empowerment. Criticism of top-down development that does not adequately include people in decision-making has a long his- tory, tracing back to colonial times, and in the postcolonial period the value of participatory development slowly gained recognition by develop- ment institutions (Brohman 1996 ). Often it was regarded as a necessary means, without which development projects were less likely to succeed (Griffi n 1999 ), but as early as 1971 Goulet ( 1971 , 148) argued for its intrinsic value on grounds that people ‘are entitled to become agents, not mere benefi ciaries, of their own development’, a value echoed later by the UN General Assembly in its Declaration on the Right to Development (United Nations, General Assembly 1986 ). However, it became evident that the meaning of ‘participation’ could be stretched quite thin: ‘participa- tory’ consultations could be conducted in way that still deprived stakehold- ers any real infl uence on development decisions, and merely working for a project could be considered ‘participation’ in it. Arguably, then, it is not participation per se that marks worthwhile development, but agency: expanding people’s agency in and through development, and in particular linking expansion of agency freedom with expansion well-being freedom (Sen 1999a : 190ff ; Crocker 2008 : 215–294). Capability theorists and oth- ers embraced and redefi ned the concept of empowerment as expansion of agency (Alkire 2002 : 131; Ibrahim and Alkire 2007 ), so that empowerment has arguably taken the place of participation as a distinguishing feature of worthwhile development. One further issue arising from this change is

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whether defi ning empowerment as expansion of agency does not make the concept of empowerment too individualistic, lacking the reference it once made to relations of power (Drydyk 2014 ; Koggel 2007 ).

Disempowering practices are almost too varied and numerous to discuss systematically. Persons aff ected by projects can be ignored, their existence can be denied, project information may not reach them (or may be con- cealed), their recognised representatives may not represent the people at all or may put their own interests over those of the community, assistance or recourse may be available on paper but it may be diffi cult to make claims for lack of facilitation, and so on (Penz et al. 2011 : 198–207). On the other hand, some disempowering practices are disarmingly simple, such as ‘not listening’ to the intended benefi ciaries of aid and having an imbalanced ‘accountability fi xation’ towards aid agencies that eclipses any attempt at ‘downward’ accountability towards aid benefi ciaries and stakeholders (Parkinson 2013 : 137–138).

David Crocker invokes the values of agency and empowerment to advo- cate for the deepening of democracy. He draws upon Sen’s arguments that democracy has intrinsic value, instrumental value, and it is also construc- tive of the values that a society carries forward (Crocker 2008 : 297–308). Th ese values are realised all the more when public decisions emerge through deliberation conducted not just by representatives but by citizens at large— such as the participatory budgeting processes that are held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and elsewhere (Crocker 2008 : 309–337; Baiocchi 2003 ). Th e capa- bility approach also supports a framework for judging when a governance system is functioning ‘more democratically’ (Drydyk 2005 ).

4. Sustainability. Th e Brundtland Commission achieved widespread accep- tance of the principle that worthwhile development must be environmen- tally sustainable development that ‘meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987 : 8). Debate on the meaning of ‘sustainable development’ has splintered environmental ethics into a multitude of alternative views (Light and Rolston 2002 ), most of which hold that sustainability should be understood not just in terms of human well-being but also in terms of the well-being of non-human organ- isms, or the well-being of species, or the health of ecosystems, or the integ- rity, simplicity, and beauty of the land (Light and Rolston 2002 ). With a few exceptions, there has been little uptake within development ethics of these ideas from environmental ethics. Anti-development theorists have argued that ‘sustainable development’ is an oxymoron—that it is in the nature of economic development to cause environmental damage aff ecting

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humans and non-humans alike (Sachs 1992 ). Vandana Shiva’s ecofeminism (Shiva 1989 ; Mies and Shiva 1993 ) focusses more precisely on the damag- ing impacts of capitalist agriculture but does not go so far as to say that development per se is inherently unsustainable. She uses the term ‘develop- ment’ in a contextualised way, as for instance specifying ‘land development’ and ‘water development’ (Shiva 2002 : 63,110), ‘development and growth’, and ‘economic development’ (Shiva 2006 : 15ff ). She has consistently indi- cated spurious forms of ‘development’ with scare quotes, which suggests that she is distinguishing implicitly between development that is undesir- able and alternative forms of development that would be worthwhile.

Th e buen vivir movement in the Andes draws on indigenous cultures to

reconceive worthwhile development as living well within communities, and those communities include their natural environments (Gudynas

2011 ). In Ecuador, this movement has led to constitutional entrenchment for the rights of nature (Becker 2011 ). More philosophically, Martha Nussbaum has proposed bridging between justice for humans (present and future) and non-humans by considering non-damaging interactions with other species as an element of human well-being: thus, environmentally damaging consumerism or agricultural practices should be contrasted and excluded from our idea of living well. Any remaining chasm between human and non-human welfare has also been challenged by the problem of climate change (discussed at greater length in Section  2 ).

5. Human rights and cultural freedom . Th ese are inevitably and appropriately discussed together. Lee Kuan Yew made explicit the belief, held implicitly in other countries, that economic growth and development should be given priority over human rights. His rationale was that growth in Asia was based on Asian values: individuals pulling together for the common good of fam- ily and society (Zakaria and Lee 1994 : 113–114). Allegedly, the individual- ism that underlies human rights is inimical to these values. Yet the contrary view, that human rights and development are not opposed but linked, has been advocated by leaders of other developing countries, as expressed in the