What is Development Studies and how it differs from International Development, International Studies or Third World Studies?

 Preface

Andrew Sumner in Development in Practice Journal presents his opinions on Development Studies (DS), a relatively young field of economic study. The DS can be called International Development Studies, Third World Studies, International Development, International Studies and can be the combination of all these. The different names to indicate Development Studies further indicate diversity of the subject matter. The author in the article presents the history of DS, its rationale, composition and boundaries while critically analyzing the critics of Development Studies and foreseeing its future. While most of the arguments made by the author to claim the DS as one of the distinctive courses of the current era are acceptable, I have some counterarguments and alternative thoughts on his conclusions.

Introductory part:

The author describes the course DS as a diverse subject matter and believes that any kind of attempt to bound it within a narrow circle or assuming it as of uniform pattern should be gone futile.  He believes on three reasons that necessitate discussion on the nature of Development Studies are: expansion of the course at different levels, series of critiques around DS and need of retrospective look into it to make it a distinct subject. The author describes why the DS was born out after 1950s to cater the need of newly independent nations. The initial motive of DS was the industrial progress in the underdeveloped areas, and economic thinking dominated at the early years. However, the author tries to prove that the genealogy of DS might go beyond and could be linked with eighteenth-century anthropology. Nonetheless, the latest fundamental changes have ensured multi-disciplinarity of DS meaning that it goes beyond the pure economics. The author gives credit to some of the renowned development economists like Amartya Sen for establishing these changes in the course.

According to the author, Development Studies has a normative (or ethical) point of departure, seeking changes in the lives of people, and addressing the inequality persisted in the society in a more responsive manner than other disciplines. The author clarifies that the core subject matter of DS is well-being of the Global South and the teaching and research in DS mostly deals with heterogenous and diverse subject matter nowadays.

The author categorizes the era of development of DS into two- one more focusing on homogenous stuffs during early years and another having more heterogenous quality after 1970s. This indicates the need of multidisciplinary perspectives dealing with multiple issues. The author further mentions an important area for future discussion, how the DS moves from additive multi-disciplinarity to integrative trans-disciplinarity. While these two distinct terminologies are inter-related, a clear-cut distinction is not presented by the author in the article. DS is different from Area Studies in the sense that DS is not confined to any specific global regions or areas.

In the introductory part, the author does not prefer narrowing down the scope of the course quoting the DS as having diverse subject matter. However, at a point when describing the subject matter of DS, the author ignores the notion he described earlier and tries to prove that the Development Studies mainly required for the Global South. He believes the thinking of uniformity does not work but again poses his inclination towards the developing nations without considering how diversified the situations are in those countries. If heterogenous poor countries exists, there exists heterogenous rich countries as well.

Further, I believe that the current era’s Development Studies should encompass the issues of the developed countries as the status of those countries might change within a span of time. For instance, Spain and Greece faced a great recession in recent years and political instability prevailed due to the reason. Likewise, political turmoil in different countries could overturn the good situations into very bad. In such cases, sticking only on the developing or least developed countries does not address the emerging issues of development in the current globe. That is why, my strong voice here is to think Development Studies as a broader subject which equally deals with the development issues in all countries, ranging from least developed to highly developed ones. This will eventually provide an atmosphere where every country can learn from each other irrespective of their current economic status. For instance, United States of America and the European countries can learn from a developing country like China which has been emerging as an economic giant in the recent decade. The success and failure cases in development initiative in any corner of the world can be a learning tool for all the countries.

Critics of Development Studies

Andrew Sumner identifies three categories of critiques against the notion of Development Studies. The first one ‘a delivery or effectiveness’ critique blames DS for basing on the bad economics which eventually led to bad consequences. This critique thinks economics of DS as a problem and believes that there is not much change in the Third World after 1950s. However, the author sees some level of transformation taking place in the large part of the Third World especially in East Asia and China though have doubts in quality and distribution of social progress. He further mentions the changes ongoing in India and Vietnam in terms of human development. Sub-Saharan Africa could be exception, but significant changes are seen in Asia. However, the author blames the orthodox economics and its strategies for the development stagnation claiming that the successes have been achieved in some countries where opposite strategies were deployed.

The second kind of critique ‘neo-colonial’ is based on the harsher assumption that DS is an imperialist discourse which imposes western notions of development on the Global South in the name of modernity. According to such critics, DS itself is a problem. The author nullifies the notion giving example of alternative or non-orthodox development mentioning that DS is not homogeneous body of knowledge and it can not be generalized. For instance, the Marxist, non-Marxist Structuralism and Dependency theory which are basically against the imperialism can not be the imperialist discourse. Further, the author tries to illustrate the course DS not as a western European phenomenon giving examples that African nations have such courses existed and many developed countries of west don’t have DS in their curriculum. He has agreed only on the fact that the birth of DS historically coincided with decolonization phase.

The third critique ‘depoliticization’ implies that DS fosters creation of politically neutral environment. The author rightly criticizes this critique as the objective of improving people’s lives or ensuring equality is itself a political will. He further gives examples of Commission for Africa, involvement of academics in Central American political movements and an assassination case in El Salvador to prove that the DS is remarkably addressing political issues.

Coming to the critical review of the opinions of the author, I have some tantalizing questions to the author. It looks like he has strong inclination towards Development Studies as he has replied to all thee critiques and spend time to protect the notion of Development Studies. However, I have some questions to the author, if the course is free from all these critiques, is it a sacred course? Can’t we see the course as a practical science which goes through all kinds of situations or interpretations?  Are all three critiques meaningless? Are they brought from another planet? I don’t think the course of Development Studies should be taken as like a religious book which can not be criticized. The interpretation made based on the development theories under Development Studies can serve a section of people or country who have vested interest of colonizing others, or they can influence the political leadership to follow the path of technocracy. This implies that the DS course cannot be described in isolation without considering practical situations. So, instead of attempting to invalidate the critiques, the author should base his analysis to overturn the negative outcomes.

Likewise, the author tries to criticize the depoliticization critique. However, in many countries, politically neutral technocracy has helped to grab the development opportunities. In the countries where political leadership is not competent enough to systematize the development efforts, a bunch of technocrats may be required to trail the development effort in track. Hence, depoliticization itself might not be negative issue for the time being. The author rightly said somewhere that the Development Studies is context specific. So, the critical analysis of the critiques on DS done by the author need to be revisited.

The future of Development Studies

The author identifies the Development Studies as a sensible attempt; however, it needs to address the heterogeneity existed in the Third World in current time though it emerged during the time when more homogeneity had prevailed. He points out two ideas; a) grouping of similar countries and, b) exploration of knowledge-policy linkages, as a measure to invigorate the study of DS in new environment. The major assumption of DS is that knowledge is politically neutral but that does not fit into the real world as some knowledge get privileges while some other are neglected.

The author rightly picks the point of addressing heterogeneity existed in the Third World. Again, the issue comes when author mentions that DS does not have area allocation like in Area Studies. As described above, how we can relate the development issues of developed countries with developing countries? Let’s not talk only about the Third World, instead, holistically deal with the development issues of everywhere. In the point of grouping similar countries, this looks like a crazy idea in the current contexts as the world is polarized in many aspects. Imagine the case of BRICS, where Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa have made a group of emerging economies. The political enmity between China and India is so intense that the BRICS cannot operate efficiently to fulfill the establishment goals. Further, we cannot ignore the political situations in Development Studies as we claim that it is a multi-disciplinary course, and the politics will have central role in economic development. So, having a group of similar development stride may not fulfill the primary motive of establishing such group.

The author sees the positive outlook of DS as teaching and research under DS are increasing, development initiatives are increasing, and development success cases are increasing. However, the importance and perseverance of the course is fully dependent on success or failure of the global poverty reduction initiatives. This looks like a great conclusion of this article to summarize the essence of the debate on Development Studies. The course has been introduced in many countries in the university degree in a different name mentioned in the preface of this review and will have instrumental role to enhance development efforts and acquire fruitful outcomes. If education systems prioritized in the countries to foster research and innovation, Development Studies will be a crucial area of study to identify research questions and possible answers to those questions in the development sector. I believe that no matter development effort succeeds or fails, the scope of Development Studies will be much higher than before as the human being is much eager to pave the better way of living through science and innovation.

Conclusions:

To sum up, Andrew Sumner talks about distinctive features of Development Studies by mentioning the three critiques and giving response to each of them. For him, Development Studies is neither imperialistic nor adopting the colonialization. He also clarifies that the course is not apolitical, or it has not fueled depoliticization. The reality under subject matter of the Development Studies are worth mentioning where the author talks about heterogeneous contexts in the Global South. It looks like the author is right at one side when he speaks for heterogeneity while inadequacy is observed in describing the contexts of all the countries including developed ones. However, thinking DS as a practical science, it should have multiple facets or angles of perspectives as described in the above paragraphs. Perhaps, the author is right in many conclusions, but he needs to reshuffle some of his stereotype thoughts.

 

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