Human, social and sustainable development; theories of development and underdevelopment
Sociology I - Invitation to Sociology · Unit V · Topic 16 of 16 · 5 min read
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Cases checked to exist. Read the judgment before quoting a holding.
Every case cited here has been checked to exist — the citation resolves and names the right parties. The propositions attributed to each case have not been verified line by line against the judgment. Case names link through to the full judgment: read it before quoting a holding in an examination answer, and never carry a proposition from notes into court on trust.
1. From growth to development
After the Second World War development was measured by economic growth, chiefly the rise in gross national product per head. By the 1970s it was clear that growth could coexist with poverty, unemployment, inequality and environmental damage. Development came to mean an improvement in the quality of life of all people, not only in output. The three perspectives in the syllabus are stages in that rethinking.
2. Human development
Human development is the process of enlarging people’s choices and capabilities, so that they can lead long, healthy and creative lives. The concept was developed by the Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq and the Indian economist Amartya Sen, and adopted by the United Nations Development Programme, which has published the Human Development Report each year since 1990.
- Mahbub ul Haq: the basic purpose of development is to enlarge people’s choices; people are the real wealth of nations.
- Amartya Sen — the capability approach (Development as Freedom, 1999): development is the expansion of the real freedoms people enjoy, their capabilities to do and be what they value. Income is a means; what matters is what people can actually achieve. Poverty is capability deprivation.
Four pillars of human development
- Equity — equal access to opportunities for all, irrespective of gender, caste, race or income.
- Productivity — investment in people (health, education) so that they can work productively.
- Sustainability — opportunities for future generations must not be sacrificed.
- Empowerment — people should participate in the decisions that shape their lives.
The Human Development Index
| Dimension | Indicator |
|---|---|
| A long and healthy life | Life expectancy at birth |
| Knowledge | Expected years of schooling; mean years of schooling |
| A decent standard of living | Gross national income per capita (PPP dollars) |
The HDI ranges from 0 to 1; since 2010 it has been calculated as the geometric mean of the three dimension indices. Related UNDP indices include the Gender Inequality Index and the Multidimensional Poverty Index. Kerala is the Indian example usually cited of high human development at modest income, owing to investment in literacy and health.
3. Social development
Social development is the improvement of the well-being of people and of social relationships and institutions: reduction of poverty, inequality and exclusion; access to education, health, housing and social security; and the inclusion of marginal groups. The World Summit for Social Development, held at Copenhagen in 1995, committed States to three core aims: eradication of poverty, full employment and social integration.
- Components: education, health, nutrition, housing, gender equality, social security, participation, social justice.
- In India the Directive Principles (Articles 38, 39, 41, 46, 47) state the goals of social development; reservation, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005, the National Food Security Act, 2013 and the Right to Education Act, 2009 are its instruments.
4. Sustainable development
The classic definition comes from the World Commission on Environment and Development (the Brundtland Commission) in Our Common Future (1987): sustainable development is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.
- Three pillars: economic growth, social equity and environmental protection.
- Milestones: UN Conference on the Human Environment, Stockholm, 1972; the Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro, 1992 (Agenda 21, Rio Declaration); the Millennium Development Goals, 2000 (eight goals to 2015); the Sustainable Development Goals adopted in 2015 under the 2030 Agenda — 17 goals and 169 targets, including no poverty, zero hunger, quality education, gender equality, clean water, affordable clean energy and climate action; and the Paris Agreement on climate change, 2015.
- Principles: inter-generational equity, the precautionary principle, the polluter pays principle, conservation of resources, people’s participation.
- India: Article 48A (protection of environment) and Article 51A(g) (fundamental duty to protect the environment), both inserted in 1976; the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986; NITI Aayog monitors the SDGs. Movements such as Chipko and the Narmada Bachao Andolan raised the social costs of development.
5. Theories of development and underdevelopment
Modernisation theory
Underdevelopment is an original state; poor countries are “traditional” and will develop by adopting the values, institutions and technology of the West: rationality, achievement, urbanisation, education, democracy. W.W. Rostow (The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto, 1960) set out five stages: the traditional society; the preconditions for take-off; the take-off; the drive to maturity; and the age of high mass consumption. Talcott Parsons’s pattern variables and Daniel Lerner’s study of the Middle East belong to this school.
Criticism: it is ethnocentric, treats tradition as a barrier, ignores the effect of colonialism and of the world economy, and history has not followed its stages.
Dependency theory
Developed by Latin American scholars (Raúl Prebisch, Theotonio dos Santos) and Andre Gunder Frank (“The Development of Underdevelopment”, 1966). Underdevelopment is not an original state but the result of the development of the West. The world is divided into a metropolis (core) and satellites (periphery); surplus flows from the periphery to the centre through colonialism, unequal trade and multinational capital. Dadabhai Naoroji’s “drain of wealth” from India is an early version of the argument. The remedy is self-reliance or delinking.
Criticism: it cannot explain the rise of the East Asian economies, and it neglects internal causes such as corruption and inequality.
World-systems theory
Immanuel Wallerstein (The Modern World-System, from 1974) sees a single capitalist world economy since the sixteenth century, divided into core, semi-periphery and periphery. Countries can move between zones, which explains mobility better than dependency theory.
Other approaches
The Gandhian model of village self-sufficiency and decentralisation; the Nehru-Mahalanobis model of State-led heavy industry; human development and capability theory; and alternative or people-centred development stressing participation and ecology.
How this is examined
Human development: Haq and Sen, four pillars, HDI table, and how it differs from economic growth. Sustainable development: the Brundtland definition verbatim, three pillars, milestones to the SDGs, Indian constitutional provisions. A note on development theory takes modernisation (Rostow’s five stages) and dependency (Frank) with criticism of each.
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