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THE SOCIOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENT HANDBOOK EDITOR
Gregory Hooks
ASSISTANT EDITOR
Shushanik Makaryan
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Paul Almeida, David Brown, Samuel Cohn, Sara Curran, Rebecca Emigh, Hi-fung Hung, Andrew Jorgenson, Richard Lachmann, Linda Lobao, and Valentine Moghadam
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
THE SOCIOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENT HANDBOOK
THE SOCIOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENT HANDBOOK EDITOR
Gregory Hooks
ASSISTANT EDITOR
Shushanik Makaryan
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Paul Almeida, David Brown, Samuel Cohn, Sara Curran, Rebecca Emigh, Hi-fung Hung, Andrew Jorgenson, Richard Lachmann, Linda Lobao, and Valentine Moghadam
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu. University of California Press Oakland, California © 2016 by The Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Hooks, Gregory, editor. Title: Sociology of development handbook / Gregory Hooks, Editor. Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2016004218 | isbn 9780520277786 (cloth : alk. paper) | isbn 9780520277793 (pbk. : alk. paper) Subjects: lcsh: Economic development—Sociological aspects. | Civilization, Modern—21st century. Classification: lcc hd75 .s6393 2016 | ddc 306.3—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016004218 ClassifNumber PubDate DeweyNumber′—dc23 CatalogNumber Manufactured in the United States of America 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
List of Tables and Figures
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Introduction: A Manifesto for the Sociology of Development
•
Samuel Cohn and Gregory Hooks I. EXPLAINING DEVELOPMENT: SOCIOLOGICAL INSIGHTS
1.
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Engendering Development: The Evolution of a Field of Research 21 •
Valentine M. Moghadam
2.
Population and Development
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László J. Kulcsár
3.
Strengthening the Ties between Environmental Sociology and Sociology of Development 69 •
Jennifer E. Givens, Brett Clark, and Andrew K. Jorgenson
4.
The Sources of Socioeconomic Development
•
95
Adam Szirmai II. HUMAN CAPABILITIES: INSTITUTIONS AND DEVELOPMENT
5.
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127
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Global North and Global South 129 •
Jeff rey T. Jackson, Kirsten Dellinger, Kathryn McKee, and Annette Trefzer
1
6.
Magic Potion/Poison Potion: The Impact of Women’s Economic Empowerment versus Disempowerment for Development in a Globalized World 153 •
Rae Lesser Blumberg
7.
Land Use and the Great Acceleration in Human Activities: Political and Economic Dynamics 190 •
Thomas K. Rudel
8.
Age Structure and Development: Beyond Malthus
•
207
David L. Brown and Parfait Eloundou-Enyegue
9.
Development, Demographic Processes, and Public Health
•
224
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263
Joshua Stroud, Philip Anglewicz, and Mark VanLandingham
10.
Education and Development
•
241
David B. Bills III. DEVELOPMENT DYNAMICS: SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL ACCOUNTS
11.
The Sociology of Subnational Development: Conceptual and Empirical Foundations 265 •
Linda Lobao
12.
Sociological Perspectives on Uneven Development: The Making of Regions 293 •
Ann R. Tickamyer and Anouk Patel-Campillo
13.
Migration and Development: Virtuous and Vicious Cycles
•
311
Sara R. Curran
14.
Tertiary Education and Development: Strategies of Global South Countries to Meet Growing Tertiary Demand 340 •
Mary M. Kritz
15.
Migrant Networks, Immigrant and Ethnic Economies, and Destination Development 362 •
Kim Korinek and Peter Loebach IV. BUILDING STATES AND FAILING STATES: DEVELOPMENT TRIUMPHS AND DISASTERS • 391
16.
The State and Development
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393
Samuel Cohn
17.
Women, Democracy, and the State Kathleen M. Fallon and Jocelyn Viterna
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414
18.
War and Development: Questions, Answers, and Prospects for the Twenty-first Century 440 •
Gregory Hooks
19.
Neoliberalism, the Origins of the Global Crisis, and the Future of States 463 •
Richard Lachmann
20.
Crisis and the Rise of China
•
485
Ho-fung Hung
21.
Conflict and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa
505
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Zoë Marriage
22.
Social Movements and Economic Development
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528
Paul Almeida V. GLOBAL COMPLEXITIES AND LOCAL CONTEXTS: NEW PARADIGMS FOR EXPLAINING DEVELOPMENT • 551
23.
Globalization and Development
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553
Nina Bandelj and Elizabeth Sowers
24.
Transitions to Capitalisms: Past and Present
577
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Rebecca Jean Emigh
25.
Quantitative Growth and Economic Development through 597 History •
Rosemary L. Hopcroft
26.
The Great Divergence: Why Did Industrial Capitalism Emerge in Europe, Not China? 620 •
Dingxin Zhao
27.
Global Commodity Chains and Development Jennifer Bair and Matthew Mahutga
List of Contributors Index . 677
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667
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TABLES AND FIGURES
TA B L E S
1.1.
Development Theories, Policies, and Social Outcomes, 1950s–2011
4.1.
Dynamic Changes in the Developing World, 1950–2010
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37
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18.1.
Civil War Onset by Decade
20.1.
Average Profit Rate in Various Types of Industrial Enterprises, 2007 and 2009 • 492
22.1.
Dominant Economic Development Strategies and Forms of Collective Action • 529
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FIGURES
4.1.
Divergence in Economic Performance since 1950 (1990 PPP Dollars)
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4.2. Proximate, Intermediate, and Ultimate Sources of Growth and Development • 100 9.1. 14.1.
Mortality Cause by Country Income Level, 2008
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Absolute Numbers of the Tertiary Age Population Enrolled in Tertiary Studies by World Region, 1970–2009 • 343
14.2. Percentage of the Tertiary Age Population Enrolled in Tertiary Studies (Gross Enrollment Ratio), 1970–2009 • 344
ix
14.3.
Global Numbers of International Mobile Students, 1975–2009
• 346
14.4. Numbers of and Change in International Students by Destination Region, 2000–2010 • 348 20.1.
Dynamics of China’s Developmental Model
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493
20.2. Purchasing Manager Index of China (Official and HSBC indices), 2006–13 • 494 20.3. Increase in National Income Generated by One Unit of Fixed Asset Investment, 1981–2009 • 495 20.4. Share of Export, Consumption, and Investment in China’s GDP, 1980–2009 • 496 20.5. Composition (%) of Average Rural Household Income, 1986–2009 25.1.
Laborers’ Wages around the World, 1375–1825
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• 498
600
25.2. Subsistence Ratio for Laborers: Income Relative to the Cost of Subsistence Basket, 1375–1875 • 601 25.3.
World Population Growth through History
• 605
25.4. GDP per capita as a Percentage Share of U.S. GDP, Major Emerging Market Regions, 1995–2007 • 611 25.5.
Africa and Other Developing Regions Make Up an Increasing Share of World Population, 1950–2050 • 613
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TABLES AND FIGURES
INTRODUCTION A Manifesto for the Sociology of Development
Samuel Cohn and Gregory Hooks
1. Development is the number one problem facing the world today. Development problems come in two forms: a.
The poverty that comes from insufficient development, and
b.
The poverty, injustice, ecological degradation, and social pathology that come from poorly executed development.
2. Social scientists need to pay more attention to development because it is both the cause of and the solution to much that is wrong with the world. 3. Because sociologists have developed a rich body of theory and analysis that speaks to the questions of insufficient development and misguided development, they can speak in a profound way to address these issues. 4. Sociologists have been largely excluded from policy discussions involving development that have centered on the work of economists, area specialists, and urban planners. Our literature is different than theirs and complementary to theirs—making the inclusion of development sociologists necessary for balance and completeness. 5. Development Sociology has been marginalized within the field of sociology— despite the centrality of development problems both to the founding figures of the discipline and to the evolution of the great sociological debates. 6. Development Sociology cannot be limited to the study of the currently poor nations. The origins of the prosperity of the currently wealthy nations, and
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their contemporaneous struggles to maintain their standards of living in the face of the crises of mature capitalism, are fundamental to the study of development per se. 7. Development Sociology cannot be trivialized by being considered a subbranch of globalization. Many of the most important forces determining the extent both of development itself and of the woes caused by development are strictly local—occurring within nation-states. Yes, international and world-systemic forces of economic and cultural exchange are important and need to be considered. However, analyses that subordinate development to the study of globalization miss many fundamentally local origins of political, economic, social, demographic, and gender-based institutions. The distinctive character of unique societies and institutions is lost by the “All-That-Matters-Is-U.S.Culture-Spreading” parochialism of viewing everything exclusively through a globalization perspective. 8. No country is more important than the rest in the study of development. In the early twentieth century, the world studied Victorian Britain as the key archetype of development. Mid-century, the world considered the United States to be the beau ideal. In the 1980s, Japan supposedly held the secret of economic growth. Currently, the world pays the most attention to recent industrializing nations such as India and China. Exclusive focus on the wealthiest and fastest-growing cases excludes the lessons that can be learned from countries where growth is occurring less dramatically. Often, the fastest growers are outliers, with unique institutions and advantages that cannot be replicated elsewhere. Therefore, careful attention needs to be paid to “the rest of the world,” which may hold the key to the lessons that truly generalize. 9. Development Sociology is strengthened by the diversity of theories and approaches that it embraces. The field comprises many separate subdisciplines, each contributing important insights and findings that are critical to both promoting growth and protecting the people of the world from the by-products of pathological forms of development. Development Sociology is an orchestra with many different instruments. One needs all the sections and all the timbres to get the full, rich symphonic sound. All the subdisciplines of Development Sociology need to be heard—and it is important for specialists within the various areas of Development Sociology to talk to each other. This volume, The Sociology of Development Handbook, strives to place points one through nine on center stage. It reasserts the centrality of the sociology of development to sociology as a whole. It highlights the contribution of sociologists to the field of development. It showcases the ideas and insights of development sociologists and demonstrates the relevance of these ideas and insights to the fundamental problems of the world, both in
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the Global South and in the Global North. Thus, this handbook takes one of the most important bodies of scholarly work ever created to speak to the question of human misery. Development brings connotations of social change, more specifically of change that reduces misery. This manifesto strives to put sociology’s insights at the center of intellectual work about human misery and to place the implications of its research at the forefront of public policy. There is widespread dissatisfaction with the economistic understanding of development. Although the criticisms and alternatives put forth by sociologists have contributed, the most influential critiques have come from economists (such as Paul Krugman, Jeffrey Sachs, and Amartya Sen) and from political actors (social movements, practitioners, and policymakers) in the Global South (Shah 2009, 10–11). Contemporary approaches exemplify a concern for: (1) “human development,” emphasizing human capabilities and freedoms (Sen 1999); (2) inclusiveness, especially with regard to gender (see the chapters by Rae Lesser Blumberg and Valentine Moghadam in this volume); and (3) an institutional turn that situates economic dynamics in a broader social, cultural, and political context (Evans 2005). The emphasis on inclusiveness and human capabilities coupled with an institutional turn shifts development studies to a terrain in which the full potential of sociological contributions can be realized. To take full advantage of this intellectual opening, sociological insights and research must be deployed to define the agenda and answer the central questions. This is a central challenge confronting the sociology of development.
WHY THE SOCIOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENT IS NOT “ G L O B A L I Z AT I O N ” S T U D I E S O R “ T H I R D W O R L D ” S T U D I E S
Before reviewing theoretical approaches, it is important to distinguish the sociology of development from globalization studies or the study of the Third World. For the purposes of understanding the causes and consequences of development, the latter categories conflate an entire field of scholarly inquiry with one currently popular theory or one interesting geographical area. Development has many causes and has occurred in many human societies. Because development has followed very different paths, understanding the past comparatively sheds light on contemporary dynamics and challenges. It is a pervasive social phenomenon. It occurs in rich countries and poor countries. It has long-standing historical roots. It has its origins in a rich texture of social, cultural, economic, and political factors that can range from the most local and micro-level to truly global factors at the macro-social level. Globalization, by contrast, is a theory (or, more precisely, a set of theories) that attempt to understand economic and cultural interchange operating at a world-wide level (Schaeffer 1997; Ritzer 2011). Most globalization theorists (but not all) argue that the world is becoming rapidly homogenized and that transnational actors are particularly important in shaping local economic, cultural, and political outcomes.
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Some development processes are closely tied to globalization. Others are not. Dependency theorists and world-systems theorists have developed compelling models that prioritize external constraints on growth that are brought about by world markets, international economic exchange, and the imperialism of the stronger nations (Frank 1967; Arrighi 1994; Babones 2009). Modernization theorists (Hoselitz 1954)—and, using a completely different logic, world culture theorists (Boli and Thomas 1999)— have emphasized the widespread diffusion of Western ideology and organizational practices. However, many processes continue to be quite local—and are based on distinctive, particularistic arrangements that have their basis at the micro rather than the international level. Countries, regions, and even villages get a vote in how they develop, and they have some ability to make independent decisions (maybe trivial, maybe profound) based on their own unique circumstances. Two obvious examples come from the spheres of demography and state-led development. Development is heavily shaped by demographic factors. The exact timing of declines in fertility and mortality has enormous consequences for female labor force participation, investment in education, and saving for old age. Some of these declines undoubtedly have international origins. American transnational organizations and foreign aid programs were instrumental in promoting the use of effective contraception in much of the Third World (Poston and Bouvier 2010, chap. 13; Hodgson and Watkins 1997). The rise of Western education helped to lower fertility, and the rise of Western medical and public health techniques helped to lower mortality. However, individual choices involving fertility or health practices often came from local considerations, such as the opportunities for female employment given the exact mix of industries and farming practices in an area, the extent to which a region’s government has been aggressive or not in promoting education and women’s access to education, the role of local religious institutions’ interpretation of doctrine regarding the desirability or non-desirability of contraception, and cultural norms involving family size, sexuality, dating, and marriage. Many nations have resisted the adverse economic impacts of globalization by creating states that work to produce locally controlled and endogenous growth. The developmentalist states of East Asia are the most famous cases of this (Wade 1990; Woo-Cumings 1999). However, the import substitution regimes of mid-century Latin America as well as the “dependent developers” (states that permitted multinational penetration but then restricted the autonomy of these corporations by hard bargaining and regulation) all limited the impact of international market forces on local growth (Prebisch 1950; Evans 1979). Although the ability of semi-peripheral nations has been constrained or facilitated by international geopolitical considerations (Cumings 1984), much of the impetus for the creation of these regimes was local, and it was based on factors such as state autonomy, the weakness of the agrarian elite, and discretionary developmentalist mobilization within the military or the academic community (Chibber 2006; Johnson 1982).
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Of course, one of the most important determinants of the path of development in the late twentieth century was the rise of market reform in the formerly Communist bloc. Those nations approached the question of market liberalization in very different ways, varying from the near neoliberalism of Albania to the continued autarky of North Korea to the sophisticated developmental statism of China. The determinants of which direction the various countries took was nearly always local—with subtle differences in legislation or in state finance having profound effects on subsequent outcomes (Stark and Bruszt 1998; Walder 1994). Just as the study of development is not the study of globalization, it is also not exclusively the study of the Third World. Development is a general process of economic growth, including all of the social change that is associated with both growth and the retardation of growth. The experiences of Europe and America are not irrelevant to the study of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Likewise, the study of the historical origins of capitalism and industrialization are not irrelevant to an understanding of the contemporary period. Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism ([1904–5] 1976), Karl Marx’s Capital ([1867] 1976), and Immanuel Wallerstein’s The Modern World-System (1974) are all classics in the sociology of development that deal with the causes of economic growth in Europe before 1900. The tensions between agrarian elites and merchants in seventeenth-century Britain that are analyzed by Richard Lachmann (2000) are profoundly relevant to a class alliance theory of Latin American development such as that put forward by Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1971). The problems that a regional developmentalist might face in understanding the continuing economic decline of Upstate New York can be informed by a consideration of parallel processes in other developed settings, such as Wallonia (Belgium), or by the challenges of underdeveloped regions in poorer nations, such as northeastern Brazil. Any assessment of Military Keynesianism—or the role of military spending in the promotion or retardation of economic growth—has to consider not only the classic case of Wilhelmine Germany and the role of the military-industrial complex in mid-century America but also the unresolved question of the impact of military spending on the semiperipheral economy of Israel and the unexamined issue of the role of the military in the rapid growth of China, Taiwan, and South Korea. Moreover, it continues to be an open question whether the smallscale civil wars of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Latin America—all fought with imported arms—impeded or was irrelevant to the larger path of economic growth. Development is a process that combines all of the social, economic, political, and cultural forces that make up a society—as well as both local and global dynamics—and interweaves contemporaneous events with historical legacies. Development is profoundly synthetic. There are few analytic traditions, methodologies, theories, regions, or historical periods that do not inform this process in some way. It therefore follows that the study of development needs to be profoundly synthetic, as well. Development sociologists are and need to be intellectually and theoretically diverse. They need to be aware of the full range of scholarship in their own field, of course, as well as in economics, political science, history, anthropology, gender studies, and area
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studies. Just as importantly, scholars in economics, political science, history, anthropology, gender studies, and area studies need to be aware of the work being done in development sociology. Qualitative and ethnographic works make a contribution. Archival work makes a contribution. Statistical and econometric work makes a contribution. Intellectual cross-fertilization is vital, both across the subspecialties of development sociology and between development sociology and the other disciplines that study development. This handbook is an attempt to speak to both of these needs. The basic traditions of the subfields of development sociology are systematically laid out, allowing scholars within our discipline to see a mapping of the state of our art as it now exists. Non-sociology scholars can also examine this volume and see the contribution our field can make to the study of development within other fields. By breaking down the barriers that have divided academicians from each other, we hope to create an informed understanding of the very complicated business of development—which too long has been hampered by partial models, constrained methodologies, and parochial concerns not only of academic disciplines but also of schools within each discipline. It is time to break down the walls and to synthesize.
HOW THE SOCIOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENT DIVERGED FROM DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
Contradictory dynamics are at work with regard to economics and the sociological study of development. For most of the past half-century, economic theories and economistic reasoning dominated the study of development (academic and policy). Development was reduced to economic growth, industrialization, or capital accumulation (Pieterse 2010). In the 1950s and 1960s, the sociology of development did not disagree—and, as a result, it was more prominent than it is today and shaped larger policy debates on social conditions in the Third World, albeit using models that are now considered outmoded. The sociological contribution typically focused on modernization, specifically the growing social complexity and division of labor that facilitated and resulted from economic growth (Eisenstadt 1974). Positing that modern societies possessed a set of characteristics that had allowed them to advance economically, modernization theory focused on strategies to facilitate a transition from traditional (concentrated in the Global South) to modern (Global North) economies (Rostow 1960). Complementing and informed by modernization theory, functionalism argued that the features of 1950s Anglo-American society represented universal adaptive advantages. In this sense, functionalism was an offshoot of development sociology. The development aspect of functionalism was made most explicit in Neil Smelser’s Social Change in the Industrial Revolution (1959), a book that devoted half of its space to explaining the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Modernization theory—and the American development economics that coexisted with it—were blind to relationships of exploitation and domination between the richer and the poorer nations and blind to patriarchic gender relations that were pervasive
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throughout the world and in development efforts of the period. In some respects, development sociologists and economists collaborated fruitfully on several benign policy initiatives that probably improved human welfare and raised standards of living. The functionalists favored increasing education as a tool for promoting modern attitudes, reducing ethnic discrimination as an intervention to diminish ascriptive limits on individual achievement, promoting female labor force participation (for much the same reason), expanding democracy as a proactive policy to dampen social conflicts, expanding welfare states as a strategy for societal legitimation, supporting population control as an integral part of moving social functions from the family to larger social units, and (less helpfully) inducing urbanization and the creation of capital-intensive high technology factories to promote economic growth. Development economists and sociologists shared the urban industrial bias embedded in modernization theories, and they believed that the expansion of education, mass media, and fertility control would serve as the foundation for this shift. This led to some interdisciplinary collaboration in development projects. The most important of these was the receptiveness of the development community to initiatives by demographers to combat the “population bomb.” This led to well-funded and well-designed programs to promote the use of modern contraception in the Global South, which had a marked impact on reducing levels of fertility throughout the lessdeveloped world and were integral to promoting the rates of rapid economic growth now observed in East Asia. However, as sociological theory outgrew functionalism, it also advanced beyond the limits of the reductionist market-based models of development economics practiced at the time. Two fundamental critiques of the modernization perspective powered new and bold initiatives within development sociology: the rise of neo-Marxist and dependency theory–related considerations of the international reproduction of underdevelopment, and the feminist critique of theories of development and the policies that flowed from these theories. We consider each in turn.
T H E H I S TO R I C A L M AT E R I A L I S T R E C O N S I D E R AT I O N O F I M P E R I A L I S M A N D E X P L O I TAT I O N
Beginning in the 1960s and gaining momentum thereafter, sociological theories turned away from Talcott Parsons’s functionalism and his interpretation of Émile Durkheim and Max Weber. Theorizing turned to Marx and to critical interpretations of Weber, emphasizing power and inequality. With the mainstream approach reducing development to economic growth (or stagnation), the richness of social life and sociology’s concern for power, institutions, gender, race, ethnicity, and culture were too often treated as afterthoughts or ignored altogether. In this context, the “sociology of development abandoned modernization theory for underdevelopment theory, world systems’ analyses, and state orchestrated growth” (Burawoy 2005, 6). Sociologists played a prominent role in
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developing critical theoretical approaches that drew attention to power, inequality, gender, and race (McMichael 1996). As critic of the mainstream, the sociology of development highlighted the underside of economic growth, linking growth in the Global North to underdevelopment and distorted development in the Global South. Underdevelopment theory rejected the orthodox economistic theories of development and its sociological companion, modernization theory. Relationships rooted in imperialism and colonialism were at once fundamental to the rise of the West and central to the structural underdevelopment of the rest of the world (Amin 1977; Baran 1957; Baran and Sweezy 1966; Evans 1979; Frank 1978). Theories of underdevelopment emphasized conflict, imperialism, and exploitation to explain poverty in the Global South, and these themes were also emphasized in the study of race, class, and poverty in the Global North. The emphasis on underdevelopment and uneven development was woven into an integrated and far-reaching theoretical system by Wallerstein in The Modern World-System. The world-systems approach emphasized the economic and geopolitical development of Western Europe and linked this to the relative decline of Eastern Europe, Asia, and Latin America. That is, the development of affluent nations cannot be understood in isolation from relations of exploitation with other regions of the world, and placing Europe and North America on a pedestal obscures and underestimates the importance of East Asia, especially China, in the past, at present, and in the future. The turn to underdevelopment theory marked a significant divergence between development sociology and development economics. Traditional economists have always been lukewarm, at best, about arguments that market processes lead to suboptimal outcomes. Intellectual differences became hardened after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Many economists and policymakers, enthralled by neoliberalism, enthusiastically embraced laissezfaire and a complete deconstruction of the state, and they proclaimed that a market economy—freed of institutional impediments—would rapidly bring about robust economic growth, an improvement in standards of living, a reduction of social inequality, and thriving, fair democracies (Williamson 1990). Neoliberal reforms failed miserably—and they failed precisely because they ignored the institutional and social realities that are the main focus of development sociology. Although powerful political and economic actors remain committed to neoliberalism, there are powerful countervailing forces at work. For example: 1. Neoliberal development policies assumed that demolishing the state would increase growth by eliminating bureaucratic obstacles to free enterprise and reducing market distortions stemming from government corruption. Development sociologists had argued that the state is fundamental to creating the institutions that produce economic growth—and that instrumentalist control of new states by local elites would ensure the reproduction of corruption and class privilege. As anticipated by sociological theories and critics, the gutting of tariff barriers, state enterprises, educational systems, health systems, and the
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social safety net led to a drastic fall in economic growth and welfare. Moreover, old elites were able to reproduce their oligopolistic advantages under the new institutional arrangements. 2. Neoliberal development economists argued that opening any and all markets to foreign capital would produce dramatic growth from new investment. Development sociologists made the case that foreign direct investment can often be harmful by promoting capital repatriation, stifling local research and development, and substituting capital-intense for labor-intense production. In fact, many of the old problems associated with multinational corporations returned (though, to be fair, few development sociologists in 1990 would have predicted the dominance of Nike-ism and labor-intense global outsourcing). 3. Traditional (and neoliberal) development economists saw the dynamics of Third World debt simply in terms of protecting the integrity of international capital markets and eliminating the moral hazard associated with nonrepayment of debt. Development sociologists could have warned that draconian repayment plans—and the reduction of state capacity associated with them— would have led not only to delegitimation of international capital and the rise of antiglobalization processes but also to an exacerbation of regional and ethnic tensions, the rise of indigenous mobilization against the development project, and an increase in violence, crime, and narcotraffic as a financially depleted state lost its capacity to effectively control international crime cartels. All of these were “social” rather than “economic” factors, but the consequences they had for economic life was enormous. 4. Ignoring the political and institutional preconditions for growth made traditional development economics poorly equipped to predict the rise of the dirigiste East Asian tiger economies—and their overwhelmingly superior performance in comparison to the more free market Latin American, East European, and African economies. This poor empirical fit became particularly marked in the aftermath of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, when the nations that recovered the most quickly were precisely those that eschewed the neoliberal recommendations of the International Monetary Fund in favor of maintaining political controls over critical aspects of economic life. In contrast, such patterns were far more consistent with the models of development sociology that emphasized exactly the kinds of programs that were widespread in East Asia.
THE FEMINIST CRITIQUE OF THE NEGLECT OF SOCIAL R E P R O D U C T I O N A N D PAT R I A R C H Y
At the same time as neoliberal reforms were failing, feminist scholars were criticizing traditional development economics for an excessively market-oriented approach that
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reduced all actors to genderless profit maximizers producing and exchanging goods in cash-based markets. Such analyses failed to understand the importance and contribution of the creation of goods by women in households—a crucial omission in the analysis of subsistence economies (Boserup 1970). This omission continues to be relevant, even as market relations grow in importance, both because of the prevalence in the secondary sector of family micro-enterprise and because of the importance of the reproduction of the labor supply to the capitalist waged sector (Rai 2002). Scholars contributing to the gender-in-development literature also examined the claim that economic actors are narrowly economic beings who are indifferent to questions of gender, power within the family, or sexuality. They argued, in contrast, that gender scripts, patriarchy, struggles for personal autonomy, and cultural understandings regarding identity, affective relationships, and morality were as least as important as profit maximization per se and would produce different social outcomes than those that would be expected strictly from profit maximization. The omission of women’s contribution to the economy has led to a wide variety of errors. The economic value of women’s work was profoundly underestimated in subsistence agriculture and in the informal sector (Benaria 1992; Boserup 1970). In a subsistence economy, not measuring the primary source of food and clothing production led to absurd undervaluation of the contributions of peasants to the economy and calls into question the accuracy of GDP statistics (Jerven 2013). More seriously, just as the comparable-worth theorists showed that occupations are undervalued because they are staffed by women (England 1992), in development, agriculture and micro-enterprise were undervalued by modernization theorists and development economists. This oversight is a direct result, in large measure, of women producing these goods and providing these services. The results for theory and practice were disastrous. In the 1960s and 1970s, development economists recommended the wholesale moving of people out of the countryside into the city, and out of farming into heavy industry, which produced massive disarticulation, created large numbers of unemployed urban slum dwellers, gutted food sovereignty and sustainable agriculture, and created the mammoth social inequalities that continue to plague the Global South today (Szirmai 2005). Contemporary development thinking has taken the feminist critique to heart and has revalorized both domestic agriculture and the informal economy—placing especial emphasis on supporting women’s productive roles in both sectors (FAO 2011; Yunus and Jolis 2003). Although the implementation of these initiatives often leaves much to be desired from a feminist or progressive standpoint (Visvanathan and Yoder 2011), these do represent improvements that have directly emerged from the gender and development literature. The feminist critique of modernization theory and development economics has also asserted the primacy of patriarchy and gendered scripts as independent determinants of development outcomes. Among the most important of these are the reproduction of gendered differentials in pay and the incorporation of these differentials into manufacture within global commodity chains, the seizure of agricultural and trading opportuni-
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ties by men, the restriction of female education, and severe restrictions on female employment in public settings. Feminist scholars were among the first writers to note the predominance of cheap female labor in light manufacture in international commodity chains (Fernández-Kelly 1984; Dunaway 2001); essentially, Nike-ism is gendered. In the Global South, women work in textile and computer factories despite very low wages. Superficially, this is unremarkable, since there is surplus labor in nearly all underdeveloped economies—making wages low for men and women alike (Lewis 1954). However, the literature on women in global sweatshops shows that, even in the poorer nations, women’s wages are lower than those of men (Benaria 2001). A gendered structure of privilege exists that gives men higher salaries and women lower salaries even under conditions of chronic labor market slackness. This lowers women’s wages below those expected by market levels. Furthermore, this gendered inequality increases the amount of global production that gets outsourced to the Third World beyond that expected by gender-blind processes. Diane Elson and Ruth Pearson (1981) reinforce this argument by arguing that the female manual dexterity sought in such work settings has its origins in the social construction of gender difference. An even larger distortion of market outcomes by gendered process is the male capture of occupations and work settings that represent prime economic opportunities. This includes the removal of women from activities that were previously female and in which they had accumulated significant human and social capital. Within formal urban labor markets, this occurs through occupational sex-typing (Cohn 1985). In agricultural or informal settings, it occurs when men seize newly profitable farming or trading activities that had previously been women’s work (Boserup 1970; Heyzer 1986). These seizures are made possible by national and local authorities who control access to land, capital, or water and deal only with male cultivators and male family members. In a number of countries, political authorities restrict travel by female traders, forcing them to cede the more lucrative long-distance business to men (Boserup 1970; Heyzer 1986). The motivations for this are almost always cultural. For example, within the Middle Eastern context, Moghadam (1993) argues that such exclusion stems both from some traditional Islamic views and from a male indifference to profit maximization associated with the presence of a rentier state. The by-product of such exclusion is often underdevelopment. As women entrepreneurs are forced out, their accumulated human and social capital is removed as well, lowering the total potential activity of the sector. Blumberg (2009) argues that gender is a key “missing variable” that predicts important development outcomes. At the macro-level, increasing female education raises GDP growth rates (Dollar and Gatti 1999). At the micro-level, gender exclusion leads to reduced crop yields (Jones 1983). At the social level, societies with high female labor force participation are less likely to have deadly armed conflict within their borders (Caprioli 2005). And, at the level of human welfare, countries with high women’s status have lower infant mortality even after controlling for other measures of development (York and Ergas 2011).
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BRINGING DEVELOPMENT SOCIOLOGY INTO THE LARGER DEVELOPMENT DISCOURSE
There is now substantial interest within development economics in reconsidering general models of growth to realign them with the new empirical findings of the past twenty years (Meier and Stiglitz 2000; Chang 2003; Fine 2003). The new development economics is very exciting. Much of what is being imported, however, comes from development sociology. Development will continue to be a sociological process as much as an economic one—and the various strands of development sociology all make a contribution to the understanding of these new dynamics. Peter Evans (2005) identifies an institutional turn in the study and practice of development. This has emerged from a deep dissatisfaction with defining development in terms of capital accumulation (or amassing economic resources). Instead, Karla Hoff and Joseph Stiglitz (2001, 389) argue that development is a “process of organizational change.” Evans points out that development requires more than organizational change narrowly conceived: “Along with organizations, culture and norms are also involved. The role of power in shaping both organizational structures and culture is central” (2005, 91). Whereas the older neoclassical models could only interpret organizational change through the lens of methodological individualism and instrumentally rational choices, the broader conception advanced by Evans demands a more textured understanding of institutions. To meet this challenge and to take advantage of current opportunities, sociology’s multifaceted insights into institutions and institutional change must be integrated into the study and practice of development. Sociology’s emancipatory instincts continue to redefine the terms of debate over development, following a path blazed by the historical materialist and feminist critics of traditional development (as discussed above). There is more to human welfare and to humane development than GDP per capita alone. An ideal development would be egalitarian, nonviolent, ecologically sustainable, democratic, and nonpatriarchic, and it would respect the rights of the weak (as well as the strong). Nonideal development strategies— ones that are inegalitarian, violent, ecologically destructive, authoritarian, and exclusionary—represent classical contradictions between the forces and relations of production. They undercut the long-term viability of capital accumulation, even if these abuses have their origins in short-term profit maximization strategies. Non-emancipatory development throttles the long-term viability of development. Social justice and development often seem incompatible in the short term. Yet, in the long run, social injustice imposes steep economic and human costs. Inegalitarian development leads to social unrest and popular mobilization, as the losers in the development process choose to delegitimate the forces of economic growth and support programs more narrowly focused on redistribution. Violent development leads to a movement of talent and human energy away from entrepreneurship and investment and into defensive coercion and predation. Both property rights (in the abstract) and people’s lives and well-being (in the concrete) become
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tenuous and endangered. Education and science fall by the wayside as youth take up arms rather than going to school. Governance involves channeling immediate benefits to one’s allies rather than technocratic planning. All of these lower the long-term prospects for growth. Ecologically unsustainable development leads to the exhaustion of once-plentiful mineral resources, the desertification of land, the pollution and toxification of centers of tourism and leisure (not to speak of natural beauty or biodiversity), and an increase in catastrophes of all sorts. These issues also surface when the focus is on land. Development brings an intensification of land use; the human impact on land is pronounced and poised to accelerate in the twentieth century. To understand the implications of these changes—for human societies and for the environment—demands a consideration of the bottom-up and top-down dynamics at work. Patriarchic development reduces education levels and increases fertility growth and the concomitant dependency burden. Among poverty populations, restricting women’s access to work outside the home or limiting the availability of capital to men reduces micro-enterprise, increases disarticulation, and reduces both income levels and the size of the internal market. Patriarchy also increases social conflict over gender privilege and retards the advancement of civil institutions and democracy. Development sociologists agree that development cannot be reduced to abstract economic trends and have demonstrated that a broader range of social and political factors need to be put on the agenda. However, there is less agreement on the precise definition of an alternative conceptualization of “good development” that would be a replacement for GDP per capita alone. One alternative is the “capability approach” and its shift in focus to freedoms and to “what people are effectively able to do and to be; that is, on their capabilities” (Robeyns 2005, 94). Amartya Sen, Nobel Prize laureate in economics, played a pivotal role in placing the capabilities approach at the forefront. He makes the case that the overarching goal of development must be insuring that people can “lead the kind of lives they value— and have reason to value” (1999, 18). This shift in emphasis has had a widespread impact on academia (see, e.g., Nussbaum 2003; Sen 1999), and it has transformed goal-setting in the realm of policy (Fukuda-Parr 2004). In Sen’s framework, human development is inherently linked to and built upon the expansion of human freedom (Feldman and Gellert 2006, 442). This shift has been embraced by a wide range of practitioners, with the United Nations prominent among them. Both the U.N. Development Programme Human Development Reports and the rationale for the Millennium Development Goals have been influenced by this shift (Fukuda-Parr 2003; see also Alkire 2009; Pieterse 2010). Another alternative is critical post-developmentalism. This work primarily focuses on the short-term pathologies carried out in the name of development and questions the intrinsic viability of the development project. This literature has its antecedents in empirical examinations of the adverse effects of neoliberalism, international debt, and
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globalization (George 1989; Hoogvelt 2001; Sklair 2002). New questions emerged about the unequal and uneven impacts of such programs on a range of factors, such as health, education, and income, the penetration of transnational corporations into newly liberalized markets, and the increasing role of NGOs in the implementation of broad development agendas and in national politics. These concerns have crystallized into a post-development critique (McMichael 1996). Post-development thinkers have begun to reconsider the whole development enterprise, exploring how the development narrative made unrealistic assumptions about poverty and underdevelopment, and how to address it through coordinated international policies. Development discourse and its structuring of development programs and practices came under particularly critical scrutiny (Ferguson 1994; Rahnema and Bawtree 1997). Such studies highlighted both the institutional structures and logics that enabled particular development interventions and the complicated meanings and mappings of power involved in the implementation of such projects (Escobar 1994; Mosse 2005). While post-development thought opens up a range of new areas of inquiry in the study of development, debate remains active over whether such post-development thought itself overstates its case and, in doing so, precludes the possibilities of positive development interventions in the lives of those living in poverty (Berger 1995; Kiely 1999). It would be a mistake to overlook the vital importance of economic resources. Sociologists of nearly every persuasion are in favor of raising indicators of human development. We prefer low infant mortality to high infant mortality. We are in favor of increasing education at the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. We prefer societies with gender equality rather than societies with gender inequality. And, naturally, we do not want to see a large percentage of the population living below the poverty level. Raising GDP per capita is associated with each of these indicators of human well-being moving in the desired direction (see, e.g., Firebaugh and Beck 1994). Across the spectrum—and not only when focused on development—sociology has a rich tradition of focusing on inequality and differences in power. As noted, both the feminist and the historical materialist critique of traditional development brought issues of inequality and power to the forefront. In turn, sociology has much to contribute to the study of human capabilities (see, e.g., Lobao 2004; Pedersen 2004; Sen 1985; Townsend 1985). Furthermore, sociological research and insights into race, ethnicity, class, and environmental inequality can play a pivotal role in creating and sustaining an understanding of development that focuses on human capabilities and freedom. Finally, complementing insights into the various dimensions of inequality, sociology has a sustained record of examining agency and autonomy, contentious politics, and social change from below. Evans (2005) argues that this “institutional turn” creates a unique opportunity. It also poses daunting challenges. Sociologists “can no longer hide behind the excuse that the intellectual dominance of economic theories built on atomistic individuals and self-regulating markets leaves other disciplines no viable theoretical space for the exposition of their ideas” (Evans 2005, 105). In recognition of this opportunity, this handbook is a
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manifesto that stakes out sociology’s contributions and potential. In recognition of the daunting challenges, we extend an invitation to scholars and practitioners to take full advantage of the feminist critique and research agenda, the institutional turn, and the focus on human capabilities that are central to the sociology of development.
REFERENCES
Alkire, Sabina. 2009. Human Development: Definitions, Critiques, and Related Concepts. United Nations Development Programme (Human Development Reports) 2010/01. Accessed Jan. 25, 2012. http://www.ophi.org.uk/human-development-definitions-critiques-and-relatedconcepts/. Amin, Samir. 1977. Imperialism and Unequal Development. New York: Monthly Review Press. Arrighi, Giovanni. 1994. The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power and the Origins of Our Times. London: Verso. Babones, Salvatore J. 2009. The International Structure of Income: Its Implications for Economic Growth. Saarbruecken: VDM Publishers. Baran, Paul. 1957. The Political Economy of Growth. New York: Monthly Review Press. Baran, Paul, and Paul Sweezy. 1966. Monopoly Capital. New York: Monthly Review Press. Benaria, Lourdes. 1992. “Accounting for Women’s Work: Progress of Two Decades.” World Development 20: 1547–60. . 2001. “Shifting the Risk: New Employment Patterns, Informalization, and Women’s Work.” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 15, no. 1: 27–53. Berger, Mark. 1995. “Post–Cold War Capitalism: Modernization and Modes of Resistance after the Fall.” Third World Quarterly 16: 717–28. Blumberg, Rae. 2009. “The Consequences of Women’s Economic Empowerment and Disempowerment: From a ‘Magic Potion’ for Development to the ‘Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’?” Paris and Bangkok: Research Paper Presented to UNESCO. Boli, John, and George Thomas, eds. 1999. Constructing World Culture: International Organizations since 1875. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Boserup, Ester. 1970. Women’s Role in Economic Development. London: George Allen and Unwin. Burawoy, Michael. 2005. “For Public Sociology.” American Sociological Review 70: 4–28. Caprioli, Mary. 2005. “Primed for Violence: The Role of Gender Inequality in Predicting Internal Conflict.” International Studies Quarterly 49: 161–78. Cardoso, Fernando Henrique. 1971. Politics and Development in Dependent Societies. Rio de Janeiro: Zohar. Chang, Ha-Joon, ed. 2003. Rethinking Development Economics. London: Anthem Press. Chibber, Vivek. 2006. Locked in Place: State Building and Late Industrialization in India. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Cohn, Samuel. 1985. Process of Occupational Sex-typing: Feminization of Clerical Labor in Great Britain. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Cumings, Bruce. 1984. “Origins and Development of the Northeast Asian Political Economy.” International Organization 38: 1–40.
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Dollar, David, and Roberta Gatti. 1999. “Gender Inequality, Income, and Growth: Are Good Times Good for Women?” World Bank Policy Research Report on Gender and Development. Working Paper Series 1. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. Dunaway, Wilma. 2001. “Double Register of History: Situating the Forgotten Woman and Her Household in Capitalist Commodity Chains.” Journal of World-Systems Research 7: 2–29. Eisenstadt, Shmuel Noah. 1974. “Studies of Modernization and Sociological Theory.” History and Theory 13: 225–52. Elson, Diane, and Ruth Pearson. 1981. “ ‘Nimble Fingers Make Cheap Workers’: An Analysis of Women’s Employment in Third World Export Manufacturing.” Feminist Review 7: 87–107. England, Paula. 1992. Comparable Worth: Theories and Evidence. New York: Aldine Press. Escobar, Arturo. 1994. Encountering Development. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Evans, Peter. 1979. Dependent Development. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. . 2005. “The Challenges of the ‘Institutional Turn’: Interdisciplinary Opportunities in Development Theory.” In The Economic Sociology of Capitalist Institutions, edited by Victor Nee and Richard Swedberg, 90–116. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). 2011. Women in Agriculture: Closing the Gender Gap in Development. New York: FAO. Feldman, Shelley, and Paul Gellert. 2006. “The Seductive Quality of Central Human Capabilities: Sociological Insights into Nussbaum and Sen’s Disagreement.” Economy and Society 35: 423–52. Ferguson, James. 1994. The Anti-Politics Machine: ‘Development,’ Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Fernández-Kelly, Patricia. 1984. For We Are Sold, I and People: Women and Industry on Mexico’s Frontier. Albany: SUNY Press. Fine, Ben. 2003. Development Policy in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Routledge. Firebaugh, Glenn, and Frank Beck. 1994. “Does Growth Benefit the Masses? Growth Dependence and Welfare in the Third World.” American Sociological Review 59: 631–53. Frank, Gunder Andre. 1967. Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America. New York: Monthly Review Press. . 1978. Dependent Accumulation and Underdevelopment. New York: Monthly Review Press. Fukuda-Parr, Sakiko. 2003. “The Human Development Paradigm: Operationalizing Sen’s Ideas on Capabilities.” Feminist Economics 9: 301–17. . 2004. “Millennium Development Goals: Why They Matter.” Global Governance 10: 395–402. George, Susan. 1989. A Fate Worse Than Debt. London: Penguin Books. Heyzer, Noleen. 1986. Working Women in Southeast Asia: Development, Subordination, and Emancipation. Philadelphia: Open University Press. Hodgson, Dennis, and Susan Watkins. 1997. “Feminists and Neo-Malthusians: Past and Present Alliances.” Population and Development Review 23: 469–523. Hoff, Karla, and Joseph Stiglitz. 2001. “Modern Economic Theory and Development.” In Frontiers of Development Economics: The Future in Perspective, edited by Gerald Meier and Joseph Stiglitz, 389–459. New York: Oxford University Press. Hoogvelt, Ankie. 2001. Globalization and the Postcolonial World: The New Political Economy of Development. London: Palgrave-Macmillan.
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Hoselitz, Bert. 1954. “Problems of Adapting and Communicating Modern Techniques to Less Developed Areas.” Economic Development and Cultural Change 2: 249–69. Jerven, Morten. 2013. Poor Numbers: How We Are Misled by African Development Statistics and What to Do about It. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Johnson, Chalmers. 1982. MITI and the Japanese Miracle: Growth of Industrial Policy 1925–75. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Jones, Christine. 1983. “The Impact of the SEMRY I Irrigated Rice Project on the Organization of Production and Consumption at the Intrahousehold Level.” Report submitted to the U.S. Agency for International Development, Bureau for Program and Policy Coordination. Washington, D.C. Kiely, Ray. 1999. “The Last Refuge of the Noble Savage? A Critical Assessment of Post-Development Theory.” European Journal of Development Research 11: 30–55. Lachmann, Richard. 2000. Capitalists in Spite of Themselves: Elite Conflicts and Economic Change in Early Modern Europe. New York: Oxford University Press. Lewis, Arthur. 1954. “Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labor.” Manchester School 22: 401–49. Lobao, Linda. 2004. “Spatial Inequality: Continuity and Change in Territorial Stratification Processes.” Rural Sociology 69: 1–30. Marx, Karl. (1867) 1976. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. New York: Penguin Books. McMichael, Philip. 1996. Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Pine Forge. Meier, Gerald, and Joseph Stiglitz, eds. 2000. Frontiers of Development Economics. New York: Oxford University Press. Moghadam, Valentine. 1993. Modernizing Women: Gender and Social Change in the Middle East. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Mosse, David. 2005. Cultivating Development. London: Pluto Press. Nussbaum, Martha. 2003. “Capabilities as Fundamental Entitlements: Sen and Social Justice.” Feminist Economics 9: 33–59. Pedersen, Axel. 2004. “Inequality as Relative Deprivation: A Sociological Approach to Inequality Measurement.” Acta Sociologica 47: 31–49. Pieterse, Jan N. 2010. Development Theory: Deconstructions/Reconstructions. 2d ed. Los Angeles: Sage Publications. Poston, Dudley, and Leon Bouvier. 2010. Population and Society. New York: Cambridge University Press. Prebisch, Raul. 1950. Economic Development of Latin America and Its Principal Problems. New York: United Nations. Rahnema, Majid, and Victoria Bawtree, eds. 1997. The Post-Development Reader. London: Zed Books. Rai, Shirin. 2002. Gender and the Political Economy of Development: From Nationalism to Globalization. New York: Polity Press. Ritzer, George. 2011. Globalization: An Introduction. New York: Wiley. Robeyns, Ingrid. 2005. “The Capability Approach: A Theoretical Survey.” Journal of Human Development 6: 93–117.
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Rostow, Walt. 1960. The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto. Cambridge, Engl.: Cambridge University Press. Schaeffer, Robert. 1997. Understanding Globalization: The Social Consequences of Political, Social, and Economic Change. New York: Rowman and Littlefield. Sen, Amartya. 1985. “A Sociological Approach to the Measurement of Poverty: A Reply to Professor Peter Townsend.” Oxford Economic Papers 37: 669–76. . 1999. Development as Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press. Shah, Esha. 2009. Manifesting Utopia: History and Philosophy of UN Debates on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development. STEPS Working Paper 25, STEPS Centre, Brighton (United Kingdom). Accessed Feb. 15, 2012. http://anewmanifesto.org/wp-content/uploads /shah-paper-25.pdf. Sklair, Leslie. 2002. “Transnational Practices and the Analysis of the Global System.” In Globalization in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Alex Hulsemeyer, 15–32. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Smelser, Neil. 1959. Social Change in the Industrial Revolution. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press. Stark, David, and Laszlo Bruszt. 1998. Post Socialist Pathways: Transforming Politics and Property in East Central Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press. Szirmai, Adam. 2005. Dynamics of Socio-Economic Development. New York: Cambridge University Press. Townsend, Peter. 1985. “A Sociological Approach to the Measurement of Poverty: A Rejoinder to Professor Amartya Sen.” Oxford Economic Papers 37: 659–68. United Nations Development Programme. 2015. 25 Years of Human Development. Accessed Oct. 26, 2015. http://hdr.undp.org/en/25-years. Visvanathan, Nalini, and Karla Yoder. 2011. “Women and Microcredit: A Critical Introduction.” In Women, Gender, and Development Reader, edited by Nalini Visvanathan, Lynn Duggan, Nan Wiegersma, and Laurie Nisenoff, 47–54. London: Zed. Wade, Robert. 1990. Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian Industrialization. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Walder, Andrew. 1994. “Decline of Communist Power: Elements of a Theory of Institutional Change.” Theory and Society 23: 297–323. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974. The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press. Weber, Max. (1904–5) 1976. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London: Allen and Unwin. Williamson, John. 1990. “What Washington Means by Policy Reform.” In Latin American Adjustment: How Much Has Happened? edited by John Williamson, 5–20. Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics. Woo-Cumings, Meredith. 1999. Developmental State. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. York, Richard, and Christine Ergas. 2011. “Women’s Status and World System Position: An Exploratory Analysis.” Journal of World-Systems Research 17: 147–64. Yunus, Muhammad, and Alain Jolis. 2003. Banker to the Poor: Microlending and the Battle against World Poverty. Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs.
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PART I
EXPLAINING DEVELOPMENT Sociological Insights
1 ENGENDERING DEVELOPMENT SOCIOLOGY The Evolution of a Field of Research
Valentine M. Moghadam
Is development “good” or “bad” for women? Does development weaken or strengthen patriarchy and gender inequality? In what ways do economic processes affect women’s labor force participation and social positions? How do gender relations change in the course of the social transformations brought about by development and modernization? How do women’s political participation, civil society activism, and other forms of female mobilization change the course of politics or influence institutions and policies? These are among the major questions that have preoccupied feminist sociologists of development, who are situated within the broader field of women, gender, and development.1 The sociology of development and the field of women/gender and development have sometimes intersected but are, in general, parallel fields of research; although gender and development sociologists are fully conversant with the mainstream literature, the reverse typically is not the case. This argument cannot be developed in the present chapter, although it is worth noting that in international policy circles, the work of feminist development researchers from sociology and the other disciplines represented in the field has tended to have some impact on debates and policy initiatives. Here, the main objective is to provide an overview of the evolution of the field of women, gender, and development, with a focus on contributions by sociologists, and to draw attention to the conceptual and empirical contributions of feminist sociologists of development. Over the years, at least two features distinguish feminist development sociology from other streams in the development literature. First are the advocacy underpinnings, wherein most studies have approached issues and problems pertaining to women in the
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development process in terms not only of what is but also of what ought to be. Some studies steeped in Marxist, socialist, or world-systems analysis have offered trenchant critiques of capitalism. Others have been policy-oriented, with recommendations for initiatives or interventions to improve women’s conditions. Most studies have analyzed women’s participation and rights as well as the contributions of female productive and reproductive labor to economic growth, social development, and democratization. Second, feminist development scholarship is characterized methodologically and conceptually by a holistic approach that eschews positivism in favor of broad analysis and mixed methods; studies also have tended to be inter- and cross-disciplinary, approaching questions and problems from a broad perspective and within a complex framework. As such, both the focus on advocacy and the non-positivist method may be said to conform to what has sometimes been called feminist methodology. This overview of the wide-ranging research that constitutes the field of women, gender, and development, focused on the feminist sociology of development, touches on the main issues and debates of the early years, the prescient critique of (capitalist) development and growth, the focus on state policies and institutions in connection with women’s participation and rights, and elucidation of the operations of gender in development policies and projects. Also included is a brief discussion of the shifts from women in development (WID) to women and development (WAD) and finally to gender and development (GAD).
W O M E N A N D G E N D E R E D D E V E L O P M E N T: T H E E A R LY Y E A R S
When theories of economic development were emerging in the 1950s and 1960s, little or no attention was paid to women’s productive roles. In policy circles, if women were discussed at all, it was in relation to their role as mothers, an approach that came to be known as the welfare or motherhood approach. Development was still considered to be a technical problem rather than imbued with political or ideological dimensions. Women and children were regarded as real or potential victims of the disruptive nature of development (or of modernization); the literature thus recommended that development efforts take household welfare into account and ensure that women and children benefited from social and economic change. Here, the domestic and reproductive roles of “Third World” women were emphasized, along with issues pertaining to population, health, nutrition, and literacy (see Moser 1993; Rathgeber 1990; Tinker 1990). In the 1960s and 1970s, Third World states were engaged in modernization and economic development, launching state-owned industries, providing jobs and housing, and subsidizing food and utilities. Development specialists drew attention to the role of the state in the provision of public services such as health and education and in the development of agriculture and the rural sector. The policy field was oriented toward the achievement of “basic needs,” but, on the left, the sociology of development was influenced by theories of development and underdevelopment associated with the Latin
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American “dependency school” and the Marxist approach to capitalism. The writings of Theotonio Dos Santos, Paul Baran, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Andre Gunder Frank, Samir Amin, Walter Rodney, and Immanuel Wallerstein influenced perhaps two generations of development researchers. This is the environment that helped launch research on women and development. In 1970, Danish economist Ester Boserup published a book that would give rise to the new field of study. Offering an ambitious historical analysis, Woman’s Role in Economic Development described “male and female farming systems” and their implications for women’s economic participation; explored the effects of colonialism and development on women and families; and described different patterns of women’s work in rural and urban settings across world regions. A central insight drawn from her fieldwork in Africa was that modern development projects tended to favor men and marginalize women from agricultural activity, and that, by displacing women, development projects unintentionally contributed to lower food production and household poverty. Development projects failed, she argued, because they did not take women into account. Boserup’s study interested some practitioners, policymakers, and advocates, with the result that the U.S. Agency for International Development opened an Office of Women in Development (Tinker 1990). Here the concern was to overturn the marginalization that Boserup had described and ensure that women were adequately integrated into the development process, especially in rural sectors. Thus was born the women-in-development (WID) approach and research community. The WID strategy focused on women as a group and sought to address the exclusion of women from the development process, emphasizing that, if development incorporated and included women’s productive capacity, it would be more efficient. Meanwhile, in sociology, concepts of “sex roles” and “women’s status”—inspired in part by modernization theories—were applied toward an understanding of similarities and differences in women’s social positions across cultures and countries (Abadan-Unat 1981; Giele and Smock 1977; Kagitcibasi 1982; Kandiyoti 1977; Safilios-Rothschild 1971). Janet Giele (1977) offered a useful framework that could be applied cross-nationally, and it seemed informed by feminist concepts of patriarchy and liberal notions of autonomy, equality, and choice. That study and others were occurring in the context of second-wave feminism, which was leading to the formulation of theories of women’s subordination and advocacy for equality. The entry of women into the development arena became a subject of interest to the United Nations and its programs, funds, and specialized agencies. UNESCO monitored progress in literacy and education for women and girls, and it produced reports and datasets that were used by scholars; its director-general expressed support for women’s educational attainment and social participation.2 Issues of women in development were discussed at the first U.N. world conference on women, held in Mexico City in 1975, and became part of the U.N.’s Decade for Women (1976–85): Equality, Development, and Peace. The International Labour Organization—along with its
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secretariat in Geneva, the International Labour Office (ILO)—sponsored studies on the undercounting of women in rural activities and agricultural production (see, e.g., Beneria 1982). WID policy frameworks, replete with checklists, were designed to ensure women’s integration in and benefits from development projects. Many U.S. universities established women-in-development programs, especially at land-grant universities, and, at Michigan State University, sociologist Rita Gallin set up a WID working papers series.3 Women members of the International Sociological Association (ISA) formed the Research Committee on Women in Societies, known as RC-32 and still among the largest of the ISA research committees. Several members—including Fatima Mernissi, Deniz Kandiyoti, and Hanna Papanek—also helped organize a conference at Wellesley College that produced a book on women and national development (Wellesley Editorial Committee 1977). Across the Third World, a stratum of women was becoming educated and finding employment in the growing public sector, but many women remained illiterate and poor. Influenced by both feminist and dependency theories, some WID specialists came to criticize the focus on integration of women into what they regarded as a flawed economic process, and they formulated a line of thinking that came to be known as women and development (WAD). Here emphasis was placed on international inequalities, the persistence of poverty, and the exploitation of women in capitalist development (Beneria and Sen 1981; Fernández-Kelly 1983). It was argued that social inequalities and the longstanding sexual division of labor rendered women subordinate and vulnerable to projects that did not take their interests into account. As patriarchy and capitalism limited the options available to women, women’s advancement was not possible within established structures. WAD took issue with large governmental projects and advocated smaller-scale projects and local participation, calling in part for women-only projects to ensure participation and prevent male domination (Rathgeber 1990). Ecofeminists such as Vandana Shiva, Maria Mies, and Hilkka Pietila formulated profound critiques of development and economic growth as undermining both people’s welfare and the natural environment. Parallel to the WAD critique, scholars writing from within the world-systems theoretical paradigm pointed to processes such as “housewifization” that were generated by capitalist development (von Werlhof 1983; Mies 1986); to the inverse relationship between dependency and the status of women, measured in part by fertility rates (Ward 1984); and to the role of female labor, both paid and unpaid, in the semi-proletarian households of the capitalist world economy (Mies 1982; Smith, Wallerstein, and Evers 1984). In a related but separate line of inquiry, radical economists and Marxist- or socialist-feminist sociologists debated the evolution of the sexual division of labor and its relationship to capitalist development and patriarchy (Barrett 1980; Folbre 1982; Humphries 1991). Both the effects of capitalist development on women and the effects of the sexual division of labor on national and global growth strategies were being studied and theorized, albeit in the absence of consensus on dynamics, outcomes, and solutions.
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I S S U E S A N D D E B AT E S
A debate taking place at the time revolved around whether female labor was being marginalized or integrated into modernization and development, and if development could advance women’s longer-term interests (see, e.g., Moghadam 1992a). Following Boserup and the dependency school, but in a Marxian vein, Heleith Safiotti (1978) made a strong case for female marginalization as a key feature of the capitalist mode of production, arguing that women’s labor was being absorbed into the subsistence / marginal / informal sector of the economy. This was consistent with studies of the growth of the informal sector in the Third World (see, e.g., Portes and Walton 1981). In contrast, John Humphrey (1984) argued that female labor force participation had in fact increased in the Brazilian manufacturing sector as well as in the economy overall. Others began to study the growth of “world market factories” producing garments and electronics along the U.S.-Mexican border and in free trade zones in Southeast Asia (see, e.g., Elson and Pearson 1981; Nash and Fernández-Kelly 1983). Alison MacEwen Scott (1986) used census data and her own field research in Peru to argue against the “marginalization thesis.” Susan Tiano (1987) synthesized the debates by posing the question of whether women were being integrated, marginalized, or exploited by development, and, on the basis of her research on women in the Mexican maquila industry, she concluded that all three were occurring (see also Tiano 1994). Confirming the “integration and exploitation” thesis, studies by other feminist social scientists showed how world market factories in Latin America and Southeast Asia were drawing on cheap female labor to generate profits (Elson and Pearson 1981; Heyzer 1986; Beneria and Roldan 1987). In an influential study, Fred Pampel and Kazuko Tanaka (1986) used data for seventy countries and two time points—1965 and 1970—to conclude that development initially forces women out of the labor force, but at advanced levels it increases female participation. Examining changes in female labor force participation (FLFP) between 1970 and 1980 in South Korea, Sunghee Nam (1991) found support for modernization theory’s prediction of higher levels of FLFP with rising educational attainment and for arguments that economic status and household need propelled women in the labor market in the context of export-led manufacturing. In a crossnational study, Roger Clark, Thomas Ramsbey, and Emily Adler (1991) argued that, though the more developed countries had higher FLFP rates, “culture” as a variable was found to be an explanation for lower levels of female employment in other regions. Some research on women and capitalist development was premised on the Marxist notion of women as a “reserve army of labor,” in that semi-proletarianized women were recruited and expelled as necessary during the course of their life cycle or that of the family. Other researchers stressed the diverse forms of female labor incorporation into the world economy: in productive and reproductive sectors alike, and as wage and nonwage workers (Safa 1995). In the formal sector, female labor seemed to be preferred because it had a lower cost than male labor; it reduced the cost of labor power overall;
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women could be paid less than men for their labor, whether in a factory or in home-based paid labor; and women’s “nimble fingers” were deemed especially suited to the garments and electronics sectors. Ruth Pearson and Swasti Mitter (1993) highlighted the vulnerability of female labor in low-skilled information processing sectors. Policies were thus seen as infused with gendered notions of work, incomes, and household management. For example, women became the target of a new program to alleviate poverty: microlending. Research had found that poor women tended to contribute a higher proportion of their income to family subsistence, holding back less for personal consumption. They were thus deemed to be good borrowers, favored by the microfinance industry (Blumberg 1989a, 2004). Scott put it thus: “[G]ender plays a role in structuring labour markets not just as cheap labour, but as subordinate labour, docile labour, immobile labour, domesticated labour, sexual labour, and so on” (1986, 673). Not only policies but also the economic theories that underpinned them were increasingly seen as gendered, as a growing community of feminist economists found. Diane Elson (1991) and contributors illustrated the “male bias” in neoclassical economic theory as well as in development processes. From a somewhat different perspective, ILO labor economist Guy Standing (1989) offered a new analysis of changing (gendered) production relations under post-Keynesian policy conditions. His influential paper showed that the increasing globalization of production and the pursuit of flexible forms of labor to retain or increase competitiveness, as well as changing job structures in industrial enterprises, favored the “feminization of employment” in the dual sense of an increase in the numbers of women in the labor force and a deterioration of work conditions in terms of labor standards, income, and employment status. The decline of the social power of labor and of trade unions was a contributing factor, he argued.4 The focus on the varied forms of female labor incorporation was reflected in many studies appearing in the 1980s and 1990s of women and development, now fully informed by feminist concepts of the gendered nature of historical and social processes. The new gender-and-development (GAD) field was firmly rooted in feminist theorization of gender as a category of analysis, a source of power and inequality, a social identity, and a social marker or locus of oppression that intersected with others, such as class and race or ethnicity. The category “woman” or “women” was not discarded, but a principal goal now was to elucidate the gendered nature of the institutions, relations, policies, ideologies, and norms that shaped the development process. The social relations of gender were posited as both dependent and independent variables, so to speak, in connection with development. In the GAD perspective, economic or labor market arrangements— whether stable or changing—were infused with gender. An example was the increasing informalization of the labor force. Many GAD studies examined women’s roles in the informal sector, the growth of home-based work, and the informalization of previously formal types of employment (Rakowski 1994; Reddock 1994; Boris and Prügl 1996; Beneria 2001; Purkayastha and Subramaniam 2004).
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Unregistered and small-scale urban enterprises, home-based work, and self-employment fall into the informal sector category, and they include an array of commercial, productive, and service activities—which policymakers later came to celebrate as “entrepreneurship.” Here was a domain that provided cheap goods and services to the poor and thus relieved capital and the state of responsibility for jobs and welfare. Informalization was tied to employer efforts to increase flexibility and lower labor and production costs through subcontracting, but it was also a form of economic survival for semi-proletarian households. Drawing on existing gender ideologies regarding women’s roles and attachment to family, subcontracting arrangements continued to encourage the persistence of home-based work (Beneria and Roldan 1987; Gallin 1996). These observations and arguments seemed to confirm the postulates of world-system theory regarding the role of the household and the housewife in (exploitative) production processes and capital accumulation. Wilma Dunaway argued that commodity chains are embedded in households and that “every node of every commodity chain is embedded in the gendered relations of households” (2001, 11). The hidden inputs of women and households into capitalist commodity chains, she argued, operate at three levels: women bearing and raising successive generations of workers; women’s unpaid labor for the present or future workers in the family/household; and core women diminish their own household hardships because they are subsidized by the peripheral women whose lowpaid and unpaid labor keeps prices low. Dunaway concluded: “If, then, we engender commodity chains, we will discover that the tentacles of the world-system are entwined around the bodies of women” (2001, 23). Other features of women’s labor incorporation described in the literature pertained to unemployment (Moghadam 1995a, 1995b), occupational sex segregation (Anker 1998), women’s poverty and female-headed households (Blumberg 1993; Chant 1995, 2007; Moghadam 1998a), and wage and income disparities. On average, women globally earned 75 percent of men’s wages, with a narrower wage gap in the public sector than in the private sector. Explanations for the gender gap were varied; some theories pointed to lower education and intermittent employment among women workers while others emphasized the presence of gender bias. Research showed that in Ecuador, Jamaica, and the Philippines, women earned less than men in the 1990s despite higher qualifications, a problem that was especially acute in the private sector (World Bank 1995, 41). Labor market segmentation along gender lines perpetuated the income gap. Pearson and Mitter (1993) found that, in the computing and information-processing sectors, the majority of high-skilled jobs went to male workers, whereas women were concentrated in the lowskilled ones. Still, female labor was not in great demand in every region of the world economy. In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), the formal sector remained male dominated (Moghadam 2013b).5 Nor did research find an influx of MENA women in the informal sector (Lobban 1998), contrary to findings for Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. In a number of writings, I attributed low levels of female employment in MENA to the
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regional oil economy (Moghadam 1995c; 1998b, 3; 2005b; 2005c).6 The oil economy plays a key role in determining women’s employment in at least three ways. First, the oil sector is capital-intensive, and, though it employs relatively few workers overall, it is male-intensive. Second, a state’s receipt of oil revenues from export softens the incentive to diversify the economy and open it up to labor-intensive, export-led manufacturing that favors female employment (of the kind that has been characteristic of East and Southeast Asian economies). Third, oil revenues enable high wages for male workers; at the household level, that reality attenuates the need for women to seek employment. I also identified a “patriarchal gender contract” inscribed in Muslim family law as an institutional obstacle (Moghadam 2013b, chap. 3). Indeed, a number of studies emphasized patriarchy—patriarchal relations within the home, patriarchal features of the state, or traditional gender ideologies—as a block on women’s economic participation and agency. Researchers working in this vein were not unaware of the capitalist environment that shaped women’s lives and work, but their studies highlighted the persistence of kinship structures, neopatriarchal states, or conservative ideologies and legal frameworks that limited female labor supply and demand. Anita Weiss (1992, 2010) examined sociocultural constraints on low-income women seeking work in Lahore, Pakistan. Sylvia Walby (1989, 229) referred to “a tension between patriarchy and capitalism over the exploitation of women’s labour.” She also differentiated the “private patriarchy” of the family from the “public patriarchy” of the state. John Lie (1996) examined the shift from “agrarian patriarchy” to “patriarchal capitalism” in the context of capitalist development in South Korea. I distinguished “neopatriarchal” states from developmental and modernizing states, arguing that strong states with the capacity to enforce laws could undermine customary discrimination and patriarchal structures—or they could reinforce them (Moghadam 2013b). The state could enable or impede the integration of women citizens into public life (Moghadam 1992b). As Jean Pyle (1990) found for the Republic of Ireland, state policy could have contradictory goals: development of the economy and expansion of services, on the one hand, and maintenance of the “traditional family,” on the other. Such contradictory goals could create role conflicts for women, who found themselves torn between the economic need or desire to work and the gender ideology that stressed family roles for women. The concept of patriarchy, therefore, was relevant to macro-level analyses of gender relations and of development, although—as Walby (1996, 24) pointed out—it needed to be elaborated in terms of its operations within household work, paid work, the state, male violence, sexuality, and cultural institutions. Some of the most interesting case studies elucidating the tensions between patriarchal structures and ideologies, on the one hand, and the pull of capitalist development, on the other, were by Turkish sociologists. Often ethnographic in nature, their research was premised on the notion of the importance of formal sector labor for women’s empowerment but was also sensitive to working women’s own perceptions and aspirations. Yildiz Ecevit (1991), Hale Bolak (1995), and Nadir Sugur and Serap Sugur (2005)
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explored the extent to which women’s factory employment was leading to a change in the sexual division of labor at home, with mixed findings. In a somewhat different vein, Deniz Kandiyoti’s influential article “Bargaining with Patriarchy” (1988) sought to show how women in different cultural contexts negotiated existing constraints to “maximize security and optimize life options,” with a comparison of coping strategies in sub-Saharan Africa and in the “classic patriarchy” of South Asia and the Muslim Middle East. Across the world, the proletarianization and professionalization of women had cultural repercussions and sometimes entailed backlashes and gender conflicts. In some advanced capitalist countries, working women encountered serious forms of sexual harassment, although this was followed by legal suits, court cases, and new legislation. Mexico saw a series of grisly murders of female factory workers in Ciudad Juarez. In the larger countries of the Middle East, women’s increasing participation in the labor force and growing presence in public space was accompanied in the 1980s by subtle or overt pressures that women conform to religious dictates concerning dress. Hence, in Egypt, many professional women came to don modest dress and to cover their hair. In the early years of the Islamist movements, the influx of women into the workforce raised fears of competition with men, leading to calls for the re-domestication of women, as occurred in Iran immediately after the 1979 Islamic revolution. Later, Islamists in Iran, Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey did not call on women to withdraw from the labor force—indeed, the female adherents of Islamism came to include a segment of the educated and employed female population—but they did insist on veiling, spatial and functional segregation, and the retention of women’s essential role as wife and mother (Moghadam 2013b). Such cultural obstacles and backlashes would seem to mitigate any longer-term benefits to women of the development process. And yet it was also the case that development—and such concomitants as the building of roads, clinics, schools, childcare centers, and universities, along with the creation of jobs in manufacturing, public and private services, and public administration—could provide for both women’s basic needs and their longer-term “strategic interests.”7 These contradictory tendencies continued to generate discussion and debate within the WID / WAD / GAD community.
THE NEOLIBERAL TURN AND FEMINIST DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH
If development had generated debates among WID / WAD / GAD scholars about effects on women’s productive and reproductive roles, the provision of basic needs, and women’s longer-term advancement, there was more consensus regarding the shift from Keynesian and dirigiste economic development to neoliberal economics via stabilization and structural adjustment policies. Indeed, a singular contribution of feminist studies of development lies in this area of research and advocacy. In the 1980s, WAD specialists began to document the adverse effects on poor and low-income women of structural adjustment policies designed by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the U.S.
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Treasury to reduce debt and budget deficits in developing countries in the wake of volatility in commodity and financial markets. Feminist economists Gita Sen and Caren Grown (1987) noted that reduced government social spending meant additional burdens on women for the care of their family members, including children and the elderly, over and above their formal and informal economic activities. They emphasized the onerous nature of poor women’s productive and reproductive labor and the lack of acknowledgment of women’s roles in sustaining households and communities, and they called for the strengthening of women’s movements to oppose the trend toward denationalization and price and trade liberalization. A series of studies then analyzed the impact of structural adjustment on women and the gendered nature of such policies (Bakker 1994; Beneria and Feldman 1992; Blumberg et al. 1995; Catagay and Ozler 1995; Chant 1995; Commonwealth Secretariat 1989; Elson 1991; Joekes 1989; Kabeer 1994; Moghadam 1995a, 1995b, 1998a, 1998b; Sparr 1994). While feminist economists began constructing models of gender and macroeconomics, sociologists drew on Marxist, modernization, stratification, and feminist theories, used a variety of methods, and linked micro- to macrolevels of analysis to explain the differential effects of economic restructuring on female labor and on gender relations.8 As Cathy Rakowski observed: Economic change may be linked—under certain conditions and through women’s increasing incomes relative to men’s—to greater autonomy and decision-making power within the household and community. But under other conditions—especially the appropriation of women’s unpaid labor or declining standards of living in general—economic change may contribute to greater inequality and subordination. These patterns confirm that the household and the family cannot be assumed to be a “unit” of members with mutual interests whose individual actions have as an implicit goal the welfare of the group. (1995, 287)
Further economic change came about through “neoliberal globalization,” which in the 1990s became the buzzwords for the post-Keynesian, post-statist, post-communist turn in international affairs and the global economy. Protectionism and the emphasis on national development were replaced by outsourcing and trade and price liberalization; stable employment was replaced by flexible employment arrangements; and privatization supplanted statist economic strategies. The informal sector, which had been deemed a problem in earlier decades, now became a solution, with the promotion of microlending for poverty-alleviation and small-scale entrepreneurship (Karides 2010). The financial sector had been growing for some time, and now it seemed to be the dominant sector, especially in the economies of the core countries. Globalization was said by its advocates to entail the expansion of a “knowledge economy” through education, technological innovation, skills-building, and business development. But while the knowledge economy has provided rewards for those women with higher education, multiple skills, and mobility, the downside of globalization has been quite deleterious to other groups of women.
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The generation of jobs for women in world factories, free trade zones, or exportprocessing zones (EPZs) has enabled women in many developing countries to earn and control income and to break away from the hold of patriarchal structures, including traditional household and familial relations. However, much of the work available to women is badly paid, or demeaning, insecure, or unhealthy (Blumberg and SalazarParedes 2011), and women continue to face sexual harassment and cultural backlashes, whether in white-collar or blue-collar jobs—even if in many places women working for multinationals in the EPZs are better paid than in domestic firms. Poor working conditions persisted, and the April 2013 disaster in Bangladesh, where over a thousand garment workers were killed and more than two thousand injured when their badly built factory collapsed near Dhaka, was only one of the more tragic examples. In “state socialist” China, rural women sought to escape poverty and patriarchal controls by migrating to urban areas for factory jobs, but work conditions left much to be desired, with many industrial accidents; in addition, laws excluded such migrants from long-term settlement in the city (Lee 1998; Pun 2005). Female labor may have played a major role in the phenomenal growth of China’s export manufacturing, but it did so with little benefit to many of the women workers themselves. Other effects of economic change have included female labor migration across borders and indeed, continents. Women from low-income households have traveled from, for example, the Philippines and Sri Lanka to work as nannies and maids in the Middle East, from Latin America and the Caribbean to do the same in Europe and North America, or from sub-Saharan Africa to work in nursing homes for the elderly in the United States. The remittances sent home by the women workers is an important source of revenue to the sending country, and their labor—whether as nannies, nurses, nursinghome aides, hotel and restaurant staff, or cleaners—is a critical economic contribution to the receiving country (Chang 2000; Pyle 2001; United Nations 2004), forming what some scholars have termed a “global care chain” or a key sector within the “care economy” (Beneria 2008; Folbre 2006; Hondagneu-Sotelo 2001; Moya 2007; Parrenas 2002; Razavi 2007; UNRISD 2005). There remains much scholarly debate, and policy disagreements, about the costs and benefits of labor migration. There is consensus, however, around one of the sadder outcomes of the collapse of communism: the migration of women from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union for work as prostitutes in Western Europe and even Turkey.9 Neoliberal globalization—with its features of under-regulated financial markets and hyper-masculinity among the predominantly male finance workers—produced several serious financial crises between the Asian crisis of 1998 and the Great Recession of 2008, all of which were accompanied by job losses (Moghadam 2011). The gendered nature of neoliberalism was evident not only in the composition and behavior of the financial elite but also in the patterns of unemployment that followed the crises. The global recession that followed the 2008 financial crisis was initially called a “man-cession” due to job losses by men in manufacturing and constructions sectors. Gradually,
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more women lost pink collar and public sector jobs (Gottfried 2013; Rubery and Rafferty 2013). From a WID perspective, with its focus on women’s marginalization and exclusion, the economic disempowerment of large sections of the female population by structural adjustment policies in developing countries, the transitions in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and various financial crises that accompanied neoliberal globalization, would seem to have undermined, set back, or prevented the gains in women’s status, gender relations, and women’s income control that had come about or were expected with educational attainment and other aspects of development and modernization processes. For WAD and GAD researchers, the various transitions, restructurings, and crises reflect both gender and class dynamics. Effects on women depend on social class (or their relationship to the means of production), on positioning within the labor market, on the nature of state policies and legal frameworks, and on the dominant gender ideology. Many feminist researchers agree that neoliberal globalization has led to a polarization of women (and men) in the global economy and in world society: the highly educated with various skills and “cultural capital” have benefited from the availability of professional careers that are stable and well remunerated, whereas those with less education as well as a large proportion of young people are part of what Standing (2011) has termed the global precariat. The economic power of the wealthiest is also translated into political power and even the capacity to define “democracy.” It is perhaps an irony of history that it was during the neoliberal era that the global women’s rights agenda developed most expansively, in the form of international treaties, funding for women’s NGOs, and the design of datasets to measure the progress of women and girls. GAD aligned itself with the global women’s rights agenda, endorsing and promoting such international instruments as the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, and the Millennium Development Goals of 2000–2015. These agreements call for the integration of women and gender issues in all development planning, policies, and projects (“gender mainstreaming”) along with mechanisms such as gender budgets and gender audits to realize the goal of gender equality in such areas as education, employment, and political participation (United Nations 1996). To monitor progress and compare trends, international datasets were developed by U.N. agencies and other international organizations, as well as by groups of academics, with various statistical measures and gender indicators, all now available online. Some include crossnational rankings and indices, such the U.N. Development Programme’s Gender and Development Index, which “engenders” its Human Development Index by accounting for women’s participation and rights; the programme’s Human Development indicators database also includes many indicators on women. More recently, The Economist magazine’s Intelligence Unit provides a “Women’s Economic Opportunity” index and rankings table. The World Bank’s Gender Data Portal provides descriptive statistics and information, and the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap database includes both
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descriptive data and an index. The ILO’s labor force statistics database is gender-disaggregated, and the International Parliamentary Union provides data on women’s political participation, including their share of parliamentary seats. Academics use these international datasets but have also designed their own datasets. These include empowerment measurement frameworks by feminist scholars (e.g., Kabeer 1999; Moghadam and Senftová 2005; Walby 2005), the WomanStats database designed by feminist scholars at Brigham Young University, and the CIRI Human Rights database on civil, political, and social rights designed by two professors at Binghamton University and the University of Connecticut. The World Values Survey also provides gender-disaggregated data that is increasingly utilized by feminist development researchers to illustrate cross-national attitudes toward women’s economic and political participation and gender equality.10 As such, WID / WAD / GAD has “engendered” international development policymaking, at least to some extent; arguments for working “where women are” or “within the system” would accordingly seem to have some merit. However, GAD advocacy had no effect on the global system’s increasing financialization, which led to the Great Recession of 2008 and the continuing polarization and income gaps within countries, not to mention the persistence of poverty in sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia. Nor has there been any effect on militarism and conflicts in various parts of the world. In this way, arguments that GAD has been depoliticized and its ideas co-opted and appropriated for stopgap measures rather than longer-term transformations also have merit. One might conclude from the present survey of feminist development research and advocacy that the wide-ranging and macro-level critiques of the ecofeminists and socialist feminists of the WAD perspective, along with those who adhere to Marxist and world-system analyses, retain their compelling explanatory power while also constituting a call for action. It should nevertheless be noted that scholarly research on forms of female labor deployment and advocacy for women’s economic empowerment has drawn attention to both the needed policy measures to improve women’s welfare and the necessary prerequisites for women’s collective action and social change.
W O M E N ’ S E C O N O M I C PA RT I C I PAT I O N A N D P O W E R : W H Y T H E Y M AT T E R
Feminist development sociology is characterized by both critical analysis of what is and advocacy of what ought to be. From Friedrich Engels to sociologists such as Rae Lesser Blumberg (1984, 1989b) and Janet Chafetz (1984, 1990), theorists and advocates have argued that women’s economic independence is a prerequisite for involvement in political society. In turn, economic independence comes about through formal-sector labor or some form of income-generation and control. For Engels and Karl Marx, work in a capitalist economy was both a source of exploitation and a possibility for mobilization. In Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State ([1884] 1972), Engels refers to the “world-historical defeat of the female sex” in the wake of the agricultural revolution, which
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entailed women’s marginalization from production and the establishment of codes of sexual control—or what historian Gerda Lerner (1987) later referred to as “the creation of patriarchy.” Patterns of female economic activity have varied over historical periods and systems of production, and—as we have seen—feminist theorists hypothesized “housewifization” or marginalization/domestication with the spread of capitalist relations of production or the development of capitalist modernity. If workers (male and female) faced exploitation at the sphere of production, women also faced it within the sphere of reproduction. For workers, the prospect of self-empowerment lay in the conditions of their existence (i.e., social production), which enabled class consciousness and mobilization toward broader social change. It stands to reason, then, that for women the first step toward self-empowerment is to enter the labor force and control the fruits of their labor. Blumberg’s gender stratification theory emphasizes women’s degree of control of the means of production and the distribution of economic surplus. It is based on a broad empirical knowledge of diverse societal types, ranging from hunting and gathering through horticultural and agrarian systems to industrial societies. The degree of gender stratification, she argues, is inversely related to the level of economic power women can mobilize; conversely, the less economic power women can mobilize, the more likely are they to be oppressed physically, politically, and ideologically. The greater women’s economic power relative to men’s and the more women control their own lives, the greater their access will be to other sources of value in stratified social systems, especially honor and prestige, political power, and ideological support for their rights. In Blumberg’s view (1984; 1989b, 163), gender inequalities are “nested” at diverse levels: male-female relations are nested in households; households are nested in local communities; and, if a society is sufficiently large to reveal a coercive state and a system of class stratification, household and community are nested inside of the class structure that, in turn, is lodged within a larger state-managed society. This nesting is important because women’s control of economic resources can be located at different levels, and the level at which their economic power is strongest influences the power that women can command at the other levels of social organization. Chafetz’s 1990 book Gender Equity: An Integrated Theory of Stability and Change presents a set of models and propositions to explain both the forces maintaining a system of gender inequality and a theory of how such a system can be changed. In her conceptualization, three types of gender social definitions link macro- and meso-level coercive and voluntaristic processes: gender ideology (beliefs about basic differences between the sexes, often presumed to be biological; gender norms (expectations about appropriate forms of behavior for women and men); and gender stereotypes (accentuation of sex differences and presumed responses in specific situations). Change comes about as a result of sociodemographic, technological, economic, and political processes. These factors and the change they bring about are largely “unintended,” although sociologists now can predict longer-term societal and gender effects of such processes. But inten-
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tional change can occur when elite males perceive that gender inequality threatens their status or their plans for the society, or when competing male elites seek to recruit women to their side. Such elites—in and around the state—will try to mobilize women’s support in exchange for promises to ameliorate women’s disadvantages in the division of labor and in the system of gender definitions. Such elite male-initiated reforms, along with long-term changes caused by industrialization, urbanization, and expansion of the middle classes, create an enabling environment for middle-class women who experience a sense of relative deprivation and have the material and educational resources to seek expanded opportunities outside their domestic responsibilities and pursue a wider set of interests. The formation of women’s rights organizations and feminist movements follows. The frameworks by Blumberg and by Chafetz retain their analytical power and may be applied toward an analysis of the relationship between women’s economic empowerment and their political empowerment in different national contexts, and an understanding of where and when women’s collective action might emerge and succeed. Blumberg’s emphasis on the relationship between women’s income control and women’s empowerment might also help explain differences in women’s status across cultures. For example, state failures in the development process, along with patriarchal barriers to women’s employment and education in Pakistan and Yemen, are reflected in the low female labor force participation rates: 23 percent in Pakistan and 25 percent in Yemen. In 2010, the mean years of schooling for women were just 5 in Pakistan and a mere 2.5 in Yemen; women aged 25 and above with secondary schooling constituted just 18 percent in Pakistan and 7.6 percent in Yemen. Total fertility rates (average number of children per woman) were 3.2 in Pakistan and 5 in Yemen.11 As Blumberg would argue, women without income under their own control have little control over their own bodies or leverage within the household. Another study that would confirm Blumberg’s theory is by Mary Osirim (2009), who found that, despite challenges such as male domination and an onerous structural adjustment environment in Zimbabwe in the 1990s, many women who owned small businesses were able to contribute to their households and communities as well as gain respect. Income control can also lead to changes in gender relations within the household, as Barbara Finlay (1989) found for rural women in the Dominican Republic and as Yildiz Ecevit (1991) found for married women factory workers in Bursa, Turkey. However, a qualitative study of working-class and middle-class households in Mexico in 1990 (Garcia and de Oliveira 1995) concluded that a commitment to work—more present among the middle-class than the workingclass working women in their sample—was also salient. If poor working conditions act as a disincentive to women’s labor force participation and commitment, then the benefits of earned income control—such as changes in the household division of labor and higher aspirations for children—cannot be reaped. This is where the relevance of the ILO’s “decent work” agenda, along with women’s collective action for change, becomes obvious. Indeed, GAD scholars have called for
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women’s empowerment through collective action in feminist and grassroots women’s groups (Kabeer 1994, Momsen 2004; Jaquette and Summerfield 2006) and in trade unions (Moghadam, Franzway, and Fonow 2011). Such activism, in part to demand improvements in women’s work conditions, could lead to what Walby (2009) predicts will be greater support for social democracy among the world’s women.
CONCLUSIONS: NEW AND ONGOING RESEARCH AGENDAS
Over the decades, theories have emerged to explain modernization, development, and globalization, whether from the “mainstream” of social science or from feminist researchers. Policy frameworks also have been introduced—and in many cases imposed—that have had distinct and varied effects on women and men of different social classes in world-system locations. Table 1.1 highlights the major theoretical and policy frameworks from the 1950s to 2011 and the main agents and actors behind those frameworks. In addition, I have included a column that summarizes some of the social outcomes. Clearly, we have come a long way since the early days of modernization and development theories, which tended to present a homogeneous “Third World.” We now have an appreciation of the dynamics of the semiperiphery, what were once called newly industrializing countries (NICs), and such contemporary economic powerhouses as Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (collectively known as BRICS). Declining U.S. hegemony, the periodic crises of the capitalist world system, and class polarization have eroded the system’s legitimacy and led to numerous protests across the globe. Throughout, WID / WAD / GAD specialists within sociology have demonstrated the ways in which women and men are differentially affected by development processes, and the ways by which gender relations influence, and are influenced by, social transformations. Feminist development sociology has been informed by stratification, social change, and migration theories; by labor economics; by Marxian, dependency, and world-system theories as well as (neo)institutionalism; and by feminist concepts of patriarchy, the sexual division of labor, and gender. It has addressed questions and issues posed in the wider inter-, cross-, and multidisciplinary WID / WAD / GAD field and contributed key studies that have broadened its parameters. Sociologists have tackled issues such as gender inequality and world-system location; variations in female labor supply and demand over time and space; education-fertility-employment linkages; women, income, and bargaining positions within the household; the place of household labor in commodity chains; how forms of female labor contribute to capital accumulation and to social reproduction; and the state, gendered institutions, and women’s rights. These issues have been studied at macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of analysis, using qualitative and quantitative methods of ethnography, surveys, interviews and participant observation, statistical analyses based on large-N databases, and meta-analyses. Field research has been carried out by specialists of sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East and North Africa. As such, feminist development
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Theories
2000s
Neoliberal economics; critical globalization studies; gender and globalization studies; democratization studies; conflict and security studies; GAD
1970s–1980s Ester Boserup’s Women and Economic Development, WID paradigm; Subordination of Women Group, Institute for Development Studies, University of Sussex 1980s Neoclassical economic theories supplant Keynesianism and state-directed development; rise of critical WAD approach 1990s “Washington Consensus”; “Human Development”; GAD approach, “feminist economics”
“Marginalization” of female labor; “housewifization”; Third World “golden age” Rise of NICs; incorporation of female labor in world factories in Southeast Asia and Mexico-U.S. border; global expansion of WID/WAD research networks; “third wave of democratization” begins Reliance on “unlimited supplies” of female labor for both low-wage productive and non-waged reproductive labor; double burden increases among poor women Privatization, liberalization, flexibilization, neoliberal Single global economy; subcontracting of female labor; new wars; women gather at globalization; microlending and entrepreneurship Fourth World Conference on Women (IFIs and most governments); capabilities and (Beijing, Sept. 1995); rise of transnational women’s human rights (women’s policy agencies, feminist networks and women’s human NGOs, and transnational feminist networks rights discourse [TFNs]); gender-disaggregated data, measurements of empowerment, gender budgets (researchers in academia, international nongovernmental organizations [INGOs], and international organizations [IOs]) Financialization (transnational capitalist class Rise of BRICS; Financial crisis 2007–8, [TCC] and core states); Millennium Development global recession, rising food prices, Goals (U.N. and advocacy groups); gender equality Eurozone crisis; global protests; Arab (TFNs and U.N.) Spring
Growth of manufacturing; new social classes; rising social inequality; growth of male proletariat in “Third World”
Import-substitution industrialization; land reform; public schooling and health (states)
“Non-capitalist road to development”; basic needs approach (Third World countries and advocates) Integrate women into development (WID offices and advocates); transform marriage and the market to end female oppression (feminist scholars); first and second U.N. world conferences on women (U.N. and women’s groups) IMF stabilization and World Bank structural adjustment policies (international financial institutions [IFIs] and U.S. Treasury)
Social Outcomes
Policies (Agents)
Development Theories, Policies, and Social Outcomes, 1950s to 2011
1950s–1960s Theories of development and modernization: industrialization, transition from traditional to modern society 1960s–1970s Rise of dependency school
Date
table 1.1
research has not only deepened sociological knowledge of gender dynamics and the interconnections of gender relations and broad development processes but also helped to internationalize American sociology. Changes in the characteristics of the world’s female population, as well as the contradictions and opportunities afforded by modernization, development and globalization, have resulted in the proliferation of women’s mobilizations, from campaigns to save waterways, trees, and communities to the formation of feminist organizations and networks, and the involvement of women in broad political movements such as mass social protests, revolutions, the World Social Forum, and democratic transitions. Neoliberal globalization has been met with organized protest activity, including transnational feminist activism, which has become the subject of much sociological research (Desai 2009; Ferree and Tripp 2006; Moghadam 2005a, 2013a; Naples and Desai 2002; Pangsapa 2007; Smith et al. 2008). Studies of women and revolution in the Global South have examined the causes of revolution, the gender dynamics of revolutionary movements, the policies and laws of revolutionary states, and modes of women’s resistance to subordination (Farhi 1994; Molyneux 1986; Kampwirth 2003; Moghadam 1997, 2003; Shayne 2004). As new “revolutions” break out, feminist development sociologists will bring four decades of accumulated knowledge to bear on causes, dynamics, and possible outcomes. Feminist political scientists studying recent democratic transitions (e.g., Jaquette 2009; Waylen 1994, 2007) have been joined by sociologists (Di Marco and Tabbush 2010; Moghadam 2013c; Paxton and Hughes 2014; Seidman 1999; Viterna and Fallon 2008) who study patterns of women’s political participation and offer a set of factors—internal and external—that might explain or predict different gendered outcomes of democracy movements. Some of the most insightful and original sociological research on women’s and feminist movements emanates from those writing on countries of the Middle East and North Africa (Hasso 1998; Lazreg 1994; Rezai-Rashti and Moghadam 2011; Rizzo 2005; Salime 2011; Skalli 2011). The complexities of the Arab Spring and the divergent directions taken by the various outbreaks of 2011 suggest that research on their gendered dynamics and their connections to global economic and political processes will continue for years to come. The literature on women’s collective action in the context of development and global restructuring is vast and significant, and it is likely to grow. Studies of women, work, family, and social policies should extend to more countries in the semi-periphery. Research on trends in, and implications of, women’s political representation and leadership will continue. We should expect more feminist research that builds on the pioneering work of Mies and Shiva (1993) to examine the gendered impacts of climate change and to interrogate models of endless growth that generate ecological degradation and undermine progress toward women’s well-being and empowerment. Given economic, political, and social trends in the world system, there is bound to be an abundance of research questions to pursue and change mechanisms to promote.
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N OT E S
1. As explained further in this article and illustrated in Table 1.1, the field of women, gender, and development has experienced conceptual shifts and related policy and advocacy foci. Women in development (WID) emphasized women’s marginalization from the development process—whether caused by modernization, industrialization, agricultural commercialization, or rural-urban migration—and called for women’s integration. Women and development (WAD) was a more critical turn, interrogating capitalist development and its policy prescriptions such as “structural adjustment,” along with state policies reinforcing women’s subordination. Gender and development (GAD) places the focus of analysis on the social relations of gender with a view toward transformation and equality. For a full exposition, see Rathegeber 1990 and Kabeer 1994. Feminist development sociology may draw on all three traditions. 2. As early as 1965, René Maheu, UNESCO director-general, delivered an address entitled “The Promotion of Women’s Rights” to members of the Consultant Panel on the Promotion of Women’s Rights and Opportunities, meeting at UNESCO House, Paris, from June 23 to July 2, 1965. (From UNESCO archives, acquired in 2005 when I was a UNESCO section chief.) 3. Its successor is Gendered Perspectives in International Development, available at http:// gencen.isp.msu.edu/publications/. 4. Another study emphasizing the links between the absence of trade unions and the growth of female labor in manufacturing is by political scientist Teri Caraway (2007), with a case study of Indonesia. 5. The first edition of my book Modernizing Women appeared in 1993, so that is when the argument was first made. 6. In 2008, Michael Ross made a similar argument, using quantitative methods. Other studies have sought to disprove the “oil thesis,” emphasizing instead patriarchal structures, including kin-based solidarities and Islamic laws and norms. See, e.g., Charrad 2009. 7. See Moser 1993, drawing on concepts in Molyneux 1986. 8. In this context, a line of inquiry known as the postmodernist feminist perspective on development was more prominent among political scientists than among sociologists but remained arguably marginal to the larger literature and research trends. In Marchand and Parpart 1995, for example, the essays by two scholar-activists from Kenya and India (Nzomo 1995; Udayagiri 1995) raised fundamental questions about postmodernism’s relevance, given its detachment from politics and policy. 9. Prostitution antedates structural adjustment and neoliberal globalization, of course, and, as an extreme form of female subordination, it has been associated with male privilege since “the world-historical defeat of the female sex,” in Friedrich Engels’s apt term, with the rise of private property and the state. Prostitution is also generated by militarism (see, e.g., Enloe 1989; Truong 1990) as well as poverty and state failures. 10. The sponsorship of the World Values Survey is diffuse; the surveys are carried out by a global network of social scientists, with a central office in Stockholm. See http://www .worldvaluessurvey.org. 11. Data are from the U.N. Development Programme’s Human Development Report 2013.
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Rezai-Rashti, Goli, and Valentine M. Moghadam. 2011. “Women and Higher Education in Iran: What Are the Implications for Employment and the ‘Marriage Market’?” International Review of Education 57, no. 3: 419–41. Rizzo, Helen Mary. 2005. Islam, Democracy, and the Status of Women: The Case of Kuwait. New York: Routledge. Ross, Michael. 2008. “Oil, Islam, and Women.” American Political Science Review 102: 107–23. Rubery, Jill, and Anthony Rafferty. 2013. “Women and Recession Revisited.” Work, Employment, and Society 27, no. 3: 414–32. Safa, Helen. 1995. The Myth of the Male Breadwinner: Women and Industrialization in the Caribbean. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. Safilios-Rothschild, Constantina. 1971. “A Cross-Cultural Examination of Women’s Marital, Educational, and Occupational Options.” In Women and Achievement, edited by M. T. S. Mednick et al., 96–113. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Safiotti, Heleith. 1978. Women in Class Society. Translated by Michael Vale. New York: Monthly Review Press. Salime, Zakia. 2011. Between Feminism and Islam: Human Rights and Sharia Law in Morocco. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Scott, Alison MacEwen. 1986. “Women and Industrialisation: Examining the ‘Female Marginalisation’ Thesis.” Journal of Development Studies 22, no. 4: 649–80. Seidman, Gay. 1999. “Gendered Citizenship, South Africa’s Democratic Transition, and the Construction of a Gendered State.” Gender and Society 13, no. 3: 287–307. Sen, Gita, and Caren Grown. 1987. Development, Crises, and Alternative Visions: Third World Women’s Perspectives. New York: Monthly Review Press. Shayne, Julie. 2004. The Revolution Question: Feminisms in El Salvador, Chile, and Cuba. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. Skalli, Loubna H. 2011. “Constructing Arab Female Leadership Lessons from the Moroccan Media.” Gender and Society 25, no. 4: 473–95. Smith, Jackie, Marina Karides, Marc Becker, Dorval Brunelle, Christopher Chase-Dunn, Rosalba Icaza, Jeffrey Juris, Lorenzo Mosca, Donatella della Porta, Ellen Reese, Peter Jay Smith, and Rolando Vásquez. 2008. The World Social Forums and the Challenge of Global Democracy. Boulder, Colo.: Paradigm Publishers. Smith, Joan, Immanuel Wallerstein, and H-D Evers. 1984. Households and the World-Economy. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage. Sparr, Pamela, ed. 1994. Mortgaging Women’s Lives: Feminist Critiques of Structural Adjustment. London: Zed Books. Standing, Guy. 1989. “Global Feminization through Flexible Labor.” World Development 17, no. 7: 1077–95. . 2011. The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Sugur, Nadir, and Serap Sugur. 2005. “Gender and Work in Turkey: Case Study on Women Workers in the Textile Industry in Bursa.” Middle Eastern Studies 41: 269–79. Tiano, Susan. 1987. “Gender, Work, and World Capitalism: Third World Women’s Role in Development.” In Analyzing Gender, edited by Beth Hess and Myra Marx Feree, 216–43. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage.
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2 POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT László J. Kulcsár
The topic of population and development is an old and complex issue that cuts deeply across several disciplines. It would be nearly impossible to give a comprehensive review, since both demography and development have a burgeoning scholarship. Demography consists of dozens of subfields, each with its own extensive literature and separate links to other disciplines (see Poston and Micklin 2005 for an overview of this). Development has long been the conceptual battleground between sociology and economics, regularly interrupted by internal debates in both fields. The grand discourse often spilled over to other disciplines, especially to political science in regard to proposed policies, and to geography because of the spatial manifestation of inequalities and policy impacts. In this chapter, the focus is on the direct intersection of population dynamics and development studies in a historical perspective. The discussion of development theory not related to demography is omitted, as is population scholarship with no direct link to development. The micro-level conceptualization of population and development, such as the socioeconomic conditions of minority groups or migrant integration, are also not discussed. What remains is still significant, and it consists of three large and somewhat overlapping themes: population and economic growth; population and resources; and population and social equality. These themes also represent how the concept of development has been changing over time. Because population as an object of study has remained the same (i.e., an aggregate of people), our understanding of population and development is mostly a function of how we conceptualize and measure development itself.
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As with most modern thought, we can find one of the earliest discussions of population and development in the Age of Enlightenment (albeit often building on the work of early scholars, such as Ibn Khaldun). After writing the Persian Letters with several comments on demography, Montesquieu published the Spirit of Laws in which he discussed Europe’s depopulation problem and its causes: When a state is depopulated by particular accidents, by wars, pestilence, or famine, there are still resources left. The men who remain may preserve the spirit of industry; they may seek to repair their misfortunes, and calamity itself may make them become more industrious. This evil is almost incurable when the depopulation is prepared beforehand by interior vice and a bad government. When this is the case, men perish with an insensible and habitual disease; born in misery and weakness, in violence or under the influence of a wicked administration. . . . Of this we have a melancholy proof in the countries desolated by despotic power, or by the excessive advantages of the clergy over the laity. (de Secondat [1748] 1991, 729)
The world has changed a great deal since Montesquieu’s time. An example of the contemporary position on the general subject is the 2011 report of the U.N. Commission on Population and Development, with a comprehensive list of conceptual components: [We recognize] that the ultimate goal is the improvement of the quality of life of present and future generations, that the objective is to facilitate the demographic transition, as soon as possible, in countries where there is an imbalance between demographic rates and social, economic and environmental goals, while fully respecting human rights, and that this process will contribute to the stabilization of the world population and, together with changes in unsustainable patterns of production and consumption, to sustainable development and economic growth. (5)
Seemingly not much connects the two perspectives. Montesquieu was concerned with depopulation whereas the commission focused on a variety of issues, such as environmental goals, sustainability, and even the modern understanding of human rights, that were unheard of in the eighteenth century. Montesquieu used demography to criticize political structures and the government whereas the commission recognized demography as an endogenous component of development. Yet, there is a crucial common conceptual point. Both Montesquieu and the commission, as well as most scholars and social thinkers in the past three hundred years, saw population dynamics as inseparable from the development of social and political structures and institutions. The causal mechanisms and the nature of embeddedness regarding these two have long been debated, but we can not talk about development issues without acknowledging the corresponding population trends, nor can we analyze demographic dynamics without assessing their development impacts. In other words, population and development are interrelated.
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This chapter develops examples of this interrelation in a historical perspective, covering the three major periods of the population and development discourse. The first is the early times when the concept of development was born and the demographic component was almost exclusively seen as a population size/growth issue. The second is the period between World War II and the 1970s, the peak time of the conceptual and applied fusion of modernization, development economics, and demographic scholarship. Finally, the third period is from the late 1970s onward, when the grand narrative of population and development was deconstructed but its fragments have continued to live on in meso-level discourses such as those on fertility, urbanization, environmental impact, international migration, and aging.
T H E D AW N O F D E V E L O P M E N T S C H O L A R S H I P F R O M A DEMOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVE
Development commonly refers to social and economic progress. For social thinkers in the Age of Enlightenment, it meant questioning the God-ordained status quo and looking for laws that guide human behavior, similar to the already established natural sciences. The idea of progress became central to the well-being of the community, which later increasingly meant the nation. And if the nation was no longer simply the ruling elite but, rather, all or at least most of the people, then concerns with the progress of the nation also meant concerns with the well-being of its citizens. This new interest in people and social order in the era of mass political participation and nation-building was the first modern example of demographic thinking, though it would still be many decades before any attempts to systematically describe and analyze population dynamics in relation to societal development. This was also the age of colonization and mercantilism, both connected to the understanding that not only military conquest but also economic competition hold the key to the wealth of the nation. Population was a crucial element in both; in fact, mercantilism viewed it as the main driver of prosperity. The population growth of Europe between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries was indeed instrumental for the Industrial Revolution and for general economic development. Trade balance was seen as the main indicator of wealth, and strong state involvement via tariffs and regulations was preferred to protect the national economic interests. The mercantilist view on population was challenged by the physiocratic school, which argued that it is the means of subsistence that determines population size. It was Adam Smith who elaborated on this and argued that it is driven by the demand for labor on a given amount of land. With this, classical economics was the first scientific discipline to tackle the issue of population and development. The mercantilist framework was a conceptual prerequisite, though, making the discourse rational and practical and promoting the use of increasingly complex calculations and quantifiable indicators. For Smith, it was free trade and the invisible hand of self-regulating markets, as opposed to state regulations preferred by the mercantilists, that secured the efficient use
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of resources. At that time, the relationship between labor and wages was thought to have a direct impact on population. If wages are high, more children are born, went the argument; hence, population growth is a function of economic development. Although this was challenged many times over the following centuries, especially at the individual/ household level, the idea that population change and economic growth are closely connected became a dominant view. In the late eighteenth century, social philosophers were generally optimistic about the population component of development. Thinkers such as William Godwin claimed that technological progress will solve social problems and that population growth would not jeopardize prosperity. A reaction to Godwin, and a strong general critique on the utopian views of the Enlightenment, was Malthus’s famous essay in 1798 portraying a pessimistic outlook on poverty and overpopulation with a strong focus on the social and economic aspect of the question. Malthus was likely building on the work of Robert Wallace, from a generation before, by attacking the Poor Laws and a system of workhouses (an early welfare program), advocating moral restraint as a solution. Malthus’s opposition to welfare was surprisingly similar to Montesquieu’s opposition to the pension scheme of Louis XIV, which rewarded families with more than ten children. But, unlike his French predecessor, Malthus used a systematic argument backed by a theoretical construct, which conformed to the mainstream economic discourse of his era. In his view, overpopulation leads to poverty and the poor themselves are to blame for this partly because welfare provisions undercut motivation to make an effort to break out of this cycle. Regardless of the lack of empirical basis at that time, this was a powerful position that has survived to contemporary welfare discourses. As much as Malthus and the classical economists were at odds with each other regarding the population part of the equation (for a good overview of this period, see Wrigley 1988), such differences were minor compared to the next development school emerging in the mid-nineteenth century. Although the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels is usually portrayed as the antithesis of Malthus in demography textbooks, they actually said little on population dynamics; instead, they focused almost entirely on the economic side of the question. Their conceptual position, however, was instrumental in bringing down the neoclassical modernization paradigm and its associated population policies in the 1970s, as we will see below. For Marx and his followers, the development of human societies is a series of stages, the boundaries of which are crossed when modes of production become outdated and trigger a crisis. At each stage, societies have their laws of production and, subsequently, their laws of population dynamics. Population dynamics thus become a function of the prevailing economic structure, as opposed to following a natural law applicable to all societies. Overpopulation and poverty are indicators of the crisis and signs of the need for change. Hence, the solution is not in individual action or government intervention but in structural transformation. This transformation then produces new modes of production, which in turn solves overpopulation.
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From a demographic perspective, the fundamental difference between Marx and those that came before him was in the conceptualization of development outcomes visà-vis demographic change. Marx argued that development happens in stages and produces vastly different results each time. Malthus, Smith, and the others saw development as a linear trend on which some nations are ahead of others. This major difference manifests itself not only in how one explains certain demographic trends but also in policies to tackle undesired outcomes, not to mention the very definition of those undesired outcomes. What makes these population and development perspectives similar, however, is that all of them were strongly under the influence of the positivist paradigm. Scholars felt that there are uniform elements or even laws behind the explanations. This applied even to micro-level explanations, such as those made by John Stuart Mill or Arsene Dumont, who noted that the desire for prosperity and improving social status are strong drivers of individual decisions to limit fertility. This positivist perspective remained dominant in population thinking until the 1980s. The late-nineteenth-and early-twentieth-century discourse was largely determined by the fear of population decline, particularly in France. The questionable application of scientific thought on population led to the rise of the eugenics movements, which were concerned with maintaining a desired genetic stock, mostly from a race and class perspective, saturating the early works of well-known scholars such as Corrado Gini. Eugenics quickly turned to full-blown racism and social exclusion, particularly in the United States (Allen 1989), arguing that certain ethnic groups are undesired or even detrimental to national development. America’s early–twentieth-century immigration laws and the quota system were partly based on such considerations. Eugenics was then fully implemented by the Nazis on population issues, which has led to its scientific rejection. Behind the pseudo-scientific debate on eugenics, the seeds of the professionalization of demography had already been planted. In 1927, the first World Population Conference was held in Geneva, facilitating the foundation of the International Union for the Investigation of Population Problems (which later became the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population) the following year. More importantly, work was being done on the first modern attempt to find systematic and possibly universal explanation for the association of long-term demographic trends and national development. Warren Thompson (1929), who wrote his dissertation on Malthus and became largely interested in Japanese demography, focused on differences between groups of countries, looking for patterns of fertility and mortality change. His categorization of countries from a demographic perspective was notably similar to the understanding of the development gradient later: a core of western and northern Europe and the United States (Group A); the southern and eastern periphery of Europe (Group B); and the rest of the world (Group C, represented by a few countries for which he had data). However, his thesis was neglected until the late 1940s, when the discourse on population and development was suddenly framed as an international political and security concern in a brave new world.
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T H E H E AT E D R I S E A N D S H AT T E R I N G FA L L O F T H E G R A N D N A R R AT I V E
Shortly after World War II, a unique intersection of events changed the scholarly and political views on population and development. Decolonization and the Cold War suddenly made the “Third World” important in the new international order, albeit with all its development problems. It did not take long to associate most of these problems with unfavorable demographic trends. Frank Notestein, who later became the first head of the U.N. Population Division, rediscovered Thompson’s theory of population and development, and he set the alarmist tone, warning about the population pressure in developing countries: “They will be increasingly expensive and troublesome to administer, and unsatisfactory to do business with. Of themselves they will be too impotent to threaten the peace, but probably they will be discontented, disloyal, and ready, if somewhat inefficient, materials for each new political conflagration” (Notestein 1944, 148). At the same time, his colleague Kingsley Davis labeled the process first described by Thompson as the “demographic transition” and coined the term “population explosion” (Davis 1945). To facilitate international comparisons, the first Demographic Yearbook was published in 1948, and the United Nations put a lot of emphasis on providing methodological help for countries to administer population censuses around 1950. As the results of these data collections became available, the numbers seemed to support the alarmist position. Demographic transition theory, especially its refined version, provided a clear picture on how population and development are connected in a linear fashion. The assumption was that the period of uncontrolled high fertility and high mortality (phase 1) is first followed by mortality decline triggered by public health improvements (phase 2), which produces sudden population growth due to the fact that fertility declines with some delay (phase 3) before reaching a sustained slow growth pattern (phase 4). Countries must go through the temporary population boom (between phases 2 and 3) quickly enough to avoid crippling their economies and social institutions but should still enjoy the fruits of the demographic dividend—the temporary change in age structure that increases the ratio of economically active persons to persons whose likelihood of working is much lower due to their young or old age (see the chapter by David Brown and Parfait Eloundou-Enyegue in this volume). Postponing the mortality transition is not desirable (after all, development is the goal), thus the focus must be on managing the fertility transition through family planning provided as international assistance under the auspices of the United Nations. The political agenda of postwar international assistance to tackle overpopulation was supported not only by a seemingly universal demographic theory but also by the dominant conceptualizations of development as framed by development economics and modernization theory. These represented a Western-centric attitude on development, or rather social engineering, with a positivist confidence. The fear from both communism and Third World economic inefficiency, as well as the lingering but never admitted
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specter of eugenics, created a strong collaboration in the West to solve global development problems rooted in explosively high population growth rates in the Global South. With virtually no opposition from government, business, or academic circles, the 1950s and 1960s saw a great consensus emerging on population and development programs (for an excellent overview from the population studies perspective, see Caldwell 2005). Development economics, based on Keynesian principles, made population an endogenous variable and argued that its control is vital for economic growth. The perception was that people would not change their behavior if the societal environment (i.e., structures and institutions) did not motivate them to do so. It promoted policy interventions so that developing countries could catch up faster. This corresponded well with modernization theory, which saw the nation as the political framework for development and the state as a crucial actor in the adaptation of “modern” economic and political institutions. Modernization was connected to decolonization because the independent nation-state was the naturally assumed framework for economic development, and Harry Truman as a leader of the First World was quick to declare the preference of development over “old imperialism” (McMichael 2007, 23). Conveniently, the theory of demographic transition worked well in this paradigm. Walt Rostow’s thesis (1960) on the historical stages of modernization provided the intellectual framework, assuring everybody that development is linear and societal structures are similar enough, or could be made similar enough, to implement changes based on Western experiences. The division between developed and developing worlds was straightforward, the supporting political and economic logic was clear, and the remedy looked obvious. It is important to note that the only available alternative to this modernization paradigm, Soviet-style development, was more similar than is typically recognized. The ideology was different, of course, but the fundamentally functionalist understanding of development with economic growth in the center was the same. Modernization assumed state involvement, and socialist countries simply thought that, by eliminating market inefficiency and putting the state in the center of all development with rational planning and an extensive redistributive structure, they could successfully out-modernize the West. That experiment failed, but mostly because its institutional rigidity was not able to follow the West switching away from development via modernization to neoliberal globalization (Kornai 1992). There is little debate that conditions in most developing countries improved between the 1940s and the 1970s. Mortality declined significantly, there was some economic growth and political stabilization, and social indicators such as infant mortality and literacy improved as well. But the publication of The Population Bomb (Ehrlich 1968) painted a dark picture, and pessimism prevailed. That same year, in his first policy address at the World Bank, Robert McNamara stated: “The rapid growth of population is one of the greatest barriers to the economic growth and well-being of our member states. . . . The control of population growth is yet another area where the Bank needs to take new initiatives” (quoted in World Bank 1981, 12).
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Paul Ehrlich’s book reheated the old Malthusian debate on the relationship between population and resources. This debate had two distinct versions. One was shaped by famines in developing countries, seemingly supporting the original Malthusian argument on population and food production, and served as the direct trigger for writing The Population Bomb. The solution was to establish new ways of production, from which Norman Borlaug’s Green Revolution was born, later creating its own development problems. (It is noteworthy how the case of India in the late 1960s was the example for both Ehrlich and Borlaug.) The second version of the debate was within development economics about the relationship between population and various economic variables, such as savings, human capital formation, and investment. This second discourse assumed that modernization by and large works, and it argued that the fundamental link determining development outcomes is between population and economic capacity, most importantly the availability of capital (Coale and Hoover 1958, interestingly, using the case of India again). The logical extension of this discourse was that not food but capital is the basic resource and that modernization is the remedy that eventually provides it, allowing developing countries to “take off ” as Rostow predicted. By the early 1970s, however, after the most recent censuses from developing countries became available, the modernization narrative on population and development came under heavy criticism from multiple directions. The questions were puzzling. Was there sufficient improvement in life quality to constitute development? What was the actual contribution of international assistance to social and economic progress? Did family planning have the desired impact on controlling and reducing fertility? Was the price tag on Third World development too large? And, more fundamentally, was the theory of the demographic transition a valid framework for understanding population and development interactions and to make reliable future projections of either population or development? The biggest clash between development opinions and policies occurred at the 1974 World Population Conference in Bucharest (Cassen 1994), by which time the attack on the “development project” (as labeled in McMichael 2007) was in full swing. Previous U.N. population conferences (in 1954 in Rome and in 1965 in Belgrade) were mostly expert meetings, but by the mid-1970s there was thirty years’ worth of development evidence to assess, criticize, or boast about. It was inevitable that, by that time, development itself had become a cultural attitude, manifested in a certain global order and determined by the economic and political dominance of the West (Peet and Hartwick 1999). After all, the grand narrative of population growth and economic development was based on Western experiences, and the causal mechanisms linking population growth and development were still incompletely understood. Hence, it was not entirely clear whether Western experiences would be replicated in the Global South. By the 1970s, neo-Marxist theories (dependency theory, world-systems theory) had questioned the dominant narrative, started to deconstruct the modernization development paradigm, and offered alternative critical explanations for the developmental differences between countries, pointing out that catching up is not
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possible because inequalities are inherent in the global capitalist system (Frank 1969; Wallerstein 1974). From the opposite direction, neoliberal economics accepted the cultural attitude but questioned the involvement of the state and criticized the efficiency of the development project (Bauer 1972). Demography was not exempt from similar critiques. It was not clear whether any favorable population trend was caused by a designated policy or, rather, was a side effect of other trends operating in the background. Although the causes of mortality decline were fairly evident, the same was not true for fertility change (or its lack thereof ). Urbanization, a necessary element of industrialization under the modernization paradigm, created as many new problems as it ameliorated since services and formal sector jobs could not keep up with urban population growth. It did not take long to question the relevance of demographic transition as a universally explanatory theory. In a well-known critical article in Science, Michael Teitelbaum (1976) opened a long debate after which demographers became much more cautious about using the transition theory indiscriminately for all countries and time periods. Instead, most of the attention turned toward the fertility transition, where most of the unexplained trends occurred and the academic discourse was already under way. It was generally understood that, if the fertility transition is delayed, the demographic dividends would be negated by prolonged population growth, jeopardizing a country’s overall development. It was also clear that, whereas mortality decline is largely policyinduced (with largely exogenous investments in health infrastructure), fertility decline is a web of individual or household-level decisions, where people react to the changing social, cultural, and economic conditions. This complex decision-making framework is reflected in various explanatory theories, including the cost-benefit analysis of fertility (Becker 1960), the theory of demographic change and response (Davis 1963), and the relative cohort size hypothesis (Easterlin 1968). These theories were products of the development project in the sense that all were characterized by both a strong modernization perspective and explanatory optimism. Once the development project was dismantled and the traditional concept of development itself was contested, demographic scholarship started to pay more attention to forces that were much more difficult to quantify. A good example is the work on ideational changes explaining the diffusion of low fertility (Cleland and Wilson 1987), which was a fundamental component of what later became known as the second demographic transition. In the meantime, critical theory and political economy became more influential in sociology in the 1970s, challenging modernization. Although this contested the universally accepted understanding of development, its impact on actual development practices was less significant. The conceptual shift to the left distanced the academic discourse from the political ideology and development practice still operating in a Cold War framework. Yet the challenge to find more comprehensive indicators than economic growth, triggered by critiques from the social sciences, proved quite difficult. Neo-Marxist theories of development at the time were followed by the postmodern fragmentation of criti-
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cal approaches that questioned both development as a rational concept and progress as defined by the Enlightenment thinkers. This has tended to elevate the theoretical discourse to a level of abstraction that lost all relevance to demography. Ironically, this theoretical fragmentation offered an excellent opportunity for neoliberal economics to monopolize the economic development discourse and portray itself as the only perspective that is able to provide simple and practical answers to development questions. Following the shift to post-Fordist production, the emergence of the global economic market with its transnational actors, and with the full support of Western administrations (most notably under Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher), neoliberalism has become the dominant conceptual framework shaping international development. Success stories, such as the rise of the “Asian Tigers,” which could be seen as a function of the demographic dividend argued for by neoclassical economics (Birdsall, Kelley, and Sinding 2001), were rebranded as the result of free, unregulated global trade. Eventually, neoliberalism and its policy tool, “shock therapy,” went on to save the postcommunist world after the collapse of the Soviet Union (Sachs 1991)—though the success of this cure is fiercely debated, and, given the current state of affairs in Eastern Europe, including its demographic problems such as persistent natural decrease, extreme aging, and population decline, one can see why. The population and economic growth debate continues, but evidence from the ground is still confusing (Bloom and Freeman 1987). Since 1990, however, most scholars have agreed that population growth, in and of itself, is not directly associated with the rate of growth in GDP. As Giuseppe Gaburro and Dudley Poston noted, “The numerous empirical studies examining the relationship between per capita output and population growth lead mainly to one result: the lack of a direct and clear connection or association between population growth and economic growth” (1991, 22). It does not mean that population and economic growth are not connected; rather, it means that this connection is contingent on and mediated by many other factors, poorly captured by both theory and research. The question of population and resources became a separate debate by the 1970s. The concept and problem of common pool resources were illustrated by Gerrett Hardin (1968) as the tragedy of the commons. However, most of the attention was given to Ehrlich and population ecology, especially when his pessimism was validated by the 1973 oil crisis, at least in the short run. A more important long-term outcome of his thesis was a renewed academic interest in the environmental dimension of development and the limits to population growth (Demeny 1988), leading to discussions on carrying capacity, ecological footprint, and sustainability. As a result, environment as a factor became strongly entrenched in both the development and the demographic scholarship (Pebley 1998). The traditional form of the population/resource debate, beginning with Malthus, pessimistically predicted that human population growth would overrun the environment’s capacity to provide food, fiber, and energy, thereby leading to recurring poverty. However, the mass famines that Ehrlich predicted did not occur, nor did fossil fuels run out after
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the oil crisis. The debate soon changed, partly because of the influence of Julian Simon’s (1981) thesis that people are the “ultimate resource” through the role of innovation and the accumulation of human capital. This was based on Ester Boserup’s (1965) earlier work on agricultural intensification and population pressure. Although critics pointed out that innovation is contingent on social structure, institutions, and therefore the prevailing conditions of development and population composition (Keyfitz 1990), Simon’s position further solidified when, in 1990, he won his famous ten-year bet with Ehrlich on the price change of various metals as proxies for resource scarcity. By that time, however, the resource debate had transformed into a debate over environmental impact. These changes in the population and development discourse created a conceptual vacuum for demography. On the one hand, “post-developmentalism,” as Richard Peet and E. Hartwick (1999) called it, has been too fragmented and abstract to offer a unified alternative paradigm with practical applications. On the other hand, neoliberal economics was largely uninterested in the demographic connection where the neoclassical school had failed before. The U.S. National Research Council’s assessment in the mid1980s, while advocating for slower population growth, took a cautious position: Population growth can, and often does, trigger market reactions. Many of these reactions move a country into a “modern” direction, that is, toward better-defined property rights, larger integrated markets, more agricultural research, and so on. However, the marketinduced adjustments to higher growth do not appear to be large enough to offset the negative effects on per capita income of higher ratios of labor to other factors of production. Nor is population growth necessary to achieve these form of modernization. (National Research Council 1986, 89)
The report’s main policy implication on fertility and family planning represented well the ongoing fragmentation of the population and development discourse into smaller pieces.
PICKING UP THE FRAGMENTS
After the fiasco of the development project, and with the cooling of the overpopulation upheaval, demographers turned to explain specific elements of demographic transitions, now seen in plural. Taking these out from the previous comprehensive population and development framework helped the proliferation of scholarship, offering the opportunity for collaboration with scholars who were not demographers but were, rather, development experts working on similarly narrow (or rather more focused) topics. Freed from the pressing need to create a grand explanatory theory for population and development, advances in these subfields were more substantial. In this section, I discuss a few of these subfields to illustrate the diversity of parallel studies on population and development from various perspectives.
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The study of fertility has a long history in demography. Fertility directly affects population size and growth, but, because of its strong context dependence, is notoriously difficult to understand and influence. Over time, three major schools of thought emerged to explain the associations of changes in fertility and development from completely different directions. Early studies considered childbearing decisions as rational choices after a cost-benefit analysis, and they aimed to explain how societal conditions provide the macro-level social and economic background facilitating the fertility transition. Notable works include those by Ansley Coale (1973), on the preconditions of fertility decline, and by Richard Easterlin and Eileen Crimmins (1985), on the supply-and-demand framework. The same topic was investigated from a microeconomic perspective by the wealth flow theory (Caldwell 1982) and what became known as the new home economics, stimulated by Gary Becker’s (1981) work on the household economy. The focus was traditional in the sense that these scholars all used a neoclassical economics framework to examine the various determinants of fertility control and decline, which they considered to be prerequisites to economic development. The second major school of thought focused on the role of cultural diffusion on fertility behavior. This perspective originated in the Princeton European Fertility Project and was based largely on the experiences of European countries as they moved to or beyond the last stage of the demographic transition. It was observed that, instead of fertility stabilizing at a low (but still above replacement) level as the conventional theory argued, it has continued to decline. Explanations included the structural transformation of families and households, increasing participation of women in higher education and the workplace, and cultural considerations in preferring cohabitation or intended childlessness (van de Kaa 1987; Lesthaeghe and Surkyn 1988). This new trend in sub-replacement fertility was later labeled as the second demographic transition, more limited in scope than the first one, but with the important inclusion of inequality. The third major area concerning development and fertility behavior stemmed from critiques of family planning programs of the development project. In particular, gender has become an important consideration in social policy and in the social sciences, and family planning programs lacked cultural sensitivity to gender equality. Following a sustained critique, the emphasis in population policy and research shifted away from the paternalistic notion of what the right number of children should be (Mason 1989) to a basic concern with women’s rights and with women’s and children’s health. At the same time, the concept of development itself was criticized for not being sensitive to gender, and one of the scholars arguing for a better integration of women into the development projects was Boserup (1970), whose demographic work was instrumental in curbing the population doomsters in the 1970s. The incorporation of the gender perspective into demographic thinking has proceeded along two lines, ironically mimicking the old development distinction between the Global North and South. In the Global North, the focus was on normative changes in family structure, including the separation of marriage from
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childbearing and a changing discourse on motherhood, supported by the strengthening feminist movements. In the Global South, the emphasis was on reproductive and maternal health issues as well as on empowering women in fertility decisions as the new, appropriate way to address population growth. This latter discourse had become particularly significant by the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo (Riley 2005), which made gender equality a global priority. Another long-established theme in the population and development discourse was population redistribution—more specifically, urbanization. Until the 1970s, urbanization was considered a necessary prerequisite for industrialization, which itself was seen as the engine behind modernization. Early discussions were concerned about the optimal settlement structure to foster development regardless of the social externalities. Social problems, such as segregation, slums, or service deprivation, were considered unavoidable side effects, and nothing represented modernity better than the city. As globalization unfolded, cities were seen as the hubs of knowledge transfer, trade, and innovation—in other words, the competitive spearheads of nations. Demographic scholarship on urbanization remained largely descriptive and comparative (Brown, Cromartie, and Kulcsár 2004; Fuguitt, Heaton, and Lichter 1988; Tisdale 1942). The regional/urban development literature, however, accepted urbanization as a standard trend and paid little attention to its demographic drivers except maybe suburbanization as a peculiar form of population redistribution in the United States (Frey 1978). When counter-urbanization was first observed in the 1970s, signaling a shift in residential preferences as well as new economic opportunities in rural areas, it quickly revitalized the discourse on population distribution (Beale 1975; Champion 1989; Champion and Hugo 2004; Kontuly 1998). Rural areas were no longer seen as population reserves for urbanization, and their development profiles have also shifted away from agriculture and resource extraction. One example for this is the work on rural retirement migration destinations, which has become a popular local development goal in the United States (Brown and Glasgow 2008). Rural demography has also generated substantial scholarship in recent years and is an interesting example of how contemporary scholars are examining the association between population dynamics and changes in the social organization of local and regional society (Kandel and Brown 2006; Kulcsár and Curtis 2011). Migration is a response to development differences or, as observed by Everett Lee (1966), push-and-pull factors in both origin and destination communities. The understanding of internal migration has been closely connected to urbanization and rural and regional demography mentioned above. In contrast, international migration has been seen as a fundamental part of the global development discourse (Massey et al. 1993; Castles and Miller 2003). The net flow of international migration corresponds with real or perceived development differences between nations and, as such, is highly unbalanced. Development outcomes associated with international migration, for both the origin and the destination countries, largely depends on the number and, even more impor-
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tantly, the composition of the in- and out-migrants. Educated migrants are highly sought after, and the brain drain could deplete human resources at the origin, hindering development where it would be needed the most. Unskilled migrants are occasionally admitted to be needed but are mostly seen as burdens in more developed destination countries, and policy measures are implemented to control their movement. A specific case of international migration in the development context is the issue of remittances: money that migrants send home to their families. Although this does not offset the human capital loss due to brain drain (especially since skilled migrants tend to move with their families), it does provide resources for the country of origin. Remittances can be a significant share in the economy of both the sending and the receiving countries, generating concern about its distribution impacts and its contribution to development (Maimbo and Ratha 2005). However, the social implications are crucial, and the culture of migration, triggered partly by remittances, can hurt as much in the long run as migradollars may help (Durand, Parrado, and Massey 1996; Kandel and Massey 2002). From a development perspective, remittances are short-term solutions: they perpetuate dependence on a foreign economy, and they may pull significant human capital into the migration stream if they are perceived as the only means to improve one’s quality of life. As indicated earlier in this chapter, the population and resources debate has turned into the discourse on population change’s environmental impacts, and today it has become part of the broader scholarship on climate change. It is easy to see how climate change relates to development in general, though linking it to population trends is much more difficult (for good overviews, see Lutz, Prskawetz, and Sanderson 2002; Poston and Frisbie 2005). It is also quite complicated to measure impact mechanisms and relationships among population, environment, and development. The IPAT (environmental Impact equals Population times Affluence times Technology) conceptual model (Ehrlich and Holdren 1971) has been elaborated (see, e.g., York, Rosa, and Dietz 2003), but it is unlikely to ever become a working mathematical tool. However, the dominant emphasis on population size since Malthus has slowly shifted toward an emphasis on population composition, a much better predictor of consumption, which is the real driver behind the impact of population on development and/or environment. Just like the field of population and development overall, the population environment discourse has turned to specific themes and mechanisms on climate change and demography. Examples include health risks and morbidity (Haines et al. 2006), sea-level rise and migration (Curtis and Schneider 2011), and the impact mechanisms between migration and climate change (Kulcsár 2012). These debates, as well as the general discourse on population and environment, also indicate the growing attention given to inequalities within development studies. It is generally understood that vulnerability to environmental change is not distributed evenly, partly because of geography but mostly because of unequal access to individual or community resources to mitigate the impact. The latest topic generating substantial discussion on population and development is global aging. Population aging is an inevitable result of declining birth rates (though, for
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smaller geographies, migration loss is just as important), and changing age structures have long been understood to affect labor force composition and, subsequently, economic growth. Increased life expectancy is a positive change (in fact, it is one of the components of Human Development Index), but it also contributes to a longer inactive life period. Inactivity has commonly been expressed in demography and economics as the dependency ratio, an economic concept with a built-in negative connotation that devalues the societal contributions of older adults, not to mention that the ages at which persons are most likely to be “active” vary dramatically across societies and cultures. Development is associated with prosperity for the elderly, captured at the individual level with the term “successful aging” (Rowe and Kahn 1997) or, more demographically, disability-free life expectancy. At the societal level, an aging population structure creates significant challenges even for post-industrial societies, let alone for developing ones where the pace of aging is highest and where the magnitude of aging is going to be much larger given that they have the bulk of the global population. Where fertility decline has been the longest (Europe) or the fastest (China), the development challenges of extreme aging are the greatest. In fact, since basic population trends such as expected increases in the share of older persons are fairly easy to project, population aging can be seen as the next global population and development challenge (Kinsella and Phillips 2005). Progress in science usually leads to more specialization as knowledge is accumulated over time. In social sciences, part of this knowledge accumulation is the growing doubt about universal theories and “one size fits all” causal mechanisms. This doubt gets ever stronger if grand theories are actually tested via applied projects to induce social change. The fragmentation of the population and development debate was inevitable, and not necessarily a negative outcome. The population and development nexus has always covered many examples, and now the focus has readjusted accordingly. This, however, does not necessarily mean fundamental changes in everything. For example, the dominant neoliberal economic perspective still influences the discourse on population and development. The latest Population Council introduction to the topic (McNicoll 2003) handles it as an economic growth issue and makes only passing references to social, cultural, and other aspects of development. History has not yet ended.
CONCLUSION
For more than two hundred years, scholars have been debating how population is connected to development. In this period, demography has matured into a well-established scientific field, contributing to and benefiting from the changing conceptualization of development. For its part, development scholarship has often utilized how population trends relate to societal well-being and progress, frequently borrowing demographic indicators in the process. We must remember that all discourses, contentions, and mainstream theories are products of their time. Malthus’s theory, for example, has often been criticized and in fact
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was quickly disproven after his death, but it should be seen through the lens of his time when poverty was experienced by a vast majority of the population and when sustained population growth had yet to occur anywhere in the world over any significant time frame. We have the luxury of retrospective knowledge, and that knowledge tends to confirm a constructivist position: basic population dynamics, fertility, mortality, and migration are essentially the same as they have always been, and it is mostly our conceptualization and measurement of development that changes. The measurement of fertility and mortality, sociobiological processes, has been relatively static, although the same cannot be said about migration, which reflects broad macro- and micro-level changes in family and society over time (Brown 2002). Early demographic thinking was ethnocentric and relatively simple, concerning mostly population and economic growth. Development was seen as a linear progression from tradition to modernity based on circular explanations where the perceived position and power of a nation provided evidence for choosing the right path. Population size and growth were seen as independent forces that had clearly beneficial or detrimental impacts on social and economic progress. Before World War II, population composition mattered mostly for the proponents of eugenics, and population redistribution came up only as a need for urbanization to fuel industrial development. The postwar period established the practices of systematic data collection on population trends and put demography in the center of development discourse. International politics provided the basis for intervention and the necessary funds for large-scale assistance programs. However, it turned out that the demographic transition does not explain everything, and the population and development nexus is far too complex to be described by simple equations, especially those in which causal direction flows in one direction. Social engineering ambitions expanded well beyond the actual understanding of demographic regimes, and the rise of critical theories in social sciences from the 1970s, as well as the changing international order, effectively ended modernization as the core development ideology and practice. Similarly, the demographic transition, at least in its initial formulation, went the way of modernization. Demography enjoyed a visible and crucial position in the development discourse between the 1950s and 1970s. This was the period when the importance of population dynamics became obvious not only to scholars and policymakers but to the general public as well. It was natural that this growing importance resulted in trials and errors. Population and development policies failed more often than they succeeded, and this rightfully made scholars cautious. Strong proactive measures, such as the family planning programs of the 1960s, forced urban migration in communist countries, or China’s coercive one-child policy, tend to create as many problems as solutions, even if the original problem assessment was correct—which has not always been the case. The ever-changing understanding of the population and development nexus has been well-represented in the postwar U.N. population conferences. The 1954 and 1965 conferences were basically small expert meetings in which the main goal was to establish
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international data collection methods and procedures for comparative research. The 1974 conference in Bucharest provided a battleground between two competing development ideologies: modernization and socialism (or, rather, the Western and Eastern versions of modernization). By the 1984 conference in Mexico City, the battle was largely over. The work of Julian Simon and the strong conservative politics under the Reagan administration led the United States to stop viewing population growth as a problem. This positioned the United States against not only many developing nations that saw rapid population growth as a fundamental development challenge but also several European countries that continued to support family planning programs. Finally, the 1994 population conference in Cairo redefined population policies with greater emphasis on gender equality and with less emphasis on population control. That signaled the end of the era when the United Nations was proactive in traditional population issues as part of the development question. The Millennium Development Goals indicated the transition from population being seen as a development problem to work on how the United Nations and the international community could reconceptualize development itself largely without an explicit population component. These goals grew out of the Millennium Summit and the follow-up Millennium Declaration in 2000, and they avoided including any direct language about general population dynamics, size, or composition. The United Nations took the safe road by including three goals, among others, on mortality and morbidity: reduce child mortality; improve maternal health; and combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases. These topics are largely neutral, and tame language was used regarding contraception and family planning under “maternal health.” Another goal was “ensure environmental sustainability,” though this is also quite distant from any demographic roots, such as the resource scarcity debates of the 1970s and 1980s. Some other demographic indicators were used to promote international goals (e.g., life expectancy at birth being part of the Human Development Index), but population dynamics as broad goals themselves proved to be too controversial, context-dependent, and elusive to use in development discourses. Or, perhaps it was that demography is inherently pragmatic and resists abstraction beyond a certain level. This does not mean, of course, that demographic questions are no longer in the center of policy debates that are debates of development as well. Many countries have a long history of discourses on population trends (see Hoff 2012 for the U.S. example), and some, such as China or the Soviet Union, have gone to extremes in social engineering to achieve their goals. Demographic issues are still part of the mainstream discourse on development, as evidenced by the everlasting debates on immigration or population aging. The concept of development has been defined and redefined many times in the past. At the most basic level, it refers to the Western idea of progress and growth stemming from the philosophy and scientific advances of the Enlightenment, with globalization being its latest operational version inducing much criticism. However, no matter how one defines development, it has a strong foundation in aggregate human conditions
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and a mutual interrelation with population dynamics. Development creates the intellectual framework for population studies, and demography provides pragmatic considerations for development theory. It is unlikely that scholars will ever agree on population and development narratives and actions as much as they did under the modernization paradigm, but no matter how context-dependent the causal mechanisms between the two may be, population and development are inseparable. And, while working on the numerous global and local challenges in that nexus, demographers and development scholars alike are responsible for keeping the discourse focused on all three of the broad issues: economic prosperity, environmental impact, and social equality.
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3 STRENGTHENING THE TIES BETWEEN ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENT Jennifer E. Givens, Brett Clark, and Andrew K. Jorgenson
For decades, sociology of development scholars have considered the implications of economic development for environmental conditions as well as how natural resource availability and ecological regulatory mechanisms shape socio-development processes. At the same time, foundational perspectives within environmental sociology have examined the complex interrelationships between the natural conditions and development, paying particular attention to the effects of the latter in its various manifestations on ecological outcomes. Some of these foundational environmental sociology theories—at their core—are at loggerheads with one another in ways similar to classical debates concerning social change in development sociology between modernization and critical political-economic theories. In this chapter, we provide thorough overviews of contemporary theoretical perspectives within environmental sociology that address the impacts of development on natural conditions. We mainly discuss the environmental consequences of development, because this relationship is the subject of much of the theorization and empirical research in which social rather than natural forces are given causal primacy. These perspectives have much to offer to the broader sociology of development community and can further enrich empirical work. They also provide the means to bring environmental and development concerns even closer to the center of the field.1 More broadly, scholars working at the intersections of environmental sociology and development sociology have much to contribute to multidisciplinary approaches to sustainability studies.
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We begin by summarizing the ecological modernization tradition, which is generally optimistic about the possibility for anthropogenic environmental harms to decrease through the course of development. This work emphasizes the role of existing institutions, technological innovations, and an emerging ecological rationality in leading to more harmonious relationships between the natural environment and development processes. Next, we review multiple political-economic perspectives, including treadmill of production theory, metabolic theory, and treadmill of destruction theory. These theories propose that existing forms of development are environmentally harmful and increasingly so, with long-term negative implications for human and nonhuman species. The final perspective we discuss is ecologically unequal exchange theory, which highlights how interrelationships between developed and developing nations allow for the partial displacement of environmental harms in relative contexts from the Global North to the Global South. We present how ecologically unequal exchange processes also contribute to the treadmill of production and the treadmill of destruction in particular ways. Prior to our concluding remarks, we offer brief overviews of two important areas of sociological research that are successfully engaging the broader sustainability science community. The first area is the growing body of sociological research on climate change mitigation, where we focus primarily on the socioeconomic drivers of greenhouse gas emissions. The second area examines how development influences the complex relationships between human well-being and environmental conditions in the contexts of the ecological intensity and the carbon intensity of human well-being.
E C O L O G I C A L M O D E R N I Z AT I O N A N D P O S T- M AT E R I A L I S T VA L U E S : R E F L E X I V I T Y A N D D E V E L O P M E N T
Ecological modernization theory is a prominent perspective within environmental sociology. Like modernization theorists of development, ecological modernization scholars propose that there is a relatively linear path of development, enhancing the well-being of citizens, enriching the economy, and improving the quality of socio-environmental conditions. They argue that the overall modernization process allows for added reflexivity throughout the socioeconomic system and its institutions. As a result, governmental officials, scientists, business leaders, and citizens are able to pursue environmentally enlightened policies and practices, which help overcome various ecological problems. These scholars emphasize that technological advancement serves as a means to accomplish sustainable changes. They generally examine internal relationships and causes rather than focusing on larger external contexts, such as transnational and global forces, that shape situations within entities of analysis, such as nation-states or individual industries. As a result, these scholars illuminate specific processes of institutional change that take place at smaller scales. Similar to modernization theorists, ecological modernization scholars advocate continued economic growth to achieve better social outcomes. More importantly, ecological modernization theorists propose that economic growth and devel-
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opment are compatible with improved environmental outcomes. In other words, they do not view the relationship between economic development and the environment as a trade-off. Proponents of ecological modernization posit that continued economic growth increases both technological advancement and environmental governance, which serve as the basis to mediate the environmental outcomes of economic development over time (Mol 2001). They acknowledge that economic growth generally resulted in environmental degradation during the early stages of modern development; however, they suggest, the magnitude of the effect will decrease with time and further development. It is assumed that economic development increases the reflexivity of nation-states, giving birth to self-corrective powers, whereby an “ecological rationality” emerges, constraining the “economic rationality” that dominates during the earlier stages of development. As ecological concerns are diffused, citizens mobilize and call for more “green” practices, governments create more environmental regulations and institutions, and technological innovation is directed to ensure sustainable conditions (Mol 2001, 2002). These changes allow economic growth to become decoupled from material inputs and broader environmental impacts. It is proposed that ongoing economic growth might actually benefit the environment. Technological innovations, such as advances in renewable energies and increased efficiencies, enhance the overall sustainability of society. This modernization process, which increases ecological rationalism, decreases conflict surrounding the importance of the environment, given that previous “problems” are successfully addressed (Mol, Spaargaren, and Sonnenfeld 2014). Ecological modernization scholars are not critical of capitalism, nor do they view this economic system as an obstacle to environmental sustainability (Mol and Spaargaren 2002). They view alternatives to capitalism as less feasible than reforming the existing global system. It is suggested that the dynamic nature of capitalism allows for economic growth to be directed toward environmental reform. Changes in production and consumption contribute to the creation of a “green economy.” Arthur Mol argues that “environmental improvement can go together with economic development via a process of delinking economic growth from natural resource inputs and outputs of emissions and wastes” (1997, 141). Technological innovation throughout the productive system, ecological modernizationists claim, will allow industries to prevent environmental problems from occurring in the first place, rather than relying on “end-of-pipe technology” (e.g., smokestack filters) that reduces pollution only after it has been produced (Huber 2010, 334). The state, in a new politically modernized form, helps facilitate significant environmental improvements and policy reforms in conjunction with a variety of actors, including political, economic, and civil society groups (Hajer 1995; Mol and Buttel 2002; Mol and Jänicke 2010). Ronald Inglehart’s theory of post-materialist values complements ecological modernization theory. He argues (1995) that environmental quality is a higher-order need that is only attended to once lower-level needs are met. Economic development is
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necessary to meet lower-level needs and thereby serves as the platform for environmental reform. He also proposes (1977) that technological innovation will result in solutions rather than further environmental problems. Both ecological modernization and postmaterialist values theories are focused mainly on industrialized and West European countries, which are seen as the nations that merged economic growth with environmental sustainability.2 It is suggested that reflexive modernization stimulates technological diffusion from the Global North to the Global South, creating a path of sustainable development as the latter follows the path of the former. These scholars contend that institutional, technological, and sociocultural changes contribute to the dematerialization of society. Ecological modernization theory continues to evolve as its proponents grapple with critiques and revise earlier propositions (Mol and Jänicke 2010; Mol and Spaargaren 2000; Mol, Spaargaren, and Sonnenfeld 2014).3 Mol and his colleagues are working to strengthen the theory in terms of testing its applicability globally and in different world regions. They are developing more theoretical nuance as far as their conception of technology, and attempting to address issues of inequality and power, areas that previously received little attention (Mol, Spaargaren, and Sonnenfeld 2014). As this scholarship has advanced, distinct divisions have arisen: weak ecological modernization tends to champion market-based solutions and promote technological innovations as means to achieve environmental improvement, whereas strong ecological modernization emphasizes the political process and state reform, suggesting that broader institutional changes—such as regulations, policies, investments, and incentives—are necessary to diffuse environmental concerns throughout society. Strong ecological modernization scholars also support incorporating natural capital into the accounting of production, increasing democratic participation within the political system, and integrating considerations of justice and equity into environmental governance at the global level (Christoff 2010; Mol, Spaargaren, and Sonnenfeld 2014). Ecological modernizationists primarily examine, via in-depth comparative case studies, the sociocultural and industrial changes within modern society rather than environmental outcomes, such as carbon-dioxide emissions or land-cover change. They document how environmental movements successfully push for governmental action to regulate pollution and how the reorganization of production within particular industries, such as pulp and paper manufacturing and the chemical industry, have contributed to less toxic processes and pollution (see, e.g., Andersen 2002; Mol 1995; Scheinberg and Mol 2010; Sonnenfeld 1998). For example, David Sonnenfeld (1998, 2002) finds that the paper mill industry in late industrializing countries such as Thailand responds to a variety of influences, including environmental degradation, political turmoil, social movements, ecological concerns, nongovernmental organizations, and state intervention. The industry has adopted greener technologies, especially those developed in the Global North. However, the results of this ecological modernization process have been mixed. The industry in Southeast Asia has not experienced the dematerialization that was
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expected. Sonnenfeld (2000, 254) questions whether dematerialization in the Global North is only made possible by “increased materialization elsewhere.”4 This body of research directs attention to how institutional change takes place, and it highlights important actors and institutions within these processes that facilitate transformation (Mol, Spaargaren, and Sonnenfeld 2014). Leading scholars in the field contend that the ecological modernization process is informing political and economic policy, contributing to the emergence of a more sustainable system of global production and consumption (see, e.g., Mol 2001).5 Empirical testing of ecological modernization theory is conducted at different scales, often by explicitly assessing the relationship between level of economic development or economic growth and environmental outcomes. Much of this work tests for the existence of an environmental Kuznets curve, which would indicate that environmental harms increase with economic growth up to a specific point and then decrease with ongoing development. The results are mixed at best, depending on the scale, context, and/or environmental harm measured. More generally, there is weak support for the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis, contra ecological modernization propositions (see, e.g., Carson 2010; Dinda 2004; Jorgenson and Clark 2011; Kearsley and Riddel 2010; Wagner 2008; York, Rosa, and Dietz 2003a). Research focused on industrializing economies in Asia has produced mixed findings, indicating that the ecological modernization process in this part of the world has unique qualities (Liang and Mol 2013). In Central and Eastern Europe, Mikael Andersen (2002) finds evidence of ecological subversion rather than modernization in terms of the transition following the breakup of the Soviet bloc. In regard to post-materialist values and ecological rationality concerns, Jennifer Givens and Andrew Jorgenson (2011) find that higher levels of economic development at the nation-state level are associated with less environmental concern among citizens. Patricia Lankao, Doug Nychka, and John Tribbia (2008) discern no evidence of convergence among more- and less-developed countries in regard to greenhouse gas emissions or well-being. Ecological modernization theory, like the broader modernization perspective, continues to generate much debate about questions surrounding economic development and environmental sustainability. Whether or not there is a trade-off between these two issues is a major concern. Ecological modernization scholars draw attention to specific institutional changes and processes that can yield positive environmental change. These changes tend to be relative, rather than absolute. Whether these changes can be scaled up to produce substantial and absolute gains remains an important question. Propositions derived from ecological modernization theory continue to offer fruitful questions for empirical testing but with caution and awareness of the following three considerations: while constantly debated in sociological study and in policy and practice circles, ideas drawn from ecological modernization and especially neoliberal perspectives are quite dominant (Brulle 2015); ecological modernization can potentially be seen as a strategy of political accommodation of more radical critiques or proposals for sustainability
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(Hajer 1995); and, without caution, ecological modernization optimism could undermine realistic understandings of and support for socially just and actual global sustainability.
POLITICAL-ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES: DEVELOPMENT A N D E N V I R O N M E N TA L D E G R A D AT I O N
Within environmental sociology, political-economic perspectives—such as the treadmill of production theory, metabolic theory, and the treadmill of destruction theory—raise critical questions regarding the long-term sustainability of the modern socioeconomic system, absent significant social change, and see growth dynamics as major drivers of degradation. Albeit not uniformly, these theorists generally address related and different facets of the political-economic system, analyzing its historical development and an array of ecological consequences. They identify continuity in the general character of the system as well as sociohistorical variation in how it manifests itself. Treadmill of production and metabolic theorists generally focus on economic relations. They argue that there is an “enduring conflict” between capitalism and the environment (Foster 2000; Schnaiberg 1980). Capitalism, in general, is seen as a system that is driven by and dependent on growth. Economic growth requires an ever-increasing expansion of resources—in the form of matter and energy—that contributes to various forms of environmental degradation and ecological disruptions. Global capitalist development exacerbates pressures placed on ecosystems. Treadmill of destruction theorists primarily examine the environmental impacts of national militaries and broader geopolitical conditions. They propose that, though economic relations and conditions influence military development, the latter also has a distinct growth dynamic (Hooks and Smith 2004). As a result, military expansion and development contributes to ecological degradation, creates toxic landscapes, and exacerbates environmental inequalities. For all of these theorists, economic and military development, under the current social system, is incompatible with environmental sustainability. They propose that environmental sustainability requires a political-economic system that operates within natural limits, protecting the conditions that sustain ecological cycles and ecosystem services. Treadmill of production theorists propose that capitalists constantly seek to increase profits, which are reinvested to enlarge and intensify the scale of production. Capital accumulation takes precedence and drives a cycle of growth that necessitates ever increasing production (Schnaiberg 1980). Treadmill theorists suggest that this growth imperative influences the organization of production and consumption. Focusing largely on post–World War II development, they hold that private capital, the state, and labor depend on economic growth for profits, taxes, and wages. The constant pursuit of profit and expansion has “direct implications for natural resource extraction,” pollution generation, and overall environmental conditions (Gould, Pellow, and Schnaiberg 2004, 297). Each expansion in the production process to sustain economic operations on a
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larger, more intensive scale generates higher natural resource demands, often at rates that exceed ecosystem regenerative capacity (Foster, Clark, and York 2010; Gould, Pellow, and Schnaiberg 2004). Moreover, they contend that energy-intensive materials, such as plastics and chemicals, are incorporated into manufacturing, causing widespread waste and pollution (Foster 1994; Gould, Pellow, and Schnaiberg 2008; Pellow 2007; Schnaiberg and Gould 1994). Producers externalize environmental costs as much as possible because this has the potential to increase profits. Drawing from the work of Thorstein Veblen and of John Kenneth Galbraith, treadmill of production theorists argue that the rise of monopoly capital contributed to the creation of modern marketing (Foster and Clark 2012). Veblen ([1923] 1964) explained that “salesmanship” was necessary to create customers for the commodities produced, helping reproduce and expand capitalism. Similarly, Galbraith (1958) proposed that corporations exercise “producer sovereignty,” thereby dominating both production and consumption. The state, though often caught in contradictory positions, is seen as an important social institution that supports economic expansion through negotiating trade agreements, bailing out industry and banking, promoting military spending, and protecting private property (Schnaiberg 1980). From this perspective, there is a strong relationship between capitalist economic development and environmental degradation. Metabolic theorists ecologically embed socioeconomic systems and examine more explicitly the interchange of matter and energy between human societies and the larger environment (Foster 1999). They see capitalism as a historically specific regime of accumulation that drives the growth imperative; it is a social metabolic system that operates in accord with its own logic, reducing labor and nature to serve capital accumulation, shaping material exchanges with the environment, and increasing demands on ecosystems and natural cycles. They contend that the social metabolism of capitalism exceeds natural limits, which undermines ecosystem regeneration and produces “metabolic rifts” in various cycles and processes (Foster 1999, 2000; Foster, Clark, and York 2010; Mészáros 1995). For example, soil requires specific nutrients—nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium—to maintain its ability to produce crops, because as plants grow they take up these nutrients. The enclosure movement and the concentration of land that accompanied the rise of capitalism created a division between town and country, increasing the urban population. Food and fiber were shipped to distant markets, transferring the nutrients of the soil from the country to the city where they accumulated as waste, rather than being returned to the soil. Karl Marx explained that this type of production “disturbs the metabolic interaction between man and the earth,” causing a rift in the nutrient cycle that undermines “the operation of the eternal natural condition for the lasting fertility of the soil” (1976, 637). Metabolic analysis illuminates how the transfer of nutrients is tied to the accumulation process and how it increasingly takes place at national and international levels as the bounty of the countryside and distant lands is transferred to urban centers of economically developed nations, creating global metabolic rifts (Clark and Foster 2009).
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Metabolic theorists contend that the growth imperative of capital generates ecological rifts through intensification of social metabolism. Its dependence on burning massive quantities of coal, natural gas, and oil has created a carbon rift (Clark and York 2005; Foster and Clark 2012). This process breaks the solar-income budget, releasing enormous quantities of carbon that previously had been removed from the atmosphere. Consequent growth-driven, ecological degradation (e.g., deforestation) substantially reduces carbon sinks, further contributing to the accumulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Treadmill of production and metabolic theorists propose that technological innovation plays a crucial role in economic development, rationalizing labor processes and generating cost reductions via automated production. These scholars hold that new technologies often make energy and raw material usage more efficient, but, contra ecological modernizationists, they contend that innovation does not dematerialize society or contribute to an absolute decoupling of economic development from energy and resources. They point to the “Jevons Paradox”—that more efficient resource usage increases overall consumption of that particular resource so that expanded production outstrips gains made in energy efficiency (Clark and Foster 2001; Jevons [1865] 1906; Jorgenson and Clark 2012; Polimeni et al. 2008; York 2006). They argue that efficient operations produce savings that expand investment in production within the larger economic system and thereby increase total energy consumed, raw materials used, and carbon dioxide produced. These theorists note that technological rationalization must be situated within global capitalism’s overall social relations and dynamics. The growth imperative, as suggested by these theoretical perspectives, is geared to maximize throughput of energy and matter in commodity production; thus, conservation does not take place at the macroscale of the economy. The most efficient nations are, in fact, generally the biggest consumers of natural resources (York, Rosa, and Dietz 2004). The Jevons Paradox illustrates that purely technological means cannot solve ecological problems caused by economic development (Foster, Clark, and York 2010; Jorgenson 2009; York 2010). The ecologically destructive qualities of the military have long been recognized: “[T] he world’s armed forces are the single largest polluter on earth” (Renner 1991, 132; see also Singer and Keating 1999). National militaries are often exempt from environmental laws at home and abroad (Gould 2007). Recent theoretical work within environmental sociology explicitly assesses this social institution as a driver of environmental degradation and environmental inequalities. Treadmill of destruction theorists are forthright that the military and the economy are interlinked, yet the military has its own independent expansionary dynamics that contribute to an array of environmental problems and structural inequalities (Hooks and Smith 2004, 2005).6 They assert that states—not classes or firms—declare war primarily for geopolitical reasons. However, the expansionary dynamics of militarism are not limited to periods of war (Hooks and Smith 2004; Mann 1988; Tilly 1990). The ascent and expansion of the military were particularly noticeable following World War II (Mills 2000). International superpowers, such as the United States, use part of
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the social surplus generated through economic dominance to invest in military development (Hooks and McLauchlan 1992; Kentor 2000). Domestic politics, the position of nations within the global interstate system, and actual and perceived threats shape the course of military development. Vested geopolitical and military interests, as well as the constant preparation for future conflicts, contributes to the escalation of the scale and operations of national militaries and to the ballooning of military budgets and an arms race. Militaries have become increasingly material and capital intensive (Kentor, Jorgenson, and Kick 2012). Military development, due to its structure and its attendant activities (whether during war or peace), drives distinctive forms of environmental degradation. Treadmill of destruction scholars examine both the domestic and international implications of military development. Gregory Hooks and Chad Smith (2004) argue that military development has created a particular form of environmental inequality within the United States as well as a general contamination of the ecosystems. They demonstrate how closed military bases that are deemed dangerous due to toxicity and unexploded ordinance tend to be located adjacent to Native American lands. They indicate that geopolitical and polity relations—distinct from economic relations—influence the spatial distribution of environmental “bads” that are the result of producing, testing, deploying, and storing the hazardous and toxic weapons. As a result, indigenous peoples within the United States are disproportionately burdened—due to a history of coercion— with degraded landscapes and increased health risks due to exposure to toxic chemicals. Treadmill of destruction theorists also argue that the world’s militaries consume vast amounts of nonrenewable energy (such as fossil fuels) and other resources for research and development, maintenance, training, and operation of their overall infrastructures (see, e.g., Jorgenson and Clark 2009; Jorgenson, Clark, and Kentor 2010). This institution generates large quantities of toxic substances and waste, which contribute to the contamination of land and water. According to the U.N. Center for Disarmament (1982), armed forces have used a steadily increasing amount of land for bases, other installations, testing of weapons, and training exercises over the past century. Even the end of the Cold War has not reduced the utilization of public lands by the military (Singer and Keating 1999). A network of military bases encompasses the globe, requiring a vast amount of resources—especially fossil fuels—to staff, operate, and transport equipment and personnel between destinations. For developed nations, the environmentally damaging capabilities of their militaries are partly a function of technological developments with weaponry and other machinery (Clark, Jorgenson, and Kentor 2010; Collins 1981; Jorgenson, Clark, and Kentor 2010). These capital-intensive militaries employ advanced weaponry and utilize state-of-the-art transportation systems to facilitate the rapid movement of troops and to enhance strike capabilities, including an extensive system of vehicles and infrastructure to aid in the deployment of equipment and soldiers. High-tech military equipment, such as planes, ships, helicopters, tanks, and vehicles, require the consumption of large amounts of fossil fuels that contribute to the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. For
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example, one hour of operation of a nonnuclear aircraft carrier consumes 21,300 liters (over 5,621 gallons) of fuel; large, high-tech military helicopters burn five gallons of fuel for every mile that they travel; and fighter planes, such as the F-15 and F-16, consume between 1,500 and 1,700 gallons of fuel per hour. If those planes’ afterburners are used, up to 14,400 gallons are exhausted per hour (Clark and Jorgenson 2012; Cutler 1989; Renner 1997; Sanders 2009; Smith 2003). The ecological impacts and social inequalities of the military are increasingly being concentrated in the Global South (Hooks and Smith 2012). Martin Shaw (2002, 2005) details how the leaders in the Great Powers are pursuing “risk-transfer militarism,” whereby the environmental damages, health risks, and casualties are shifted to the populations in developing nations. Asymmetries in economic and military strength are facilitating this transfer of environmental risks and impacts to the most vulnerable populations. Through technological innovation and by employing modern weapons, the Global North is able to reduce injuries and casualties to their own troops and citizens while subjecting distant lands to environmental destruction and social disruption (Hooks and Smith 2012). Ironically, perhaps, as the militaries in the North are attempting to reduce their ecological footprint within homelands, the global reach of the world’s militaries expands the toxic legacy and socio-environmental degradation of this institution. Overall, treadmill of destruction theorists contend that, as nations develop more capitalintensive militaries, these institutions, given their infrastructure and expansionary drive, will serve as important drivers of environmental change. Proponents of the treadmill of production, metabolic, and treadmill of destruction theories have employed a variety of methodological approaches to assess the relationship between economic and/or military development and ecological conditions. In-depth, comparative case studies (see, e.g., Clark and Foster 2009; Hooks and Smith 2004; Pellow 2007) and quantitative cross-national analyses (Jorgenson and Clark 2012; York, Rosa, and Dietz 2003a) lend support to the propositions of these perspectives. Most of this research considers how economic and military development influences specific environmental outcomes, such as nations’ ecological footprints, energy consumption, levels of carbon-dioxide emissions, and the disruption of specific ecological cycles. This work illuminates the macro-comparative dimensions of the global political economy.
E C O L O G I C A L LY U N E Q U A L E XC H A N G E
The theory of ecologically unequal exchange builds on classic unequal exchange and uneven development traditions (Amin 1976; Bunker 1984; Emmanuel 1972; Frank 1979; O’Connor 1998). This analysis highlights the unequal material exchange relations and consequent ecological interdependencies within the world economy, which are linked to wide structural disparities in socioeconomic development and international inequities (see, e.g., Foster and Holleman 2014; Hornborg 1998, 2009; Jorgenson 2006b; Jorgenson and Clark 2009; Rice 2007; Roberts and Parks 2007a). Unequal exchange can be
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broadly defined as asymmetrical power relationships between developed and developing countries, wherein the former gain disproportionate advantages at the expense of the latter through the structure of trade and production networks. The assertion of unequal exchange relations diverges from neoclassical economic thought by inquiring into the historical power relations shaping present comparative advantages, rather than taking present trade conditions as a given (Jorgenson and Givens 2014). Ecologically unequal exchange refers to the disproportionate concentration of environmental degradation associated with the withdrawal of energy and other natural resource assets and the pollution linked to production and disposal activities within developing countries. It reveals the vertical flow of matter, energy, and wealth from lessdeveloped to developed countries. It highlights the obtainment of natural capital (stocks of natural resources that yield important goods and services, which are generally consumed in the Global North) and the usurpation of sink-capacity (waste assimilation properties of ecosystems in a manner that enlarges the domestic carrying capacity of more powerful developed countries) to the detriment of social and ecological conditions within developing countries. Through comparative-historical analysis, Stephen Bunker and Paul Ciccantell (2005) examine the complex relationships associated with unequal exchange that contribute to uneven development within the global system. They argue that orthodox theories of development poorly recognize the differences between the internal dynamics and logic of accumulation of extractive and productive economies. It is not the extraction of natural resources and energy, per se, that promotes ecologically unequal exchange, but the socio-organizational relationships that emerge between and within exporting and importing nations. The historical interactions between modes of extraction and production create path-dependent dynamics that shape the development trajectories of differentially situated nations and their economies. From colonial to contemporary times, “this appropriation and its ecological results affect the class structures; the organization of labor; systems of property and exchange; the activities of the state; the distribution of populations; the development of physical infrastructure; and the kinds of information, beliefs, and ideologies which shape social organization and behavior” (Bunker 1984, 1020). These exchange relationships also contribute to boom-and-bust cycles, demographic shifts, and temporary investments in infrastructures that will become obsolete when the cycle of extraction ends. Local modes of production are reorganized in response to the demands of the global economy (Bunker 1984). Extractive and export-oriented path dependencies are firmly established, influencing patterns of environmental degradation. Bunker explained that “colonial extraction responded to international demand by exploiting a few, highly marketable resources beyond their capacity for natural regeneration” (1984, 1024). Colonies and former colonies were generally directed to producing for distant, powerful nations. Export agriculture and forestry resulted in the erosion and depletion of soil; the commodification of plants led to the loss of biodiversity (Foster 1999; Gellert 2010).
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Energy and other natural resources are unevenly distributed throughout the world. Thus, trade of these resources between nations can be helpful to meet human needs and well-being. It is often assumed that trade will benefit nations with valuable resources. However, in the modern world economy, many export-oriented, developing nations remain mired in poverty, having failed to exhibit the vertical and horizontal economic diversification and growth that should follow temporally from specialization in their comparative advantages (Mahutga 2006). A conundrum, moreover, underlies the juxtaposition between those countries exhibiting the greatest consumption of natural resources and those characterized by the most degradation or loss of natural resource assets: the former, principally the most industrialized and post-industrial countries, often have the lowest domestic levels of many forms of environmental degradation (e.g., deforestation). In turn, the most intense natural resource degradation processes frequently beset the poorest countries in the world, those exhibiting minimal natural resource consumption demands. Ecologically unequal exchange is contingent on differential cross-national social organization and accelerated production-consumption-accumulation linkages in the “core” industrialized countries—facilitating the ability of state and private capital interests to determine global demand for natural resources (Hornborg 2011). Their capacity to control demand ensures that core interests engage in the substantive decisions regarding global export activity, and it subjects developing nations to ever-changing market demands (Bunker and Ciccantell 2005). Local populations, social organization, infrastructures, and ecosystems within the extractive regions of developing nations are often disrupted to attend to the malleable needs of high-income nations (Bonds and Downey 2012; McMichael 2008). International trade and production networks in contemporary contexts are partly tied to shifts that began in the 1970s and early 1980s, particularly the growing emphasis on export-oriented production and the attraction of foreign direct investment as interrelated ways of stimulating economic development in lower-income nations. Through formal and informal mechanisms, global institutions have encouraged such activities, often framing them as necessary ingredients for developing countries to establish and maintain beneficial positions in the world economy (see, e.g., Babb 2005). It is recognized that, to some extent (and depending on the context), trade and foreign investment stimulate economic development for developing nations (see, e.g., Clark and Mahutga 2013; Kentor and Boswell 2003).7 However, by increasing consumption of agricultural goods, extracted materials, and manufactured products, high-income nations exacerbate environmental and ecological problems within developing countries. These constitute some of the key mechanisms underlying ecologically unequal exchanges (Jorgenson and Givens 2014). Over the past decade, scholars working at the intersections of environmental sociology and development sociology have successfully employed quantitative measures in comparative international studies of various environmental outcomes (e.g., deforesta-
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tion, water pollution, carbon emissions, and the ecological footprints of nations) to test propositions derived from ecologically unequal exchange theory (see, e.g., Austin 2010; Jorgenson 2006b, 2012; Jorgenson, Austin, and Dick 2009; Rice 2007; Roberts and Parks 2007a; Shandra et al. 2009). Of particular relevance for this chapter, Andrew Jorgenson and Brett Clark (2009) integrate the tradition with both the treadmill of production and the treadmill of destruction theories. As discussed in greater detail in the preceding section, treadmill of production theory focuses on how an economic system driven by endless economic growth, at an ever-larger scale, generates widespread ecological degradation, whereas treadmill of destruction theory suggests that the military has its own expansionary dynamics that involve significant environmental costs. Jorgenson and Clark contend that the ecologically unequal exchange perspective intersects a great deal with both treadmill orientations. The treadmill of production propels the world economy toward constant expansion, demanding more and more resources to meet its appetite, especially in the articulated consumer markets of developed countries and the rapidly emerging markets in Brazil, Russia, India, and China (collectively known as the “BRIC” nations). Similarly, in the interests of national security, technological innovation, political power, and geopolitical influence, the treadmill of destruction facilitates the increased consumption of resources by the nations’ militaries and their supporting sectors. As suggested by scholars of geopolitics and development, increased military strength enhances access to the natural resources and sink capacity of less powerful, less economically developed nations (see, e.g., Chase-Dunn 1998). More-developed and militarily powerful countries are positioned advantageously in the world economy, and thus these nations are more likely to secure and maintain favorable terms of trade allowing for greater access to the natural resources and sink capacity of bioproductive areas within less-developed, less militarily powerful countries (Jorgenson and Clark 2009). These advantageous positions facilitate the externalization of environmental costs of resource extraction and consumption, and they structure conditions where more-developed countries and those with more powerful militaries are able to over-utilize global “environmental space” (Rice 2007). The “misappropriation” of global environmental space suppresses resource consumption opportunities for the populations of many developing nations. Given the structure and acceleration of both the treadmill of destruction and the treadmill of production, and given that they are by no means independent of one another, the environmental and ecological consequences of these processes for less economically developed and less militarily powerful countries are likely to increase through time. To test their arguments and assess the extent to which these perspectives intersect in meaningful and empirically valid ways, Jorgenson and Clark (2009) create and employ two measures of the flows of exports from sending to receiving nations. One is weighted by the levels of economic development of receiving countries, the other by military expenditures per soldier of receiving countries. The two export flows measures are treated as predictors in panel analyses of the ecological footprints of nations from 1975
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to 2000. The results of their study indicate that countries with relatively higher levels of exports sent to more economically developed and more militarily powerful nations experience suppressed consumption levels, and these effects—which are independent of one another—are especially pronounced and increasingly so for the less-developed countries, many of which consume resources well below globally sustainable thresholds. In other words, both forms of structural relationships between nations have become increasingly unequal in ecological contexts, and these ecologically unequal relationships support the “Northern centered” treadmills of production and destruction.
C L I M AT E C H A N G E M I T I G AT I O N A N D D E V E L O P M E N T
Anthropogenic climate change is among the greatest challenges of our times. Societies may pursue mitigation through efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, in addition to adaptation to the effects of climate change. In order to successfully mitigate climate change, it is necessary to understand its social causes. Research in environmental sociology, employing the theoretical perspectives detailed in the previous sections, examines the social drivers that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and thus climate change. This work is especially pertinent for development sociologists, because anthropogenic climate change is directly linked, in a variety of ways, to the historic development of the modern economic system. Additionally, climate change and other natural conditions influence socioeconomic processes. We briefly review below some of the sociological work on the human drivers of greenhouse gas emissions, with a particular focus on the role of development. (For a more thorough review of the sociological research on the drivers of greenhouse gas emissions, we refer readers to Rosa and Dietz 2012; Rosa et al. 2015) Political-economic research regarding the intersections of the environment and development indicates that carbon-dioxide and methane emissions, as well as the associated drivers, are structured by nations’ positions in the world system, the subsequent institutional and demographic dynamics, and the distinct patterns of industrial and/or agricultural development (Burns, Davis, and Kick 1997). One of the earlier cross-national analyses of carbon intensity (carbon-dioxide emissions per unit of GDP) revealed an inverted U-shaped Kuznets curve distribution over the years examined (Roberts and Grimes 1997), but the authors of the study argued that this finding does not support the propositions of ecological modernization. Rather, they suggested that there are divergent pathways for countries within a stratified world system. These findings do not signify that countries are passing through stages of development. Wealthy countries are instead becoming more efficient; other countries are not. It is proposed that the larger structure of the global political economy and the unequal relationships within it influence these trends. In a study of the drivers of carbon-dioxide and methane emissions within nations, Richard York, Eugene Rosa, and Thomas Dietz (2003b) find no evidence of an environ-
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mental Kuznets curve. As suggested by treadmill of production and metabolic scholars, population, economic development, urbanization, and industrialization, all of which are linked to development, each drive emissions. Other sociological research consistently reveals that economic development increases carbon-dioxide and methane emissions (Dietz and Rosa 1997; Jorgenson 2006a; Rosa, York, and Dietz 2004). In fact, Rosa and Dietz (2012) show that there is no evidence that carbon-dioxide emissions are reduced after some threshold of development, contra ecological modernization arguments. Treadmill of destruction research, as noted earlier in the chapter, indicates that military development contributes to an increase in both total and per capita carbon-dioxide emissions (Jorgenson, Clark, and Kentor 2010). Different forms of development produce distinct types of greenhouse gas emissions. For example, a large proportion of foreign direct investment in the Global South finances carbon-intensive agriculture, forestry operations, and extractive enterprises that contribute to higher levels of carbon-dioxide emissions (see, e.g., Grimes and Kentor 2003; Jorgenson 2007b). Jorgenson (2006a) finds that level of economic development, foreign direct investment, and the social organization of production in separate sectors influence the per capita methane emissions of nations. In a cross-national longitudinal study, it is suggested that development of specific sectors, such as the production of grains, cattle, natural gas, and oil, as well as a reliance on food exports, increases total methane emissions (Jorgenson and Birkholz 2010). Likewise, the organization of production within the global system, as far as foreign direct investment, trade, and globalization of production, structure the patterns of total carbon-dioxide emissions among nations (Jorgenson 2007a, 2007b). Overall, development in its various manifestations remains one of the primary drivers of greenhouse gas emissions. The Global North is disproportionately responsible for the historic accumulation of carbon dioxide; however, the emissions of nations in the Global South, especially China and India, have rapidly increased in recent decades. Environment and development scholars indicate that the global organization of production and unequal trade relationships also influence carbon-dioxide emissions (Jorgenson 2012; Malm 2012; Roberts and Parks 2007a, 2009). Low-income countries that send a larger proportion of exports to high-income countries are disadvantaged in the global system of trade and experience higher levels of environmental degradation in the form of per capita carbon-dioxide emissions (Jorgenson 2012). Through this process of ecologically unequal exchange, wealthier countries are able to “offshore” more damaging aspects of production, leading to increases in emissions in less-developed countries. Global inequalities associated with uneven development patterns remain a stumbling block in climate negotiations for international action (Roberts and Parks 2007a, 2007b). For the future, it is also important to gain a better understanding of how development is constrained by climate change (Roberts and Parks 2009). As noted in prior sections of this chapter, ecological modernization theory posits that, even though economic development first harms the environment, the magnitude of the
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link decreases over the course of development—a form of relative decoupling. In contrast, treadmill of production theory argues that the ironclad relationship between environmental harms and economic development remains constant or possibly increases through time for both developed and less-developed countries. Jorgenson and Clark (2012) evaluate these competing propositions through the use of interactions between economic development and time in cross-national panel analyses of three measures of carbon-dioxide emissions: total emissions, per capita emissions, and emissions per unit of production. The first measure is most important in regard to climate change concerns; the second captures aspects of global inequality; and the third is a measure of efficiency. The results vary across the three outcomes as well as between developed and developing countries, providing mixed and unbalanced support for both theoretical perspectives. But overall the results are more consistent with the propositions of treadmill of production theory (see also Jorgenson and Clark 2011; Knight and Schor 2014; York 2012). Theoretical perspectives from environmental sociology help explain the links between development and climate change, especially the effects of economic growth, the global organization of production, and militarization over time on greenhouse gas emissions. As we continue to confront the challenge associated with climate change, via both mitigation and adaptation, future research will offer opportunities to evaluate and extend these theoretical perspectives and to contribute to a better understanding of and action for the well-being of the planet and its inhabitants.
THE ECOLOGICAL INTENSITY AND CARBON INTENSITY OF HUMAN WELL-BEING
The prior sections of this chapter have highlighted specific sociological theories that focus on environment and development relationships and sociological research on development and climate change. Here, we briefly introduce an emerging area of research that emphasizes one of the more fruitful avenues for sociological work that expands environment and development considerations to a broader conception of sustainability. We suggest that the multiple facets of sustainability deal with long-standing, fundamental considerations of development sociology: the importance of enhanced human well-being, healthier environmental conditions, and forms of sustainable social/human development. Decades ago, Alan Mazur and Eugene Rosa (1974) found that, across many nations, energy consumption had decoupled from lifestyle. Their analysis shattered an assumption about development: that increasing human well-being was synonymous with increased resource consumption (Dietz and Jorgenson 2014). In other words, it is possible that, after a certain point, greater resource use (i.e., increased ecological or carbon intensity) may not lead to greater societal benefits (i.e., increased human well-being). These findings direct attention to examining the interrelationships between environmental and social well-being, two of the pillars of sustainable development. If reducing
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the ecological or carbon intensity of human well-being is a pathway to sustainability, a fundamental question becomes clear: how can human societies achieve this sustainability pathway? This is a huge multidisciplinary question with significant policy implications. Fortunately, scholars working at the intersections of development sociology and environmental sociology are well-suited to search for answers, and, in recent years, sociologists have begun conducting such inquiries.8 A common thread among these initial studies is the focus on economic development as a potentially viable pathway to reduce the carbon or ecological intensity of human well-being. For example, Kyle Knight and Eugene Rosa (2011) employ subjective measures of human well-being along with national ecological footprint data to tentatively test propositions, some of which are derived from theories we review in this chapter. Dietz, Rosa, and York (2012) also employ the ecological footprint data but instead use life expectancy as an objective measure of well-being. In their longitudinal cross-national analysis, they engage sociological and economics perspectives regarding the possibility of a Kuznets distribution between the ecological intensity of well-being and economic development. Jorgenson (2014) conducts a longitudinal cross-national analysis as well, but instead uses anthropogenic carbon emissions data and life-expectancy measures. He assesses the extent to which the effect of economic development on the carbon intensity of human well-being changes through time and if the relationship differs across regional samples of nations. Even with the noteworthy specifics of each of these studies, the overall take-home message is clear: economic development by itself is not a viable strategy for reducing the carbon and ecological intensity of human well-being, regardless of whether one uses subjective or objective measures of social well-being, and regardless of whether the analysis is cross-sectional, longitudinal, for combined samples, or region-specific. The implications of this research for the theories summarized above, such as ecological modernization theory and treadmill of production theory, are potentially significant and are already being considered in current research. Equally as important, the results thus far suggest the need to consider additional perspectives, such as ecologically unequal exchange theory, that focus on broader structural conditions and interrelationships between societies that influence these environment and human well-being dynamics. This is an emerging and important area of integrative sustainability research, and we suggest that environment and development scholars in the broader development sociology community have much to contribute to it.
CONCLUSION
This chapter has summarized key theoretical perspectives on the relationship between the environment and development and provided suggestions for future directions in this area of scholarship. A common assumption within the sociology of development community is that economic development generally improves human well-being (see, e.g.,
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Firebaugh and Beck 1994), although some research finds that, over time, the magnitude of the effect of economic growth on human well-being has modestly declined (Brady, Kaya, and Beckfield 2007). Nevertheless, an underlying issue regarding the reliance on economic growth to improve well-being is the environmental implications of continued economic development. It is in this area that theoretical perspectives foundational to environmental sociology have much to contribute to the sociology of development. Ecological modernization theory suggests the possibility of environmentally beneficial effects of economic growth, but much research from political-economic perspectives, including treadmills of production and destruction and metabolic perspectives, finds evidence that development continues to degrade the environment and contributes to the disruption of ecosystems. Furthermore, ecologically unequal exchange theory highlights how forms of environmental degradation are uneven and displaced spatially, structurally, and temporally. An additional concern is that development may become more difficult in situations where the environment has been degraded. Thus, the environment is a key factor in terms of both the causes and the consequences of development, and work in this area suggests the importance of considering structural inequalities at multiple scales and potential trade-offs between development (in its various forms) and the environment in future work, especially as ecological problems accumulate globally. From water pollution and its related health effects to the challenge of global climate change and its ability to threaten ecosystem services on which all life depends, environmental considerations increasingly factor into development research and theoretical considerations. We suggest that the environmental sociology theories summarized in this chapter offer valuable insights for the broader development sociology community and demand a more prominent role in the field. Future research should continually test and expand on these theoretical perspectives. The bodies of sociological work that we summarized on development and climate change mitigation and development and the carbon/ecological intensity of human well-being represent two of many possible directions for research that addresses the complex interrelationships among the environment, human well-being, and development. Whereas a broader and deeper consideration of the environment presents further challenges to the already complex issue of development, it also represents an opportunity for an increasingly accurate understanding of development prospects and the potential for versions of development that are both more globally just and more sustainable.
N OT E S
1. Thomas Rudel’s chapter in this volume on development and land-use change also underscores this point. 2. Arthur Mol and Gert Spaargaren (2002) claim that ecological modernization theory, unlike modernization theory and the post-materialist values theory, aims only to be an environmental theory, not a general theory of society. Ecological modernization theory was devel-
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oped in the context of West European states in the mid-1980s. These scholars were trying to understand the changes related to the environment that were taking place in institutions and social practices in these societies and how these changes might make a difference to the organization and environmental outcomes of modern society. 3. Critics of ecological modernization theory argue that the perspective is deterministic and that it fails to consider diversity, context, power, history, and environmental conditions, lacks empirical support, is Eurocentric, and is grounded in structural functionalism (McLaughlin 2012). 4. Paul Almeida and Linda Brewster Stearns (1998), who were not testing ecological modernization arguments, find similar mixed results for Southeast Asia. In their study of industrial and economic development in Japan, they highlight the importance of social movements and timing in leading to state regulations. Following World War II, the rapid industrialization of Japan led to significant pollution. Environmental movements and governmental reforms forced the adoption of pollution controls and new regulations in the 1970s. A decade later, Japanese firms moved production to poorer countries in Southeast Asia, contributing to environmental degradation in the latter. 5. In a focused critique of ecological modernization theory, Richard York and Eugene Rosa (2003) make four points: although the theory identifies institutional change in societies, it must go further and show that this change is actually effective in leading to large-scale transformations; in order to support the theory, empirical evidence must show that the most modernized societies are less environmentally damaging in terms of both production and consumption; it must demonstrate that industries or firms that are becoming more environmentally friendly are not just displacing the environmental harms elsewhere; and it must provide evidence that the pace of efficiency gains is enough to make up for the increase in overall production. 6. See Gregory Hooks’s chapter in this volume for a thorough discussion of the effects of warfare and militarization on development. 7. For a thorough review of the sociological literature on the environmental impacts of foreign direct investment, see Jorgenson and Givens 2014. 8. Other related strands of inquiry have emerged in tandem with these more sociological works (see, e.g., Lamb et al. 2014; Steinberger and Roberts 2010).
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Veblen, Thorstein. (1923) 1964. Absentee Ownership and Business Enterprise in Modern Times. Reprint. New York: Augustus M. Kelley. Wagner, Martin. 2008. “The Carbon Kuznets Curve: A Cloudy Picture Emitted by Bad Econometrics?” Resource and Energy Economics 30: 388–488. York, Richard. 2006. “Ecological Paradoxes: William Stanley Jevons and the Paperless Office.” Human Ecology Review 13: 143–47. . 2010. “Three Lessons from Trends in CO2 Emissions and Energy Use in the United States.” Society and Natural Resources 23, no. 12: 1244–52. . 2012. “Asymmetric Effects of Economic Growth and Decline on CO2 Emissions.” Nature Climate Change 2, no. 11: 762–64. York, Richard, and Eugene A. Rosa. 2003. “Key Challenges to Ecological Modernization Theory: Institutional Efficacy, Case Study Evidence, Units of Analysis, and the Pace of Ecoefficiency.” Organization and Environment 16: 273–88. York, Richard, Eugene A. Rosa, and Thomas Dietz. 2003a. “Footprints on the Earth: The Environmental Consequences of Modernity.” American Sociological Review 68, no. 2: 279–300. . 2003b. “A Rift in Modernity? Assessing the Anthropogenic Sources of Global Climate Change with the STIRPAT Model.” International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 23, no. 10: 31–51. . 2004. “The Ecological Footprint Intensity of National Economies.” Journal of Industrial Ecology 8, no. 4: 139–54.
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4 THE SOURCES OF SOCIOECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Adam Szirmai
Over the past sixty years, many preconceived ideas about development have been challenged through empirical analysis and measurement of development trends. Developing countries are not inevitably condemned to poverty and stagnation. Average GDP per capita has increased more than sixfold.1 Life expectancy at birth has increased by some twenty-four years. Child mortality has declined, and human capital has increased. Contrary to gloomy Malthusian predictions, food production has outpaced a rapidly growing global population since the 1930s, especially in the most densely populated developing countries. Absolute poverty has declined, both in the numbers of the poor and in percentages of the population. Developing countries are not permanently locked into agriculture, mining, or other primary activities. Several developing countries have become powerful global players in manufacturing production and exports. Table 4.1 provides a snapshot of dynamic changes in the developing world between 1950 and 2010. Average figures such as those in Table 4.1 hide great disparities in socioeconomic performance and diversity in developing countries. This is typically the case, for example, for the key indicator: economic growth. In Asia, several countries have experienced rapid growth and catch-up, including Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, Thailand, Turkey, Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Latin American economies grew rapidly until 1980, but their growth momentum faltered between 1980 and 2000. With the exception of tiny countries, such as Mauritius and Botswana, most African countries experienced stagnation between 1973 and 2000, after a period of growth between 1950 and 1973. Since 2000, African growth has picked up, primarily fuelled by
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Dynamic Changes in the Developing World, 1950–2010
GDP per capita (1990 PPP$), (1950–2010), weighted by population GDP per capita (1990 PPP$), (1950–2010), unweighted average Food production per capita (1980 = 100) (1961–2010) Manufactures as % of commodity production (1950–2005) Manufactured exports as % of commodity exports (1961–2010) Life expectancy at birth (1950/5–2005/10) Child mortality by age 1 (1950/5–2005/10) Child mortality by age 5 (1950/5–2005/10) Gross Enrollment Rate, primary education (1960–2010) Gross Enrollment Rate, secondary education (1960–2010) Gross Enrollment Rate, tertiary education (1960–2010) Net Enrollment Rate, primary education (1960–2010) Net Enrollment Rate, secondary education (1960–2010) Illiteracy rate (1956/65–2010) Percentage of population, with less than 1.25 2005 PPP dollars a day (1981–2010) Number of persons with less than 1.25 2005 PPP dollars a day (in millions) (1981–2010) Percentage of population, with less than 2 2005 PPP dollars a day (1981–2010) Number of persons with less than 2 2005 PPP dollars a day (in millions) (1981–2010)
1950–60
1981
2005–10
806.0
1831.4
5128.5
2492.0
4192.0
6531.0
88.0 22.9 5.0
100.0 33.5 25.0
178.4 35.4 37.0
42.3 180.0 281.0 75.8 15.7 2.1 48.1 35.0 55.5
59.5 84.0 117.0
35.5 51.8
66.0 50.2 72.4 107.8 64.0 21.4 86.9 56.0 19.8 20.6
1896.2
1168.0
69.2
40.7
2449.8
2302.0
source: Compilation from Szirmai 2015a, 2015b.
an export boom. In the Middle East, the economic performance of most countries has been erratic, in spite of vast oil resources. Few of the oil-rich developing countries have been able to use their mineral resources to generate sustainable growth in other sectors of the economy. Figure 4.1 provides a powerful illustration of divergence in the economic performance of selected African, Latin American, and Asian developing countries since 1950. With the exception of Latin American countries, most developing countries started with very similar initial levels of GDP per capita in 1950. But starting from low levels of income, countries similar to those of Ghana and Tanzania, Taiwan and South Korea succeeded in attaining high-income status within two generations. Ghana and Tanzania have remained poor. Latin American countries such as Brazil and Mexico started at much higher initial
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28,000 Taiwan South Korea
24,000 20,000 16,000 12,000
Malaysia China Mexico Brazil
8,000
India Ghana Tanzania
4,000 0 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
FIGURE 4.1 Divergence in Economic Performance since 1950 (1990 PPP Dollars). Source: Conference Board, Groningen Growth and Development Centre 2013.
levels of income in 1950 but have experienced relative stagnation since 1980. Finally, China stayed poor until 1990, when it suddenly accelerated to reach middle-income levels in 2012, within a single generation. A similar diversity can be found in the trends and levels of social indicators such as poverty, life expectancy, mortality, health, or education (see Szirmai 2015b). Thus, there has been substantial poverty reduction in East Asia and Latin America, while poverty continues to be high in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa (Bluhm, de Crombrugghe, and Szirmai 2013, 2014). In the long run, social indicators and economic indicators usually move in step with each other, but there are important exceptions (see, e.g., Caldwell 1986; Kuhn 2010). Countries can perform much better or worse in terms of health, education, and poverty than would be expected on the basis of their average per capita GDP. This is illustrated by the well-known case of Cuba, where strong social indicators are combined with weak economic performance. It is this variety of experiences that theories of development have to tackle. In this chapter, my primary focus will be on the differences in economic performance, but such differences will be examined from a broader—not exclusively economic—perspective. My aim, then, is to present a comprehensive framework for the analysis of long-run socioeconomic development that is able to combine contributions and insights from a variety of disciplines, including development economics, the sociology of development, anthropology, political science, and economic history.2 Some of the key questions to be addressed in development studies are: Why have Western Europe and the Western offshoots forged ahead since the fifteenth century, creating the present highly unequal international economic order? Why have some developing countries succeeded in
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partially or completely catching up with advanced country standards of living since 1950, whereas other developing countries have remained mired in stagnation? What are the factors explaining differences in development trends and experiences? To what extent is economic growth associated with poverty reduction, improved health, and better standards of living and welfare? What role is there for social policies in achieving better social outcomes? Why are rates of catch-up in the twentieth (and twenty-first) century so much more rapid than those in the nineteenth century, even though on average the gaps in GDP per capita between rich and poor countries have been increasing? (For the paradox of increasing inequality and accelerated catch-up, see Szirmai 2008, 2013.)3
T H E FA I L U R E O F M O N O C A U S A L E X P L A N AT I O N S
Explaining socioeconomic development is not for the simpleminded. The first observation that one can make is a negative one: every single monocausal explanation ever advanced for development falls down in the face of the empirical evidence.4 Max Weber explained the breakthrough of capitalism in northwestern Europe as being based on the religious characteristics of Protestantism. But his Protestant ethic cannot cope with the recent economic success of East Asian countries with a Confucian tradition or of Islamic Turkey. Differences in degrees of corruption cannot explain why some countries stagnate and others develop. Some countries and regions, such as present-day China or Indonesia under Suharto, prosper in spite of pervasive corruption, whereas others, such as Nigeria, suffer deeply. Some types of corruption seem to be economically sustainable. Climatic and geographic determinists such as Jeffrey Sachs (see Sachs and Warner 1997; Faye et al. 2004), Jared Diamond (1997), and Paul Collier (2007) cannot account for the success of landlocked economies such as Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg, and Botswana, or the rapid growth in tropical regions such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, and southern China. Japan, Korea, and Taiwan have shown how countries can achieve spectacular economic development in spite of scarce natural resources. In fact, oil and mineral resources have often—but again not always—turned out to be a bane for economic development, as in the cases of Nigeria, Congo, or Venezuela, but less so in the cases of Indonesia, Qatar, or Botswana and definitely not in the cases of Australia, Norway, or the United States. Capital accumulation is an ingredient of every conceivable development strategy. But high rates of investment are no guarantee for sustained growth of per capita output or total factor productivity, as was assumed in postwar development theories. Human capital seems to be important in successful development experiences. However, many African developing countries have been successful in expanding their education systems since 1950 even though their economic growth has stagnated (Easterly 2001; Pack and Paxson 2001; Pritchett 2006). Protection of property rights has often been advanced by institutional economists as a key precondition for innovation, technological change, and economic progress (North
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and Thomas 1973; Landes 1998). But the case of China since 1978 illustrates that explosive growth and catch-up can coexist with little protection of intellectual property rights and weakly defined property rights in general (Qian 2003; Rodrik 2006, 2007). Institutional fundamentalists such as Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson (2012) have difficulty in explaining why China, which patently does not meet their institutional requirements for sustained growth, has continued to grow so rapidly since 1978. Marxist and other theories of colonial and neocolonial exploitation fail to explain why some former colonies break the mold of dependence and stagnation and emerge as dynamic economies, and why others do not. Why did the United States become the world productivity leader while Brazil and Argentina have remained developing countries, though their decolonization was only a few decades apart? In development economics, much has been made of good economic policies. It is certainly true that disastrous policies such as those of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, Indonesia’s Sukarno, or Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez can wreck an economy. But apart from that, policy variables such as openness to foreign investment, macroeconomic policies, price distortions, financial policies, and trade openness do not have predictable and robust effects on growth rates (Bhupatiraju and Verspagen 2013; Rodriguez and Rodrik 1999; Rodrik 2006). Thus, seldom do single factors explain breakthroughs and successes in economic development. Rather, we must look at the interaction of many complementary internal and external factors and determinants and the timing of these interactions. In his still eminently readable The Strategy of Economic Development, Albert Hirschman ([1958] 1988) argues that it is not possible to compile a fixed list of “prerequisites” for successful economic development. Different countries face different binding constraints and different initial conditions. The remainder of this chapter is structured as follows. The next section introduces a framework of proximate, intermediate, and ultimate causality for the study of socioeconomic development, which can be used to synthesize contributions from different disciplines. I then distinguish internal and external approaches in postwar development theory. The sections thereafter focus on the four levels of the framework: socioeconomic outcomes; proximate sources of growth; intermediate sources of growth and development; and ultimate sources of growth and development. In conclusion, I discuss some promising avenues for future research on socioeconomic development.
T H E F R A M E W O R K O F P R OX I M AT E , I N T E R M E D I AT E , A N D U LT I M AT E C A U S A L I T Y
To capture both the complexity of and the interactions between sources of growth and development, this chapter presents a framework of proximate, intermediate, and ultimate causality. The framework has been developed by authors such as Angus Maddison (1988), Mancur Olson (1982), Moses Abramovitz (1989), and, more recently, Dani Rodrik (2003). Figure 4.2 provides a further elaboration of this framework (Szirmai 2012b, 2015b).
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Ultimate Sources of Growth and Development Geographic conditions Demographic characteristics Political, economic and social institutions Culture and attitudes Class and power relationships Historical shocks Long-run developments in science and technology Distance to technological frontier
Intermediate Sources of Growth and development Economic, technological and social policies Trends in domestic and international demand Changes in terms of trade
Proximate Sources of Growth Economic Actors O = f [(K, L, R)e] + a + p
Socio-Economic Outcomes Health Education Consumption Welfare Distribution of income and wealth Degree of poverty Environmental sustainability
FIGURE 4.2 Proximate, Intermediate, and Ultimate Sources of Growth and Development.
Four levels are distinguished: ultimate sources of growth and development; intermediate sources of growth and development; proximate sources of economic growth; and socioeconomic outcomes.5 The proximate level lends itself to quantification and economic analysis. As we move to intermediate and ultimate levels, the approach becomes increasingly multidisciplinary. How ultimate factors and intermediate policy factors affect long-run growth performance is studied by economic historians, development economists, development sociologists, and political scientists. A particularly interesting field of research is how ultimate factors (such as class relationships, institutions, or culture) and intermediate factors (such as social and economic
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policies) transform the growth of productive capacity into more or less desirable social outcomes. In this framework, increases in productive capacity (proxied by growth of GDP per capita) play a central role. Without sustained increases in productive capacity and per capita income, it is not possible for a society to realize (and finance) its desired social outcomes, such as better health services, improved education, reduced poverty, increased consumption, and environmentally sustainable production. All of these outcomes have a price tag. In the absence of increases in domestic productive capacity, a country will remain permanently dependent on external transfers and development aid for the realization of improved welfare outcomes. In this sense, the framework is somewhat at odds with the modern discourse of the millennium development goals that defines relevant targets for productive employment, health, education, poverty, an equitable distribution, and sustainability but has little to say about the theoretical relationships between these targets. While emphasizing the centrality of growth and productivity, the framework makes clear that economic growth is not a goal in itself but a means to achieving welfare outcomes. Economic growth is a necessary condition for welfare improvements, but it is not a sufficient condition. The degree to which economic growth translates into desirable social outcomes (socioeconomic development versus economic growth) is determined to an important extent by policies (social protection policies, distributive policies, health policies, education policies, industrial policies, aid policies, and so forth) as well as the wider class structures, political regimes, and institutional frameworks within which these policies operate. Thus, the framework can serve as a bridge between the literatures on social problems, social policies, and social protection, on the one hand, and literatures on long-run development, on the other. Use of the terms “ultimate, intermediate, and proximate” is not meant to imply a linear model of causality; far from it. Causality is circular at all levels, as indicated by the feedback arrows in Figure 4.2. For instance, improved health and education (social outcomes) result in higher quality of labor inputs (proximate causality) but also, in the long run, in changes in absorptive capacity (ultimate causality). Changes in the distribution of income and wealth (social outcomes) change the incentives for different economic actors in the growth equation. Growth of per capita incomes affects demographic and health transitions (see Szirmai 2015b, chaps. 5 and 6). In the long run, even cultural values and institutions are shaped and reshaped in the course of economic development (Harrison 1985; Harrison and Huntington 2000). Thus, there are also relationships and feedback loops between the more ultimate factors in the top box of the figure. The difference between the more ultimate and more proximate sources of causality lies, among others, in the ease of quantification and the length of the chains of causality. It also provides a research strategy, which starts with the measurable economic factors that directly determine growth and then goes beyond them to broader social and
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historical determinants. Thus, the framework also provides an invitation to multidisciplinary analysis of socioeconomic development. It is important to emphasize that Figure 4.2 is a framework for the analysis of development rather than a theory of development as such. As argued at the beginning of this chapter, there is no monocausal model of development where one crucial variable always explains development. There is no checklist of factors that have to be ticked off to explain success in development (Hirschman 1988; Szirmai 2013; Von Tunzelmann 1995). In different historical periods, different configurations of factors operate and there is a great variety of development paths. Nevertheless, one can learn much from a systematic analysis of the factors that play a role in development and their interactions. At a minimum, one can say that a common element of successful development involves positive feedback loops whereby initial success creates conditions for further success and rapid economic growth removes obstacles to further growth and development in a virtuous cycle (Myrdal 1957, 1968).
I N T E R N A L A N D E X T E R N A L E X P L A N AT I O N S I N P O S T WA R D E V E L O P M E N T T H E O RY
Development studies as we know them emerged after World War II. The key question of development was no longer why there had been an economic breakthrough in the West—as had been asked in classical sociological and economic theories in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. Rather, the question became why the non-Western world (the tropical world, the South, and the former colonies) had failed to develop, and what could be done about this. Subsequently, interest shifted to why some developing countries had been doing so much better than others. In coping with the huge literature on development, the framework of proximate, intermediate, and ultimate causality can help us to organize and understand the different strands of the debate. At the level of ultimate causality, one of the most important questions is the relative importance of internal and external factors in the explanation of underdevelopment or lack of development. Internal approaches emphasize the characteristics within a society that promote or hinder development. Thus, one of the founding fathers of development economics, Julius H. Boeke, explained the lack of development of the traditional sector in Indonesia by pointing to presumed noneconomic characteristics of oriental man and oriental culture, in which individual economic incentives were not operative. Needs were limited, and social needs dominated individual needs (Boeke 1947, 1961). The continuation of a traditional economy alongside the modern enclave was explained by internal cultural and institutional characteristics. Internalist approaches thus give pride of place to institutional and cultural obstacles as the ultimate sources of stagnation. Internal characteristics—structural, cultural, institutional, social, political—were emphasized in postwar modernization theories in both economics and sociology. Authors, including Walt Rostow (1960), Simon Kuznets (1966), and Gunnar Myrdal (1968) in economics or Bert Hoselitz (1960), Alex Inkeles (1969), Daniel Lerner (1958),
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and Wilbert Moore (1963) in sociology, searched for the barriers and obstacles to modernization and tried to formulate policies that would overcome these barriers. I would argue that the recent dichotomy between limited access orders and open access orders developed by Douglass North and his colleagues (North et al. 2007; North, Wallis, and Weingast 2009) is a continuation of the internalist tradition, with its opposition of traditional and modern societies.6 External approaches explain the situation in developing countries by reference to negative external influences from the advanced economies. Dualistic structures in developing countries are created by external economic and political penetration and exploitation. External influences also maintain these dualistic structures. In external perspectives, the international balance of economic and political power is the factor driving underdevelopment in the periphery of the world economy. Institutional characteristics and obstacles to development are determined by or even imposed by external forces. A high point in external explanations was the emergence of a variety of mostly neo-Marxist, structuralist, and dependency theories in the 1970s. These theories made the very important point that many of the institutions impeding economic development and equitable social outcomes were not “traditional” but were implanted by external colonial rulers and buttressed and maintained by external economic and political forces (see, e.g., Frank 1969, 1971). A very similar point is made in the modern economic institutionalist literature inspired by the work of Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson (2001, 2002; Acemoglu and Robinson 2012), which examines the ways in which colonizers created more extractive or more inclusive institutional structures depending on the nature of colonial settlement. They argue that where colonists settled permanently, as in the United States, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand, they tended to develop inclusive institutions and property rights that promoted economic development and industrialization. Where they settled impermanently due to bad health conditions and high settler mortality, they created or strengthened extractive institutions, which subsequently impeded economic development.7 Strangely enough, these market-oriented authors seem to be almost completely unaware of the similarity of their arguments to those of the dependency sociologists of the 1970s. Perhaps this is because their remedies, such as improved market institutions, are so different from the radical remedies of the underdevelopment theorists. After a high point in the 1970s, dependency theory and externalist perspectives have tended to fade away for a variety of reasons. These include the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fading attraction of Marxism, the failure of postwar inward-looking structuralist development policies, which tried to achieve self-reliance and reduced dependence on international trade, and the rediscovery of the importance of internal precolonial institutions and political characteristics (see, e.g., Michalopoulos and Papaioannou 2012), which help explain why some societies were colonized while other societies were the colonizers. In the following sections, I highlight some of the important debates at the different levels of analysis in our framework.
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S O C I O E C O N O M I C O U TC O M E S
Important socioeconomic outcomes include health, life expectation, education, literacy, levels of consumption, numbers of people living in poverty, the distribution of income and wealth, decent employment opportunities, and environmental sustainability. Outcomes are what ultimately matter in development. If a country has rapid growth but no improvement in the living conditions of its population, then it makes no sense to speak of development. However, in contrast to much of modern development discourse, the framework of proximate and ultimate causality does emphasize the importance of increases in productive capacity.8 Improvements in social outcomes are not possible without long-run increases in productive capacity, as indicated by growth in GDP per capita. Economic growth is one of the essential preconditions for improvements in social outcomes. There can be no expansion of a healthcare system, an educational system, or a system of social protection without a sustained increase in productive capacity.9 Improving the living conditions of the poor while moving toward more sustainable systems of production also requires advances in productive capacity. However, the degree to which productive capacity is used to achieve desired social outcomes depends not only on the pattern of growth but also on the nature of social and economic policy (intermediate causality) and the incentives provided by the institutional framework and initial levels of socioeconomic inequality (ultimate causality). In Figure 4.2, socioeconomic outcomes are influenced not only by an arrow running from the proximate sources of growth to outcomes but also by arrows connecting ultimate conditions and intermediate policies with socioeconomic outcomes. Social outcomes are usually neglected in theories of economic development and existing models of proximate and ultimate causality. Yet the huge specialist literature on social policy, policy evaluation, and policy effectiveness tends to disregard the underlying economic, institutional, and power relationships and trends (see, e.g., Banerjee and Duflo 2009, 2011). P R OX I M AT E S O U R C E S O F G R O W T H
The proximate sources of growth refer to the various immediate inputs into the production process and the ways in which they are combined to produce outputs. At the proximate level, economic research has focused on quantifying the contributions of the proximate sources to economic growth through growth accounting, econometric approaches, or theoretical growth modeling. Important proximate sources of growth of GDP are summarized here: 1. Discovery and exploitation of riches and natural resources Discovery of natural resources—gas, coal, oil, gold, minerals, and so forth— can promote growth. However, such growth will not be sustainable unless the revenues from windfall discoveries are transformed into more durable sources of growth.
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2. Effort Working harder, increasing hours worked per year, increasing labor market participation, greater effort and discipline. 3. Saving and accumulating capital Being sober and abstaining from current consumption in order to save; investing these savings in order to accumulate capital goods, which increase the productivity of labor. 4. Investing in education and human capital Abstaining from current consumption in order to invest in education, training, and health in order to improve the productivity of labor. 5. Efficiency Becoming more efficient and effective in the use of capital, labor, land, intermediate inputs, and the ways in which these can be combined in production. Efficiency includes: choosing the right combinations of capital and labor; specializing in what a country is good at producing in production and international trade; shifting resources from less productive to more productive sectors of the economy; and better utilization of capacity. 6. Economies of scale Increasing the scale of production to profit from economies of scale. Producing on a larger scale creates opportunities for cost reduction. Related concepts are economies of scope and agglomeration effects. “Economies of scope” refers to the cost reductions that are achieved by producing a wider range of related products. “Agglomeration effects” refers to the advantages of concentrating production in large urban centers. In some sectors of the economy, economies of scale are more important than in others. 7. Structural change Shifting resources to new sectors that are more dynamic than the existing ones and have positive effects on the whole economy. This goes beyond the static efficiency effects mentioned under point 6. It involves identifying future opportunities and developing the capabilities to realize these opportunities. 8. Theft Appropriating resources from other societies and using these to accumulate capital. If resources are appropriated but not reinvested, they will have the same nonsustainable effects as windfall discoveries. 9. Factor income Using net factor income (income from capital invested abroad or wages of workers temporarily working in other countries) to accumulate capital. 10. Technological change Developing or acquiring new knowledge about how to produce valued goods and services and applying such knowledge in production.
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All of these factors can be represented in the form of a production function, which relates output to the so-called “proximate sources of growth” (Denison 1967; Maddison 1987, 1988): O = f [K, L, R]e + A + P In this equation, O refers to national product. Capital (K), Labor (L), and land and natural resources (R) refer to the primary factors of production (see points 1–3 above). The quality of capital goods can be enriched through embodied technological change (see point 10), the quality of labor through investment in human capital (point 4). The exponent e refers to the efficiency with which the primary factors are used to transform intermediate inputs into final goods and services. The concept of efficiency as used here refers to everything that increases output per unit of primary input. It includes a number of important elements mentioned under points 5, 6, 7, and 10, such as economies of scale, efficient combinations of available capital and labor within sectors (appropriate choice of technology), efficient allocation between less productive and more productive economic sectors (structural change), reallocation of resources toward more dynamic sectors (structural change), efficient allocation between countries (specialization and comparative advantage, search for dynamic comparative advantage), utilization of capacity, and, last but not least, disembodied technological change.10 The term “A” denotes net factor income from abroad (point 9), which includes net income from foreign capital investments11 and labor abroad, and “P” refers to colonial plunder and expropriation (negative) or voluntary transfers and development aid (positive) (see point 8). At the proximate level, one tries to quantify the sources and measure their contribution to the growth of output. It has long been known (Abramovitz 1989; Nelson 1981; Nelson and Pack 1999; Rodrik 2003) that one should be careful in giving the sources of growth equation too strong a causal interpretation. As Rodrik notes, for instance, capital accumulation and efficiency in the use of resources are themselves endogenous; causality may well run backward from growth to accumulation and productivity (2003, 4). These circular relationships are indicated by the feedback arrows in Figure 4.2. Nevertheless, the proximate sources of growth formulation are indispensable for a systematic empirical examination of the sources of growth and development (Bosworth and Collins 2003). Over time, one can discern interesting shifts in the importance accorded to different proximate factors. In the development theories of the 1950s, the key factor was capital and capital accumulation. Poor countries were assumed to have shortages of savings and capital. The secret of development, both in socialist and in capitalist theories, was to accelerate the rates of accumulation. Though no one denies that capital was and is important, later research showed that the contribution of growth of the capital stock to overall growth remained limited (see, e.g., Maddison 1987). Theorists started searching for other important drivers of growth. In the 1960s, authors such as Gary Becker (1964) and
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Theodore Schultz (1961, 1971) introduced the concept of human capital. Societies and households could invest not only in physical capital but also in human capital. The gap in human capital per person between rich and poor countries was seen as one of the important differences between them. The next generation of researchers started challenging the importance of human capital. In cross-country regressions, education was often nonsignificant. For instance, William Easterly (2001) and Lance Pritchett (2001, 2006) presented econometric exercises that seemed to indicate that education contributed little to economic development. What complicates the analysis of education is that its effects make themselves felt sometimes only after decades and that education needs a variety of complementary inputs—capital, technology—in order to have a positive effect on growth (Godo and Hayami 2002; Pack and Paxson 2001). Moreover, most data on education refer to years spent in school rather than to what is actually learned there. When the cognitive skills learned in schools are measured rather than years enrolled in educational institutions, the contribution of education turns highly significant (Hanushek and Wössmann 2007, 2008). With regard to education, we can conclude that it is one of the necessary conditions for economic development but not a sufficient condition. Historical research shows that there is not a single case of successful economic development since 1870 that was not preceded by large investments and improvements in human capital and literacy. Another major proximate driver of economic development is structural change. Ever since Simon Kuznets and Arthur Lewis, development economists have argued that the transfer of labor and other resources from low productivity sectors such as traditional agriculture to high productivity sectors such as manufacturing or market services provides a huge boost to growth. (For a review of the debates on structural change and industrialization, see Szirmai 2012a.) One of the exciting topics of modern research is whether manufacturing remains the key engine of growth or whether this role is being taken over by services. Even after important sources of growth such as capital accumulation, investment in human capital, and structural change have been taken into account, a large part of economic growth (the residual) remains unexplained. This is where technological change enters the stage as the most important factor. Even in the 1950s and 1960s, growth accountants such as Edward Denison (1967) and growth theorists such as Robert Solow (1956, 1957) argued that it was technological change that drove economic growth in the long run. But these scholars still saw technological change as an exogenous force. The major innovation of growth theorists in the 1980s—both in new growth theory and in evolutionary economics—was to endogenize technological change, to recognize it as the result of human efforts to invest in knowledge, technology, and innovation (Romer 1986; Nelson and Winter 1982; Verspagen 2001). Without changes in knowledge, capital and labor will sooner or later run into diminishing returns. But there are no limits to the returns to knowledge.
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Of the various proximate sources of growth, technological change is now seen as by far the most important driver of long-run economic growth. In all modern theories of growth, the most important source of growth is disembodied technological change (Fagerberg, Mowery, and Nelson 2005). This refers to advances in our technological knowledge concerning products and production processes. It involves the development of new production processes, new types of machinery, new forms of organization, use of new inputs, new products and services, new ways of distributing products and services, and new knowledge that can be transferred through education. It also involves a variety of knowledge spillovers between economic actors and between countries. With regard to technological change, it is important to distinguish between change at the frontiers of knowledge in the lead economies and diffusion and absorption of technology in the follower countries. The latter is of vital importance for developing countries (see Szirmai 2015b, chap. 4; see also the concluding section below). Once we have quantified the proximate sources of growth and the mathematical relationships between sources and economic outputs, we can start exploring the links between the proximate factors and the wider economic and social sources of growth and development. For instance, one can explore the social, historical, and institutional roots of high rates of savings, which result in rapid growth of the capital stock in Asia. One can examine the consequences of inheritance laws and family institutions (see, e.g., Clark 2007). One can analyze the institutional incentives for households to educate their offspring. Or one can explore the institutions and policies that accelerate or slow down the rate of innovation and technological advance. Many standard economic models are based on a representative actor who engages in more or less rational behavior. Compared to previous models of proximate and ultimate causality, an important new element in Figure 4.2 is that the proximate sources of growth also include the behavior of a variety of economic actors (firms, entrepreneurs, and households) that are responsible for the changes in the immediate sources of growth, such as savings and capital accumulation, investment in human capital, investment in research and development, efficiency improvements, inventions and innovations, and entering new economic sectors. Economic actors provide the link between the macroeconomic analysis of the production function and the burgeoning microeconomic, evolutionary, and sociological literature on firm-level analysis, household surveys, entrepreneurship, and innovation studies (Szirmai, Naudé, and Goedhuys 2011). Rather than making unrealistic assumptions about the utility maximizing behavior of a representative actor, the introduction of a plurality of actors allows us to examine the different behaviors of economic actors in micro-level research. It also allows us to trace the relationships between proximate sources of growth such as capital accumulation, intermediate sources such as policies, and ultimate sources such as class structures, political stability, culture, or institutions. Thus, class relationships determine access to resources, whereas culture and institutions provide incentives and mindsets for saving, investment, and entrepreneurial behavior by economic actors, which can result in accumulation of capital or technological advance.12
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I N T E R M E D I AT E S O U R C E S O F G R O W T H A N D D E V E L O P M E N T
Intermediate sources of growth and development include three types of factors: trends in domestic and international demand; changes in the terms of trade; and policies (economic policies, technology policies, and social policies). Adding demand and terms of trade as intermediate sources of growth is an attempt to respond to the criticism that the sources of growth framework is an exclusively supply-side approach. Taking patterns of demand into account is important for the understanding of the path-dependent nature of processes of economic development. Thus, when world demand or domestic demand are growing rapidly, when a country’s market shares are expanding or its terms of trade are improving, this will encourage economic actors to accumulate human and physical capital, which results in further growth and competitiveness. Upward or downward trends in the terms of trade affect the degree to which growth of a country is affected by its patterns of export specialization. Since Raul Prebisch and Hans Singer published their original papers in 1950, the debate has focused on whether or not developing countries face declining terms of trade due to their specialization in primary products (the PrebischSinger hypothesis). It is not possible to summarize this very large literature here, but I concur with a recent assessment by Jeffrey Williamson (2011) that Prebisch and Singer were mistaken. There is no law that a developing country’s terms of trade always decline, even when it specializes in primary products. In the remainder of this section, I focus on the role of policy.13 Policies include economic policies such as trade policies, macroeconomic policies, industrial policies, interventions, and subsidies to stimulate innovation and technological advance. They also include a wide range of social policies in the areas of education, social protection, and welfare, which affect poverty reduction and the distribution of the outcomes of economic development. Such policies mediate in important ways between productive capacity and the outcomes in terms of welfare and distribution. In development studies, there is a lively debate about economic policies (macroeconomic policies, trade policies, industrial policies, and technology and innovation policies). Important issues in this debate are the role of government, the degree of selectivity of policy, and the inward or outward orientation of policy. Over time, there has been a shift from the big push investment policies of the 1950s and 1960s, which aimed at inward-looking development, capital accumulation, and industrialization, to the structural adjustment policies of the 1980s, which focused on redressing macroeconomic imbalances as well as on deregulation, privatization, outward orientation, and a greatly reduced role of the state (Williamson 1990). In turn, these policy stances have increasingly been criticized as overly reliant on market forces by scholars such as Joseph Stiglitz (2002), Ha-Joon Chang (2002), and Alice Amsden (2007, 2011). At the time of this writing, more selective industrial policies are being rediscovered worldwide (Szirmai, Naudé, and Alcorta 2013) but with an important difference. There is no question of a return to past inward-looking policies. The importance of participation in international trade and
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the role of the foreign direct investment and multinational enterprises is taken for granted. Policies now focus on strategic integration into world trade. How can countries upgrade their productive and technological capabilities so as best to profit from international trade and foreign investment (Westphal 2002; Lin 2010; Lin and Monga 2010)? In parallel with the debates on economic policy, there is a second set of debates on the role of social policies. In the 1970s and 1980s, the value of economic growth came to be questioned by critics such as Dudley Seers (1979). Development was broader than economic growth. It should also result in poverty reduction, employment creation, and a more equitable distribution of income. Landmarks in this discussion were the publication of Redistribution with Growth (Chenery et al. 1974) and the criticism of structural adjustment policies Adjustment with a Human Face (Cornia, Jolly, and Stewart 1987). These debates put social policy in the limelight. Growth will not automatically result in poverty reduction, improved health, and improved education; those outcomes depend on the kind of social policies (i.e., health, population, education, employment, and social protection policies) that mediate between productive capacity and social outcomes. But the role of social policy goes beyond that of redistributing the fruits of economic growth. Social policy is seen by many as an investment in economic development in the sense that better education and better healthcare are investments in human capital that can feed back into the growth process (as evidenced by the feedback arrows from outcomes to proximate sources of growth in Figure 4.2). The same can be argued for distributive policies. The increases in income and social inequality that characterize rapidly growing economies—such as that of China today—may undermine social cohesion and thereby threaten the prospects of further economic development. Investment in a more equitable distribution can thus also be seen as an investment in future economic development. Of course, this does not mean that there is no trade-off between direct investment in economic growth and investment in social protection and redistribution. One of the bridges between economic and social policies is the new interest in creating productive employment for the poor. This was discussed in Redistribution with Growth but is now re-emerging as a policy priority (U.N. Industrial Development Organization 2013; World Bank 2013). This draws our attention to the nature and direction of investment rather than only to the volume of investment as such (see, e.g., Szirmai et al. 2013). From the perspective of the framework of proximate and ultimate causality, the most important shortcoming of the policy-oriented literature is its rather technocratic nature. There is a tendency to see social policies as tools that can be designed on a drawing board, evaluated, and fine-tuned. (For interesting work on policy impact evaluation and experimental economics, see Banerjee and Duflo 2009.) Interpreting national and international economic and social policies as intermediate factors emphasizes that policy is in turn influenced and constrained by more ultimate factors such as class relationships, economic interests, power structures, and cultural and institutional characteristics. This is increasingly being rediscovered in research in political economy and institutional economics (see, e.g., Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson 2001; Acemoglu and Robinson,
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2006; Shleifer and Vishny 1993; Shleifer et al. 2004; North, Wallis, and Weingast 2009). Such research takes policy itself as an endogenous variable, to be explained by more ultimate factors such as the balance of power between elites and masses, the relations between socioeconomic groups and classes, and the evolution of institutional structures. Thus, in what Douglass North, John Wallis, and Barry Weingast (2009) refer to as “limited access orders,” dominant elites will define the policy space in such a way that fundamental elite interests are not affected negatively.
U LT I M AT E S O U R C E S O F G R O W T H A N D D E V E L O P M E N T
Underlying both the proximate and the intermediate sources are more basic social forces, which we call the ultimate sources of growth and development. These include external shocks, geographic conditions, long-run trends in scientific and technological knowledge, demographic trends, economic, political, and social institutions, historical developments, culture, social attitudes and capabilities, changes in the class structure and the relationships between social groups, and developments in the international economic and political order and the international balance of power. The ultimate sources of growth and development are summarized below: 1. Geographic location, climate, and natural resources. Geographic location and climate determine the challenges that the people in a country have to face: rich versus poor soils, landlocked versus seaboard location, extreme versus moderate climate, availability of natural resources, and disease environment. 2. Demographic conditions and trends, including the size of population, population density, the rate of population growth, and the age structure of the population. 3. The history of political centralization, state formation, pacification, and external domination. 4. Historical shocks: wars, economic crises, revolutions, and natural disasters. 5. The dynamics of class relationships and their interrelationships with changing modes of production. 6. The balance of power between elites and the mass of the population. 7. Culture and values: the evolution of culturally and religiously sanctioned cognitions, beliefs, values, and attitudes affecting economic behavior (attitudes toward work and effort, saving and risk, entrepreneurship, science, technology and innovation, and rent seeking). 8. Evolution of institutions that provide incentives and constraints for economic and social behavior. These include: a. Political institutions for conflict management, the monopoly on violence, and the maintenance of law and order.
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9. 10. 11. 12.
b. Economic institutions such as private property rights, public ownership of the means of production, institutions of landownership and land use, intellectual property rights, joint stock companies and corporate governance institutions, central planning institutions, banking institutions and other institutions for financial intermediation, and inheritance institutions affecting the intergenerational transfer of wealth. c. Labor market institutions. d. Institutions regulating social protection. Developments in the international order, such as changing international trade regimes, financial regimes, knowledge flows, and migration flows. Long-run developments in science and technology, which determine the limits and possibilities of technological advance in economic production. The distance to the technological frontier, which influences the catch-up potential of a country. Absorptive capacities and the evolution of technological and social capabilities. These determine the extent to which a country and its firms can benefit from international knowledge flows.
Within the constraints of a short chapter, it is obviously not possible to summarize the large literature on ultimate causality in a satisfactory fashion. I will briefly mention below some of the important debates with regard to ultimate causality and the various factors emphasized in different strands of the literature (see Szirmai 2012b). In recent years, institutions have received special attention as one of the potentially important sources of long-run growth and socioeconomic development (for a review, see Bluhm and Szirmai 2012). The framework of proximate and ultimate causality helps us to understand the role of institutions and put them into perspective. Following the work of North (1990), institutions are the humanly devised constraints that structure human interaction and provide the rules of the game. To an important extent, institutions determine the scope and degrees of freedom for policymaking. Together with policies and culture, institutions provide the incentives that guide the behavior of economic actors and influence social outcomes. As such, institutions are clearly part of ultimate causality. But institutions as humanly devised constraints are themselves shaped by other ultimate factors, such as history, geographic conditions, long-run development of knowledge, class, and power relationships. An analysis that focuses on the role of institutions alone, neglecting other elements of ultimate causality, will inevitably be incomplete. Within the institutionalist tradition, North, Wallis, and Weingast (2009) have emphasized the institutions regulating the control of violence. They distinguish limited access orders from open access orders. In limited access orders, elites restrict access to political and economic organizations and use the rents to maintain dominant elite coalitions and
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a measure of social stability. The social order is fragile and unable to deal with shocks and technological advances, which may upset the precarious social balance. Open access orders are more flexible and more inclusive and therefore more capable of achieving economic development. A related strand of research in political science emphasizes the importance of state capabilities in the process of development. An important author in this tradition is Peter Evans (1995), who coined the notion of embedded autonomy: the combination of professional autonomy of the bureaucracy and its connectedness and interaction with economic actors, characteristic of the East Asian success stories. (For a review of this literature, see Cingolani 2013.) An interesting debate at the level of ultimate causality is that between the proponents of geography and the proponents of institutions. Authors such as Jared Diamond (1997) and Jeffrey Sachs (Sachs and Warner 1997; Faye et al. 2004) argue that geographic factors are the most ultimate determinants of economic development. Such factors include climate, soil conditions, disease environments, and, especially, geographic location. Eric Jones (1988) has argued that island countries located at the edge of continents such as Great Britain or Japan are ideally located for economic success. Conversely, Sachs has pointed to landlockedness as a serious obstacle to growth. The institutionalists counter that geographical characteristics only work through institutions and that ultimately institutions are the defining factor. Thus, Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson (2001) acknowledge geographic disease conditions as an important factor affecting colonial settler mortality. Settler mortality influences the kind of institutions that colonizers create. Ultimately, it is these institutions that shape the path of economic development. In an econometric paper, Dani Rodrik, Arvind Subramanian, and Francesco Trebbi (2004) have assessed the relative importance of institutions, geography, and trade openness and have concluded that institutions trump all other factors. A second debate, this time within the institutionalist tradition, concerns the relative importance of economic and political factors on institutional evolution. Here the protagonists are Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson versus Stanley Engerman and Kenneth Sokoloff (see Bluhm and Szirmai 2012 for an extended discussion). On the basis of historical research, Engerman and Sokoloff (1997, 2002) argue that economic factor proportions are the ultimate determinants of institutional characteristics. Where geographic conditions in the Americas made for large-scale production using extensive slave or indentured labor (for, e.g., cotton, sugar cane, or tin), unequal and extractive institutions emerged, which later acted as obstacles to economic growth. Where geographic conditions and factor proportions promoted small-scale family farming in wheat, as in North America and Canada, more inclusive and egalitarian institutions emerged, which were more favorable for subsequent economic development. In contrast, Acemoglu and his co-authors argue for the primacy of political factors, in particular the relationships between elites and masses and how these are institutionalized, distinguishing between extractive and inclusive institutional arrangements (Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson 2001, 2002; Acemoglu and Robinson 2006, 2012). In their perspective, economic power follows from political power.
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A third debate is between the protagonists of cultural factors and institutionalists. In the analysis of the increasing disparities between North America and Latin America, there is an interesting strand of research that points to the differing cultural heritage of North and South America, with their respective links to northwest European puritan Protestant culture and the aristocratic and feudal aristocratic ethic of the Iberian Peninsula (Hartz 1964). The importance of cultural factors has been reaffirmed in the more recent publications of Lawrence Harrison and Samuel Huntington (Harrison 1985; Harrison and Huntington 2000). In contrast, Acemoglu and Robinson (2012) are dismissive of cultural factors. They argue that even in regions with exactly the same cultural background, differences in institutional characteristics are what really matter for economic development. Engerman and Sokoloff (2002) also reject cultural explanations, pointing to the primacy of economic factors. If one conceptualizes institutions as typically regulating specific spheres of human interaction, whereas culture captures broader sets of values, norms, and cognitions that characterize societies, then cultural and institutional explanations are complementary and nonexclusive perspectives. Institutions are supported by culture but are oriented to specific spheres of interaction. Cultural elements can buttress institutions but are not identical to them. One of the important ultimate sources of development that has been typically disregarded in the modern institutionalist literature is that of the dynamics of class relationships. Institutionalist authors such Acemoglu, North, Robinson, Rodrik, or Johnson pay a good deal of attention to the political economic analysis of relationships between elites and masses or between different elites. Changes in the balance of power affect the evolution of institutions. But these authors systematically underplay the analysis of class formation and class dynamics that figure so prominently in the brilliant contributions of older historical sociologists, political scientists, and evolutionary economists such as Barrington Moore, Jr. (1967), Theda Skocpol (1979), Immanuel Wallerstein (1974), Joseph Schumpeter ([1943] 1976), James O’Connor (1973), and even Douglass North and Robert Thomas (1973). Changes in underlying class relationships, such as polarization or the emergence of middle classes, are driven by changes in modes of production and technological changes and have important effects on institutions and institutional change. A very important—though currently largely disregarded—contribution has been made by Ester Boserup, who pointed to the importance of increasing population density as a driver of technological change, agricultural growth, and economic development (Boserup 1965, 1981, 1983). This literature emphasizes the importance of demographic factors as an ultimate source of growth. To the ultimate sources of development discussed so far, we need to add technological advance and the distance to the technological frontier, factors that received short shrift in much of the literature touched upon in this section. Technological advance changes the nature and structure of production and creates conditions for the emergence of new social groupings, classes, and institutional arrangements. Of special importance is the
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notion of distance to the technological frontier, which creates a potential for growth through the absorption of international technology and knowledge in a globalized economy. This will be further elaborated below.
U N D E R S TA N D I N G P O S T WA R C ATC H - U P
At the beginning of this chapter, I argued that monocausal explanations of development were not fruitful. It would therefore not be very logical to conclude with a choice for a single encompassing explanation. Instead, I will conclude with a discussion of three strands of development theory that provide interesting insights into the nature of postwar catch-up in the developing world without singling out a single ultimate factor that supposedly determines all else. These approaches have in common that they are open to insights from a variety of disciplines, they combine internal and external factors, and they are historical and contextual in nature. The specific factors that are important in any given country and any given period may differ from factors in other contexts and periods. The three strands of theory to be discussed are: the theory of advantages of technological backwardness associated with the work of Alexander Gerschenkron and Moses Abramovitz; the work of Dani Rodrik and associates on identifying the binding constraints to development; and the idea of a race between factors promoting economic divergence and factors promoting economic convergence and economic catch-up.
A D VA N TA G E S O F T E C H N O L O G I C A L B A C K WA R D N E S S
The economic historian Alexander Gerschenkron formulated his theories about the advantages of backwardness on the basis of the rapid growth and catch-up of the latecomer countries Russia and Germany since the last quarter of the nineteenth century (Gerschenkron 1962). These countries were able to profit from copying and taking over technologies developed elsewhere, without bearing the full costs and risks of their development. Their technological backwardness created a potential for accelerated growth. Diffusion and acquisition of technology, however, is not automatic, and it depends on the absorptive capacities of countries. As a historian, Gerschenkron paid attention to the conditions under which certain countries embarking on catch-up could profit from international diffusion of technology. Such diffusion depends on changes in the social structure and modernization of society and calls for a greater role of governments, government policy, and large financial institutions in mobilizing resources. Gerschenkron emphasized the importance of overcoming internal institutional obstacles to industrialization for a country to embark on growth and catch-up. For nineteenth-century Russia, such obstacles included serfdom and the absence of a disciplined, reliable, and stable supply of industrial labor. Once the conditions are right and absorptive capacities are sufficiently developed, industrialization will take off in late-developing economies, and
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growth happens in leaps, accelerations, and spurts, concentrated in certain leading sectors of the economy. The Gerschenkronian framework is a historical and flexible one. Important differences exist between the patterns of industrialization in different countries and those in different historical periods (see also Kuznets 1965, 1966). There is no uniform, unilinear sequence of stages of development. Moreover, Gerschenkron argued that modern economic development could only be understood in a context of international technology transfer. In this respect, Gerschenkronian theory combines both internal characteristics and policies and external interactions with the technologically advanced countries in the world economic order. In Gerschenkron’s theory, latecomers in economic development have the opportunity to take over technological know-how from economically advanced countries, without having to bear the burden of the costs of research and development of new technologies. Developing countries can choose from a huge arsenal of new production techniques that were not available previously. Thus, if the economy and the society are able to absorb and adapt these new technologies, latecomers in development can experience much faster economic growth than early developers, because they profit from the advantages of backwardness.14 Abramovitz (1989) has further developed the notion of the advantages of technological backwardness and distance to the global frontier. The greater the technology gap, the greater the growth potential of backwardness. But whether this potential is realized depends on the capacity of a developing country to profit from technologies developed in the advanced economies, and this further depends on the social capabilities of a developing country and the congruence between technologies developed in the lead countries and conditions in the follower countries. Social capability refers to the use a country can make of advanced technology and its capacity to acquire it in the first place. Social capability depends on the technical competence of a country’s people, indicated (among other factors) by levels of general education and the share of population with training in technical subjects. It is also influenced by the degree of experience of managers with largescale production and the availability of financial institutions and supporting services. Once certain threshold levels of capabilities have been achieved, backward countries can grow very rapidly as they take over technology from elsewhere. But if they fail to achieve these threshold levels, gaps will tend to widen rather than diminish. Thus, social capabilities and absorptive capacities are among the important ultimate sources of growth. In the postwar period, Gerschenkronian catch-up is exemplified by the experiences of countries such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and, currently, India and China. In recent years, Michael Hobday (1995, 2013) has provided a further elaboration of the Gerschenkronian framework in a series of publications focusing on the successful development of the East Asian economies. Geschenkronian analysis generally focuses on ultimate causality. One of the important forces of catch-up is the distance to the—ever changing—technological frontier. But the key factor in all catch-up theories is absorptive capacity—the ability to tap into international knowledge flows. Institutions figure in Gerschenkronian analysis, because a
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breakthrough from traditional institutions hindering economic development is required before a country can embark on catch-up.
IDENTIFYING BINDING CONSTRAINTS
A second fruitful strand of development theory is found in the work of Dani Rodrik, Ricardo Hausmann, and Lance Pritchett (2005; see also Rodrik 2003, 2006, 2007). Rodrik’s work can be seen as a critical response to the one-size-fits-all policy recommendations of the World Bank and the IMF that were imposed on different countries after 1982, irrespective of differences in conditions. Rodrik and his co-authors argued that each country faces different binding constraints. Development theorists should try to identify the most important binding constraints to growth and development and prioritize policies addressing these constraints, rather than urge policymakers to implement a long list of standard reforms. (This is typically an analysis at the intermediate level of policy reform.) They have developed a diagnostic method to help identify the specific binding constraints in a country. The major insight to be derived from this research is that poor countries can grow very rapidly without a comprehensive overhaul and reform of their institutions. Hausmann, Pritchett, and Rodrik (2005) have identified at least eighty growth accelerations since World War II. Growth accelerations can be unleashed by fairly modest reforms that address the most binding constraints to growth (Rodrik 2003). The final interesting insight derived from this literature is that though it is fairly easy to kick-start growth in developing countries, it is not so easy to maintain it. Here the ideas of Rodrik and modern institutionalist theorists converge. North, Wallis, and Weingast (2009) have argued that limited access orders can experience growth but are vulnerable to economic and other shocks as the balance of power between elites in limited access orders is fragile. A similar argument is put forward in very recent book by Acemoglu and Robinson (2012), who argue that countries with extractive institutions will find it hard to maintain rapid rates of growth because they cannot mobilize the efforts, creativity, and entrepreneurial talents of broad masses of the population. Thus, maintaining growth momentum so as to achieve catch-up in the long run requires far-reaching reforms in institutions, policies, and economic structures. From this perspective, growth acceleration—as has been experienced by many sub-Saharan African nations since 2000—is a window of opportunity for further reform, but no more than that. If the window of opportunity is not used for further reform and structural change, growth will stall.
C AT C H I N G U P O R FA L L I N G B E H I N D : T H E I M P O RTA N C E O F A B S O R P T I V E C A PA C I T I E S
Among the exciting ideas in modern theories of development and catch-up is the notion of a race between technological progress in the advanced economies and diffusion of
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technology to less advanced economies. This idea is found in evolutionary economics, neo-Schumpeterian theories, Gerschenkronian theories of catch-up, and new growth theories as well as in the business-oriented literature on firm-level capabilities, entrepreneurship, and creativity. As already intimated in the section on Gerschenkron, the outcome of this race depends to an important extent on the absorptive capacities of a society, its firms, and its population. In the section on proximate causality, I argued that, of all the proximate sources of growth, technological change is probably the most important one. But technological change is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, investment in knowledge, innovation, and technology is a force for economic divergence. Most of research and development takes place in the advanced economies, and the absorptive capacities of firms and economic actors are so well developed that new knowledge flows very rapidly from one economic actor to another. Using the terminology of national innovation systems (Nelson 1993; Lundvall 1992; Lundvall et al. 2009), the strong national innovation systems of advanced economies generate a lot of innovation, which subsequently diffuses rapidly through the economy. In poor developing countries little research and development is performed, and what technological knowledge exists does not flow easily between firms and other actors in the innovation system. The innovation system is weak, and the absorptive capacities of economic actors are underdeveloped. A good indication of flawed systems of innovation and stymied knowledge flows is the coexistence of modern enclaves and traditional informal activities in many developing countries (technological dualism). The difference in the amount of research and development and the quality of the innovation systems is a force making for economic divergence between advanced and developing economies. This is indeed what we observe. The average per capita incomes of rich and poor countries have diverged hugely since the beginning of the nineteenth century. On the other hand, what also needs to be explained is the phenomenon whereby some developing countries have experienced spectacular processes of catch-up, as evidenced by the cases of Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, China, Malaysia, India, and Turkey since the mid-twentieth century. Knowledge flows are again essential for understanding these processes of catch-up. There is a huge reservoir of international technological knowledge that is available to be tapped. When countries—through educational investment, capital investment, institutional reforms, infrastructural investment, and political stability—have developed sufficient absorptive capacity to access and apply international technology, accelerated development is the logical and nonmiraculous outcome. Other developing countries fail to profit from potential advantages of backwardness because their absorptive capacities—at national, firm, and/or individual levels—are not sufficiently developed. This can be because the gap in incomes between rich and poor countries is too large, because the conditions are so different that technologies are not appropriate, or because institutions hinder the creative absorption of new knowledge and technology.
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Thus, modern economic development can be seen as a race between technological advance and the international diffusion of technology. The outcome of this race is not given in advance. Whether countries catch up or fall behind depends on the balance between the generation of new technology and increasing returns in lead countries, on the one hand, and diffusion of technology and spillovers to follower countries, on the other (Verspagen 1993, 2001; Fagerberg, Mowery, and Nelson 2005). However, the larger the technology gap between leader and follower, the more difficult technology diffusion and technology acquisition becomes. Beyond some threshold levels, income gaps will tend to increase and countries will tend to fall behind. Developments in sub-Saharan Africa between 1973 and 2000 are an illustration of this tendency. But when the gap is not too large and absorptive capacities are highly developed, very rapid catch-up can take place, as is evidenced by the East, Southeast, and South Asian experiences of recent decades. The difference between success and failure in the modern international economic order, therefore, has much to do with differences in absorptive capacities. How these capacities develop over time should be high on the agenda of development research in different disciplines. N OT E S
Earlier versions of this chapter have been published in a variety of contexts. One of the first versions was published in 2005 as chapter 3 of my textbook The Dynamics of Socio-Economic Development: An Introduction (for the second revised edition, see Szirmai 2015b). An updated version was published as “Explaining Success and Failure in Economic Development” (Szirmai 2013). An expanded and revised version was published as “Proximate, Intermediate and Ultimate Causality: Theories and Experiences of Growth and Development” (Szirmai 2012b). I gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Agence Française de Développement for the 2012 version. Here, the framework of proximate and ultimate causality is further elaborated and revised, with a specific focus on theoretical debates at different levels of analysis. I thank Samuel Cohn and an anonymous referee for useful comments. 1. This result is driven by the high rates of growth in very large countries such as China. If every country receives an equal weight irrespective of its population size, average GDP per capita is 2.6 times higher in 2010 than it was in 1950. 2. Much of the literature cited in this chapter derives from development economics, development studies, and economic history, but the framework is deliberately multidisciplinary. 3. Angus Maddison (2001) estimates that, in 1820, rich countries such as the United Kingdom had a per capita income of twice that of poor countries such as India. In 2012, GDP per capita in PPP dollars in the high-income countries was no less than 24.5 times higher than in the least developed countries (World Bank 2013). The ratio of the richest (Luxembourg) to the poorest country (Democratic Republic of Congo) was 216 to 1. 4. This section draws on Szirmai 2013. 5. The previous models only distinguished three levels; they were models of growth rather than of socioeconomic development. Adding the fourth level of socioeconomic outcomes allows us to broaden the scope from growth to development.
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6. I doubt that these authors themselves would agree with this characterization, but I see strong resemblances between the opposition of limited or open access orders and the older dichotomy of traditional and modern societies. 7. One of the blind spots in this otherwise interesting institutionalist literature is that the establishment of inclusive institutions never included the aboriginal populations— American Indians, Australian aboriginals—who were excluded and in fact almost completely eliminated. 8. An example of the modern discourse is the report of the Sarkozy commission on economic performance and progress (Stiglitz, Sen, and Fitoussi 2009). 9. The growth equation can easily be transformed into a productivity equation by dividing inputs and outputs by labor input. We then get GDP per capita as an dependent variable and the amount of capital per worker, the amount of education per worker, and natural resources per worker as inputs. So long as GDP is growing more rapidly than population, GDP per capita (our measure of productive capacity) will increase. 10. Advances in technological knowledge can be embodied in capital goods that reflect the latest stages of technological knowledge or in workers who have been exposed to up-to-date knowledge through education and training. Disembodied technological change refers to changes in the state of our knowledge that cannot be measured through changes in the quality of capital and labor. 11. Net income from capital investments includes the net balance of interest, dividend, and profits from inward and outward financial investments and loans. 12. Incentives are also shaped by intermediate factors such as policies and economic opportunities. 13. Discussion of important intermediate factors such as the terms of trade has to be deferred to another occasion for reasons of space. 14. Gerschenkron’s theories bear some interesting resemblances to earlier writings of Thorstein Veblen on the rise of imperial Germany (1915).
REFERENCES
Abramovitz, Moses. 1989. “Thinking about Growth.” In Thinking about Growth and Other Essays on Economic Growth and Welfare, edited by Moses Abramovitz, 3–79. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson. 2001. “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation.” American Economic Review 91, no. 5: 1369–1401. . 2002. “Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income distribution.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 117, no. 4: 1231–94. Acemoglu, Daron, and James A. Robinson. 2006. Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. . 2012. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty. London: Profile Books. Amsden, Alice. 2007. Escape from Empire: The Developing World’s Journey through Heaven and Hell. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
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Background paper prepared for the Department of Social Development of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands, for discussion at the meeting of the Knowledge Platform Development Policies. Accra, Ghana, Apr. 3–5, 2013. Szirmai, Adam, Wim Naudé, and Ludovico Alcorta. 2013. “Introduction and Overview: The Past, Present and Future of Industrialization.” In Pathways to Industrialisation in the 21st Century: New Challenges and Emerging Paradigms, edited by Adam Szirmai, Wim Naudé, and Ludovico Alcorta, 3–50. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Szirmai, A., W. Naudé, and M. Goedhuys, eds. 2011. Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press. U.N. Industrial Development Organization. 2013. Sustaining Employment Growth: The Role of Manufacturing and Structural Change. Vienna: UNIDO. Veblen, Thorstein. 1915. Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution. New York: Macmillan. Verspagen, Bart. 1993. Uneven Growth between Interdependent Economies: An Evolutionary View on Technology Gaps, Trade and Growth. Aldershot: Avebury. . 2001. “Economic Growth and Technological Change: An Evolutionary Interpretation.” Science, Technology, and Innovation Working Papers 1. Paris: OECD. Von Tunzelmann, Nick. 1995. Technology and Industrial Progress. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974. The Modern World System. New York: Academic Press. Westphal, Larry E. 2002. “Technology Strategies for Economic Development in a Fast Changing Global Economy.” Economics of Innovation and New Technology 11, nos. 4–5: 275–320. Williamson, Jeffrey G. 2011. Trade and Poverty: When the Third World Fell Behind. Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press. Williamson, John. 1990. “What Washington Means by Policy Reform.” In Latin American Adjustment: How Much Has Happened? edited by John Williamson, chap. 2. Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics. World Bank. 2013. World Development Report 2013: Jobs. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.
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PART II
HUMAN CAPABILITIES Institutions and Development
5 INTERDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES ON THE GLOBAL SOUTH AND GLOBAL NORTH Jeffrey T. Jackson, Kirsten Dellinger, Kathryn McKee, and Annette Trefzer
Conventional interpretations of global economic disparities based on nation-state categories can often gloss over the complexities of poverty and wealth within nations. Nationstate categories may also blind us to the commonalities of “rich” and “poor” as categories that can transcend place-based notions of citizenship, nationhood, and regional identity. Although nation-state-based categories remain vital to any understanding of contemporary social reality and its representations in the present moment, scholars are beginning to understand with greater specificity how these categories are limited in their usefulness for describing social life in a globalizing world. In this chapter, we attempt to problematize the historically constructed ideas of “Global North” and “Global South” through an interdisciplinary lens, one that combines scholarly insights on globalization from both the social sciences and the humanities—sociology and literary criticism, in particular. In addition, we will offer new definitions of these concepts based on recent and important scholarly studies. The questions we seek to address are simple: Does the “Global South” exist in wealthy nations? And does the “Global North” exist in poor nations? At a glance, the answer to the first question seems quite clear. Take the case of Mississippi, for example. Although this state has the highest poverty rate in the United States, it sits within the borders of one of the wealthiest countries on the planet. According to the World Bank (2011), the United States is the seventh wealthiest nation in the world. Therefore, poor as it is, Mississippi is difficult to conceptualize as part of the Global South, a term that has been traditionally defined by scholars as synonymous with “poor nations” or “poorest areas” on the planet.
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Historian Matthew Pratt Guterl makes this idea very clear in his entry “South,” featured in the 2007 Keywords for American Cultural Studies, when he suggests that, because of the high standard of material wealth in the United States, even the poorer regions of the nation cannot be considered part of the Global South. He writes: [T]he United States South was never (and is not today) a part of what we call the “global South,” that band of subaltern states that lacks not resources, manpower, or ingenuity, but only capital advantage in the world economy. From the geopolitical and financial perspectives of Venezuela, Sumatra, or Kenya, the State of Mississippi—with its limitless borrowing capacity, its safe roads and reliable shipping firms, its blue jeans, clean water, and quality of healthcare—looks a lot like the state of Minnesota. (233)
It is interesting that the countries Guterl chose to exemplify the Global South include Venezuela and Indonesia (Sumatra is an island in Indonesia), which are “high” and “medium” wealthy countries, respectively, according to the U.N. Human Development Index (U.N. Development Programme 2011). Only Kenya would qualify as “low” average human development. Does this mean that Mississippi is leaps and bounds ahead of all three countries? And that Mississippi looks like Minnesota—the epitome of “capital advantage” and First World living in Guterl’s calculation—in comparison to the dire circumstances found in all three of these particular countries? Or does Guterl simply mean to say that the Global South, embodied in a range of countries from high to low wealth (Venezuela to Kenya), are all much worse off than any region within the United States? This lack of specificity in terms of what actually constitutes the “Global South” (both Venezuela and Kenya are “in” but Mississippi is “out”) is a common problem within academic writing. We believe that Guterl’s statement may be incorrect in at least two ways. First, his claim that the U.S. South (Mississippi, in particular) was “never” a part of the Global South deserves some scrutiny. During the early nineteenth century, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Georgia were frontier regions in which white settlers displaced Native peoples in order to engage in plantation agricultural production (especially cotton) to the direct benefit of the settler economy of Southern planters and the indirect benefit of textile industrialists and their financiers in the U.S. North and in Europe. In other words, the U.S. Deep South in the nineteenth century could reasonably be defined as a “peripheral region,” an economic zone providing raw materials and agricultural products through highly exploitative, labor-intensive means to the “core” industrialized regions in the world system at that time. The second problematic aspect of Guterl’s observation is his implicit assertion that human life in Mississippi (and even the U.S. South as a whole) is a monolithic experience. But the “limitless borrowing capacity” and “quality of healthcare” he speaks about is very much available to some Mississippians more than others. Granted, he is making a general statement about the average level of well-being within the state, and perhaps
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we should not fault him for making this distinction between what is “poor” in even the poorest areas of the United States and what is “poor” in other regions of the world. But that is exactly the point of our chapter here: we need to be more careful about the generalizations we make when we theorize concepts such as “the Global South” and “global south nations.” There are some people in Mississippi (and, therefore, in the United States) who are living in similar economic and social conditions, and within similarly disparate hierarchies of power distribution, as people living in other so-called “poor regions” of the world. What if these conditions of life define the “Global South,” rather than geographic places defined in nation-state terms? If we explore actual lived conditions, are there some people in some regions of wealthy countries that are living in conditions of extreme poverty, conditions that resemble or are analogous to the so-called developing world? In certain regions of Mississippi—including the Mississippi Delta—popular representations indicate that some people may be. In fact, artists and journalists often use the signifier “Third World” in reference to the Mississippi Delta. For example, New York Times photographer Lynsey Addario captures images of poverty in the article “Healthcare in Mississippi,” which compares Iran and Mississippi as “broken and desperate places” where, even though “millions of federal funds have been thrown at the problems for years, conditions have only gotten worse” (Hansen 2012). The photographs depict “shotgun shacks and single women in conditions of extreme poverty” (ibid.). Photographer Alison Wright also focuses on extreme poverty in the United States in her online photographic gallery “Third World America.” The gallery features a “Mississippi Delta” photograph of a black woman, expressionless, sitting in her living room, holding two babies on her lap, and surrounded by dirty walls whose paint is worn thin with scratches and scrapes as she “waits for her husband to call from jail.” Another “Mississippi Delta” image shows a shoeless, obese black woman and a baby on a run-down couch watching television with the caption “A family of sixteen live in this trailer” (Wright 2009). Journalists in the United States often use the same “Third World” metaphor to describe extreme poverty in Mississippi. The LA Times reported that “The Delta ranks below some Third World countries in its infant mortality rate” (McCartney and Sullivan 1990); the Jackson Free Press stated, “You would look at these houses and these dwellings and immediately, if you’ve traveled abroad, you would think that you’re in a severely undeveloped or developing Third-World country” (Mott 2008). Other journalists point out that “[t]he life expectancies for men in these [Mississippi Delta] counties are all under 69 years, lower than countries like Brazil or Latvia” (Ebersole 2011). Are these examples of documentation, (mis?)representation, or commodification? Are they simply journalistic hyperbole? What is important to see is how Mississippi gets framed and who has the power to frame it. The lenses and choices here create images and text that combine to form a shorthand for both the reality of poverty and the representations of what poverty means. In this way, images and language combine to shape
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Global South landscapes. We need to pay closer attention to how various observers note the similarities between extreme poverty in living conditions throughout the world, including in the so-called Global North. If people and places in the “Global North” are, by definition, excluded from the concept of the “Global South” simply because of their geographic location within the borders of a nation-state defined as “wealthy” or “developed,” then we need to redefine what Global South means. In so doing, we should pay attention to the complex variation in human living conditions present in both the wealthy and the poor countries of the world. Yet historians as well as social scientists frequently fail to do this. Often, this distinction between the “poor” in wealthy countries and the “poor” in poorer countries is framed in terms of “absolute versus relative” levels of poverty. In his popular introductory sociology textbook,1 for example, sociologist George Ritzer writes: “[W]hile the poor in the United States may be poor by some absolute standard and in some absolute sense, they are often much better off than the poor in most other places in the world” (2013, 293). Ritzer takes a cue from the international development community and defines “absolute poverty . . . in a developing nation” as living on “less than $2 a day” (293). But he does not calculate the number of people living on less than $2 a day in the United States. Instead, he uses (as most sociologists do) the measurement of “relative poverty” to define the poverty rate in the United States at 15.1 percent in 2011. These different scales of measurement—one for wealthy nations, one for developing nations—are commonplace in the social sciences. Nevertheless, they reify the highly problematic Cold War logic of “three worlds” of development and, we believe, stand in the way of a comprehensive conceptualization of the Global South. In this chapter, we engage in an interdisciplinary examination that seeks to redefine the “Global South.” We hope a broader definition can move us beyond the nation-state centrism that blinds us from seeing the commonalities in poverty everywhere. One way to think about the theoretical maneuver we are making here is to imagine a translucent, plastic globe with an electric light below the surface of each nation and the electrical wires for each light leading to a switchbox. The common way of thinking means that the switchbox would have two buttons: one marked “Global North” and one marked “Global South.” When we press the “Global South” button, the nation-states in the so-called developing world would light up. Press “Global North” and the advanced countries would light up. This is a crude and simplistic way of looking at global inequality and development. Within development sociology, scholars might debate which nations should be hooked up to the “North” switch and which should be hooked up to the “South” switch. We might even move the wires from time to time to take into account “newly developed” or “emerging” countries like South Korea. Some scholars might suggest an intermediate “semiperiphery” switch to account for some nations that do not neatly fit the ideal type categories of “North” or “South.” But this does not really get us where we need to be. Imagine instead if we overlaid the translucent plastic pieces for each nation with a digital grid containing millions of pixels covering the entire surface of the globe. Each
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pixel could then be connected by a fiber optic filament to our switchbox. The granularity of the pixels would allow us to distinguish the conditions of human life at the regional, county, district, neighborhood, and even city block levels. Hitting the “Global South” button now would mean illuminating certain fiber optic filaments, and the resulting pattern on the surface of the globe would resemble constellations and speckles instead of uniform shapes of light contained by borders. These specks and splotches would exist everywhere on the planet, in some regions more than others, in some areas brighter and more pronounced than others, but the specks would not be neatly contained within the previously clearly delineated borders of the nation-state. Furthermore, pressing the “Global North” button for this globe would illuminate another set of specks and splotches likewise not neatly contained by borders. These specks would shine quite brightly in certain districts of the well-developed cities in both rich and poor nations, again illuminating the realities of extreme wealth that exist in all urban centers throughout the world from Lagos to Los Angeles. But what is interesting is that, just a couple of pixels over, a “Global South” colored splotch would shine brightly right next to the “Global North” spots, illuminating the ghettos and shantytowns found in those same cities. In development sociology, we know where many of the “poorer pixels” are: they are more numerous in rural areas than in urban, more in some nations than others. Perhaps there are times when our analysis requires that we use the old electric lights (one per nation-state) rather than the fine gradations of the fiber optic cables. But the main point is that, if we want to think about development in truly global terms, we need finer tools of analysis that allow us to see this complexity—the simultaneous coexistence of North and South in spatialized yet amorphous ways—more clearly. In order to delineate this new conceptualization, we will first provide an overview of existing models of the “Global South” utilized within the social sciences generally (and sociology in particular). We will then engage with current theoretical observations and developments that shed light on the limitations of such approaches in adequately conceptualizing the nature of contemporary global inequalities. Finally, we will offer a new definition that, we believe, provides a more useful way of understanding “the Global South” in the twenty-first century.
EXISTING MODELS: DEVELOPED AND DEVELOPING
As we have seen, there may very well be pockets of poverty in wealthy countries that are defined as “absolute” or “extreme” poverty. We would add that there are geo-social spaces in so-called developing countries that are extremely wealthy, even analogous to Minnesota (in Guterl’s terms)—that is, the “Global North.” The extremely affluent Morumbi neighborhood in São Paulo, Brazil, with its luxurious mansions and shopping centers, is just one example (see, e.g., Caldeira 2008). However, existing sociological definitions of the Global North and Global South typically do not allow for such a nuanced understanding. For example, in another popular introductory sociology textbook, Anthony Giddens and
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his coauthors define the Global South in the following way: “[Developing] societies include China, India, most of the African countries (such as Nigeria, Ghana, and Algeria), and those in South America (such as Brazil, Peru, and Venezuela). Because many of these societies are situated south of the United States and Europe, they are sometimes referred to collectively as the South, and contrasted to the wealthier, industrialized North” (2013, 64). Notice that Venezuela again makes the list of societies in the “South,” along with Brazil, India, and China. Notice also how Giddens’s definition implies that “South” and “North” are really just shorthand for “developed” and “developing” and refer to a geographical location underneath “the wealthier, industrialized North.” South and North, then, are rather crude, imprecise categories used out of convenience to describe global disparities in levels of development between nations. We need a more careful and nuanced definition of this terminology that has become fundamental to both sociological and humanistic mappings of the world. What criteria should we use, then, to label one society “South” and another “North”? For sociologists, the answer to this question remains ambiguous. Ritzer states: “Today the North encompasses the nations that are the wealthiest, most powerful, and highest status in the world, such as the United States, China, Germany, France, Great Britain, and Japan. The South, on the other hand, has a disproportionate number of nations that rank at or near the bottom in terms of global wealth, power, and prestige. Most of the nations of Africa would be included here, but there are others, especially in Asia, such as Afghanistan and Yemen” (2013, 312). Ritzer has a tougher threshold than Giddens for meeting “Global South” status. His definition states that a country must “rank near the bottom” of global wealth, power, and prestige, such as most African nations, and he includes two Asian countries as examples—Afghanistan and Yemen—that more closely meet these criteria. However, notice that Ritzer places China in the “North.” Recall that Giddens’s definition placed China in the South. This is a contradiction. But it also reveals the limits of a nation-state unit of analysis that fails to capture what “China” is or is not. In the past thirty years, China may very well have become a nation that is among the most powerful in the world, but this is a relatively recent phenomenon. Furthermore, more than a quarter of its citizens are living on less than $2 per day (World Bank 2009), so the experience of living in China, even an ascendant China, is not a monolithic or uniform one, and there is great variation in China between those who may be increasingly living in so-called “Global North” conditions and those who remain in the “Global South.” So might this mean, as Giddens maintains, that China is more “South” than “North”? Or is Ritzer correct? Is it time to move China’s wire to the “Global North” button? If introductory students are not being given clear instructions as to what constitutes “developed” (North) or “developing” (South), then there is clearly disciplinary confusion swirling around our definitions of these terms, and the variability in the conditions of life that exist in all nations is being overlooked. Sociologist Judy Aulette argues that this lack of specificity is because these concepts have not been sufficiently theorized: “The terms . . . global North and global South refer
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to the distinction between those nations that are most wealthy and powerful and those that are poorer and less powerful in the global political economy. . . . Although the terms Global North and South are widely used—perhaps they are even the dominant terms used by Southern scholars—they have not yet been theorized extensively” (2012, 1547). Aulette’s description here is consistent with Giddens’s idea that these concepts are a sort of shorthand, though she seems to indicate that the prevalence of their usage is much greater than the “sometimes” mentioned in his definition, referring to them as “the dominant terms” used by “Southern scholars.” We agree and argue that the concept of the Global South has particular salience for scholars occupying less advantaged positions within various kinds of global social hierarchies. Aulette goes on to point out that one of the central difficulties in theorizing or defining these terms is the problem of “within nation” variation: “North and South, on the one hand, quickly capture a critical cleavage within the global political economy, but they do not tell us about the gaps within the North and South by social class and among various nations within each category. Many people in the North are poor and oppressed, and every nation in the South includes those who are wealthy and powerful” (2012, 1548). In other words, not only are Global North and Global South imprecise shorthand, but they are limited, in particular, by the problem of using the nation-state as the unit of analysis. Since we are typically referring to nations as a whole when using these terms, we are unable to see in-country variation. Aulette does not offer a new definition of the Global South designed to overcome this problem, but she does say that these terms “call into question the whole notion of what is power.” In so doing, she adds an important dimension to the possible meanings that could be associated with Global South, in particular. Citing J. Heine, she states: “The global South is not just a site of poverty and underprivilege. The South includes the vast majority of people and resources of the earth and increasingly is a source of global political and intellectual leadership” (Aulette 2012, 1548). This notion that some sources of power may actually reside in the “developing” countries or within “underdeveloped” populations and regions goes against the standard usage of Global South (lacking socioeconomic power) and Global North (holding such power) and is not something we can observe in Giddens’s or Ritzer’s definitions. In addition, it is important to point out that Aulette eschews the nation-state category in her statement. By referring to “the vast majority of people and resources of the earth” that constitute the South, she suggests that some of these people could reside in wealthy and middle-income countries.
E X I S T I N G M O D E L S : C O R E A N D P E R I P H E RY
World-systems theory has become another central model used by sociologists to conceptualize Global North and South because it draws on the dependency theory perspective of the 1960s and 1970s and its valid critiques of the “three worlds of development” and traditional modernization perspectives in the social sciences defining nation-states as
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either “developed” or “developing.” This perspective has been successful in drawing our attention to the vital historical relationships that connect so-called “wealthy” and “poor” nations within the modern world system. In particular, world-systems analysis has emphasized the economic interdependence of nation-states within the modern interstate system since at least the fifteenth century, provoking a vast scholarship that demonstrates the evolution of our modern capitalist world system since that time, a system that incorporates, with very few exceptions, all nations and peoples living on the planet today. Central to the world-systems approach is the idea that areas in the world of great economic wealth and political power (or, at the opposite end, low levels of economic wealth and political power) are related to a singular international division of labor that exists beyond the level of the nation-state but nevertheless relies on the international system of nation-states (the interstate system) for its existence. Within world-systems theory, these areas are referred to as “core” and “periphery.” These terms can refer to specific nations or sets of nations (or perhaps even subsets of the population within either), and therefore this approach has, in certain respects, moved beyond the nationstate in understanding global inequality. Nevertheless, the world-systems model of “core” and “periphery” still tends to be defined primarily in nation-state terms. For example, an explanation of these concepts by leading world-systems proponents Thomas Hall and Christopher Chase-Dunn is worth examining closely. First, their definition of the “core”: “The countries that are ‘advanced,’ in the sense that they have high levels of economic development, skilled labor forces, high levels of income, and powerful, well-financed states, are the core powers of the modern system. The modern core includes the United States, the European countries, Japan, Australia, and Canada” (2006, 34). Notice here some confusion between “core” being defined as specific countries (“core powers”—plural) and as a set of countries (“the modern core”—singular). That said, the basic criteria for being a “core power” remain mostly at the level of the nation-state (i.e., “countries”) and are not that different from what modernization scholars call “developed” or “industrialized” countries. This tendency for world-systems scholars to conceptualize “core” and “periphery” based on a nation-state unit of analysis—one that is virtually synonymous with “developed” and “developing”—can be seen in Hall and Chase-Dunn’s definition of “periphery,” which, again, is posed largely in nation-state terms (i.e., “states” and “countries”): In the contemporary periphery we have relatively weak states that are not strongly supported by the populations within them and have little power relative to other states in the system. . . . Peripheral regions are also economically less developed in the sense that their economy is composed of subsistence producers and industries that have relatively low productivity and that employ unskilled labor. . . . In the past, peripheral countries have been primarily exporters of agricultural and mineral raw materials. But even when they have developed some industrial production, it has usually been less capital-intensive and has used less skilled labor than production
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processes in the core. The contemporary peripheral countries are most of the countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America—for example Bangladesh, Senegal, and Bolivia. (2006, 34–35)
Hall and Chase-Dunn’s definition lists three particular countries that are clearly “low” on the U.N. Human Development Index. Bangladesh, Senegal, and Bolivia are among the poorest nations on their respective continents. That said, the definition also states that “most of the countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America” are peripheral countries. This would seem to be consistent with the definitions of Global South we saw earlier and might include wealthier countries such as Brazil and China. Or it might not. World-systems theory allows greater flexibility here due to the fact that its adherents postulate a third category of global inequality—the semiperiphery: “The semiperiphery in the modern system includes countries that have intermediate levels of economic development or a balanced mix of developed and less developed regions” (Hall and Chase-Dunn 2006, 35). Although this definition is still largely contingent on a nation-state unit of analysis, the semiperiphery is an important theoretical innovation in the social sciences because it allows for the possibility of what Hall and Chase-Dunn refer to as a “continuum” within the hierarchy, not just the two poles: “The exact boundaries between the core, semiperiphery, and periphery are unimportant because the main point is that there is a continuum of economic and political-military power that constitutes the core-periphery hierarchy” (2006, 35). Also important in the definition of the semiperiphery is that it is a “balanced mix” of developed and less developed. The implication is that, if a country has more characteristics of a developed society than a less-developed society, then we should consider it as part of the “core” (or vice versa). Of course, it could be hard to find a true case of this “balance,” with most countries in the world tipping in the direction of either “core” or “periphery.” World-systems scholars have been criticized for this lack of specificity, and the list of examples of semiperipheral countries within the world-systems literature is often quite short. China, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, Korea, and Mexico are mentioned as examples of “semiperipheral countries” (Hall and Chase-Dunn 2006, 55; Chase-Dunn 2006, 99). Perhaps the notion of semiperiphery can account for “poor regions within wealthy countries” as well—places like Mississippi. It certainly seems relevant for the antebellum U.S. Deep South, a place that was both exploiter and exploited. But the standard definition of the concept used by world-systems scholars would not apply during the contemporary period. Mississippi and its subregions and inhabitants are within the United States and, therefore, are part of the “core.” There is some debate about whether the terms “Global North” and “Global South” are becoming widely used by world-systems scholars as synonymous with “core” and “periphery.” Most recent publications within this field indicate the continued usage of the latter terms in most academic venues. Nevertheless, authors outside the worldsystems school of thought tend to view them as synonymous (see, e.g., Bookmiller 2008;
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Milkias 2010; Sychov 2011). There is even an indication that “North” and “South” are becoming preferred terms within the social sciences and that “core” and “periphery” are falling out of fashion (see, e.g., Sassen 2006; Ritzer 2011; Robinson 2011, 17). One possible reason for this shift is the ongoing critique of world-systems analysis itself. As scholars in many fields wrestle with the topic of globalization, in particular (an academic movement in which world-systems scholars play a major role), it is likely that “Global North” and “Global South” are becoming the preferred lingua franca because they do not carry with them the explicit connection to the world-systems worldview and perhaps even connote a movement away from the nation-state-based assumptions of both modernization theory and world-systems theory. With regard to world-systems theory itself, critics have raised a number of concerns about the core-semiperiphery-periphery model. Are these discreet categories with clearly defined parameters, or are they a continuous scale? Although some world-systems scholars clearly state it is continuous and that “it does not matter exactly where we draw lines across this continuum . . . to categorize countries” (Hall and Chase-Dunn 2006, 35), they also acknowledge that there are “great disagreements among scholars about the right way to place nation-states in the zones (core/periphery/semiperiphery)” (Chase-Dunn and Lawrence 2010, 475). What precisely is the unit of analysis for “core” and “periphery”? Most of the time, it is nations, or “countries” (Turner and Babones 2006), but, again, this usage varies within world-systems literature. Sometimes the concepts operate independently of nation-state borders and become “regions” or “zones” (Hall and Chase-Dunn 2006, 35; Brewer 2011, 322). Sometimes they are primarily political designations; sometimes they are primarily economic and even refer to specific “processes” (Wallerstein 2004, 17) or “activities” (Brewer 2011, 313) within the international division of labor, or “sectors,” of economic production. The terms have also been used as adjectives to refer to “core populations” or “core firms.” One critic, sociologist Stephen Sanderson, claims that the concepts are so theoretically imprecise that we should consider abandoning them altogether: “[We need to] ‘Dereify’ the concepts of core, periphery, and semiperiphery, and the entire analysis associated with them. These concepts can be retained, but they should be used as little more than descriptive indicators, and rather crude ones at that” (2005, 205).
M O V I N G B E YO N D N AT I O N - S TAT E C E N T R I S M
The central criticism of world-systems theory articulated by Sanderson and other scholars, such as Benjamin Brewer (2011) and William I. Robinson (2004, 2011), has to do with the very nature of economic interdependency throughout the world. Given this interconnectedness, what are the appropriate “spaces or containers of development” (Brewer 2011, 312) that we should consider? Ironically, the very school of thought that raised our awareness of the realities of our unitary “modern world capitalist system” faces criticism for being stuck in nation-state categories. As Robinson puts it, “nation-states are no longer
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appropriate units of analysis, in part because they are no longer ‘containers’ (if indeed they ever were) of the diverse economic, political, social, and cultural processes that are the objects of study in the social sciences. . . . We need to make a break with nation-state centered analysis if we are to understand the twenty-first-century world” (2004, 89). But how can we move beyond the nation-state? Although world-systems scholars have been pivotal in pushing us to look at the larger global reality in which nation-states are embedded, these recent critiques suggest that we need to push even further. Perhaps part of the appeal of the concepts “Global South” and “Global North” is their potential to move us beyond nation-state centrism. Robinson takes us to the transnational level, arguing that we need to understand global inequality as the fundamental distinction between the transnational capitalist class that invests in production and accumulates capital indifferent to national borders and is “conscious of its transnationality,” and the disconnected, disorganized global proletariat that “has not . . . developed a consciousness of itself” (2004, 48, 43). While not explicitly using “Global North” or “Global South” to define these transnational classes, Robinson suggests that we should move toward larger “transnational” units of analysis (regions and the globe as a whole). We would agree with this move but would also suggest that, in moving beyond the nation-state, we can also consider the subnational dimensions of global inequality: states, districts, provinces, counties, municipalities, and other “locales.” We agree with Linda Lobao and others (see, e.g., Green and Mitra 2013 and the discussion of “intersectional space”; see also Gray and Murphy 2013 and the discussion of different types of “state-society configurations”) that a more comprehensive sociology of development would entail “framing questions about development and inequality across a variety of spatial scales” (see page 286 in this volume). This is not to say that we should abandon the nation-state completely. The nation-state and data collected at the nation-state level remain vital tools in the development sociologist’s toolbox. But if we only use this tool alone, we miss a lot. It can block our view of other kinds of questions and other kinds of phenomenon. Rather than abandoning the nation-state in favor of transnational or subnational analysis, we would argue that we need a more sophisticated and complex toolbox, one that includes both the nation-state and other spatial scales. What happens when we draw our attention to these transnational and subnational spaces? It has always been clear that, within every nation on earth, wealth and poverty are distributed unevenly across space. So, as we move from the national scale to the level of states or districts, we see that Mississippi, for example, is the poorest state in the United States, with a poverty rate of 22.7 percent in 2010. (For comparison: Alagoas is one of the poorest states in Brazil, with 55 percent of its population living below Brazil’s national poverty line.) As we move from the level of states/districts to the finer scale of county, this unevenness becomes even clearer, with poverty ranging from 3.1 percent in some U.S. counties to 50.1 percent in others. This disparity occurs within the borders of one “developed” nation and can even occur within the same state, wealthy or poor. If we
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have the data available, then finer gradations, such as census tract, neighborhood, or even city block, can be observed and these disparities become that much more uneven. When we say “Global South,” are these spaces of concentrated poverty what we have in mind, even if they are located within the borders of so-called “developed” or “core” countries? This has not been the conventional wisdom within the social sciences, but we argue that the concept of the Global South be defined in such a way as to allow for that possibility. This level of granularity can be seen in what the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service (2011) has identified as “persistent poverty areas,” regions in the United States that have faced the highest levels of poverty for the longest periods of time and are subregions of states and counties. For example, “Appalachia” extends from central West Virginia, through dense areas of poverty in eastern Kentucky, and down into northeastern Tennessee. The “Mississippi Delta” starts in east-central Arkansas and follows the Mississippi River southward, encompassing counties and regions in southeastern Arkansas, western Mississippi, and northeastern Louisiana. The “tribal lands” of eastern Arizona and western New Mexico, the “border region” of southern New Mexico and southwestern Texas, the “boot heel” of Missouri, and the “cotton belt,” which extends from east-central Mississippi all the way to eastern South Carolina, also constitute areas of “persistent poverty.” These areas light up on the national map of the United States when social scientists link poverty data to GIS spatial mapping software (see, e.g., Holt 2007). Even within these areas, however, there are significant disparities. We should keep in mind that not all spaces of concentrated poverty are large enough to appear on a nationallevel map. If we zoom into south central Los Angeles or inner-city Detroit, we can begin to see concentrated areas of poverty and disadvantage that exist at the submunicipal, neighborhood, and block levels. Furthermore, the poverty found in Northern inner cities and the Mississippi Delta alike can exist alongside spaces of wealth and privilege found in the very same communities. A recent NBC news story, “Tale of Two Deltas,” illustrates this fact by showing how individuals living in conditions of extreme poverty and extreme wealth comingle and coexist in the Mississippi Delta town of Greenwood (NBC News 2014). Our conceptualization of the Global South refers to the disadvantaged portion of these spatialized inequalities, along with the counter-hegemonic discourses and feats of cultural resistance that originate from within these subordinate spaces. The Global South, then, is not a place. It is a human condition. It is observed when we pay attention to the power and wealth disparities that exist within a place. By saying “global,” we mean to connote the fact that it can be found in all corners of the planet, but it is localized as well. And paying attention to local context and to the sometimes micro-level variations that are linked to place is crucial to our model. When we arrive at these subnational scales to examine uneven development, even within a wealthy nation, we can begin to see where people’s lived experiences overlap with the social realities we may more typically associate with “less developed” nations.
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The life expectancy of Mississippi’s residents overall in 2007 (74.9 years) is comparable to Jordan, Romania, and Brazil. For black residents in the Mississippi Delta (71.1 years), it is comparable to the low life expectancy of people in Suriname and Guatemala. For black males in some Delta counties (e.g., Quitman, at 66.1 years), it is lower than the average life expectancy in India, Bangladesh, or Ghana. The nonwhite infant death rate in some counties in Mississippi is the same as in Libya and Thailand (18.8 percent). And approximately 2.3 percent of Mississippian households throughout the state are estimated to be surviving on $2 or less in income per person per day in a given month— which is the standard international criterion for “absolute poverty” (Burd-Sharps, Lewis, and Martins 2009; Shaefer and Edin 2012). Although we may be reluctant to refer to these populations as part of the “Global South” because they happen to be located within the borders of a nation defined as wealthy and “developed,” it certainly seems clear that they do not fit the definition of the “core,” either—as areas where wealth accumulates due to being located in a privileged position within the international division of labor and global capitalism. Some scholars might suggest that “semiperiphery” is an appropriate descriptor here, but we would say that this is not a case of a “balanced mixture” of core-like realities and peripheral-like realities. These are cases of poverty amid plenty, and, as such, a more accurate label would be “Global South.” We should add that “pockets of poverty” such as these are almost universal within nations throughout the world. Wealthy countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom have them, as do so-called “middle income” or semiperipheral countries such as South Africa and Russia. And, of course, “poor countries” such as Bolivia and Bangladesh are generally defined by the persistently poor populations contained within their borders. The inverse is also true. Even the poorest countries in the world, including Bolivia and Bangladesh, have spaces of extreme affluence and wealth. The only difference is the relative sizes of the national populations living in conditions of relative affluence or poverty, and the magnitude of the gap. Yet aren’t the wealthy everywhere accumulating their wealth through the cyclical “booms” of the same international system of capitalist production? Aren’t the poor anywhere subject to conditions of poverty due to the exigencies of the labor market and the inadequacies of the nation-state (some more than others) to mitigate the deleterious effects of its “busts”? The term “global” in the Global South implies that there are those on the bottom of the capitalist hierarchy everywhere. Likewise, the “Northern” economies of Europe and the United States are no longer the sole repositories of accumulated wealth as they may have historically been. Couldn’t the notion of “Global” North imply that such pockets of wealth accumulation may exist anywhere on the planet? Wouldn’t it be possible to conceive of the total sum of all “spaces of poverty,” regardless of their location in the world, as the “Global South” and the spaces of wealth, whether in New York, São Paulo, or Bombay, as the “Global North”?
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T H E N O RT H - S O U T H S C H O L A R LY D I V I D E
We would answer these questions in the affirmative, and, when viewed closely, it is clear that within-nation variation between privilege and poverty overlaps between-country variation of these conditions. Yet our nation-state-based intellectual frameworks have not allowed us to see this reality as clearly as we ought to. The concept of “Global South” has the potential to overcome this problem. Conditions of inequality are the product of very similar sociohistorical dynamics everywhere. Countries and regions are increasingly part of the same global economic system, but within the academy we continue to have a wealthy nation/developing nation scholarly divide that prevents us from having a unified conceptualization of Global South and North. Angela Miles describes this reality quite succinctly: “[W]hat we call ‘development issues’ in the ‘third world,’ such as housing, education, health, child care, and poverty, are called ‘social issues’ in the ‘first world.’ These are not qualitatively different phenomena” (quoted in Collins 2000, 240). So it is the very divide between North and South that divides development sociologists and, perhaps, humanistic scholars in general. The reasons for this divide are too numerous to explore here, but they include the global power disparities among institutions of higher learning throughout the world and their impact on the production of human knowledge. Often referred to as an issue of “the West and the rest” (Hall 1993), it is now clear to most scholars that any discipline, the sociology of development included, is shaped largely by the interests and perspectives of privileged individuals and groups. Scholars from developing nations are marginalized within this system and often must conform to the modes of thinking of the dominant groups in order to achieve academic success. Perspectives that are critical of the dominant modes of thinking or challenge the interests and privileges of dominant groups are less welcome within the academy. Various theoretical traditions have also contributed to this notion that “we” in the West are different from the “others” elsewhere (and that even perhaps our “poverty” and “wealth” are different from theirs). From modernization theory, which posits various “stages” that countries go through on the road to becoming “advanced and industrialized,” to dependency and world-systems perspectives whose nation-state centrism tends to reify this “us” in the core versus “them” in the periphery divide, our scholarly camps within sociology are divided along national lines even as we try to overcome them with international collaborations, associations, and conferences. One clear example of this is in the sociology of development, where sociologists who study development in the United States refer to their field as “community development” or “rural development,” and development sociologists who study other areas of the world are referred to as studying “international development.” Why two fields of inquiry when these scholars are studying fundamentally similar phenomena? Often publishing in different journals and presenting their scholarship in different venues, development sociologists are perhaps in need of a unifying concept as well. One final reason for the scholarly divide worth mentioning is data collection practices within the social sciences. There is no uniform way for nation-states throughout the
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world to collect statistical information on the relative well-being of their populations. Major efforts have been undertaken to standardize data collection practices in the “developing world,” especially in recent years (much at the behest of wealthy OECD member nations), but no such standard exists for data collection in wealthy countries. And though wealthier countries tend to have more robust and reliable datasets on myriad issues and characteristics of their population, it is often difficult to compare these data with data from the developing world. Take the $2 a day statistic as an example. In the United States, we do not collect this information: income statistics for households or families under $10,000 per year are simply lumped together. Furthermore, statistics collected for infant mortality, literacy, educational achievement, and nutrition are not typically collected using the same parameters, measurements, and indices common in the developing world. The result is that we are not able to use commensurate measurements of material well-being and disadvantage.
R E A S O N S TO O V E R C O M E T H E D I V I D E
There are a number of very good reasons why scholars in general (and development sociologists, in particular) would want to overcome this North-South divide in the production of knowledge. First of all, from the perspective of the wealthy countries (especially the United States), it is worthwhile to recognize that antipoverty efforts, per se, have basically stagnated since the 1960s and the U.S. government’s declared “war on poverty.” Perhaps it is no coincidence that political support for antipoverty measures in the United States waned at about the same time that Americans became more aware of “global poverty” as images of famine in Africa became commonplace in the 1970s and 1980s on the evening news, in advertisements of international relief organizations, and throughout popular media as celebrities and pop stars urged us all to lend a helping hand (Müller 2013). These representations of “real poverty” in the starkest of circumstances became the measuring rod for “absolute” levels of suffering in the popular imagination and presented the problem of “global poverty” as a thing apart. Much as Ritzer’s words at the beginning of this chapter reveal, most citizens in wealthy countries, confronted with such dire imagery, easily come to the conclusion that people in their own nation who may experience varying degrees of relative deprivation simply “do not have it that bad.” If global poverty is conceptualized as a thing apart, then development efforts targeted at poor regions (like Mississippi) within so-called wealthy countries are likely to garner little support. However, if “global poverty” and “local poverty” are in fact consequences of similar social dynamics and, furthermore, can be seen as connected to parallel systems of exploitation, then perhaps we can tackle both more effectively. We can see the potential of this idea when we hear the phrase “We do so much to help other countries, why can’t we help our own?” (see, e.g., Westneat 2005). Regardless of the veracity of this assertion,2 it does reveal the desire to understand poverty as a collective human problem, one that we actually have some capacity to solve.
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A second reason for overcoming the North-South divide is that there are mutually beneficial lessons to be learned if we bridge the scholarship that addresses solving development questions in wealthy countries and the scholarship that seeks to solve problems of development in less-wealthy countries. U.S. and European development scholars have often used their expertise to offer solutions to the problems of development in poor countries, but it is less common for development scholars who work on community development in the United States and Europe to have opportunities to apply their work in these “less developed” contexts. The larger problem, however, is that it is even less common for development expertise to flow in the opposite direction. Wealthy countries do not typically accept “help,” “advice,” or “aid” from less-wealthy countries. But there may be very beneficial lessons that disadvantaged communities within wealthy countries could learn from policymakers and development experts from less-developed countries and regions. This so-called “South to South” knowledge transfer or assistance has tremendous potential for individuals and groups living in the Global South and is a dynamic area of current scholarly inquiry. In addition, we can see examples where such South-toSouth exchanges could greatly help address common problems faced by the global poor everywhere (see, e.g., Hansen 2012). As researchers, activists, and community development practitioners throughout the world, development sociologists have much to offer in this area as well. The mutually beneficial exchanges between scholars from the Global North and Global South, in addition to South-to-South exchanges, can all serve to shore up truly global antipoverty efforts in the twenty-first century. Rather than building these efforts solely on the perspectives of the wealthy and powerful (like Bono or the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), development sociology can offer an even more robust understanding of these problems by building knowledge from a more “bottom up” perspective. Development sociology also needs conceptual tools that allow us to compare conditions of life everywhere. Not only does the “Global South” have the potential to serve as such a conceptual tool, but it could also provide the rationale through which a systematic scholarly effort tackles the difficult questions of social inequalities. This is a huge opportunity and a huge challenge for development sociologists as they will need to devise new datagathering strategies and holistic methodological and theoretical concepts that allow us to speak about human inequality at all levels of analysis (national, transnational, and subnational). But doing this requires a new understanding of what the Global South means.
REDEFINING THE GLOBAL SOUTH
Much has changed since the original models of “developed”/“developing” and “core”/“periphery” were invented. Although these models form the basis for how many scholars think about “Global North” and “Global South,” in this chapter we have shown that those older models are no longer sufficient for understanding the complexities of global inequality. We need new tools that allow us to visualize the multiscalar and granu-
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lar nature of global inequalities. We do still wish to utilize the nation-state unit of analysis for much of our work, but the Global South should no longer be thought of in nationstate terms (“global south nations” or “nations of the global south” would be preferred terms in those circumstances). Instead, it is time for a new definition of the Global South, one that operates at both the transnational and subnational levels: the “Global South,” then, is a conceptual framework used to observe the contingent and interconnected pockets of poverty, gender inequality, and racism throughout the world, including the so-called “wealthy nations”; it is a framwork that attends to the importance of both local context and global interdependence and privileges the perspectives of the subordinate and subaltern in the production of knowledge. In offering this definition, it is crucial that we take into account four recent theoretical innovations and how they shape our definition. First, this new conceptualization of the Global South is “post nation-state.” Although the nation-state remains a crucial unit of analysis for discussions of global inequality, we believe it is time to consider many levels of analysis simultaneously and that we should move beyond “nation-state centrism” (Robinson 2004). We are trying to see what Saskia Sassen (2006) refers to as “denationalized” spaces and “new territorial configurations” within the global political economy. These spaces can be subnational as well as transnational. The goal is to achieve a granularity and precision in the analysis, one that allows us to carefully identify areas of persistent disadvantage throughout the world and in any part of the world. Identifying the “subaltern voices” historically, as well as in the contemporary moment wherever they are, precedes efforts to identify the common conditions and social forces that create these spaces. The Global South is all of these spaces taken together, as a global whole. The Global South can also apply to methods for analyzing any of these spaces taken alone, so as to understand their particularities within the larger context. Most important, it shifts our attention to the “linkages” between these spaces, the “various forms of border crossings . . . [that eschew] nation-to-nation comparisons and [treat] scale or geographic unit of analysis as historically and culturally contingent” (Kim-Puri 2005: 149). As H. J. Kim-Puri suggest, “the purpose . . . is to call attention to the complex, sometimes contradictory, and often unequal interconnections that exist across cultural settings” (ibid.). Second, the concept of the Global South is post-colonial or even “de-colonial,” in Walter Mignolo’s terms (2009, 2011). De-coloniality refers to recentering the production of knowledge within the historical experiences of subordinate groups. The concept of the Global South must be attuned to, and even prioritize, the counter-hegemonic or subaltern perspectives of those occupying marginalized social positions throughout the world. This includes privileging the voices of scholars from historically disadvantaged spaces within the academy, using their insights to guide the critical examination of the structures and representations of inequality. In terms of development sociology, we need “to give salience to the forms of knowledge produced by those who are supposed to be the ‘objects’ of development so they can become subjects in their own right” (Escobar 2007, 21).
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Perhaps some of the greatest theoretical advances in this area have been made in transnational feminist scholarship, which has wrestled with issues of how to give voice to marginalized groups and, for decades, has confronted power dynamics between socalled “First World” feminists and “Third World” feminists (see, e.g., Mohanty 2002). The conflicts that have occurred within the international feminist movement—and the realizations feminist scholars have made as a result—are extremely valuable for scholars in other areas. For example, transnational feminism has proposed a “feminist solidarity model” that helps us see “the interconnectedness of the histories, experiences, and struggles of U.S. women of color, white women and women from the Third World/South [in a way that is] attentive to power, each historical experience illuminat[ing] the experiences of others” (Mohanty 2002, 522). Furthermore, this approach seeks to avoid the “West and the rest” model that “locates the pernicious effects of capitalist globalization only within the Third World and masks inequalities that are deepened in the West itself, particularly against the poor and immigrant population” (Kim-Puri 2005, 140). Similar theoretical inroads have been made in the areas of critical race studies, post-colonial studies, and antiracism theory (see, e.g., Collins 2000). To transcend the boundaries of nation-state in this fashion is to privilege the voices of individuals and groups in the subordinate positions regardless of their geo-spatial location. We believe that such “bottom up” epistemologies are essential for understanding the lived consequences of inequality and for creating knowledge that both empowers subordinate groups and fosters social justice (Collins 2000, 269). Third, and perhaps most controversially, our redefinition of the Global South is “postdevelopment.” Development is an ideology that emerged after World War II based on the application of models of European reconstruction to the “poor countries” of the world. The logic of “developmentalism” posited the experiences of industrialized nations like the United States as the model for all other nations to follow (Escobar 1995; Sachs 1993). Our new definition of the Global South recognizes that current patterns of life, particularly in the Global North, are not universally applicable or desirable to all peoples and all places. Instead, we need to “[focus] on the adaptations, subversions and resistance that local peoples effect in relation to development interventions . . . and . . . [highlight] the alternative strategies produced by social movements as they encounter development projects” (Escobar 2007, 21). Furthermore, we are beginning to see more clearly how current patterns of life under modernity are not ecologically sustainable. Therefore, new attention to the Global South should not be focused solely on trying to ameliorate conditions of poverty and disadvantage but should also address the conditions of unjust wealth, wastefulness, greed, and decadence that define the Global North. In other words, it may be the Global South that needs to send its missionaries into the North, instead of exclusively the other way around. The Global South can be a source of potential solutions to development problems in the twenty-first century; it is not solely an object in need of “development.” Fourth and finally, redefining the Global South must be an interdisciplinary effort. For too long we have separated ourselves with borders of our own invention, economists
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from historians, humanities scholars from social scientists. None of us have been able to adequately understand global inequality from within our own silos. Therefore, we need to move beyond disciplinary blind spots to find productive angles of vision from which to mutually understand these inequalities. The concept of the Global South can provide us with common ground if we define it in interdisciplinary terms. When we say “Global South,” we want to examine transnational circuits of both capital and culture. It is a model that allows us to interrogate both representations and realities in defining the conditions of human life everywhere. We need to utilize the empiricism of the social sciences that concretely shape our lived experience in conjunction with the narratives we tell one another about that lived experience. “The point is that the material and cultural are conjoined and shaped through each other” (Kim-Puri 2005, 143), and both are equally important in developing a comprehensive picture of Global South and Global North.
R E C O M M E N D AT I O N S
In conclusion, scholars in the humanities and humanistic social sciences should recognize the increasing use of the terms “Global South” and “Global North” within their midst. For many scholars using these terms, they are simply the latest way to refer to “developed”/“developing” and “core”/“periphery”—the contemporary equivalents to the old concepts, models, and mindsets of the postwar years. But taking such an approach and using the terms in this fashion, we believe, is a mistake. We would argue that something new is actually taking hold, and it is time to capture the essence of what more nuanced observers using these concepts are trying to say. In this chapter, we have attempted to do just that, arguing that the “Global South” is a concept that is theoretically moving away from nation-state centrism and has the potential to provide scholars with a clearer opportunity to see the multiscalar and granular nature of global inequalities. This approach focuses on context and the intersectionality of human social inequalities. In particular, we believe that conceptualizations of the “Global South” and “Global North” as articulated within transnational feminist theories, post-colonial theory, and critical race scholarship, as well as within global political economy approaches such as world-systems theory, allow for a more sophisticated and complex set of analytical tools with which to examine and understand the dynamics of global inequality. The future of these kinds of frameworks and tools of analysis remain to be seen, but we would offer the following three recommendations to development sociologists (or any humanities scholar or social scientist studying issues of global inequality). First, we should all be clearer in making the distinction between “global south nations” and the broader notion of the “Global South.” The former term can be used within the context of nation-state-based analysis as a synonym for “less developed countries” or “peripheral countries,” but the latter should not. This broader concept of Global South, as we have argued and defined it here, draws our attention to the transnational and subnational levels of inequality that exist everywhere on the planet. Many scholars fail to
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make this distinction and use the term “Global South” when they really mean “global south nations” or “nations of the global south.” If one is utilizing nation-state-level data or is undertaking international relations analysis or comparative analysis, then “global south nation(s)” should be the preferred term. Second, we should be more careful not to attribute the characteristics of poverty and disadvantage universally to populations contained within regions or countries traditionally labeled as part of the “Global South.” Labeling China or India (or Ghana, for that matter) as universally “part of the Global South” would be a mistake (though, again, to reiterate, calling China or India a “global south nation” is acceptable). This is because there are extremely wealthy interests and practices in China, India, and Ghana (i.e., Global North) in addition to the extremely poor conditions and experiences in those countries (i.e., Global South). The inverse is also true, and we should exercise caution in labeling the United States or Italy as universally “Global North” when, in fact, there are regions in those nations where conditions of life do not match that descriptor (as we have shown here). In this sense, we simply need to pay closer attention to the variation that exists within all regions or nations. The Global South refers to disadvantaged portions of these spacialized inequalities, wherever they might be located. Third, we are calling for a clearer understanding of what is meant by the term “Global South.” Rather than being simply a crude descriptor or a fashionable buzzword that means different things in different disciplinary settings, we believe the concept has the potential to carry great analytical power for all scholars of inequality in the global age. Constructed as a signifier operating simultaneously at transnational, national, and subnational levels, “the Global South” can allow us to see more clearly the pockets and splotches of poverty, uneven development, subalterity, disenfranchisement, and disadvantage throughout the globe as well as to zoom in on the discourses of counter-hegemony, antiracism, anticolonialism, and social justice that are produced within those places and spaces. The Global South is, ultimately, a potential site of knowledge construction that takes as its starting point the human condition as seen and experienced from the bottom up. Although academic scholarship within all disciplines of the university has historically been a project of human knowledge construction taken on by elites for elites (an inherently “Global North” perspective), we would argue that considering the Global South is, ultimately, an attempt to restructure the institution of knowledge production itself. This is not an easy (nor even likely) undertaking within the academy as it currently exists, as there are many challenges and obstacles that prevent scholarship from being created from a bottom-up perspective. Since at least the 1960s, however, significant inroads have been made in this direction from anticolonial, feminist, and antiracist theorists (among others). In fact, we believe many current scholars are contributing to a truer understanding of what the Global South really means in this regard: see, for example, Patricia Hill Collins’s theoretical innovations in her attempt to locate “black feminist thought” (2000, 22); Saskia Sassen’s work on “expulsions” and the denationalized
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“spaces of the expelled” where human beings are trying to survive at the margins of the global economy (2014, 222); and recent work on the concept of “precarity” by Guy Standing (2011) and others that seeks to better understand the latest economic realities experienced by these same human beings. Furthermore, a large number of scholars working for decades in the post-colonial and post-modern traditions have created numerous “terminological inventions meant to specify and reinforce particular forms of resistance to dominant social hierarchy” (Sandoval 2000, 68). In recent years, we have begun to observe a much clearer effort within the academy to develop a “methodology of the oppressed” (Sandoval 2000), “southern theory” (Connell 2007), and “theory from the south” (Comaroff and Comaroff 2012). All of this work points in the direction of the meaning that is becoming more deeply attached to the concept of the “Global South.” Paying attention to these developments and to how they shape and reshape our understanding of global inequalities, and being more attuned to how we, as scholars, are using this term and thinking about its meaning, will be of increasingly greater importance as we are asked to face the challenges of “development” in the twenty-first century.
N OT E S
This research was supported by the University of Mississippi Faculty Working Group on the Global South and the UM Office of Research. 1. Tacit assumptions within sociology are often revealed in our efforts to distill the vocabulary of the discipline in a textbook. For that reason, in this chapter we have chosen to explore definitions taken from textbooks, handbooks, and encyclopedias that we consider to be appropriate sources to investigate the distilled disciplinary understandings of key concepts in addition to the more robust and nuanced conversations of these issues found in full-length scholarly articles and books. 2. U.S. taxpayers spend much more on domestic antipoverty efforts than on U.S. government assistance abroad.
REFERENCES
Aulette, Judy. 2012. “North-South.” In The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Globalization, edited by George Ritzer, 1547–48. West Sussex: Blackwell. Bookmiller, Kirsten Nakjavani. 2008. The United Nations. New York: Infobase Publishing. Brewer, Benjamin. 2011. “Global Commodity Chains and World Income Inequalities: The Missing Link of Inequality and the ‘Upgrading’ Paradox.” Journal of World-Systems Research 17, no. 2: 308–27. Accessed June 20, 2013. http://sites.jmu.edu/benbrewer/files/2011/06 /Brewer-vol17n2.pdf. Burd-Sharps, Sarah, Kristen Lewis, and Eduardo Borges Martins. 2009. A Portrait of Mississippi: Mississippi Human Development Report 2009. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Measure of America: A Project of the Social Science Research Council. Accessed Nov. 13, 2012. http://www .measureofamerica.org/mississippi/.
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Caldeira, Teresa. 2008. “Worlds Set Apart.” London: LSE Cities. Accessed June 19, 2013. http:// lsecities.net/media/objects/articles/worlds-set-apart. Chase-Dunn, Christopher. 2006. “Globalization: A World-Systems Perspective.” In Global Social Change: Historical and Comparative Perspectives, edited by Christopher Chase-Dunn and Salvatore J. Babones, 79–105. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press. Chase-Dunn, Christopher, and Kirk Lawrence. 2010. “Alive and Well: A Response to Sanderson.” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 51, no. 6: 470–80. Collins, Patricia Hill. 2000. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge. Comaroff, Jean, and John L. Comaroff. 2012. Theory from the South or, How Euro-America Is Evolving toward Africa. Boulder, Colo.: Paradigm. Connell, Raewyn. 2007. Southern Theory: Social Science and the Global Dynamics of Knowledge. Cambridge, Engl.: Polity Press. Ebersole, Ryan C. 2011. “Third World Mississippi Shows Failure of Conservative Policies.” People’s World (June 24). Accessed Oct. 19, 2012. http://www.peoplesworld.org/thirdworld-mississippi-shows-failure-of-conservative-policies/. Escobar, Arturo. 1995. Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. . 2007. “ ‘Post-Development’ as a Concept and Social Practice.” In Exploring PostDevelopment: Theory and Practice, Problems and Perspectives, edited by Aram Ziai, 18–30. New York: Routledge. Giddens, Anthony, Mitchell Duneier, Richard P. Appelbaum, and Deborah Carr. 2013. Essentials of Sociology. New York: W. W. Norton. Gray, Kevin, and Craig N. Murphy. 2013. “Introduction: Rising Powers and the Future of Global Governance.” Third World Quarterly 34, no. 2: 183–93. Green, John, and Debarashmi Mitra. 2013. “Intersections of Development, Poverty, Race, and Space in the Mississippi Delta in the Era of Globalization: Implications for Gender-Based Health Issues.” In Poverty and Health in America, edited by Kevin Fitzpatrick, 177–206. Westport, Conn.: Praeger. Guterl, Matthew. 2007. “South.” In Keywords for American Cultural Studies, edited by Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler, 230–33. New York: New York University Press. Hall, Stuart. 1993. “The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power.” In Formations of Modernity, edited by Bram Gieben and Stuart Hall, 275–331. Cambridge, Engl.: Polity Press. Hall, Thomas, and Christopher Chase-Dunn. 2006. “Global Social Change in the Long Run.” In Global Social Change: Historical and Comparative Perspectives, edited by Christopher Chase-Dunn and Salvatore J. Babones, 33–58. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press. Hansen, Suzy. 2012. “What Mississippi Can Learn from Iran.” New York Times, July 27. Accessed Oct. 19, 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/magazine/what-canmississippis-health-care-system-learn-from-iran.html?pagewanted = alland_r = 0. Holt, James B. 2007. “The Topography of Poverty in the United States: A Spatial Analysis Using County-Level Data from the Community Health Status Indicators Project.” Preventing Chronic Disease 4, no. 4: 1–9. Accessed June 20, 2013. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov /pmc/articles/PMC2099276/.
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Kim-Puri, H. J. 2005. “Conceptualizing Gender-Sexuality-State-Nation: An Introduction.” Gender and Society 19, no. 2: 137–59. McCartney, Scott, and Christopher Sullivan. 1990. “Mississippi Delta: Third World Poverty in America’s Heartland.” Los Angeles Times, May 13. Accessed Oct. 19, 2012. http://articles .latimes.com/1990–05–13/news/mn-82_1_mississippi-delta. Mignolo, Walter. 2009. “Epistemic Disobedience, Independent Thought and De-Colonial Freedom.” Theory, Culture and Society 26, nos. 7–8: 1–23. . 2011. The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options (Latin America Otherwise). Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. Milkias, Paulos. 2010. Developing the Global South: A United Nations Prescription for the Third Millennium. New York: Algora. Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 2002. “ ‘Under Western Eyes’ Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist Struggles.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 28, no. 2: 499–535. Mott, Ronni. 2008. “Third World Mississippi.” Jackson Free Press, Dec. 24. Accessed Oct. 19, 2012. http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2008/dec/24/third-world-mississippi/. Müller, Tanja R. 2013. “The Long Shadow of Band Aid Humanitarianism: Revisiting the Dynamics between Famine and Celebrity.” Third World Quarterly 34, no. 3: 470–84. NBC News. 2014. “Tale of Two Deltas: Poverty and Affluence Side by Side in Mississippi Town.” Apr. 21. Accessed Sept. 25, 2014. http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/in-plain-sight/plainsight-poverty-america-n69736. Ritzer, George. 2011. Globalization: The Essentials. West Sussex: John Wiley and Sons. . 2013. Introduction to Sociology. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage. Robinson, William I. 2004. A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class, and the State in a Transnational World. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press. . 2011. “Globalization and the Sociology of Immanuel Wallerstein: A Critical Appraisal.” International Sociology: 1–23. Accessed June 19, 2013. http://escholarship.org/uc/item /9c21h2pv. Sachs, Wolfgang, ed. 1993. The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power. London: Zed Books. Sanderson, Stephen. 2005. “World-Systems Analysis after Thirty Years.” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 46, no. 3: 179–213. Sandoval, Chela. 2000. Methodology of the Oppressed (Theory Out of Bounds). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Sassen, Saskia. 2006. Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. . 2014. Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press. Shaefer, H. Luke, and Kathryn Edin. 2012. “Extreme Poverty in the United States, 1996 to 2011.” NPC Policy Brief 28, Feb. Ann Arbor, Mich.: National Poverty Center. Accessed Oct. 15, 2012. http://www.npc.umich.edu/publications/policy_briefs/brief28/policybrief28 .pdf. Standing, Guy. 2011. The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. London: Bloomsbury Academic Press.
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Sychov, Alyaksandr. 2011. “Global Development: Will It Ever Succeed?” Globality Studies Journal 23: 1–21. Accessed June 19, 2013. http://globality.cc.stonybrook.edu/wp-content /uploads/2011/04/no23.pdf. Turner, Jonathan, and Salvatore J. Babones. 2006. “Global Inequality: An Introduction.” In Global Social Change: Historical and Comparative Perspectives, edited by Christopher ChaseDunn and Salvatore J. Babones, 109–34. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press. U.N. Development Programme. 2011. Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future for All. New York: UNDP. Accessed June 20, 2013. http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/reports/271 /hdr_2011_en_complete.pdf. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. 2011. Geography of Poverty. Washington, D.C.: USDAERS. Accessed June 20, 2013. http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics /rural-economy-population/rural-poverty-well-being/geography-of-poverty.aspx# .UcNTheA5t5g. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2004. World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. Westneat, Danny. 2005. “Why Can’t We Help Our Own?” The Seattle Times, Sept. 2. Accessed June 20, 2013. http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2002466093_danny02.html. World Bank. 2009. “Population Headcount Ratio at $2 a Day (PPP).” Washington, D.C.: World Bank. Accessed June 19, 2013. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.2DAY. . 2011. “GNI per Capita, PPP (Current International $).” Washington, D.C.: World Bank. Accessed June 19, 2013. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP.PP.CD /countries. Wright, Alison. 2009. “Third World America.” New York: Alison Wright Photography. Accessed Oct. 19, 2012. http://alisonwright.com/#/documentary-galleries/third-world-america /Third_World_America-8.
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6 MAGIC POTION/POISON POTION The Impact of Women’s Economic Empowerment versus Disempowerment for Development in a Globalized World
Rae Lesser Blumberg
Bill Clinton famously said “It’s the economy, stupid!” and his emphasis propelled him to the presidency of the United States. In the movie Jerry Maguire, the star athlete’s mantra was “Show me the money.” Yet, despite the importance of economic and monetary factors on our lives, I argue that the impact of whether or not women control money and other economic assets is insufficiently recognized by development scholars. This chapter is about women, money, and development. My claim is that a woman’s economic power is important for her, her family, her community, her nation, and even for global development. I also assert the importance, in recent years, of the nearly worldwide increase in the number of women who are not only earning but also gaining more control of income. Why does this matter? The central point of this chapter is that when women generate—and control—money and other assets, their economic empowerment is linked to a cornucopia of benefits, from greater gender equality to more income growth and well-being for both families and nations. Indeed, I suggest that women’s economic power is a virtual “magic potion for development.” But the converse—women’s economic disempowerment—is linked not only to subjugated women but also to a woeful array of problems, including a widespread worsening of human welfare and a strong correlation with armed conflict. It is a veritable “poison potion for development” that is generally distorted, slowed, or stalled. In the first section below, I present two examples from the Global South where women’s economic position has risen but they have been endangered by practices linked to demands from today’s globalized capitalist economy. The first example is from my own
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fieldwork in Ecuador. (Since being in the Peace Corps in Venezuela, I have worked in forty-five countries in almost every sector of development except large-scale dam projects.) The second example concerns Bangladesh. Both cases involve relatively poor nations exporting products made or processed mainly by young women to richer, more powerful nations in today’s world system. In the second section of the chapter, I introduce hypotheses from my gender theories about how and why women’s control of income is so important to their own position and to development. It also presents supporting data for the “magic potion” thesis. The third section presents theory and data for the “poison potion for development” argument—that where women do not have economic power, outcomes are often grim. For example, the most male-dominated economies and societies seem more vulnerable to armed conflict and extremist movements. In the final section, I present conclusions.
W H E N W O M E N ’ S E C O N O M I C P O W E R R I S E S I N T O D AY ’ S GLOBALIZED WORLD: TWO CASES ECU AD OR
Starting around 1990, nontraditional agricultural exports (NTAEs) boomed in Ecuador, especially in flowers and broccoli (Blumberg 1992).1 Both cultivation and processing of these crops are very labor-intensive. And employers have generally preferred females—for their delicate touch, lower likelihood of organizing, and lower wages. In Ecuador’s central and southern Andes regions, where economic growth had been low and jobs for young women scarce, a new day dawned. In most places, employers sought young women with above-average education for their locality. Since there is a lot of seasonal overtime, they could earn more than graduates of the highest academic high school track (baccalaureate). In my “rapid appraisal” research (Blumberg 2002), young women processing flowers or broccoli for export said they felt personally empowered and so happy that they could help their families: most of them gave some money from each paycheck to their mother (not one gave to the father). But, they said, it was at their own discretion. Almost all stated that their help led to greater appreciation and respect from their families. Another common outcome was that their parents encouraged them to delay marriage and keep on working. They said, too, that their parents often pushed their younger sisters to stay in school so they could get those jobs that paid so well by local standards (Blumberg 1992; Blumberg and Salazar-Paredes 2011). The risk factor has been pesticide exposure, but protective gear and measures can cut the danger, and international “green label” campaigns have already led many firms to adopt such procedures, especially in flowers. Even so, real dangers to the women persist (Blumberg 1992; Blumberg and Salazar-Paredes 2011). Ecuador is third in global flower exports, behind Holland and neighboring Colombia (which has a minimum wage almost $100 less per month). Ecuador’s position is more precarious in flowers than in broccoli, where its location on the equator and fields at just the right (high) altitude result in the world’s greenest, densest florets. But on June 27,
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2013, President Raul Correa renounced the Andean Trade Preference Act, which permitted free entry of those products (and thousands of others) into the United States. Current reports about the flower industry range from rosy (Collyns 2015) to cautious (Conefrey 2015).2 Overall, the future seems less certain for Ecuador’s NTAEs and their mostly female young labor force.
BANGLADESH
With a population of about 169 million, Bangladesh is the world’s eighth most populous nation (CIA 2015b; Ecuador is under 16 million). It is overwhelmingly Muslim, with a patrilineal-patrilocal kin/property system3 and traditional norms of female seclusion (purdah). But when the Grameen Bank and BRAC (the world’s largest NGO), brought microcredit to poor Bangladeshi women in the 1980s, the women challenged purdah to spend a few hours every week or fortnight going to the meetings to pay their loan installments and to hear talks on, and then discuss, everything from group buying and marketing to the importance of keeping their daughters and sons in school. Bangladesh is arguably the most microcredit-saturated country on Earth, with mostly female-targeted programs in almost every village. It is germane that microcredit programs grew up concomitantly with the government’s strong family planning (Ahmed 2004, 2006). The total fertility rate declined from 6.3 children per woman in 1975 (a few years before Muhammad Yunus launched the Grameen Bank) to 2.2 in 2013 (World Bank 2015a)—just a hair above replacement fertility. Meanwhile, women earning income helped send both their boys and their girls to school. The deficit of girls in primary and secondary education has vanished; they now predominate at both levels (UNESCO 2015; Shamsuddin 2013 found that this was aided by an inclusive secondary school Conditional Cash Transfer program).4 A better-educated female labor force now is the backbone of the country’s $20 billion/ year export textile industry (Motlagh 2014), second largest after China (Haider 2007), with over four million workers, some 5,600 factories (Weiss 2014), and over 80 percent of exports by value (Stratfor Global Intelligence 2015). It has helped boost women’s total labor force share from 15 percent in 1996 to 36 percent in 2010 (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics 2012, xxi). Today, fully 57 percent of women in Bangladesh are in the labor force (World Bank 2015b). Unfortunately, the industry has burst onto the global media scene because, in 2013, a factory fire killed 112 workers and an eight-story building housing five factories collapsed, leaving over 1,134 dead and 2,515 injured (Motlagh 2014)—in both cases, almost all young women (Weiss 2014). There is no reason such risks cannot be fixed. So far, more than 150 mostly large European firms that buy these products have signed the legally binding Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, and 26 mostly large U.S. firms (e.g., Walmart, Sears, and Gap) have committed to less rigorous safety upgrades and liability limits. There are also new labor laws on paper, though it is not clear how much they will help worker rights (Motlagh 2014). As in Ecuador, outside pressure and campaigns by
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rich, country-based consumer, NGO, and labor-oriented groups has helped reduce practices endangering the workers that may be partly attributable to pressures from the powerful firms and countries that buy the products. All in all, it appears that Bangladeshi women earning income from microenterprises or factory jobs have more voice in their households and somewhat more freedom of movement than before the transformation began a generation ago, although men remain quite dominant (Ahmed 2008).5 What do these two examples show? First, globalization promotes women’s work and earning power, though often in precarious jobs or activities. Second, globalization also has brought oversight or “green label” campaigns (often with a strong female presence) that have led to reducing some of these mostly female export workers’ risks. And, third, countries making products that rely on women’s paid labor become more gender-equal (Do, Levchenko, and Raddatz 2011). The next section helps to illuminate how this happens: it more closely examines the result of women’s controlling the income from their labors.
“M A G I C P OT I O N F O R D E V E L O P M E N T ” : T H E O RY A N D D ATA ABOUT WOMEN’S ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT
There are both theoretical and empirical reasons why, for women, money they can control matters so much at both micro- and macro-levels and why their growing economic power is virtually a “magic potion for development” at levels ranging from the micro (the woman, her children and family, her community) to the macro (the state and even the world economy). First, with respect to theory, both my general theory of gender stratification (e.g., Blumberg 1984, 1988, 1991, 2001a, 2004b, 2009, 2015a) and my still-evolving theory of gender and development (e.g., Blumberg 1989a, 1989b, 1995, 2001b, 2004a, 2008/9, 2015b) posit that the single most important—although not the only—factor affecting the level of gender equality is relative female/male economic power, defined as the control of key economic resources (e.g., income, property, credit). Second, this chapter also presents empirical data that, for gender equality, economic power is both the most important as well as the most achievable of the five main types of power. The other types are force/violence, political, ideology, and information/ education. In fact, economic power is the only form of power where women, not infrequently, have surpassed men—that is, the only one that crosses the “50–50 line” of gender equality. It ranges from near zero for women (men control almost the whole economic pie, as in Afghanistan today; see Blumberg 2015b and further discussion below) to near 100 percent (women control almost the whole economic pie, as among the Iroquois of colonial North America; see Brown 1975; Blumberg 2001a). In none of the other types of power do women effectively and broadly wield more than half.
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So, let us consider women’s relative empirical position in those other four types of power:
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Women fare worst with the power of force/violence. They are more often the victims than the wielders of violence. (It is relevant that women have one-third to a half less upper-body strength and that men historically have controlled most heavy weapons.) Women are moving up in political power, though mainly in representation in parliaments, where the world average in September 2015 was 22.9 percent of women in a lower legislative house; the United States ranks seventy-sixth, with 19.4 percent of women in Congress (Inter-Parliamentary Union 2015). Actually, 22.9 percent is double that of 1995. The “quota revolution” began in earnest that year, when all 189 nations at the Fourth World Conference on Women adopted a Plan for Action and the Beijing Declaration encouraging governments to establish targets (Blumberg and Vichit-Vadakan 2012). By 2015, 128 nations had some form of gender quota in parliaments at the national and/or subnational levels (International IDEA 2015). But in top cabinet posts and as heads of state, women’s proportion remains much lower. With respect to ideology, there are still many societies that consider men superior and none that consider women superior (although 136 nations’ constitutions now proclaim male-female equality/nondiscrimination; World Bank 2012, 2). Concerning information/education globally, girls’ gender gap in primary education narrowed from 92 girls per 100 boys in 1999 to 97/100 in 2012.6 Regionally, only sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab States remain below parity, though some of the South Asian countries also remain well below, such as Afghanistan, with 72 girls per 100 boys enrolled in primary school (UNESCO 2015). Overall, secondary education improved from 91 girls/100 boys in 1999 to nearly 97/100 in 2012 (UNESCO 2015). And at the level of higher education, more women than men now attend universities (World Bank 2012, 9). Despite this progress, however, full educational equality for the world’s females remains a long way off, especially in the poorest region (sub-Saharan Africa) as well as in the traditionally most male-dominant regions (the Middle East and North Africa [MENA] and South Asia). In the United States, females outnumber males at all levels of higher education, up to and including the doctorate, and women now outnumber men as college graduates (Nelson 2015). But women still lag well behind men in most of the (better paying) science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields—with a major exception: U.S. women are at parity with men in life/biological/health sciences Ph.D. degrees (Blumberg 2009).
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Just because a country has opened its educational system to women does not mean that it will welcome their labor force participation (LFP). Four of the places in MENA with the world’s lowest female LFP rates (World Bank 2015b) have more women than men in higher education (UNESCO 2012, 79): Algeria (15 percent female LFP); Iran (17 percent female LFP); Jordan (16 percent female LFP); and the West Bank/Gaza (15 percent female LFP). Furthermore, empirical data show that women’s economic position remains the strongest form of power in affecting the wealth of nations. Comparing losses due to inequality in female employment and in education, a U.N. economic and social survey of Asia and the Pacific estimated that the region lost $42 to $47 billion annually because of women’s limited access to employment, versus only $16 to $30 billion lost annually because of inequality in education (United Nations 2007, 103). More recently, in a 2014 Washington Post column, the president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, cited a study that “women’s low economic participation created income losses of 27 percent in the Middle East and North Africa.” That study, by David Cuberes and Marc Teignier (2012), also estimated that raising female employment and entrepreneurship to male levels could improve average income by 23 percent in South Asia and by 15 percent elsewhere. In sum, economic control is, indeed, women’s most consequential form of power. And it continues to grow. In 2008, women constituted 40 percent of the world’s labor force and 44 percent of its paid labor force (World Bank 2012, 212). Using World Bank (2014a) data, I calculated that the current world average of female LFP is 53 percent—that is, in the average country, more than half the women are in the labor force. Within India, the “states that have the highest percentage of women in the labor force have grown the fastest as well as [have] the greatest reductions in poverty, according to the World Bank” (Faiola 2008, A12). Moreover, in an analysis of the strongest factors promoting growth in global GDP from ca. 1985 to 2005, The Economist concluded: “The increase in female employment in the rich world has been the main driving force of growth for the last couple of decades. Those women have contributed more to global GDP growth than has either new technology or the new giants, China and India (2006).” To drive home the point, the article’s title was “Forget China, India and the Internet: Economic Growth Is Driven by Women.” Next, as the foundation for understanding just how female economic power acts as a “magic potion for development,” I will present some hypotheses from my gender stratification and gender and development theories and will briefly discuss some supporting empirical studies.
M I C R O - L E V E L C O N S E Q U E N C E S O F W O M E N ’ S G R E AT E R ECONOMIC POWER
More self-confidence. The link between greater economic empowerment and increased self-confidence is well-established empirically. An early
Greater personal autonomy
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study by Ken Kusterer and his colleagues found that well-paid Guatemalan female processing plant workers controlled their income and gained in independence/selfreliance, self-confidence, self-esteem, and perceived respect of their families; the researchers called this “the most important and most positive [finding] of all” (Kusterer, Estrada de Batres, and Cuxil 1981, 81). I, too, found that more female-controlled income led to greater self-confidence in a follow-up study in the same plant (Blumberg 1994). In studies of microcredit and informal sector businesses in Ecuador, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Swaziland, and Guinea Bissau, I encountered greater self-confidence among men and women microentrepreneurs whose income—which all said they controlled— had risen; also, their families usually respected them more (Blumberg 2001a). Marta Roldan (1988) found the same among a sample of fifty-three women in her Mexico City study of women doing garment industry piece-work at home. More say in household decisions. In the United States, Robert Blood and Donald Wolfe (1960) were the first to find that women who were employed had more voice in domestic decisionmaking. Later research refined this. For example, Philip Blumstein and Pepper Schwartz (1983, 1991) found that American wives and husbands gained an equal boost in their say in household decisions from every dollar (or $10,000) of increased income. More recent work finds that married working women’s amount of income and economic autonomy translates to more bargaining power and less housework (Gupta 2010) as well as not having to settle for less than a satisfying, mutually supportive relationship (Gerson 2010). In countries with much more gender stratification than the United States, however, there may be a big “discount” on the amount of clout in decisionmaking a woman’s income brings her: it might take her $2 or more to match her husband’s $1 (I discuss this further below). Here, however, I propose that even in societies where there is a steep cultural “discount,” women who have income under their control have, with few exceptions, more “voice and vote” in various kinds of family decisions than those who do not. This applies to three particular kinds of decisions. First, women with greater economic power have more say in decisions about domestic well-being. (For example, should we seek medical care for the sick baby boy/baby girl? Should we send our girls to school for as many years as the boys, despite the expense?) In general, women push for more spending on children’s nutrition, health, and education—that is, human capital. Later in this chapter, I posit that women who control income spend more of their money on their children. I also provide references to numerous studies that empirically document women’s disproportionately greater expenditures on their children’s human capital. And, I suggest, women tend to be more evenhanded than counterpart men about promoting the well-being of both their girls and their boys. Second, women with greater economic power have more say in economic decisions (acquiring, allocating, and selling assets). The classic work was by Meena Acharya and Lynn Bennett (1981, 1982, 1983). Their random sample research involved 279 households
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in eight villages in Nepal (four Tibeto-Burman and four Indo-Aryan/Hindu). They studied the allocation of major resources and farm management decisions as well as domestic decisions. They found that, though these rural women provided at least half the productive labor in unpaid subsistence farming, only those females who earned their own income from their economic activities (mostly Tibeto-Burman women traders) increased their influence in their household’s economic decisionmaking. And, third, women with greater economic power have more say in decisions about fertility. (Most women use income power to lower their fertility). Studies date back to Robert Weller’s Puerto Rico research (1968), which found that women who earned/ controlled income soon tended to use contraception. Since then, a large literature has emerged that supports this finding (see, e.g., United Nations 1987; Blumberg 1993; Engelman 2008). Robert Engelman says most women’s preferences are for fewer children, spaced farther apart and starting after their adolescence—but he ignores income and does not consider how women would get the power to realize their fertility preferences if they had no money they could control. More control of their “life options” (Blumberg 1984). These are the main dependent variables in my general theory of gender stratification, and they involve aspects of one’s destiny that exist in all human societies, such as marriage, divorce, sexuality, fertility patterns, and freedom of movement. Women’s degree of control of these options relative to males—concerning marriage, for example, their relative freedom to decide whether, when, and with whom—depends not only on their own economic power but also on macro-level legal systems and gender norms. These may respond more slowly to growing female economic empowerment. Control of her own fertility, however, may be the single most important life option affecting a woman’s prospects.7 Increased spending to promote their children’s welfare Building on a 1986 World Bank paper I wrote, in 1988 I published “Income under Female vs. Male Control,” hypothesizing that women with children tend to allocate income differently than male counterparts, spending income under their control disproportionately on their children’s nutrition, health, and education (i.e., human capital).8 There were only a handful of supporting studies at that time. For example, women’s more focused dedication of income to children’s nutrition has been known since the late 1970s.9 The literature documenting women’s greater spending on children’s health and education also has grown by leaps and bounds. Now there are numerous empirical studies of women’s greater proclivity to spend on children’s human capital. For example, I recently compiled a partial list of over twenty sources (including two of mine) encompassing more than double that number of individual articles and a score of countries.10 Let us now examine the macro-level impact of just two of these effects of women’s greater economic power: women’s increased control of their fertility, and their disproportionately higher spending on their children’s nutrition, health, and education.
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M A C R O - L E V E L C O N S E Q U E N C E S O F W O M E N ’ S G R E AT E R ECONOMIC POWER
Fertility has been found to be inversely related to national income growth in developing nations (e.g., Hess 1988; Das Gupta, Bongaarts, and Cleland 2011). So, though lower fertility is still linked to greater GDP growth, high fertility continues to be a disaster for development. Patrick Nolan and Gerhard Lenski (2011, 304) present data showing that, from 1961 to 2006, the world’s “industrializing [hoe] horticultural” (IH) societies—almost all in sub-Saharan Africa—had a population growth rate of 2.6 percent, whereas the population growth rate was 2.1 percent in “industrializing agrarian” (IA) societies (encompassing MENA, South Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean).11 The GDP per capita growth rate was a scant 0.3 percent in IH societies, versus 2.4 percent in IA ones. This means, they write, that “90 percent of the gains in gross domestic product of [IH] societies, on average, was consumed by the need to support population growth, thus leaving only 10 percent of the benefits of economic growth available for improvements in living standards” (Nolan and Lenski 2011, 304). In IA societies, the fertility rate—high, but not as high as in IH nations—absorbed 47 percent of national income growth (compared to fully 90 percent in IH nations). Women tend to use their control of income to achieve their own fertility preferences, generally opting to have fewer children; in turn, as the data show, this increases national income growth in poorer countries.12 Decreased fertility contributes to GDP growth
Increased human capital contributes to GDP growth and enhances welfare Increased human capital is linked both to more national income growth and to greater well-being. In short, women’s child-focused spending on nutrition, health, and education promotes positive development, and they tend to be more even-handed toward educating both daughters and sons. Girls’ education has a high rate of return, spurring development as well as lower fertility, thus multiplying the impact of women’s income on national wealth and welfare.
THE “SYNERGY BONUS”
Development initiatives that channel income to both women and men enjoy what I term a “synergy bonus” of increased economic impact as well as enhanced human capital (Blumberg 1989a, 1989b, 2008/9, 2015a). An example of increased economic impact (World Bank 2012, 35) can be seen in Papua New Guinea, where a palm oil industry has been promoted. Traditional gender roles mean that men climb the trees and harvest the fruits while women collect those that fall to the ground. But there was a problem: the industry realized that fully 60–70 percent of fruit on the ground was not being collected by the women:
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They tried multiple initiatives designed to deal with constraints women faced, including giving the women special nets to use, and timing the collection . . . with women’s care duties. None of these worked. Finally, the Mama Lus Frut scheme was introduced whereby women received their own harvest record cards and were paid directly into their personal bank accounts. Yields increased significantly, as did female participation in oil palm harvesting. (World Bank 2012, 35, my emphasis)
Enhanced human capital is what results from what most women with children do with the money: as noted above, they spend disproportionately more of it on their children’s nutrition, health, and education than counterpart men do. In fact, all of the studies I list in endnote 10 document this empirically. This is the reason that development projects can get a “double bang for the buck” from incorporating women into economic initiatives: on the one hand, the women are likely to do as well or better than men on the economic component of a development scheme, even when economic incentives are small;13 on the other hand, not only do women typically devote any income they control that they do not need for their economic endeavors to their children’s human capital, but they also usually keep less for themselves (Mencher 1988; see also my endnote 8). Another hypothesis from my gender stratification theory is that one gets more power from surplus income (because one has more choices in allocating it) than from income barely enough for survival. Accordingly, the synergy bonus should be bigger if women’s income is raised above subsistence-level poverty. For example, such women might choose to both expand their business and send their children to school beyond the required level or age.
C U LT U R A L VA R I A B L E S A N D “ D I S C O U N T FA C TO R S ” T H AT D R A I N VA L U E F R O M W O M E N ’ S I N C O M E
In the modern world, the money economy has penetrated to even the most remote outposts. Women, however, face cultural factors that can erode a little or a lot of the economic power they get from income they make and control. So, before going on to the “poison potion” discussion, we should look at those cultural factors that can undercut—but not wholly nullify—the clout women get from income. Much of the power women get from their earnings can be reduced by what I term macro- and micro-level discount factors (Blumberg 1984, 1991). These involve mainly “sticky,” slow-to-change cultural factors, including sociocultural norms and the religious, legal, and ideological spheres of a society or nation. But even in the most conservative places I have been (e.g., Afghanistan), I have never found that “discount” factors ate up 100 percent of the power and benefits that come from women’s control of income. In the great majority of cases, those women had more leverage and a bit more “wiggle room” than women who were completely dependent.
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Macro-level discount factors measure the extent of overall female disadvantage in a society. So, in addition to cultural factors, structural variables—such as the political and economic system as well as the kin/property system, which in MENA/South Asia is male-dominated—affect women’s position and fate. Although macro-level discount factors currently are at least somewhat negative everywhere, they vary by nation and over time (e.g., they are far more negative in Saudi Arabia than in Sweden and are almost always less negative today than fifty years ago). In general, they are also more important than micro-level discount factors. Micro-level discount factors, interestingly, can be negative or positive for either partner—that is, they can subtract or add metaphorical pennies of power from or to every dollar that each partner brings into the household. Micro-level discounts include each person’s gender ideology. There also are two factors whereby the person with less has more power: relative commitment to the relationship, and relative dependence on the other’s income. In three other micro-level discount factors, the person with more has more power: relative ability to leave the relationship (exit options),14 relative attractiveness, and relative assertiveness. What happens to those women who are highly economically disempowered—whether they do not work in production or whether they do so but are not able to monetize unpaid family labor or keep anything significant from their earnings?
“P O I S O N P OT I O N F O R D E V E L O P M E N T ” : W O M E N ’ S E C O N O M I C DISEMPOWERMENT
This section starts with a little more theory. I propose that the economic disempowerment of women and the low status of women can stem from their lack of an essential precondition: they are not involved in important productive activities.15 As it happens, this lack is geographically limited, affecting mostly the women of MENA and much of South Asia, which are the world’s most gender-unequal regions. The reasons why men in these regions came to dominate productive labor and why women’s economic role became marginalized go back to the invention of the plow in the Middle East about 5–6,000 years ago. (Previously—and still—among hunters and gatherers and hoe-horticultural farmers, women typically provided half or more of the food supply.)16 The plow diffused across the vast West-East axis of the Eurasian landmass, reaching China about 3,000 years later. Before the plow, hunters and gatherers or hoe-horticulturalists usually lived a nomadic or semi-sedentary existence. But plows permitted permanent cultivation and permanent settlement. They dig deep into the soil, bringing up nutrients and breaking up weeds. Manure from the abundant domesticated animals found in the Eurasian landmass17 provided fertilizer. All told, the plow greatly increased the food supply. Two plow systems emerged: “dry” and “wet.” In the drier (usually more northern) areas, the system was rain-fed plow agriculture. “Dry” (nonirrigated) agriculture
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encompasses much of MENA, parts of South Asia, and elsewhere.18 It is considered the quintessential male farming system (Boserup 1970). Women there have long been little involved in key productive activities, and especially if the kin/property system favors men, they have also had low economic power and a subordinated position. To this day, these are the world regions with the lowest proportion of women in the labor force. Farther south, in wetter areas, irrigated rice cultivation emerged (e.g., in South India, South China, and the Southeast Asian lowlands). In the form of irrigated paddy rice, the “wet” system is the most labor intensive in the world, but irrigated rice is also the world’s most labor-elastic crop: if labor is added slowly, each new person’s hands can raise more than that person’s mouth will eat. This is an “everyone works” system—men, women, girls, boys, and suitable domesticated animals (such as oxen and water buffalo). Over time, as rice cultivation intensifies, it can support huge, dense populations. This is why India and China, which cultivate wet rice in the south, have populations approaching 1.3 and 1.4 billion, respectively (World Bank 2015a), of our planet’s 7.2 billion people. However, even in areas of the world where women play critical roles in economic activities, “mere work” is not enough to bring them economic power—or more gender equality. I specifically posit that “mere work,” no matter how important, that does not lead to control of economic resources is not related to a woman’s overall equality (nor does it give her greater say in fertility or other “life options”). In short, it is not automatic that the sheer amount of productive labor invariably leads to economic power. (Think of peasants, workers, and slaves, for example; they have yet to inherit the Earth.) Traditionally and even now, most of the women in the irrigated rice areas of South and East Asia did not and still do not have control of the means of production (especially land) or the fruits of their farming labors. To be sure, their labors have been and are recognized and appreciated (as opposed to the view of women in the “dry” agrarian areas as economic zeroes or even parasites). In East Asia, the traditional kin/property system privileged the men: it involved patrilineal descent. The bridal couple typically lived with the groom’s father, whereas the bride usually arrived without kin, allies, or friends. Most important to my theory, inheritance favored males. The situation in Southeast Asia has been pretty much the opposite. It has traditionally been the world’s most gender egalitarian region: it has raised irrigated rice for thousands of years. Yet its kin/property system remains mostly bilateral, with descent traced through both mother’s and father’s sides. Their bilateral groups often have a matrilocal tilt: the traditional preference for the bridal couple to live with/near the bride’s female kin lingers in a number of groups. Until recent decades, inheritance was almost always either equal among female and male children or favored the females. Now, inheritance is generally equal among all children. And there are some matrilineal groups but very few patrilineal ones. (Blumberg 2004a and 2015a provide more detail, including the fact that Southeast Asian women have been market traders and entrepreneurs going back into the mists of time.) More generally, how do women who do work in key production activities transform “mere work” into economic power? I originally posited three factors (see Blumberg 1984
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for a full discussion): the “strategic indispensability” of women’s labor (the variables I cite as raising the strategic importance of women’s work include if it is difficult to replace the women and/or their activities, if the women are able to organize on their own behalf, and/or if there is competition for their services); whether the kinship/property system is favorable, neutral, or unfavorable to them (and it has been unfavorable in all the original agrarian regions except for Southeast Asia); and the level of inequality in the society’s overarching stratification system (the more stratified, the less favorable it tends to be for women). Here, I am positing a fourth factor, which acts as an obstacle to transforming women’s work to economic power: the inability to monetize one’s efforts, either because it is unpaid labor on a family endeavor or because there are no markets women can easily access. In short, low contributions to economically important activities or an inability to transform their work in such activities into control of some of the fruits of production hinder women’s access to economic power (and, thereby, constrain the extent of control over their life options, such as marriage, fertility, and freedom of movement). When I first wrote about the negative impact of women’s economic disempowerment (Blumberg 2008/9), I invoked the image of the “four horsemen of the Apocalypse” from the Book of Revelation in the New Testament. The first horseman represents war. Let us start there.
WA R / A R M E D C O N F L I C T A N D W O M E N ’ S D I S E M P O W E R M E N T
Mary Caprioli blazed a new path for quantitative analysis of the roots of war by considering gender stratification as an important variable. Her first analysis (2000) dealt with a state resorting to armed conflict to resolve international disputes. She analyzed a large dataset of most of the world’s countries to test the relationship between state militarism and domestic gender equality. Although she did not claim causality, she “substantiated the theory” (Caprioli 2000) that domestic gender equality has a pacifying effect on state behavior at the international level. She found that female labor force participation (LFP) is inversely correlated with state bellicosity, whereas fertility is positively related.19 Caprioli stated her findings in the positive direction, but looking at the mirror image is more thought-provoking: a mere 5 percent lower female LFP is correlated with a 495 percent greater likelihood of war across international borders. Similarly, nations with higher fertility—generally indicative of less gender equality (and, in my theories, indicative that women have low control of income and/or other economic resources)—are more likely to engage in international warfare. Caprioli (2005) then turned to a multicountry quantitative analysis of internal conflict (at levels resulting in significant deaths but less than all-out civil war). Her findings were quite similar: an increase of nearly 500 percent for a 5 percent reduction in women’s LFP. More dramatically stated, the relationship between low female economic empowerment and (male) armed violence is that nations with only 15 percent female LFP are almost 35 times—nearly 3,500 percent—more likely to have deadly armed conflict within or across
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their borders than nations with 50 percent female LFP (and this is still below the national average of 53 percent female LFP, as mentioned above). It is worth looking at specific cases. The seven countries with the lowest female LFP are Algeria, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Syria; all but one are at 15–17 percent female LFP (World Bank 2015b). And all seven are presently engaged in armed conflict. We can also consider another measure: the gender gap between male and female LFP (Gender Gap Report 2014). Here, there’s one change in the “bottom seven”: Pakistan replaces Jordan on the list. But the results remain the same: all seven are presently engaged in armed conflict. I was in Afghanistan in July–August 2011, where I carried out two final evaluations of U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) projects: the Afghanistan National Development Strategy (Blumberg 2011a), and the Afghanistan National Development Program (Blumberg 2011b). Afghanistan is a tribal, multiethnic society where, even now, women have almost no economic power. For example, even though the nation is over threequarters rural, a study found that only 1.87 percent of women owned—or had rights to—land (Grace 2005, 15). And this figure might actually be too high because the “dominant and traditionally more conservative ethnic group” (Pashtuns) were not well represented in Jo Grace’s sample, which was composed primarily of “minority ethnic groups” (2005, 18). The Pashtuns have an exceptionally male supremacist tribal code (Pashtunwali). Valentine Moghadam (2002) quotes Nancy Tapper, an anthropologist who studied Pashtuns in north-central Afghanistan (the Durrani): “The members of the community discuss control of all resources—especially labor, land, and women—in terms of ‘honor’ ” (Tapper 1984, 304). Moghadam’s comment is: “Note that ‘community’ is the community of men and that ‘women’ are assimilated in the concept of ‘resources’ ” (2002, 20). So, women and children are viewed as property, period. Moghadam also characterizes the Pashtun as dominating women more completely than almost anywhere else on the planet, via “a particularly entrenched form of patriarchy and a tribal-based social structure in which only men have rights, equality, and unlimited access to public space” (19). Statistically, only 8 percent of women had nonagricultural employment, and only 5.6 percent owned businesses (Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan 2010, 10). With such a negligible economic power base, very few women have anything to counter their subordinate position and lack of freedom. Tellingly, Afghan women have more rights in Islam than they actually exercise in their nation. Islamic law gives them rights to own property, to half-share inheritance, and, as brides, to a property or money gift (maher). Currently, however, “Women’s rights to property and inheritance are not upheld, and the bride’s maher is given to the bride’s family even if it rightfully belongs to the bride according to law and Islam” (Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan 2009, 22). What about the other four main types of power, as discussed earlier in this chapter? On the one hand, an imposed political quota system has given Afghan women 27.7 per-
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cent of seats in the lower house of parliament (Inter-Parliamentary Union 2015). On the other hand, women wield almost no power in that body, and brave, intelligent women (members of Parliament or otherwise) who speak out are in danger of being killed. With respect to ideology, the no. 3 person in the Ministry of Women’s Affairs told me and an Afghan female UNDP program officer that “most Afghan men don’t think that women are quite human beings.” The UNDP woman (a non-Pashtun) nodded agreement. The ideology of the predominant Pashtuns was outlined above. Concerning the power of force/violence, it is hidden but women are subjected to an overwhelming amount. The Afghanistan Country Report 2008–2010 states that violence against women is deliberately concealed in the name of family honor (Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan 2010, 10) but notes that “UNIFEM [has estimated] that 87 percent of women face abuse and violence in Afghanistan” (Khan 2012, 2; UNIFEM 2006). The ultimate fate of the controversial 2009 Elimination of Violence against Women law, which was issued by presidential proclamation, is unknown, but it remains under attack by conservative members of Parliament. The law criminalized twenty-two acts, including domestic violence, rape, underage and forced marriages (which were found by UNIFEM 2006 to constitute 60–80 percent of all marriages [Morgan 2008]), setting women on fire, dousing them with chemicals (such as acid), the practice of baad (use of women to settle a feud), preventing “women’s rights of inheritance” or “possessing personal property,” and deterring women from education, work, access to health services, and/or seeing kin (Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan 2010, 5). Finally, concerning information/education, only 6 percent of women aged 26 and up have ever been to school, and some 88 percent are illiterate (Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan 2010, 13). Among women aged 18–24, the illiteracy rate is 82 percent (ibid.), as opposed to 50 percent for males. Given women’s almost total lack of economic power in Afghanistan, my theory predicts that their “life options” there would be severely curtailed. And they are. Women, de facto, have no (or virtually no) say in marriage. Their rights to divorce are much less than men’s. With respect to sex, even the tiniest shadow of suspicion of forbidden behavior is enough to have a woman killed. Concerning fertility, Afghanistan is the only nation outside of sub-Saharan Africa in the “fertility top 10” at an estimated 5.33 children per woman (CIA 2015a; it is tenth). And freedom of movement is limited and precarious. When outside in the streets, the overwhelming majority of women wear an all-concealing burqa (usually the same shade of medium blue) that has no identifying decoration (in contrast to the often highly decorated, embroidered, and individualized black abayas worn by women in the Persian Gulf nations, for example): they do not want to be recognized since most men think they should not be out in public in the first place.20 Even women’s access to medical care is curtailed: only 21.9 percent of all doctors and only 17.1 percent of all nurses in the Afghan government are women (Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan 2009, 14). And, de facto, only a woman can treat
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females. This contributes to women’s ill health and maternal mortality as well as to what was recently the highest infant mortality on Earth (some newer statistics show a sharp decline, but they are controversial). The conclusion of the Country Report 2004–2009 is that “the health situation of Afghan women is one of the worst in the world” (ibid.). Personally, I have never encountered another group of women with less economic power or as subordinated.
THE PLAGUE OF HIV/AIDS.
The second horseman of the Apocalypse represents plague. There is little doubt that, since the early 1980s, HIV/AIDS has been our modern equivalent of a plague: in 2013, some 35 million people were living with the infection (UNAIDS 2014). We now have anti-retroviral therapy that can turn what was previously a death sentence into a chronic, debilitating disease. In poor countries, however, only a lucky minority of people testing HIV-positive have access to such medications. True, their cost has been lowered by international efforts, but they are still too expensive and difficult to access for most, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where the disease was born in a species cross-over from chimpanzees—and where the plague has hit hardest.21 Less well known than the African origins of the disease is the fact that it has proven to be gendered, with women up to 600 percent more likely to be infected than a male counterpart.22 Furthermore, in much of the developing world, women do not have the leverage to refuse unprotected sex—even when they are aware of how the disease is transmitted. In fact, UNAIDS considers gender inequality as a key driver of the HIV epidemic (WHO, UNAIDS, and UNICEF 2011).23 In sub-Saharan Africa, young women aged 15–24 are as much as eight times more likely than counterpart men to be living with HIV (WHO, UNAIDS, and UNICEF 2011). Although women account for 50 percent of people living with HIV globally, in subSaharan Africa women are 58 percent of the HIV-positive population (UNAIDS 2014). One of the problems with measuring women’s economic power in sub-Saharan Africa has been the fact that labor force statistics in Africa are inconsistent in how they count— or do not count—the large numbers of women engaged in low resource farming on an unpaid basis. In countries where these non-earning women farmers are included in labor force data, the statistics do not provide a clear-cut measure of female economic empowerment. Not surprisingly, then, women’s greater LFP in sub-Saharan Africa is not linked to lower HIV/AIDS prevalence. Accordingly, it is relevant that Curtis Copeland (2006) discovered a direct way to measure women’s economic power and, in a sub-Saharan African sample, found that it was inversely associated with HIV/AIDS rates. He used an African data subset from the Demographic Health Surveys. It includes a variable of whether married women had earned cash income in the previous year and, if so, who controlled how it was spent. Where the woman controlled her own income, HIV/AIDS prevalence rates were lower,
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but where her husband (or, infrequently, others) controlled her income, HIV/AIDS prevalence rates were higher. So far, Copeland’s HIV/AIDS study still appears to be the only one that uses women’s control of income to measure their economic power.
MALNUTRITION AND GENDER IN SOUTH ASIA
The third horseman of the Apocalypse symbolizes famine. Here, I discuss its somewhat less deadly cousin, malnutrition. I was recently involved (Blumberg, Dewhurst, and Sen 2013a, 2013b), in a study that documents profound damage being inflicted by pervasive malnutrition. It might be called “Gender and the South Asian Enigma.” The “South Asian Enigma” is a term known to nutrition researchers because it describes the fact that South Asia has the world’s highest levels of child malnutrition even though it is not the poorest region (World Bank 2011). Much of South Asia, in fact, has enjoyed a decade or more of robust economic growth. Lamentably, 42 percent of all South Asian children under age 5 are underweight, as opposed to only 23 percent in the second-worst region, West and Central Africa, which is the world’s poorest (UNICEF 2012). In recent years, researchers have made the connection that South Asia’s child undernutrition problem is causally linked to the fact that it also has some of the world’s most subordinated (and undernourished) women. In one study, Lisa Smith and her colleagues (2003) estimated that malnutrition in the region would drop 13 percent if gender equity were to be achieved there. I suggest that women’s low status in most of South Asia is linked to their poor economic position in several regards. First is women’s economic dependency: few women earn income, and even fewer control it. Second, the predominant South Asian kinship/ property system disadvantages females: as noted above, descent is patrilineal, and males are favored in inheritance (de facto, if no longer de jure, as in India today, where equal inheritance laws have been passed but may not be widely observed in practice). In addition, residence is patrilocal—the bride goes to live with/near the groom’s male kin. In most cases, this means that she arrives in his father’s house without kin, allies, or friends, the lowest in rank. These multiple disadvantages for women that flow from the kinship/ property system are rarely mentioned in the nutrition literature on the region. The economic power and kin/property variables interact, but South Asian females’ economic dependency seems crucial. Women and teenage girls are much less likely to generate and control income than male counterparts. Since so few adolescent girls earn income, they are more likely to be viewed as economic burdens than productive, assetproducing members of either their natal household or that of their new in-laws. In fact, this is part of the reason that South Asia has the highest proportion of underweight, poorly nourished adolescent girls on the planet (UNICEF 2012). Their poor nutritional status is likely tied in with their parents’ valuation of them as expenses, not assets. Norms are also a factor: in the absence of girls’ economic value, conventional gender norms about their marriage and motherhood are not challenged (as happened in the Ecuadorian
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example, when some parents urged daughters to delay marriage and keep working). Instead, these traditional norms retain their strength. Thus, adolescent girls (who often are quite underweight) are married off very young: South Asia has the world’s highest proportion of teens that marry and give birth. If a bride arrives as an economic liability rather than an asset, her husband’s family will expect a first child within a year (and a lot of housework labor in the interim). Sadly, such teen births are estimated to have maternal mortality rates two to five times greater than those of adult women (Sethuraman and Duvvury 2007). South Asia also has the world’s highest proportion of low birth weight (LBW) babies: some estimates indicate a third; others range from a quarter to half (Sethuraman and Duvvury 2007). Factors associated with LBW babies are too-young maternal age and low pre-pregnancy weight (ibid.). LBW is also directly associated with the mother’s malnutrition during pregnancy, and South Asian women gain an average of only 5 kg. (11 pounds) during pregnancy. This compares to the 10 kg. (22 pounds) recommended by experts (World Bank 2009). LBW babies are prone to cognitive and health problems that last a lifetime, including a higher risk of early-onset heart disease starting in middle age. Enhancing the economic power of women and girls might help reduce all of these problems. For example, in Bangladesh, BRAC runs a path-breaking Economic Livelihoods for Adolescents (ELA) program. It was cleverly introduced by first gaining support of local imams and community leaders. The teen girls are taught income-generating activities and are eligible for microcredit loans, but the program also gives them a social space where they can read for pleasure and socialize with other girls their age (Shahnaz and Karim 2008). Among the relevant outcomes were, first, the parents’ growing dependency on their daughters due to the income training and loans they received, and, second, reduced early marriage. To reiterate, the evidence makes it crystal clear that income under female (versus male) control is more likely to be used for nutrition. Perhaps the most dramatic data come from Patrice Engle’s (1995) econometric research in Guatemala and Nicaragua. She found that it would take an extra $166 per month in income earned by a father to equal the improvement in a child’s nutrition24 brought by an extra $11.40 per month earned by a mother. And among Grameen Bank microloan clients in Bangladesh, nutrition was significantly better among female borrowers’ children than those of male borrowers (Khandker 1998; Pitt and Khandker 1998).25 So, the BRAC ELA approach is definitely on the right track.
D E AT H : A B R I E F S P E C U L AT I O N A B O U T G E N D E R , E N V I R O N M E N T, A N D G E N O C I D E I N RWA N D A
The fourth horseman represents death. In my first paper that explored women’s economic disempowerment (Blumberg 2008/9), I examined Jared Diamond’s 2005 recasting of the Rwandan genocide as an ecological catastrophe (versus the usual explanation that it
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was caused by ethnic hatred of the Tutsis by the Hutus). I then looked at both interpretations through a gender lens and came up with my own view. Here I give just a short summary of my speculative argument. In about 100 days from early April into July 1994, an estimated 800,000 people— overwhelmingly Tutsi, and approximately one-tenth of all Rwandans—died at the hands of (overwhelmingly male) Hutu extremists. Most analyses ascribe the genocide to ethnic conflict between the Hutu (84 percent of the population) and the Tutsi (15 percent and once highly favored by the Belgian colonialists; Twa pygmies, the original inhabitants, are 1 percent [CIA 2015c]). The Tutsi were originally herders, and the Belgians enhanced their position as feudal overlords of the hoe horticulturalist Hutus. Land scarcity might have also added to ethnic hatred as a cause of the genocide. Diamond goes further: he minimizes the ethnic explanation and focuses on land pressure and ecological degradation. He cites the fact that, in Rwanda’s western region, where there were almost no Tutsis, Hutu extremists killed Hutu neighbors mainly for their land. He argues that the seeds of genocide were planted when inheritance changed from primogeniture by the oldest male to all sons inheriting equally, which soon led to “parcelization”—tiny farms too small to be viable. Diamond, however, ignores the fact that both groups are patrilineal/patrilocal (as are 75 percent of sub-Saharan ethnic groups; see Eloundou-Enyegue and Calves 2006, using data from Murdock’s Ethnographic Atlas). So, women did not inherit land; rather, their use rights had to come from their husband or his male kin. Now let us look through that gender lens. In the mid-1980s, Rwanda’s total fertility rate was over 8 children per woman (it was ca. 4.5 in 2013 [World Bank 2015a]). By 1990, it was Africa’s most densely populated country. Also, more than half the population is Catholic, and the Church did not (and does not) back modern contraception. One study found that women do 74.1 percent of family labor in (mainly hoe horticultural) farming (Von Braun, de Haen, and Blanken 1991), but it was mostly unpaid labor so it did not give them economic clout.26 And men controlled the land and Church. In sum, women lacked the economic power that might have given them greater influence in both curbing their fertility and controlling intensifying patterns of deforestation, soil exhaustion, and erosion. Women could not apply brakes to an accelerating express train—driven by men—of overpopulation, land scarcity, and environmental degradation. At the end of the track, ethnicity provided the spark that blew up the train. Partly because of the genocide, Rwanda adopted quotas for women in Parliament. Women currently hold 64 percent of lower house seats, the world’s highest (Inter-Parliamentary Union 2015)—and they have over 40 percent of cabinet posts and constitute over 50 percent of the judiciary (NPR 2014). But how much power do those women actually wield in this state dominated by its president/head of state Paul Kagame? Is it enough to give them enforceable rights to land? A 1999 law excluded land inheritance in granting women equal inheritance rights. Now “women are able to own land,” according to a 2014 NPR broadcast on the twenty-year remembrance of the genocide. Yet approximately
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90 percent of Rwandans live from mainly subsistence farming (CIA 2015c), and it is not clear how many women actually control rural land, since both main ethnic groups are patrilineal/patrilocal and land remains the most important livelihood resource. Nor is it clear that recent changes allowing for both spouses’ names on the title changed perceptions in rural areas that men are still the legitimate landholders.27 Rwanda’s economy— but not its land—has tripled since 1994. Will the female members of Parliament be able to change men’s de facto (versus de jure) near-total control of land?28
P E T R O L E U M P R I C E S P R O M OT E P AT R I A R C H Y
The price of oil has fluctuated wildly up and down, from over $106 for a 42-gallon barrel when I drafted a first version of this article in June 2014, to the mid-$40s, where it has been hovering as I finish in October 2015. Though few see a quick return to $100 or more, petroleum’s volatility is so great that it is useful to review Shankar Vedantam’s case (2008) that rising oil prices feed patriarchy and undermine women’s economic position. He bases his argument on studies by Michael Ross (2008) and Lisa Blaydes and Drew Linzer (2008). Ross’s work draws on four decades of data from 169 countries. When oil prices soar (e.g., they reached $147 a barrel in July 2008), oil-producing countries get “rich atop a tidal wave of foreign currency” that “strengthens their currencies and makes it easier for them to buy everything from textiles to cars from other nations, instead of manufacturing such goods at home” (Vedantam 2008). That fossil fuel and mineral wealth stunt a country’s manufacturing is well known; it is called the “Dutch disease.” (Ross gives a good summary of this; the “disease” also boosts [male] construction in oil countries.) Ross finds that oil producers in MENA have lower female labor force rates—especially in low-wage light manufacturing such as textiles—than oil-poor nations in the region (e.g., Tunisia and Morocco). But he does not cite Moghadam, who was the first to document this (see, e.g., Moghadam 1995). Ross further claims that it is oil wealth, not Islam, that is the main reason countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have such regressive gender policies (e.g., with respect to the vote; in addition, Saudi Arabian women still are not permitted to drive). He shows how this oil bonanza harms women economically, as well. Low-wage manufacturing jobs, especially in textile/garment production, have been the usual entry point into the labor force for poor women, and these jobs dry up in an oil boom. Instead, jobs in maleoriented construction industries rise sharply. Ross found that, as a nation’s oil profits skyrocket, the number of women in the labor force invariably drops in the next year. Vedantam also discusses the work by Blaydes and Linzer (2008). The latter indicates that a lack of jobs for women in oil-producing nations is associated with more support for religious fundamentalism. Blaydes and Linzer analyzed eighteen Muslim nations and found that women who lacked financial independence and job opportunities were more likely to support fundamentalist movements. Vedantam (2008) quotes Blaydes:
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Women who don’t have good job opportunities create economic security for themselves by becoming better marriage-market candidates. . . . They try to show how pious they are because there is a value for piety on the marriage market. When there is a large gap between men’s and women’s wages, you see higher support for fundamentalism cross-nationally.
Is it coincidence that the so-called Islamic State group has made the greatest conquests of territory in Syria and Iraq, where only 14 and 15 percent of women, respectively, are in the labor force (World Bank 2015a)? Both countries were significant oil producers before being ripped asunder by conflict. Indeed, it is easy to look at a map and identify most of the world’s current hot spots as involving places where most women remain or are being kept economically dependent.
CONCLUSIONS
Some sociologists remain skeptical that earning income helps women. This is partly because of older studies such as that by Maria Mies (1982); she found that homeworker female lace makers in India toiled hard but the men kept all the money. This is precisely why I focus on control of income. But the empirical record is compelling, even without the backup of theory I have presented.29 It shows that women generally do benefit from income they earn and that increasing income that goes directly into women’s hands (e.g., via personal bank accounts and mobile phone banking) empowers them. Even when discount factors cut into the clout women get from their income, their “net economic power” (Blumberg and Coleman 1989) is greater than the skeptics would have guessed. So let us look at the two biggest development vehicles for women’s economic power: microfinance institutions (MFIs) and Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs).30 There was a recent debacle with for-profit programs in India,31 but almost all MFIs remain nonprofit to this day. The growth of microcredit has been astounding. From near zero in the early 1980s, the number of clients rose to around 205 million by the end of 2010.32 About two-thirds of these were classified as “among the poorest when they took their first loan,” and over 80 percent of the poorest were women. The average client family consisted of five members, so, roughly, more than 650 million very poor people were affected (Maes and Reed 2012, 9). Indeed, by the same metric, the households of over 200 million clients total a billion people, nearly one-seventh of the world population. “Feminization of microfinance” has been a big part of MFI success: now these loans go overwhelmingly to women—based on their better use of the funds and lower rates of arrears (Blumberg 2001b). There are critics, to be sure, such as Aminur Rahman (1999), who found that, in one Bangladesh village, men were taking 60 percent of the loan proceeds obtained by their wives—which the wife remained responsible for repaying even if he did not give her money to do so. But, overall, most studies show a preponderance of benefits from the “best practices” MFIs going mainly to women (see Blumberg 2001b and Otero and Rhyne 1994 for discussions of these practices).33
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CCT programs are now in more than thirty nations (World Bank 2012). Brazil’s effective Bolsa Familia is the biggest, serving some 14 million families (ca. 50 million people) in a population of approximately 204 million (Bruha 2014). Most CCTs target the mothers for transfers aimed at bettering children’s education and/or health. And studies comparing giving money to the woman versus the man find greater positive impact if the money goes to the woman (see, e.g., Davis et al. 2002). More children stay in school and their health improves as women make sure their sons and daughters meet school attendance requirements and the health check-ups that are the CCT “conditions.” A variation in Bangladesh also merits mention: programs that gave cash to women for work in local road rehabilitation boosted their household power in nontraditional spheres (e.g., money management), not just in domestic issues (Ahmed et al. 2009). In sum, CCTs involve governments, whereas most MFIs are nonprofit organizations, but both provide money mostly to women. Combined, they constitute the biggest direct monetary boost to poor women in human history, and almost all research shows how much this has helped their children. I argue that it has also often helped the women themselves as well as their communities and nations. I want to reiterate here that work is not enough: female-controlled income really matters for household clout. It is worth repeating Acharya and Bennett’s (1981, 1982, 1983) findings in Nepal that only women who controlled income gained a stronger say in household economic, farm management, and domestic decisions; the amount of work women did in unpaid subsistence farm work was neutral with respect to their voice in decisionmaking, and the amount of domestic housework they did was actually negatively related to their say. Almost all of us can think of couples among our acquaintances where the women’s income or lack of it was unrelated to their influence in household decisions. But research shows that, on average, money does amplify one’s “voice and vote” in family decisionmaking. Regarding the effects of violence, Caprioli (2000, 2005) and others who introduced gender variables into the international datasets used to study macro-level armed conflict found them stronger than most variables used in “mainstream” (gender-blind) analyses (Hudson et al. 2009). They also found that the relationship between war and women’s position was inverse. Looking at the world’s fragile and failing states, most share a number of traits: not only armed conflict but also patriarchy, low female economic and, often, educational levels, high or medium high fertility, large proportions of unemployed young men, and an amazing prevalence of weapons.34 These are problems too big for a few MFIs and CCTs to put a dent in. But unless much of the country in question is made a shooting gallery or worse by the conflict, so that women’s economic activities are stymied by the horror of “war close to home” (Collins 1971; Blumberg 2015b), programs that put money into women’s hands should still have positive effects, even if muted. At the micro-level, the World Bank (2012) indicates that a spike in violence against women caused by, say, a CCT is not inevitable. Nor is it usually long-lasting. This is in line with my hypotheses and data on the inverse relationship between male domestic violence
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against women and women’s consolidated (i.e., well-established) control of income and economic resources (Blumberg 1978, 1984, 2004a). In sum, force seems to flourish where female power—especially economic power—does not. And vice versa. In short, there seems to be an economy of life and well-being associated with women having economic power. The converse is also often true: male-run economies lead to female dependency and all the negatives this entails; and, currently, in the worst cases in MENA and South Asia, a men’s economy is rife with violence, death, extremist movements, and oppression of women. The Islamic State has imposed such a system in much of Syria and Iraq. Worldwide, however, an increasing number of women are earning and controlling at least some income—many times more than the number of men currently engaged in armed conflict. And this may help ameliorate another growing global problem, as well: environmental degradation. Would increasing women’s economic power save the planet? It would probably help. More research is needed, but rural women with more economic leverage seem to have more say in environmental and land-use decisions than women with less economic power, and they tend to opt for more conservation (Blumberg 2008). I myself have seen this at work in the Central Andes of Ecuador and atop a mountain in northern Thailand. I have also seen how women who were not economically empowered had less say in environmental decisions in the buffer zone of an Ecuadorian environmental reserve, as well as how their lack of access to family planning was making them unwilling producers of large numbers of babies that might well grow up to deforest the neighboring ecological reserve—which sits on some of the most biodiverse land on Earth. The evidence indicates that women often opt for better, more ecofriendly stewardship (Blumberg 2008). In part, this is because in nearly all rural areas, it is women (sometimes helped by an older daughter reluctantly pulled out of school for the purpose) who bring most of the firewood and most of the water for household use. They often spend hours every day at this and, in my experience, have a keen awareness that deforestation reduces rainfall and water tables. They see that cutting down the trees makes collecting firewood an increasingly time-consuming endeavor, covering longer and longer distances. They see, also, that it all too frequently makes their well unusable (if, say, the water table has fallen below the bore hole) and forces them to go much farther to get water from an often contaminated stream. For example, in March–April 2010, in northern Uganda, I did the baseline study for the first development project after the ceasefire that ended twenty-three years of war with the horrific Lord’s Resistance Army (Blumberg 2010). I interviewed people in six villages35 to which they had recently returned after the government pushed most able-bodied people out of the Internally Displaced Person camps. They made their way back on overgrown, undrivable roads to villages that had been largely deforested by the LRA and/or government troops and where the wells were no longer deep enough to draw water. The average woman, I ascertained, had to make two trips per day to a stream averaging several kilometers away, bringing back 55 pounds of water each trip: she would carry
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a 20-liter jerry can on her head (i.e., 44 pounds) and a 5-liter jerry can in her hand (i.e., another 11 pounds), for a daily total of 110 pounds of water, which was barely enough for her family’s minimum needs. Those women understood the connection between deforestation and environmental degradation because they paid the consequences every day. But economic power amplifies women’s say, including in conservation matters from the home and village to the global level. And this could be very significant as climate fluctuations increase and heat rises on all continents and bodies of water. To conclude by once again invoking popular culture, Star Trek’s Spock frequently raises his hand in the “V” greeting of Vulcan, his native planet: “live long and prosper.” This chapter first linked women’s control of money and other assets to nearly “magic potion” outcomes for gender equality, development, and well-being. Then it linked women’s lack of economic resources to the “poison potion” opposite, including harming the ecology (Blumberg 2008). Doubling down on the “magic potion” strategy would seem to give both Mother Earth and most of us a better chance to “live long and prosper.”
N OT E S
1. I have worked in Ecuador nearly thirty times since 1989, totaling about 1.5 years, including five times with NTAEs. 2. Mick Conefrey (2015) found that only 41 percent of current flower sales are going to the United States, coupled with a drop in exports to economically troubled Russia, whereas plantations in East Africa, which are closer to European markets, are booming. 3. Patrilineal descent is reckoned through males; in patrilocal residence, the bride lives with/near the groom’s male kin, usually far from family or friends. Rural women rarely have de facto land rights, no matter the inheritance law. 4. Conditional cash transfers (CCTs) give money, almost always to the woman, in return for children’s regular school attendance, health visits, or other conditions. They are mostly successful, but these interventions may be short term. 5. In ethnographic research on Muslim, Hindu, and “rishti” (low-caste) Bangladeshi villages where all women had microcredit loans, Fauzia Ahmed (2008) found that husbands commonly beat their wives but that a few did not and treated their wives more equally; she recommends using such men to change other men as a highly cost-effective way to curb domestic violence. The men’s violence may not be immutable, however: where women have well-established control of income, they are less likely to be beaten (Blumberg 1978, in a sixtyone-society sample; Blumberg 2004a); indeed, the strongest predictor of violence against women is economic dependence (Levinson 1989, in a ninety-society sample); and, in Mexico, there was an initial spike in wife beating when women first received income from a CCT program; other CCT programs have since avoided this via proactive measures (World Bank 2012, 34). More generally, some laws can constrain women’s economic activities, whereas other laws and government policies, including those against domestic violence, can help their economic empowerment as well (World Bank 2014b). Valentine Moghadam’s chapter in this volume discusses government policies and programs affecting women.
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6. Parity has been defined as 97 of either gender to 100 of the other (UNESCO 2015). 7. Where a woman cannot control her own body (i.e., is not permitted or able to access modern contraception), she is likely to have more children than she would choose. And if she is unable to control when she has her first child, or how far apart her children are born, let alone the number, most of her other life chances are dramatically reduced. 8. Not only do women with provider responsibilities tend to spend more on their children, but they also tend to hold back less for themselves than counterpart men (e.g., Mencher 1988 found this in twenty villages in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, India; so did Roldan 1988 in Mexico City). But where women have no obligations as providers, they may spend income on, for example, jewelry (Maher 1981 found this in Morocco) or jewelry and clothes for themselves and their children (Dey 1981 saw this among the Serahuli of the Gambia). It should be noted that jewelry may be pawned or sold if needed. In fact, women’s assets merit more attention— and measurement (Doss, Grown, and Deere 2008). 9. Among the early studies are Kumar 1978 (South India) and Tripp 1981 (Northern Ghana). Then came Guyer 1988 (Cameroon), Thomas 1990 (Brazil), and Engle 1995 (Guatemala and Nicaragua). The number of such studies has soared since. 10. My partial list includes Blumberg et al. 1992 (Santiago, Chile); Thomas 1997 (Brazil); Quisumbing and Maluccio 1999 (Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and South Africa); Panjaitin and Cloud 1999 (Indonesia); Blumberg 2001b (Ecuador); Davis et al. 2002 (Mexico); Ahmed et al. 2009 (Bangladesh); Helen Keller International 2010 (Bangladesh, Cambodia, Nepal, and the Philippines); Alam 2012 (Bangladesh); and Shroff et al. 2011 (India). Another recent list compiled by the World Bank (2012, 39–44) includes (in their order) Haddad, Hoddinott and Alderman 1997 (a few of the seventeen articles discuss countries such as India, Pakistan, and the Gambia, but a good share of contributors are economists constructing or critiquing different models); Katz and Chamorro 2003 (Nicaragua and Honduras); Duflo 2003 (South Africa); Hoddinott and Haddad 1995 (Cote d’Ivoire); Lundberg, Pollak, and Wales 1997 (United Kingdom); Attanasio and Lechene 2002 (Mexico); Rubalcava, Teruel, and Thomas 2009 (Mexico); Doss 2006 (Ghana); and Schady and Rosero 2008 (Mexico). 11. IH societies are those that cultivate with the hoe; IA ones use the plow. The reason that much of sub-Saharan Africa continues to rely on hoe cultivation (done primarily by women), rather than the plow, is because of poor geographic luck: much of it has soils too thin to permit plow cultivation, which needs much deeper soils, since the plow bites so much deeper into the ground. Where soils are deeper, plow cultivation has been adopted almost uniformly, since it permits much higher yields (Blumberg 2009). 12. According to United Nations 2010, however, fifty-nine nations were already below replacement fertility of ca. 2.1 children per woman, including some developing countries. Where this happens, it is a looming problem for everyone’s future since such low fertility means fewer young workers to support longer-living older cohorts. Most very poor nations still have growth-sapping high fertility, though, so increasing female control of income there will help to curb it. 13. Jeanne Henn’s 1988 study in Cameroon of a village that got a road versus one that did not shows women working harder for seemingly small incentives: in the village with the new road, women increased their time producing newly marketable perishable foods far more than men, even though the women already worked more hours per week and the men’s plantains
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and bananas were much more profitable. But those women earned an average net income of $570 from selling food crops, versus only $225 earned by the women in the village that did not get a road (Henn 1988, 323). Microcredit is a far more common example of women seeking even small incentives; the women are also likelier to make payments on time, resulting in microfinance projects’ tendency to feminize (as I will revisit in the final section of this chapter). 14. Poor women in patriarchal societies rarely have viable exit options. It is socially unacceptable and dangerous to live alone, but few have parents or brothers they can live with long-term; remarriage is iffy; and jobs are scarce. 15. I have likened the precondition of working in a society’s main economic activities to a toll that gets you onto the metaphorical Yellow Brick Road that leads to the Emerald City of Oz—in this case, gaining economic power from that work and translating it to greater gender equality. 16. See Nolan and Lenski 2011 and Blumberg 2009 and 2015a concerning the gender division of labor in human societies prior to and after the invention of the plow. 17. Jared Diamond (1997) says that all but one of the twenty-five major species we have domesticated originated there, including the most valuable (i.e., cattle/oxen, horses, water buffalo, donkeys, and camels). 18. Dry farming is also the traditional system in northern parts of East Asia and all of Europe. It was brought to the New World and Australia/New Zealand by Europeans—who came with their bilateral kin/property systems, not the unilineal-patriarchal systems of MENA/South Asia that also are found in East Asia. The European bilateral kin/property system and, in colonies, initial frontier conditions meant that women were rarely as uninvolved in economic livelihood pursuits or as bereft of property as in MENA/South Asia and in East Asia. 19. The United States is an “outlier” here. In recent history, it has both high proportions of women in the labor force and a number of international armed conflicts. 20. The little rectangle of the burqa over the eyes does not allow peripheral vision. Women see through thick, cross-hatched fibers, which make things look fuzzy. An unknown number of women are hit by drivers they did not see or by drivers who did not see them in their blue burqas at dawn or dusk, or when it is raining. 21. Even once on anti-retrovial therapies, women are disadvantaged and more at risk. The medications must be taken on a full stomach and consistently, or the virus can develop resistance. Poor women are more likely to feed their children first and so take a pill on an empty stomach, or to feed their children instead of paying bus fare to get to the clinic to get more medication—even if those meds are free. 22. Women are considered more biologically vulnerable to infection from a single act of unprotected intercourse. In a review article, Ravinder Sachdeva and Ajay Wanchu estimate women’s biological vulnerability as “at least two to four times greater than men’s” (2006, 129). In Kenya and Zambia, J. R. Glynn and her colleagues (2001) found sexually active females, aged 15–19, had an infection rate six times that of same-age males. In South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, Thomas Quinn and Julie Overbaugh (2005) found that young women aged 15–24 were three to six times more likely to be infected than same-age men. 23. As Emma Ross asserts: “The inequality women face—from poverty and stunted education, to rape and denial of women’s inheritance and property rights—is a major obstacle to victory over the virus” (2004, A3).
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24. For example, an increase of half a standard deviation on height for age. 25. Duncan Thomas (1990, 1997) also found that income in the mother’s hands is even more important for child survival than for nutrition: almost twenty times as large for survival, compared to four to eight times as large for nutritional measures. 26. In horticultural cultivation, which predominates in Rwanda and most of sub-Saharan Africa, women are primary or equal farmers who raise up to 70 percent of locally grown food crops (see, e.g., Saito and Weidemann 1990). 27. During a discussion of papers given at a session of the International Sociological Association Research Committee 09 in Yokohama, Japan, in July 2014, two unidentified scholars who had recently done separate studies in rural Rwanda responded to a paper describing new land reforms that improved women’s land rights there; the scholars stated that villagers still saw the man as the legitimate landholder, even if his spouse’s name was also on the title. 28. Fairly recently, new female land rights laws remained in limbo in most African nations; customary laws still prevailed almost everywhere in the largely patrilineal and rural societies, despite such new laws (Blumberg 2004c). 29. Mine is one of four structural-comparative general theories of gender stratification; see also those by Janet Chafetz (e.g., 1984, 1990, 1991), Randall Collins (1971, 1975; Collins et al. 1993), and Joan Huber (1991, 2007). Mine is the only one with economic power as the key factor, so it is best suited to making the case for it. Space limits preclude presenting the others. 30. Projects putting women into formal sector jobs (versus informal sector microenterprises) are less common. 31. The big tragedy occurred in Andhra Pradesh State, India (though Compartamos, a Mexican profit-making MFI, was the first to put out an IPO to attract shareholders, and it was much criticized for its exorbitant interest rates). SKS, an Andhra Pradesh for-profit MFI, also floated an IPO. Then, to make money for its investors, it gave many women multiple loans beyond their ability to repay and used ultra-aggressive collection techniques. Tragically, some 200 women who could not repay their loans committed suicide in 2010. SKS collapsed, nearly taking down India’s numerous nonprofit MFIs as well. Muhammad Yunus, who won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for creating Bangladesh’s famed Grameen Bank that launched the microcredit revolution, denounced the for-profit MFIs in The New York Times (Yunus 2011). 32. There were about 204 million clients at the end of 2012 (Reed 2014). 33. I researched microfinance in sixteen of the forty-five countries in which I have worked, and I always found that benefits much outweighed negatives so long as the MFIs followed “best practices.” But, if the model is “subsidized credit,” programs invariably fail (Adams 1971, 1984) and beneficiaries are mainly men (Blumberg 2001b). I also worked with Indo-Aryan Hindu women in southern Nepal (in the terai) who proudly described how they got a loan to help their husbands (e.g., to buy a new bicycle rickshaw to transport people and goods) but viewed it as a “family” business. And they described how they learned and benefitted from the 2 or more hours each fortnight they spent at the meetings, making their payments but also socializing and learning about business practices, health, and other useful knowledge. Most of the studies criticizing MFIs because wives turn over a high percentage of loans to husbands are from India or Bangladesh. Loans diverted to husbands are less common in less
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patriarchal countries (such as Latin America or Southeast Asia). Research is needed on benefits going to women using loans versus those giving the money to husbands (but who still participate in MFI activities and may feel proud of contributing to household welfare). 34. I have worked in Afghanistan and a dozen other conflict/post-conflict countries. Most fit this description fairly well. 35. Although I still sometimes do survey and quantitative research (I originally studied chemistry/chemical engineering in college and started my sociological research as a “quant”), in recent years I have most frequently used my own version of “rapid appraisal” (Beebe 2001; Blumberg 2002). This was how I carried out most of the NTAE research in Ecuador, the two Afghanistan final evaluations, and the northern Uganda baseline study. Validity in rapid appraisals is based on “triangulation”: having a limited number of variables/issues, with at least two sources of information for each, ideally generated by two different methodological techniques (such as key informant interviews, focus groups, participant observation, content analysis of documents, reanalysis of datasets, or a “last step” survey after most issues have been resolved). See Blumberg 2015a for a further discussion of rapid appraisals.
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Moghadam, Valentine. 1995. “Gender Dynamics of Restructuring in the Periphery.” In Engendering Wealth and Well-being: Empowerment for Global Change, edited by Rae Lesser Blumberg, Cathy A. Rokowski, Irene Tinker, and Michael Monteon, 17–37. Boulder, Colo., Westview Press., edited by Rae Lesser Blumberg, 17–37. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage. . 2002. “Patriarchy, the Taleban, and Politics of Public Space in Afghanistan.” Women’s Studies International Forum 24, no. 1: 19–31. Morgan, Clara. 2008. “Afghanistan: The Status of Women.” InfoSeries, Parliamentary Information and Research Service Publication PRB 07–34E, Jan. Ottawa: Library of Parliament. Motlagh, Jason. 2014. “What Remains after Rana Plaza.” Washington Post, Apr. 20: B2. Murdock, George Peter. 1967. “Ethnographic Atlas: A Summary.” Ethnology 6: 109–236. Nelson, Libby. 2015. “For the First Time Ever, More American Women than Men Are College Graduates.” Vox, Oct. 13. http://www.vox.com/2015/10/13/9514051/educational-attainmentcensus. Nolan, Patrick, and Gerhard Lenski. 2011. Human Societies: An Introduction to Macrosociology. 11th ed. Boulder, Colo.: Paradigm Press. NPR. 2014. “20th Anniversary of the Rwanda Genocide.” Radio broadcast. All Things Considered. Apr. 7. Otero, Maria, and Elisabeth Rhyne, eds. 1994. The New World of Microenterprise Finance: Building Healthy Financial Institutions for the Poor. West Hartford, Conn.: Kumarian Press and Intermediate Technology Publications. Panjaitin, R. D. M., and Kathleen Cloud. 1999. “Gender, Self-employment and Microcredit Programs: An Indonesian Case Study.” Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance 39: 769–79. Pitt, Mark M., and Shahidur R. Khandker. 1998. “The Impact of Group-based Credit Programs on Poor Households in Bangladesh: Does the Gender of Participants Matter?” Journal of Political Economy 106: 958–96. Quinn, Thomas C., and Julie Overbaugh. 2005. “HIV/AIDS in Women: An Expanding Epidemic.” Science 308, no. 5728: 1582–83. Quisumbing, Agnes R., and J. A. Maluccio. 1999. Intra-household Allocation and Gender Relations: New Empirical Evidence. Washington, D.C.: International Food and Policy Research Institute. Rahman, Aminur. 1999. “Micro-credit Initiatives for Equitable and Sustainable Development: Who Pays? World Development 27, no. 1: 67–82. Reed, Larry R. 2014. Resilience: The State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign, 2014. Washington, D.C.: The Microcredit Summit Campaign. Roldan, Marta. 1988. “Renegotiating the Marital Contract: Intrahousehold Patterns of Money Allocation and Women’s Subordination among Domestic Outworkers in Mexico City.” In A Home Divided: Women and Income in the Third World, edited by Daisy Dwyer and Judith Bruce, 229–47. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Ross, Emma. 2004. “U.N. Shows Women’s Rights as a Key Aspect in AIDS Fight—Report: Inequality Impedes Progress.” San Diego Union-Tribune, Nov. 24: A3. Ross, Michael L. 2008. “Oil, Islam and Women.” American Political Science Review 102, no. 1: 107–23. Rubalcava, Luis, Graciela Teruel, and Duncan Thomas. 2009. “Investments, Time Preferences, and Public Transfers Paid to Women.” Economic Development and Cultural Change 57, no. 3: 507–38.
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7 LAND USE AND THE GREAT ACCELERATION IN HUMAN ACTIVITIES Political and Economic Dynamics
Thomas K. Rudel
Beginning in the eighteenth century, the scale of human activities began an unprecedented expansion that continues to this day. The population increased from several hundred million to more than seven billion people. Economic activity increased multiple times over. For example, the volume of international trade increased between 1950 and 2006 by five times for agricultural products, ten times for minerals, and more than fifty times for manufactured products (World Trade Organization 2007). Echoing Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation (1944), sociologists have begun referring to this massive set of interlinked changes as “the great acceleration” (Rosa and Dietz 2010). This set of changes also marks our entry into the Anthropocene, the age of human domination on Earth. Others might describe these changes as the continuation of two centuries of “development.” Terminology aside, this scaling up of the human enterprise has had manifold effects on almost all aspects of human life, especially on the ways in which humans use land. This review of the interrelationships between development and land use begins with a description of the classical theories about central places that hypothesize about the ways development affects land use. To understand these historical dynamics, we need to supplement central place theories with two sets of additional drivers, one largely economic and the other predominantly political. The economic drivers manifest themselves in the values of individual parcels or clusters of parcels. Although they involve globalization, they occur in increments with the expansion of markets. They involve farmers on frontiers, rural-urban migrants, landowners making more intense use of their lands, and
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rival groups contesting each other’s plans for land-use changes. The political drivers occur in historical waves and involve many nation-states. The rapid expansion of colonial empires in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the rapid decolonization of the Global South following World War II, and the spread of neoliberal political philosophies during the past thirty years have all shaped the development/land-use link in profound ways. Hopefully, central place theory—coupled with the sets of economic and political drivers—will provide readers with a framework for understanding how land uses have changed as part of the great acceleration and how, given this framework, landuse patterns might be expected to change in the coming decades. The chapter begins by discussing two variants of central place theory that offer useful points of departure for understanding land-use changes during the past two centuries. Then it describes economic changes that farmers and other landowners have experienced with the globalization of economies and the urbanization of populations. This focus includes a review of land-use dynamics on frontiers, in urbanizing societies, with intensifying land uses, and increasingly combative sets of neighboring land users. Descriptions of three waves of political transformations with their impacts on land use follow. The rapid expansion of colonial empires, their disintegration after World War II, and the widespread acceptance during the late twentieth century of neoliberal politicaleconomic philosophies all have shaped land uses in ways distinct from economic dynamics. The chapter concludes with a somewhat speculative analysis about the ways in which these economic and political dynamics might intersect during an era of climate change to shape land-use changes in unprecedented ways.
D E V E L O P M E N T, T H E O R I E S O F C E N T R A L P L A C E S , AND LAND-USE CHANGE
The grand narratives about industrialization, modernization, and development by the classical theorists (Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Émile Durkheim) provide comprehensive theories about the ways in which social fabrics change with development, but they do not, for the most part, discuss issues of development and land use. Marx does discuss the metabolic relationship that emerges between urban and rural places with industrialization (Marx [1863–65] 1981; Foster 1999). Neither Weber nor Durkheim talk about the direct effects of the natural environment on societies, but at least in Durkheim’s case there are clear ways in which his theories about division of labor and specialization can be extended from people to plots of land (Durkheim [1893] 1997). As people become more specialized in their skill sets, plots of land become more specialized in their uses, devoted to one or another activity. Although these links between the grand theories of development and land use exist, other strands of theorizing, most notably central place theory, provide the most intellectually fruitful point of departure for exploring the connections between development and land-use changes. Two types of central place theory offer the most explicit accounts
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about the ways in which political and economic development shape land uses. Writing during the first half of the nineteenth century, Johann-Friedrich von Thunen ([1826] 1966) developed the first version of central place theory. He reasoned that variations in transportation costs to a center city would explain variations in land uses in the surrounding rural area. As distance from center cities increases, the costs of transporting any product to market would increase, and for this reason the rents on the land would decline. Land uses would intensify as one approaches a city. For example, a belt of dairy farms would begin right outside a city’s walls because the perishable quality of dairy products requires that producers minimize the time that the product spends in transit by locating as closely as possible to consumers in cities. As distance from the city increases, the income earning opportunities from agriculture dwindle because progressively more of the potential profits from growing a crop get spent on transportation to the market. Eventually, farmers cannot earn a profit on any crops grown in a remote locale, so these places remain uncultivated and frequently forested. Needless to say, the land values in these remote locales approach zero. With growth in the human population in central places, increases in economic activity, and the introduction of new transportation technologies, the feasible area for cultivation expands, and people move into these frontier regions. Globalization, understood as the spread of supra-territorial connectivity (Scholte 2005), occurs and, with it, extensive areas of hitherto remote areas in the tropics are deforested (Lambin et al. 2001). Robert Park, Ernest Burgess, and Roderick McKenzie (1925) elaborated a somewhat similar theory with application to urban areas. Although typically considered a “human ecology,” their concentric zone theory presumes the existence of central places that are growing in size, so it is easy to reconceive the emergence of these zones as part of the great acceleration. Park and his coauthors reasoned that “like attracts like,” so similar activities, social classes, and ethnic groups would concentrate in the same zone. The zones would emerge in a concentric pattern around the central business districts of cities. Growth coalitions of bankers, farmers, realtors, and public officials would promote the outward expansion of metropolitan areas and profit from the conversion of farms and forests into subdivisions of single family homes (Logan and Molotch 2007). As metropolitan areas expand, the zones also move outward. Beginning in the 1930s, people in the predominantly upper-class zones began to use controls over land use to erect barriers to entry to their communities. In this manner, the outer zones of many metropolitan areas gradually became exclusive residential communities for wealthy families (Rudel 1989). Both versions of central place theory have clear applications to developing societies. The patterns of tropical deforestation over the past four decades can be reconceptualized in terms of changes in the agriculture/forest margins as urban areas in the developing world have expanded outward (Angelsen 2007). Although concentric zone theory has not been widely applied in the Global South, the economic dynamics that drive the process would seem to apply. For example, the restoration of colonial architecture in the center
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cities of South America has encouraged the creation of warehouse districts in the outlying areas of the cities. In a similar dynamic, the flower industry has created greenhouse districts in close proximity to the airport in Bogota, Colombia, in order to minimize the ground transportation time from the greenhouses to urban consumers in advanced industrial societies. Central place and concentric zone theories provide explanations for important features of human land-use patterns, but they miss essential empirical features of the changing relationship between development and land use, both those that unfold over time among parcels of land in more or less linear fashion and those that have emerged in more episodic fashion at the larger scales of national politics. The following sections of this chapter outline these missing empirical dimensions and suggest how they might be incorporated, along with central place theory, into a more comprehensive theory about the ways that land uses change during the course of development.
P A R C E L - BY- PA R C E L DY N A M I C S I N T H E E C O N O M I E S OF DEVELOPING AREAS FRONTIER EXPANSION AND RESOURCE PARTITIONING IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD
With the introduction of new technologies of transportation like railroads, steamships, airplanes, and trucks, the forest/agriculture margin in von Thunen’s theory kept moving into progressively more remote settings, from coastal locations to the interior of continents, for instance. The spread of agriculture into these places followed a predictable sequence, as outlined by Francois Ruf (2001). The growth in overseas markets for an agricultural commodity like cocoa, coupled with transportation improvements, opens up new regions for settlement and cultivation. (For example, during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, coastal West Africa, the Pacific lowlands of Ecuador, and the outer islands of Indonesia all experienced surges in cocoa cultivation.) Migrants from other rural areas and sometimes from other countries move to the area, deforest the land, and plant the crop. The initial yields are high because the lands, having been forested for long periods of time, contain abundant subsoil organic matter. The boom in cocoa production floods the markets, driving down prices for it. At the same time, yields fall because soil fertility declines with continuous cultivation and pests begin to infest the crops. Invasive species like imperata grass (Imperata cylindrica) and bracken fern (Pteridium aquilinum) become more common in these now disturbed landscapes. The labor force grows old and finds it progressively more difficult to open up new lands for production. The fall in prices for the commodity ceases with the decline in production and then begins to rise. The price rise spurs other migrants to open up new frontier regions for cocoa cultivation, spurring another cocoa boom, but this time in different regions of the tropics. These lands had only vaguely demarcated boundaries between small populations of indigenous peoples before the cocoa boom. Once the settlers arrived, they partitioned the
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land, but few people acquired secure titles to their newly partitioned plots of land. Only when the price of land rose considerably, as it often does in close proximity to cities, would landowners spend substantial sums of money to acquire a secure title to land (Alston, Libecap, and Mueller 1999). Most smallholders did not have the means to acquire secure titles to land, so tenure insecurity became a pervasive condition across remote rural areas. The returns to labor in frontier regions varied wildly, with outright exploitation in the form of slavery and indentured labor common in many of the early tropical frontiers where planters, for example, exploited slave labor to produce sugar (Mintz 1985). In the more populist frontiers organized around small independent producers of coffee, wheat, and corn, family labor provided most of the labor for production (Chayanov 1966). The state was largely absent from this narrative of land-use change. Only during the latter half of the twentieth century did the state begin to play a prominent role in assisting cultivators on frontiers through the provision of roads, ports, or railroads to transport crops to markets. Additional episodes of resource partitioning occurred on the fringes of cities when real estate developers converted forests and fields into building lots for suburban neighborhoods. There, as in rural frontiers, people sought competitive advantages by being the first to claim and exploit choice natural resources. This dynamic has led some observers to talk about “crabgrass frontiers” (Jackson 1985). On an international scale, the pace of outward expansion in metropolitan areas roughly followed the rate of economic growth, with Asian countries having experienced the most dramatic growth in the geographical extent of urban areas over the past twenty-five years (Seto et al. 2012a). The continuing expansion of urban areas seems to hinge on a trade-off between the synergistic effects of interactions between clustered people as opposed to the interference and conflict generated by the close proximity of people. That close proximity in cities generates opportunities and creates interferences (negative externalities) that spur demands for collective action (Bettencourt 2013).
F O R E S T T R A N S I T I O N S A N D U R B A N I Z AT I O N
Development occurred unevenly across nations throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and land-use trends varied accordingly. While frontiers in one area, like southern Brazil, would be expanding, frontiers in another place, like the lower forty-eight states in the United States, would be closing (Turner [1893] 1920). In those nations that became early centers for industrial production, industrialization and urbanization triggered forest transitions. The free land in frontier settings disappeared, and industrial expansion in cities began to lure workers away from rural areas. With these changes, net deforestation declined and then gave way to net reforestation in a locale. Two dynamics drove the reforestation of rural areas. First, farmers became better acquainted over time with the production capabilities of the fields on their farms. As the capabilities of fields became better known, farmers chose to retire their least productive lands from production
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(Mather and Needle 1998). These fields then reverted to forests in at least some instances. Second, the dynamic that leads to forest regrowth also involved losses of labor in many cases. The increase in manufacturing employment and the improved provision of important services like medical care in nearby cities pulled farm laborers off of the land. In response to the loss of labor, farmers cut back on the extent of their operations, abandoning agriculture on their least productive lands. At the same time, shanty-towns grew in size on the outskirts of the growing cities. In some societies, disparities in the quality of services like schools and hospitals between urban and rural districts have fueled an “urbanization without industrialization,” leading to what some have called the “overurbanization” of societies (Hoselitz 1955; Mohanty 2014). The number of nations characterized by forest transitions has grown over the past two centuries. The first transitions occurred in the old industrial societies of Western Europe. By the mid-nineteenth century, forest transitions had begun to occur in northeastern North America, and, by the late twentieth century, countries as varied as Vietnam (Meyfroidt and Lambin 2009), Costa Rica (Kull, Ibrahim, and Meredith 2007), and Romania (Olofsson et al. 2011) had experienced forest transitions. Given the increased amounts of international trade during this period, the increase in forest and decline in agriculture in one country may have come at the expense of deforestation and agricultural expansion in another. An investigation of trends in FAO agricultural trade statistics does show some displacement of demand for agricultural products overseas when a country like France experiences a decline in agricultural land. On a hectare-by-hectare basis, the expansion of agricultural area in the developing world only amounted to 22 percent of the decline in agricultural area in countries undergoing a forest transition between 1970 and 2005 (Meyfroidt, Rudel, and Lambin 2010). This pattern has led some observers to hypothesize the emergence of a global forest transition in which global reforestation exceeds global deforestation in extent (Meyfroidt and Lambin 2011). Alternatively, the global trilemma of growing food insecurity, biodiversity losses, and climate change may prevent further cropland abandonment and forest expansion. Increasingly, scientists have argued that the only way out of this predicament is through the sustainable intensification of agricultural practices (Tilman et al. 2011).
I N T E N S I F I C AT I O N O F L A N D U S E S A N D D E F E N S I V E E N V I R O N M E N TA L I S M
Despite the dramatic differences in the appearance of rural and urban land uses (e.g., fields in the former and parking garages in the latter), both sets of land uses intensified during the course of the twentieth century. Land uses intensify when human activities on a piece of land increase. In rural settings, agricultural intensification often takes the form of land improvements. Converting land from forests into fields intensifies land use because croplands require more human labor than do forests (Bentley 1989). The installation of irrigation systems also intensifies land use. Even passive land uses like parks
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can be intensified if a park service builds facilities to handle the large numbers of people who want to visit a site. In a metropolitan setting, the conversion of lands from rural to urban uses intensifies land use. The construction of a larger building in place of an older, smaller building would intensify the use of a particular plot of land because it would serve more people. The trend toward more intensive land uses springs from growth in populations and economic activity over fixed land areas. People intensify land uses to extract a larger product, loosely defined, from spaces used for agriculture in rural areas and used for non-farm economic activities in urban areas (Boserup 1965). In this sense, efforts to intensify land use reflect social and economic pressures attributable to development. Because efforts to intensify land uses are often costly, the sunk costs of a particular land use on a site increase. The increased investment that landowners have in that land use gives them incentives to resist wholesale transformations in land use on their site and in adjacent areas. In other words, the increased investment in a particular land use creates incentives for people to engage in defensive environmentalist practices (Rudel 2013). Defensive environmentalists try to preserve the immediate environment in which they live. For example, suburban homeowners will often defend their community against a plan to transform the community through extensive real estate development, perhaps by proposing the preservation of more open space in the community. Amerindians like the Shuar of southeastern Ecuador who hunt and gather as well as practice shifting cultivation do something similar when they mobilize to prevent extractive industries from mining or drilling on their ancestral lands. In sum, the partitioning of natural resources and subsequent intensification of land uses in the different parcels clarifies the interests of local residents in those land uses and promotes defensive environmentalist reactions to plans for transforming them.
CONFLICTS AND CONSTRAINTS IN RECENT LAND-USE CHANGES
As economic development proceeds, a distinct pattern of specialized land uses emerges in developed landscapes. Specialization gets inscribed into landscapes in ways that the concentric zone theorists (e.g., Park, Burgess, and McKenzie 1925) would have understood. The landscape in central California exemplifies this pattern. Some zones specialize in highly productive agriculture, supported by extensive irrigation works, specialized technologies, and technical assistants (Warner 2007). An accumulation of social and physical capital supports this land use. Fifty or sixty kilometers away, another group of specialists with appropriate physical facilities support the use of the Yosemite region as a national park that hosts hundreds of thousands tourists annually. These zoned, highly specialized landscapes have their limits—as urban planners have emphasized with their push for more mixed uses in urban areas over the past two decades (Seto et al. 2012b). With political and economic interests organized around each existing land use, it becomes difficult to transform these landscapes. Armed with lawyers, interest groups can, through
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legal action, at least slow down if not entirely derail efforts to change land uses in a place in substantial ways (Rudel 1989). These “improved” landscapes and the dynamics of change within them presume that landholders all have secure land tenure. This assumption is only tenable in affluent societies. Secure land tenure is the exception rather than the rule in rural areas of most developing countries. The costs of acquiring titles are usually beyond the means of smallholders. Without secure tenure, smallholders are usually powerless to prevent wellfinanced, sometimes overseas investors from usurping the smallholders’ landholdings in what have been called “land grabs” (Borras et al. 2011). In court proceedings, individuals with secure titles have a tremendous advantage, so, not surprisingly, the legal system in these settings favors wealthy landowners to a tremendous degree. Environmental crises that are truly global in extent, like the climate change crisis or the biodiversity crisis, have focused attention on institutional arrangements that govern land use in even the most remote locales. For example, the potential for significant amounts of carbon sequestration in primary and secondary forests has prompted proposals for payments for environmental services (PES) through a U.N.-approved REDD+ (reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation) program. These programs require, for participation, that landowners and landholders have secure titles to their lands. Because PES schemes like REDD+ cannot function if participants do not have secure titles to land, the impetus to launch REDD+ programs should also lead to the extension of secure land tenure to smallholders. The titling of these lands enables resistance by smallholders to invasions or incursions by more affluent land users, so it increases the probability of legal conflicts in even remote locations. International nonprofit groups concerned with the environment represent another force for change in rural land tenure. The increased presence of the environmental nonprofits along with hedge funds and agribusinesses signals the emergence of a multitiered pattern of land-use regulation of rural land and land uses in the developing world (Rudel and Meyfroidt 2014). Particularly large-scale initiatives like the Chinese oil palm initiative in upland Borneo in 2005 mobilized coalitions for and against the proposed oil palm plantation. Environmental NGOs, allied with indigenous groups, disputed with the Chinese developers who had support in the Indonesian government. Eventually, the government approved the creation of a large park, the “Heart of Borneo” on the contested lands (Persoon and Osseweijer 2008). These disputes often take years to resolve, and their substantive outcomes remain difficult to predict. Indonesia’s first REDD+ project appeared to have failed in the fall of 2012, only to be rescued and concluded as intended in May 2013 (Butler 2013). The dynamics in these multinational issues frequently take novel forms. Perhaps the most noteworthy of these dynamics involves the “boomerang effect” (Keck and Sikkink 1998) in which a relatively powerless indigenous group or civil society association in a developing country builds an alliance with well-connected environmental groups outside the country. The international environmental organization then uses its influence in international forums
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to bring pressure to bear on the national government in the country with the relatively powerless indigenous group. In an early example of this dynamic, indigenous people working with Brazilian anthropologists teamed up with Cultural Survival, a well-known North American NGO, to put pressure on the World Bank about its financing of an extensive road-building project in Rondonia that raised the probability that mestizo colonists would encroach upon or invade the Amerindian preserves. Under the pressure generated by the negative publicity, the World Bank decided to cancel its funding for the roads (Keck and Sikkink 1998). The incremental advance of resource partitioning through development in urban as well as rural locales would appear to support more intensified land uses, accelerate legal conflicts, and perhaps, at least according to the findings of one recent meta-analysis (Robinson, Holland, and Naughton-Treves 2014), enable the protection of more natural environments. These incremental trends only describe one land-use dynamic associated with development. A second set of dynamics occurs in waves and shapes the development/land-use link in profound ways. A description of these historical waves of change is presented below.
WAV E S O F L A N D - U S E C H A N G E A C R O S S N AT I O N S
The processes described above occur incrementally, in a cumulative way, over time and across landscapes. Other drivers of land use appear to come in waves. Political institutions established to govern one place get adopted by people in another place in a mimetic process that often occurs during a relatively short period of time (DiMaggio and Powell 1983). World society theorists (Meyer et al. 1997; Meyer 2010) focus on these processes of institutional change. Through these processes, land-use practices and regulations adopted more or less simultaneously by political regimes begin to resemble one another. Eventually, these waves of land-use change diminish, undone by large-scale structural changes in the world system. The same set of structural changes can unleash a new wave of changes in landscapes. In the following pages, I outline three waves of changes in land use, each one generated by ongoing processes of development that have had major impacts on land-use patterns across the globe.
COLONIAL REGIMES
Colonial landscapes took on a distinctive appearance beginning with the emergence of these regimes in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Enclaves of commercial agriculture defined a majority of the first colonial landscapes. The spreading appetite for tropical agricultural commodities like sugar and bananas encouraged entrepreneurs to set up export-oriented agricultural enclaves along coasts in the tropics (Wolf and Hansen 1972). With the intent of returning to the mother country in a few years with a fortune earned from the plantation and its workers, colonial planters exploited immigrant and slave laborers on plantations mercilessly (Dean 1995).
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Another wave of changes initiated by colonial regimes occurred during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when the competition for colonial possessions among European leaders precipitated “the scramble for Africa” (Pakenham 1992; Chamberlain 2014). To extract political and economic benefits from these places and peoples, the European powers—the French in Algeria, the English in Kenya and South Africa, and the Portuguese in Angola—established settler societies in which colonists from the home countries received the most agriculturally desirable lands and indigenous peoples were confined to less agriculturally optimal zones. For example, the British reserved the well-watered highland areas west of Nairobi for settlers from Britain and confined Kenyan natives to semi-arid lowlands to the north and east of Nairobi (Tiffen, Mortimore, and Gichuki 1994). These circumstances contributed to the creation of natural-resourcedegrading poverty traps on indigenous lands. The natural resources available to indigenous people could not provide them with sustenance, so cultivators had to exploit the lands however possible, leading in many instances to degradation and deforestation on indigenous lands. Because this dynamic degraded the one resource available to indigenous peoples, it made them less likely to escape poverty. In this sense, colonial land policies trapped indigenous peoples in poverty. Politicians in some South America countries, like Ecuador, continued until the midtwentieth century to promote European settlement of the Amazonian lowlands as a device for securing Ecuadorian sovereignty over these lands (Perez Guerrero 1954). Some colonial regimes, like Portugal, did not abandon the policy of transplanting poor Europeans to choice lands in the colonies until the 1950s (Bender and Yoder 1974). These practices ended in most places after World War II when independence movements gathered force in the colonies. The colonial regimes did, however, leave behind a legacy of unequally distributed landholdings, especially in Latin America, which has complicated efforts to increase agricultural productivity and eliminate rural poverty in recent years (Thiesenhusen 1995).
N E W LY I N D E P E N D E N T S TAT E S
The wave of decolonization began immediately after World War II when weakened European states decided, under pressure from their colonial subjects, to relinquish control of their colonies. The leaders of the newly independent states, along with the heads of weak Latin American states, shared a common concern with their territorial integrity. The new states had unresolved border disputes with neighboring countries. In Asia, secessionist movements, founded sometimes on ethnic differences, had bases in border regions. In Latin America, leftists, inspired by the success of the Cuban revolution, launched armed insurrections from bases in remote rural regions. Forests covered the landscapes in many of these regions, and they provided the dissidents with cover from the militarily superior armed forces of governments. Under these circumstances, political leaders sought to reaffirm their control over these remote rural places and border regions by declaring all
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unoccupied land to be “state land.” Given the weakness of the central state in these border regions, no one exerted any control over these public lands other than the informal customary controls exerted by indigenous leaders (USAID 2007). Nearly open-access conditions prevailed in these places. To strengthen their control over these remote regions, curry favor with restive rural peoples, and take advantage of newly offered American development assistance, the heads of weak or fledgling governments launched new land settlement schemes. Modeled after the Homestead Act of 1862 in the United States, these programs, sometimes called colonization programs, carved up the state lands into small parcels of forested lands that officials awarded to landless families with the proviso that these households would develop farms on the awarded lands. These programs proved especially popular with government officials because, unlike agrarian reforms, they did not require the expropriation of lands held by other farmers, so colonization programs did not stir as much political controversy as the more politically radical agrarian reforms (Domike 1970). The colonization programs did, however, generate conflicts with indigenous peoples already living in these remote regions. Governments also built roads as part of these new land settlement schemes. They built both trunk roads and farm-to-market roads into these regions in order to facilitate access to markets from the newly created farms; thus, the land clearings along the roads took the shape of a fishbone. By constructing a network of roads and settling poor but politically reliable families in these remote locations, the new nations brought these regions more firmly under the control of the central government (Rudel et al. 2009). For two decades, the 1960s and the 1970s, these state-led, new land settlement schemes accounted for substantial increases in cultivated areas, particularly in Southeast Asia and Latin America. A series of events in the 1980s made these programs less appealing to political elites. The relatively high cost of these programs per beneficiary diminished their appeal when fiscal crises made budget cutting necessary. Related packages of neoliberal reforms reduced the subsidies for acquiring titles to land, making it more expensive and therefore more difficult for smallholders to acquire secure titles to land. The rural insurrections lost strength in a substantial number of nations like Bolivia, Brazil, Malaysia, and Thailand during the 1980s. Finally, the gradual increase in the proportion of the population residing in urban areas persuaded left-of-center political elites to alter their political programs so as to emphasize policies that appealed to the urban poor—such as subsidies for basic goods like fuel—and deemphasize policies like agrarian reform and new land settlement schemes that appealed primarily to the rural poor (Wickham-Crowley 1994; Vandergeest 2007).
N E O L I B E R A L I Z AT I O N , G L O B A L I Z AT I O N , A N D A G R I B U S I N E S S E S
A political consensus during the early 1980s among newly ascendant conservatives in American and British governments, along with like-minded leaders in the IMF and the World Bank, promoted rapid expansion in international trade and encouraged the rise to
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power of other free trade–minded conservatives in governments of the Global South. This Washington-based consensus reduced trade barriers for some agricultural commodities (Babb 2012). The rapid spread of this political-economic philosophy exemplifies the dynamics of policy diffusion described by the world-society theorists. This shift in political philosophies worked in concert with other trends to increase trade in agricultural commodities. With the acceleration in scale of human enterprise over the past two centuries, the volume of trade has changed accordingly. For the past five hundred years, traders have steadily expanded the geographic reach of markets for agricultural commodities, and this process of globalization has transformed landscapes throughout the world, but these trends accelerated during the late twentieth century. Improvements in livestock health, like the eradication of hoof-and-mouth disease in the Brazilian Amazon, opened up new markets in Europe and North America for the freerange beef cattle of Brazil (Nepstad, Stickler, and Almeida 2006). The growing proportion of livestock produced in confined settings increased the demand for grain-based livestock feed, which in turn raised the volume of soybeans traded internationally (Naylor et al. 2005). With the advent of mass production of biofuels between 2000 and 2005, the interrelated dynamics of global trade and land use became more obvious. By 2008, demand for corn-based ethanol had driven the price of corn to high levels, and 30–40 percent of the American corn crop went to the production of ethanol. In response to the high prices for corn, American farmers had reduced their cultivation of soybeans, which in turn had caused the price for soybeans to increase; Brazilian farmers then increased their acreage in soybeans (Searchinger et al. 2009). This episode underscores how tightly coupled land uses in the world agricultural sector have become. With little underutilized arable land available to meet additional demand through expanded production in one country, a shift in crop mixes there triggers a shift in crop mixes in other countries, and a cascade of changes in land uses across borders begins. Producers have taken advantage of economies of scale in the production and shipping of agricultural commodities, so the size of export-oriented agricultural enterprises has grown steadily (DeFries et al. 2010). When these producers move into a forested area, they clear large contiguous blocks of forest that they can then cultivate with machines. The increased salience of large operators along the forest frontiers as well as the extensive amounts of slash in logged areas or peat in lands being converted into oil palm plantations have increased the frequency of large-scale and uncontrollable fires in the tropics (Butler 2012). Not surprisingly, agricultural expansion has accounted for a large majority of the deforested land in the tropics during the past two decades (Gibbs et al. 2010). Finally, the growing importance of large-scale agribusinesses has ensured that the unequal distribution of agricultural land ownership has persisted into the twenty-first century. The increase in “land grabbing” (the purchase of prime agricultural lands in sometime remote rural settings with the intention of producing food crops for sale in
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distant markets) represents an extension of this long-term trend toward politically and economically consolidated production of foodstuffs on a large scale.1 For the residents of the regions in which the grabbing has occurred, the sudden alienation of these lands raises important food security issues (Borras et al. 2011). Will the loss of access to the agricultural production from the purchased lands cause local people to go hungry?
THE DRIVERS OF FUTURE LAND-USE CHANGE: G L O B A L WA R M I N G , E C O N O M I C I N E Q U A L I T Y, AND THE DEVELOPMENT PROJECT
Development drives changes in land use through several different dynamics. Some of it occurs through the growth of central places and the effects on lands that radiate outward from these places. Some of these effects occur incrementally, parcel by parcel over time. Farms on frontiers flourish, age, and then consolidate, with some of the marginal lands reverting to forest. Cities grow household by household, and rural communities lose people the same way. Investments in land improvements usually occur parcel by parcel, intensifying operations. In this manner, either farms grow bigger or the farmers get out of agriculture. The defense of these improved lands also occurs in an incremental way, from one locale to another, often in courts of law. Globalization provides the economic backdrop for these processes; it manifests itself through growing consumer demand in far-away central places, so many of these changes can be understood through central place theory. These changes in economic structures need to be considered in the context of shifts in political-economic regimes that have occurred in historical waves through a dynamic best explained by world-society theorists (Meyer et al. 1997). Colonial regimes, the leaders of newly independent states, and the neoliberal political coalitions have all inscribed their political agendas into landscapes at the same time that economic changes have created new frontiers, reforested hilly lands, intensified agriculture, and stirred political controversies between land users. This long history of intersecting trends invites questions about future directions of change in development efforts and land-use patterns. One obvious point of intersection in the future involves the wave of climate changes that are now occurring amid growing political-economic inequalities fostered by neoliberal states. The core regions have interest groups organized around valuable land uses who will mobilize to defend or exploit local environments when faced with stressors like heat waves, droughts, or tropical cyclones. In these circumstances, conflicts break out over the availability of water or, as in 2008, imports of food. These crises in turn have spurred aggressive moves to expand intensive agriculture through land or water grabbing in places with weak states. The harvests from these tracts of land would be reserved for beneficiaries selected by the new owners of the lands. These initiatives formalize access to land or water, but in such instances the impetus to do so comes primarily from affluent economic interests that find in formalized water rights or land tenure another
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way to defend their privileged positions. Fundamental changes in this trajectory of development and land use would most likely come from substantial changes in the posture of national governments, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Popular and elite mobilization to initiate this kind of wave, like political change, appears most likely in the aftermath of focusing events such as severe weather that highlight human vulnerabilities to climate change. These circumstances could, at least theoretically, encourage the emergence of sustainable development states organized around a hegemonic project of sustainability (Rudel 2013).
N OT E
1. For a profile of the participants in the land grabs and tracts of land they have acquired, visit www.landmatrix.org.
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8 AGE STRUCTURE AND DEVELOPMENT Beyond Malthus
David L. Brown and Parfait Eloundou-Enyegue
This chapter uses a sociodemographic perspective to examine the reciprocal associations between population change (especially changes in age structure) and development. An early articulation of this perspective can be found in a volume published by the United Nations in 1953, The Determinants and Consequences of Population Trends. This influential work situated population studies in a multidisciplinary framework where population dynamics affect and are affected by changes in social and economic organization, culture, and the natural environment. The similar position taken in this chapter is that social change and demographic change are both mutually constitutive and contextually contingent (Brown and Kandel 2006). Although population change constrains and facilitates social and institutional transformation, the impacts of population change are neither automatic nor mechanistic. Rather, they are mediated and conditioned by changes in social and institutional structures and policy regimes. Similar demographic trends can therefore have vastly different outcomes in different communities, regions, or nations depending on institutional arrangements, cultural norms, and/or policy regimes and choices. In other words, population change is important, but “demography is not destiny.” This perspective extends the debate on population and development in three important ways that are of interest to development scholars. First, it steers the conversation away from the Malthusian focus on population growth and its adverse consequences, instead highlighting the potential opportunities and challenges presented by transformations in age structure. Second, it strikes a middle ground between grand theories involving hardto-test macro-level processes and overly micro-level relationships that, despite being more
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readily testable, sidestep the policy interest in national development. Third, as indicated above, it emphasizes the highly contextual nature and the reciprocity of these relationships. We have organized the chapter into two broad sections describing, respectively, the effects of economic development on population dynamics and age structure, and the effects of changing age structure on socioeconomic development. Reflecting the expected contextual contingency, we discuss the circumstances under which changing age structure will most likely affect and be affected by socioeconomic development. Ideally, any discussion of the population/development debate must begin with clear definitions. This is particularly relevant here because definitions have evolved during the long history of this debate—from narrow and reductionist to a broader, multidimensional conceptualization. Whereas classic debates reduced population dynamics to population growth— and development to economic growth—more recent debates recognize the multidimensional nature of both population change and development (see, e.g., Leahy 2007; Leahy, Daumerie, and Hardy 2010). Our chapter adopts this more nuanced definition of development that embraces not only economic growth but also concerns over distribution, the achievement of basic needs, and socioeconomic goals such as those expressed in the U.N. Millennium Development Goals and its Sustainable Development sequel.
H O W D E V E L O P M E N T A F F E C T S P O P U L AT I O N C H A N G E
Scholars have been examining the association between economic development and population change since at least the fourteenth century, when Ibn Khaldun proposed a theory of growth with stages of development and associated population growth regimes. Although he generally saw population growth and the resulting increase of labor supply as a primary source of wealth, he nonetheless suggested that, ultimately, “abundant civilization (large populations) [were found] at the end of dynasties, and pestilences and famine frequently occur then” (Rosenthal 1967, 17). Modern extensions of these associations have focused on the process whereby a country moves from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates, the so-called “demographic transition,” and how this transition is driven by economic change. The theory of demographic transition has dominated demographic thinking for nearly the past century (Weeks 2012). After World War II, social scientists used this framework to examine how the increased access to modern medicine and public health measures affected rapid population growth in less developed regions. Historical demographers likewise used it to study the impacts of improved nutrition and public hygiene on population change during Europe’s industrial revolution (Drake 1969). The overall conclusion of these studies was that “modernization,” whether endogenous, as in Europe during its industrial revolution, or exogenous, as in the post–World War II scenario, results in lower mortality rates and rapid population growth followed some time later by a decline in fertility itself induced by the growing awareness of better
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survival chances for children. This lag between mortality decline and fertility decline was crucial in shaping the amount and rapidity of modernization-induced population growth as well as the time it took for this population growth to ultimately stabilize. Accordingly, researchers have focused on the preconditions that hasten a fertility decline. These include ideational changes promoting individual agency, perception of the advantages of fewer births, and knowledge of effective methods of control (Coale 1973). In societies where such preconditions are met, scholars have then identified the proximate determinants of fertility change, including how exposure to intercourse and conception are regulated, and factors affecting gestation (Bongaarts 1978; Davis and Blake 1955). Although the focus of this early work has generally been to explain why the population growth rate changes over time, some precursors began to draw attention to age composition and its possible implications for future development. This wider conceptual focus required attention to all three basic demographic processes, including mortality and migration. Ansley Coale and Edgar Hoover (1958), for instance, demonstrated the central importance of changes in age composition for economic development, an argument forcefully reprised in recent years by David Bloom and his colleagues (2002), even though Coale (1957) also recognized that declining fertility had a greater impact on population aging than reduced mortality. Seen in broad historical perspective, the theory of demographic transition is derivative of, and parallel to, modernization theory insofar as societies are assumed to develop through a series of fairly predictable stages that are associated with the maturation of industrial capitalism. Change is seen as gradual and incremental, and as contributing to the maintenance of basic social systems rather than to challenging the fundamental social order. As Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel observe, “Modernization is a syndrome of social changes linked to industrialization. Once set in motion, it tends to penetrate all aspects of life, bringing occupational specialization, urbanization, rising educational levels, rising life expectancy, and rapid economic growth. These create a selfreinforcing process that transforms social life and political institutions” (2009, 33). Critics of both transition and modernization theory have countered that social change and development are mobilized by conflict rather than by consensus, and that many societies experience fundamental system changes rather than evolving toward an equilibrium state in a predictably gradual, linear fashion.1 Other critics contend that demographic transition theory is ethnocentric and not transferrable to non-Western situations. Furthermore, its modifications, such as Richard Easterlin’s (1978) relative cohort size hypothesis, which examines demographic feedbacks including how the relative size of successive birth cohorts affects fertility, are thought to be plagued by a middle-class bias. Still others lament the theory’s largely descriptive and macro-level orientation, which obscures the possible diversity of experiences across national subpopulations. Regardless of these critiques, the theory of demographic transition has proved to be robust and informative in a wide variety of societal settings and across time. Hence, the transition theory’s core assertions have been exposed to empirical examination, and the theory
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remains a compelling description of the interaction of population change and social change. Moreover, it has been elaborated and strengthened over time with additions such as John Caldwell’s (2006) wealth flows hypothesis that explains how childbearing decisions are affected by reversals in the direction of wealth flows across generations.
HOW DEVELOPMENT AFFECTS AGE STRUCTURE
Coale and Hoover (1958) pioneered demographic work on the associations between population change, changing age structure, and development during the late 1950s. Their analyses and subsequent work demonstrate that, as a population moves through the demographic transition, not only does it grow in size but it also experiences a change in the relative shares of persons at various ages. These changes lead to a historical transformation of national population pyramids: gradually from a triangular to an hour-glass and ultimately to an increasingly rectangular shape. The young age structure (and triangular shape of the population pyramid) during the beginning and middle parts of the demographic transition occur because births are plentiful and infant mortality is controlled so that most babies survive the first years of life. In other words, not only does population size increase during the demographic transition but the growing population is also younger on average. In contrast, once a nation completes its demographic transition, lower fertility rates and increased longevity begin to result in population aging. Virtually every nation in the world has either begun, partially completed, or completed its demographic transition, so it is not surprising that the lower and more stable birth and death rates that occur during the mid- to late stages of the transition have led to global population aging today. What is particularly interesting, however, is that populations tend to age for different reasons in developed versus less developed countries. Samuel Preston and Andrew Stokes (2012) have used a comparative cohort approach to examine the relative contributions of changes in fertility and mortality rates on age structure over time, during and after the demographic transition. They have demonstrated that, in developed countries, improvements in adult survivorship from one cohort to another account for population aging. In contrast, aging in less developed countries is attributable to declines in the growth rate of births. This means that, in less developed countries, successive cohorts will be relatively smaller than their predecessors, hence reducing age dependency and, where appropriate policies are implemented, producing a “demographic dividend” (e.g., a relatively large share of working-age persons in relation to persons at younger or older ages where labor force participation is less likely). Hence, the combined declines in birth and death rates that occur in the mid- to latter part of the transition can produce an age structure that contains a relatively abundant supply of labor force–age adults compared with the share of persons either too young or too old to work. Since each nation moves through the demographic transition in its own way and at its own pace, the size and duration of the demographic dividend varies from country to country, though the average duration has been estimated to be about five decades or
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more (Lee and Mason 2006). Thus, the magnitude and duration of the “demographic bonus or dividend” is contingent on the manner in which populations proceed through their respective demographic transitions. In more developed nations, where populations are becoming older because of increased longevity in addition to near- or below-replacement fertility, aging is typically thought to contract the labor force, diminish the rate of economic growth (McNicoll 1986), and induce the need for additional services, social security, and other forms of assistance for older persons (Coale 1986; Preston 1984). Some scholars have referred to this as the “demographic deficit.” However, not all agree that extreme population aging is a social problem. Some economists propose that population aging in more developed countries can result in a “second demographic dividend” if saving and investment are incentivized during the working years and spent during retirement (Mason 2005). Moreover, social gerontologists have identified social benefits and services produced by older residents that can contribute significantly to local and regional development (Brown and Glasgow 2008). Hence, the development implications of changing age structures likely differ across countries, depending on the timing and nature of their demographic transitions, and contingent on social and economic institutions and policies that mediate the impacts of a changing balance of older and younger persons.
HOW AGE STRUCTURE AFFECTS DEVELOPMENT
Following Coale and Hoover’s lead, a number of prominent scholars have recently drawn interest in the possible implications of changing age structure for socioeconomic development, dubbing this “a new perspective on the economic consequences of population change” (Bloom, Canning, and Sevilla 2002; Lee and Mason 2006). Viewed historically, this perspective can be seen as the latest installment of a long debate on population and development, which can be divided roughly into a classic and a modern phase. The classic debate on population and development can be traced back to Thomas Robert Malthus, who examined the interactions between population growth, economic change, and social welfare in sixteenth-century Britain. He believed that population growth had the capacity to outstrip resources and continually plunge a population into poverty. Although Malthusian thinking continues to be influential (see, e.g., Brown and Hutchins 1972; Ehrlich 1968), scholars such as Ester Boserup and Julian Simon have rejected the “Malthusian dilemma” (Lee 1988). In fact, Boserup (1981) went so far as to contend that, rather than plunging populations into misery, population growth actually induced innovation, leading to higher standards of living. And Simon (1981) characterized population as the “ultimate resource,” contending that, as resources become more scarce, their prices rise, which creates an incentive for people to discover more of the resource, ration and recycle it and, eventually, develop substitutes. Regardless of their divergent conclusions, conventional thinkers on population and development share an almost singular focus on the impacts of changes in population size as a central
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determinant of poverty or well-being while neglecting the impacts of changes in population age structure that result from the interplay of fluctuations in fertility, mortality, and migration over time. Moving away from Malthusian arguments, contemporary social science has developed more nuanced explanations of the interplay among population change, resources, economic development, and social well-being. Space does not permit a deep review of this literature and its historical evolution, but we will identify a few influential trends that have turned the focus of analysis toward changes in age structure rather than simply focusing on the amount and rapidity of population growth (or decline). In the past half century, the debate has evolved into three main phases (Hodgson and Watkins 1997). The first, between the early 1960s and 1974, was still shaped by the Malthusian legacy because the rate of global population growth was reaching its height at that time and, along with slow economic growth, fueling concerns about the effects of population growth on national welfare. This debate remained largely reductionist in its selective emphasis of a few quantitative and aggregate outcomes. The focus on the population side was firmly on the rate of population growth. At the development end, it was on GNP, reflecting what Geoffrey McNicoll (1995, 307) termed the elision of equating economic growth with well-being. A second period, from 1974 to 1985, saw a rejection of neo-Malthusianism. At the 1974 World Population Conference in Bucharest, the international community firmly rejected the U.S. recommendation for programs aimed at rapid fertility reduction. Instead, they recommended “a mild developmentalist position that ensconce[d] birth control firmly within individual-rights rhetoric” (Hodgson and Watkins 1997, 473). It was also during this period that Simon (1981) published The Ultimate Resource, arguing that the long-term positive impacts of population growth on economic development were likely to be more important than the short-run negative effects. He also distinguished between direct and indirect effects, paving the way for future revisionist thinking (Ahlburg 1998). The third phase (1985–95) saw further erosion of neo-Malthusianism and the emergence of a feminist population policy as exemplified by the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo. This phase saw a shift from macro-level societywide concerns to a micro-focus on households and individuals (Cassen 1994). This new debate sought micro-level answers to old questions armed with evidence from increasingly available household surveys. Studies thus focused on the effects of high fertility on such household outcomes as child and maternal mortality, child nutrition and schooling, and gender roles (Cassen 1994; Desai 1995; Lloyd 1994). Population change, per se, had diminished as a publicly prominent social issue as a result of the post-Cairo shift to a human-rights rationale for population policy, the decline in global fertility rates, and the rise in AIDS mortality. Yet, in the wake of the U.N. Millennium Development agenda, more nuanced and focused questions arose in which the population/development debate was broadened at both ends. On the development side,
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the Millennium debate covered multiple development indicators, such as poverty, schooling, health, and gender equity. At the population end, the debate now expanded beyond total fertility or population growth to consider new aspects of fertility behavior, such as timing, socioeconomic distribution, or wantedness as well as AIDS mortality, overall mortality, and, importantly for this chapter, age dependency (Birdsall, Kelley, and Sinding 2001; Montgomery and Lloyd 1999). In particular, age structure and the related theory of a “demographic dividend” received special attention thanks to a series of influential papers around the turn of the century (Bloom, Canning, and Sevilla 2002). By 2007, in fact, the U.N. Commission on Population and Development had focused its fortieth session on the socioeconomic implications of changing age structure (United Nations 2007). Consistent with this emergent interest in age structure and the demographic dividend, we critically examine the supposed relationships between changing age structures and development in the balance of our chapter.
W H Y I S T H E D E M O G R A P H I C D I V I D E N D A N I M P O RTA N T I D E A ?
There are at least four main reasons why the demographic dividend has become an important hypothesis for development scholars. First and foremost, the dividend makes it possible to eschew the Malthusian “obsession” with rapid population growth, a perspective that is increasingly out of favor among researchers, policymakers, and the broader public. To be sure, changes in fertility rates contribute to changes in age structure as do changes in mortality rates and age-specific migration. In other words, the Malthusian perspective had the merit of integrating all three basic population processes and exploring their net effect on poverty or social well-being. Yet its gloomy and under-qualified predictions about the dire consequences of rapid population growth overstated the evidence and downplayed the importance of social policy and context. In contrast, the demographic dividend paints a more optimistic picture of the impact of population change on well-being. The general argument is that a window of opportunity opens up during the demographic transition when the number of working-age persons is relatively abundant compared with persons less likely to be economically active. Hence, development economists and economic demographers tend to emphasize the ways in which changing age structure can promote aggregate saving rates (Williamson and Higgins 2001), economic growth (Bloom and Canning 2001; Mason 2001), and increased per capita income (Bloom and Williamson 1998). Furthermore, the dividend argument and its temporary window of opportunity move away from linear perspectives on development, proposing instead a more contingent and opportunistic perspective. A second reason for interest in the demographic dividend is its intuitive appeal. The idea of dependency broadly matches popular intuition about the normative unfolding of the life course, from a phase of socialization and human capital formation to the adult age of production and to older ages of reduced economic activity. Dependency also builds on well-accepted expectations of resource transfers across generations, and similar
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expectations have been expressed in theories of wealth flows (Caldwell 2006) and models of national transfer accounts (Lee and Mason 2006). Third, and contrary to grand theories of development that are spatially and temporally invariant (Rostow 1960), the demographic dividend proposes a nuanced, spatially grounded, and time-bound argument about how changes in a nation’s age composition affect its development trajectory over both the short and the longer terms. Nations have a window of time during which the opportunity of a dividend materializes and can be seized. Related to this, and as a fourth advantage, the dividend is more empirically testable than grand development theories, in part because it is explicit about operative mechanisms, steps, and time lags. Research on age structure and the dividend can help to bypass the respective limitations of micro- and macro-level analyses of the effects of population on development. Macro-level investigations of aggregate population changes and their macroeconomic effects are useful in focusing attention on the national-level concerns that often animate global policymakers. Yet these analyses are less rigorous from a statistical standpoint, and they obscure differences and inequality across subpopulations within the same country. Micro-level studies are consistent with the individual and human rights rationale for population policy that emerged in the 1990s, and they can be more detailed and rigorous (Cassen 1994). Yet, as a downside, their findings do not directly inform national development debates, and they must be carefully scaled up since micro-level relationships can often differ from those found at the aggregate level (Robinson 1950). It is established, for instance, that a larger number of siblings might impede schooling, but a decline in national fertility will not necessarily improve schooling outcomes if the decline in fertility occurs predominantly among higher socioeconomic groups (Eloundou-Enyegue and Giroux 2012). Studies of age structure represent a middle ground where analyses can focus on the economic behavior of smaller subunits within national populations and understand broader economic change in terms of both the behavior and the relative size of these subunits (Mason 2005; Bloom, Canning, and Fink 2010). A focus on age structure also advances understanding of possible demographic dividends by clarifying the steps that move a country from changes in age structure to socioeconomic improvements.
C O N T E M P O R A RY R E S E A R C H O N T H E D E M O G R A P H I C D I V I D E N D
In light of global changes in age structure and the theoretical and practical salience of the demographic dividend, a number of studies are investigating these dividends across various world regions. By far the largest of these efforts is the national transfer accounts project, which collects data on age-specific income, consumption, and transfers for a wide range of countries as a way to understand both the magnitude and contextual conditions of the dividend (Mason 2013). The empirical strategy in this and other projects is to analyze socioeconomic transformations as a result of changes in age structure as well as
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in age-specific economic behavior. Reflecting Preston and Stokes’s (2012) distinction between the two principal sources of aging, and consistent with other authors (e.g., Mason 2005), it is useful to distinguish between the dividend (driven by declining fertility) and the social and economic implications of extreme population aging. The demographic dividend is most salient in contemporary developing nations in the early stages of their fertility transitions. In these countries, declines in fertility are expected to spur socioeconomic improvements through a sequence of influences that include changed age structure, reduced age dependency, better resource mobilization for saving and investments, and, finally, improved socioeconomic outcomes. Although the initial outcome of interest had been economic growth, this framework lends itself to investigating a variety of development indicators, including education, health, poverty, and inequality. Its explicit sequence also makes it easy to monitor how countries progress through the process of achieving their dividend as well as the contextual factors that facilitate or complicate the achievement of each step. For instance, the transition from declining fertility to changed age structure is expected to depend on the pace and irreversibility of the fertility decline as well as on concurrent changes in adult mortality. The next transition, from age structure to actual age dependency, depends on patterns of adult employment and child labor, for instance. The following transition, from reduced dependency to resource mobilization, depends on the country’s economic trends and budget priorities, including debt servicing. Finally, whether the mobilization of resources is translated into better socioeconomic outcomes depends on the effectiveness of sectoral policy to direct investments and returns. Using this framework, an analysis of Africa’s trends between 1990 and 2010 showed that the most important factor determining the achievement of a schooling dividend during that time period was the extent to which countries maintained the share of national budgets devoted to public education (Eloundou-Enyegue and Giroux 2013). However, recent research on the dividend suggests a possible divergence. Just as “a rising tide does not lift all boats,” the dividend from demographic transitions may not be shared evenly, especially in a context where fertility declines faster among higher socioeconomic groups (Eloundou-Enyegue and Giroux 2013; Shapiro and Tambashe 2002). In those situations, demographic transitions might exacerbate and reproduce educational and socioeconomic inequality from one time period to the next across social classes, especially if dividend-related gains in education among these higher socioeconomic groups feed back to promote lower fertility among the better off. The main approach currently used to estimate the dividend is the national transfer account methodology (Mason 2013). It builds on the expected differences of resource accumulation, consumption, and transfers between three age groups, notably the youth (0–14), adult (15–64), and older (65+) populations. In general, this pattern shows on a per capita basis that income generation outstrips consumption among the adult population, which makes it possible for this group to transfer resources to the other two. On an aggregate basis, the volume of these transfers and the growth of support to youth and
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older populations will thus heavily depend on national age structure and its historical changes. Empirical work on this question consists in collecting reliable information on age-specific patterns of income and consumption and estimating their implications for growth under different scenarios of population change (specifically changes in fertility and related changes in age structure). Using this approach, Mason shows how rates of economic growth, dependent support, and human capital investment in selected countries of Africa vary widely with fertility trends. For instance, in Ethiopia, the country expected to experience the most rapid fertility decline, the educational investment per capita reached by 2020–25 would grow by 32, 47, and 67 percent, respectively, under a high-, medium-, and low-fertility scenario. In contrast, for some other countries (such as Nigeria, South Africa, and Senegal), growth in educational investment is modest or even negative under the high-fertility scenario (Mason 2013). Although the national transfer account methodology assumes the effects of age structure to be largely mechanistic, there have been efforts to specify more interactive and dynamic models incorporating a larger number of influences. David Canning and his colleagues (2015), for example, have tested a model that incorporates, in addition to labor participation and savings, the influences of health and education and their differential implications across agriculture and manufacturing sectors. An alternative approach that has the merit of parsimony but is limited in its largely retrospective focus is the use of decomposition methods, whether these are applied to health (Saifuddin et al. 2013) or schooling (Eloundou-Enyegue and Giroux 2013). By and large, all these approaches suggest that impending reductions in age dependency in developing nations are expected to boost both economic growth and education. However, these effects vary widely depending on national budget policy, patterns of economic transfers, and changing consumption in response to declining fertility.
E X T R E M E P O P U L AT I O N A G I N G : A D E M O G R A P H I C T H R E AT O R A S E C O N D D I V I D E N D ?
Whereas the previous section focused on the positive economic development ramifications of the “demographic dividend,” other aspects of age structure—for example, having a relatively high percentage of older persons—may also affect development trajectories. According to the Population Action International classification, mature age structures have between 15 and 26 percent of their populations aged 60+, and this compares with about 8 percent aged 65+ worldwide (Population Reference Bureau 2012a). All countries with “mature populations” have completed their fertility and mortality transitions and are experiencing either slow population growth or decline. In 2007, there were forty-five countries with “mature age structures,” concentrated mostly in Europe, North America, Japan, and Oceania. The Population Action International classification of age structures is useful, but, like any classification scheme, its categories are not homogeneous. In this case, it is useful
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to distinguish between mature populations currently experiencing below-replacement fertility (about two-thirds of the category) and nations with mature age structures having at least slightly more births than needed to replace previous generations. In the first case, below-replacement fertility characterizes seven out of nine East European countries as well as Germany, Italy, numerous other European nations, and Japan. Mature populations with above-replacement fertility are found elsewhere in Europe as well as in North America2 and Australia. In addition, some countries with mature age structures and above-replacement fertility overall may have particular regions where deaths exceed births. In such regions, extreme aging is brought about by chronic net out-migration of people in the childbearing ages, which results in the loss of parents and their children as well as future parents and their children. Hence, natural decrease is a result of a distorted age structure, not a lower than average rate of childbearing among persons in the childbearing years. Regardless of the fertility rate of those left behind, such places lack a sufficient number of persons in the childbearing years to produce more births than deaths.3 Hence, even in a developed country with a relatively high rate of population growth, at least as compared with that of Europe, natural population decrease and extreme aging are wide ranging phenomena (Population Reference Bureau 2012a, 2012b).4 Natural population decrease, whether resulting from below-replacement fertility or chronic out-migration of younger persons, is thought to be a substantial brake on development, and it has resulted in significant angst across Europe where it has been characterized as “the demographic time bomb” (Haughton 1990).5 Among other things, it is thought to result in a shrinking labor supply, reduced levels of technological change, declining investment, and reduced consumption. In fact, natural decrease is often claimed as a justification for increased immigration of workers to substitute for the lack of labor force replacement generated by the indigenous population (Der Spiegel 2013). However, as Anne Green and David Owen (1995), Geoffrey McNicoll (1986), and others have demonstrated, these concerns are not necessarily warranted. Green and Owen find that, relative to changes in participation rates, the impact of an aging labor force is likely to be of diminishing significance. McNicoll is even more assertive. He contends that the adverse outcomes of an aging population are rather slight, and he observes that the consensus among economists is that “adjustments to an older labor force, altered factor prices, and shifts in consumer demand need not be economically damaging” (1986, 233). In contrast, he argues that serious, potentially adverse economic consequences of low fertility are chiefly found in distributional changes, not changes in labor force or aggregate demand. For example, a rise in the percentage of people aged 65+ puts a growing burden on public pension programs, which typically transfer income from working-age to older persons. Extreme aging may also slow social mobility among younger persons if older workers choose to work longer, hence occupying positions that would otherwise be open to younger workers. This situation has occurred recently in the United States, where the percentage of men aged 65–69 remaining in the workforce increased from
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28 percent in 1995 to 36 percent in 2010 (Shattuck 2010). Of course, it is difficult to determine if longer persistence in the workforce is attributable to population aging or to the recent Great Recession. Extreme aging poses many questions about intergenerational equity, especially with regard to decisions over public spending on age-graded services such as education, specialty medical care, and para-transit. However, as Mildred Warner and her colleagues (2010) have shown, population aging does not necessarily result in intergenerational competition; in fact, it can create new opportunities for coalitions and collaboration across generations. And such coalitions can mediate the inequities in intergenerational spending, even generating a second dividend. An example of a multigenerational strategy is found in Denver, where young professionals want to age in place as they have children and to unite generations over a common development agenda. Kids in Downtown Denver Organized (KIDDO) attempts to create intergenerational programs as well as advocate for more play areas and services for children downtown (Warner et al. 2010). Warner’s work shows that the impacts of extreme aging are not automatic or mechanistic. Rather, they are mediated by social structure and a nation’s (or region’s) public policy regime. In addition, scholars and policymakers now seem to recognize that, though population aging poses significant challenges at the national, regional, and local levels, especially with respect to service delivery, infrastructure, and income maintenance, an increasing share of older persons can also present opportunities. As David Brown and Nina Glasgow (2008) demonstrated, many older persons have a wealth of experience and knowledge, and, when retired, they have the time and often the inclination to provide communities with significant volunteer expertise and labor. Some people complain that this can undermine the demand for paid work, but most community leaders agree that older volunteers are valuable assets who contribute significantly to community development. Glasgow and her colleagues (2013) have also observed that older persons tend to be social entrepreneurs. In other words, rather than simply donating money to organizations or volunteering their time, older persons take leadership in the establishment and management of organizations that contribute to community development and betterment. As populations grow older throughout the world, it is important that older persons be viewed in a balanced way, as resources rather than simply as a care and pensions problem.
CONCLUSIONS: POLICY CHOICES TO MINIMIZE DEFICITS AND MAXIMIZE DIVIDENDS OF CHANGING AGE STRUCTURE
Recent contributions to the population/development debate have moved discussion beyond a narrow Malthusian discourse to a more nuanced, testable, and actionable discussion of how various aspects of population change might affect multiple dimensions of socioeconomic development. The thesis of a “demographic dividend” epitomizes this
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newer debate and its departure from classic Malthusian formulation. In contrast to draconian predictions about the impact of aggregate population growth on poverty and a one-directional negative influence on macroeconomic growth, the dividend hypothesis explores the effects of age structure on both growth and other aspects of socioeconomic development, including savings, education, health, inequality, and poverty. Beyond their attention to multiple aspects of economic development, some of the newer debates innovate by deploying a meso-level framework that strikes a balance between reductive macro-level structures and rigorous, but policy-unwieldy, micro-level linkages. In addition, contemporary research and discourse focus attention on reciprocal relationships, especially the feedback of economic transformations on further demographic change, and privilege the significance of context and social contingency on all these relationships. Since the development response to population change—including changes in age composition—is diverse, development within and between countries is often unequal. For all these reasons, changes in age structure, whether the “dividend” or extreme aging, should be understood as an opportunity or a challenge whose materialization depends on appropriate policy. Contingent on policy and context, rapid changes in population size and structure can spur either a “virtuous” cycle of improved well-being and stable vital rates or a “vicious” cycle of uneven fertility decline and economic divergence (Eloundou-Enyegue and Giroux 2013). Similarly, extreme aging can be seen as a “care and pensions” issue or as an opportunity for enhanced community and economic development. Given these alternatives, the challenge for research is to better understand the circumstances and policies that favor a “virtuous” rather than a “vicious” scenario. Some of the early insights emerging from recent literature on the demographic dividend, for example, indicate that these circumstances fall into three main categories: characteristics of the transitions themselves; characteristics of families and key primary development institutions; and features of the economic and policy environment (Eloundou-Enyegue and Giroux 2013). Demographic transitions must be swift, steady, and even, rather than protracted, stalled, and led by urban middle classes. Previous changes in age-specific fertility and mortality produce momentum for future growth or decline simply because of their influence on age composition, and this also affects the size and breadth of the dividend. The ability of birthrate transitions to produce a favorable dividend is contingent on “favorable” transitions in the family that augment the resources available to families and the share of those resources devoted to education, health, and investment, and on a responsive and flexible policy environment where policymakers can continually respond to the unique and changing opportunities and challenges posed by their specific pattern of demographic and economic transformation. This policy stewardship, and its close attention to contingencies associated with context and specific features of demographic transitions, is the hallmark of a post-modernization, post-Malthusian discourse on population and development.
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N OT E S
Our work on this chapter was supported by the Agricultural and Food Research Initiative Competitive Program of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), grant number 2011–68006–30793. Our work also contributes to USDA multistate research project W-3001 as administered by the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station NYC159825. 1. A new version of modernization theory has emerged since the end of the Cold War that responds to many of its earlier critics. Inglehart and Welzel (2009), for example, differentiate the “new modernization” from its predecessors in three ways: modernization is not linear; history matters in explaining social and cultural change; and industrialization-based modernization is not strictly constrained to the West. New modernization theorists contend that “the new concept of modernization sheds light on ongoing cultural changes, such as the rise of gender equality” (Inglehart and Welzel 2009, 34). Hence, modernization’s role in framing the examination of population/development interdependencies should not be discounted. 2. Although the United States has had below-replacement fertility since 2010, it usually has enough births to replace its parental generation. The U.S. total fertility rate is likely to rise as its economy recovers. The U.S. total fertility rate was 1.9 in 2012 and was estimated to be 2.06 in 2013, just slightly below replacement (Population Reference Bureau 2012a; U.S. Central Intelligence Agency 2013). 3. In 2012, 1,135 U.S. counties, 36 percent of the total, experienced more deaths than births. These counties were disproportionately rural and concentrated in the middle of the country, although they have spread more widely in recent years (Johnson 2013). 4. In 2012, the U.S. total fertility rate had fallen to 1,931 births per 1,000 women, as compared with 2,001 in 2009. This is one of the lowest rates in American history: it is lower than during the Great depression of the 1930s and is almost as low as during the oil crisis in the 1970s. In contrast, U.S. fertility was at or above replacement (2,100 per 1000 women) during most of the preceding two decades (Population Reference Bureau 2012a). 5. See also, e.g., Krause 2005.
REFERENCES
Ahlburg, Dennis A. 1998. “Julian Simon and the Population Growth Debate.” Population and Development Review 24, no. 2: 317–27. Birdsall, Nancy, Allen Kelley, and Steven Sinding, eds. 2001. Population Matters: Demographic Change, Economic Growth, and Poverty in the Developing World. New York: Oxford University Press. Bloom, David, and David Canning. 2001. “Cumulative Causality, Economic Growth, and the Demographic Transition.” In Population Matters: Demographic Change, Economic Growth, and Poverty in the Developing World, edited by Nancy Birdsall, Allen Kelley, and Steven Sinding, 165–200. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bloom, David, David Canning, and Gunther Fink. 2010. “Population Aging and Economic Growth.” In Globalization and Growth: Implications for a Post-Crisis World, edited by Michael Spence and Danny Leipziger, 297–328. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.
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Bloom, David, David Canning, and Jaypee Sevilla. 2002. The Demographic Dividend: A New Perspective on the Economic Consequences of Population Change. Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand Corporation. Bloom, David, and Jeffrey Williamson. 1998. “Demographic Transitions and Economic Miracles in Emerging Asia.” World Bank Economic Review 12, no. 3: 419–56. Bongaarts, John. 1978. “A Framework for Analyzing the Proximate Determinants of Fertility.” Population and Development Review 4, no. 1: 105–32. Boserup, Ester. 1981. Population and Economic Change: A Study of Long Term Trends. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Brown, David L., and Nina Glasgow. 2008. Rural Retirement Migration. Dordrecht: Springer. Brown, David L., and William Kandel. 2006. “Rural America through a Demographic Lens.” In Population Change and Rural Society, edited by William Kandel and David L. Brown, 3–23. Dordrecht: Springer. Brown, Harrison, and Edward Hutchins. 1972. Are Our Descendants Doomed? New York: Viking Press. Caldwell, John. 2006. Demographic Transition Theory. Dordrecht: Springer. Canning, David, Joshua Wilde, and Mahesh Karra. 2015. “A Macrosimulation Model of the Effect of Fertility on Economic Growth: Evidence from Nigeria.” Conference presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America, May, San Diego, Calif. Cassen, Robert, ed. 1994. Population and Development: Old Debates, New Conclusions. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers. Coale, Ansley. 1957. “How the Age Distribution of a Human Population Is Determined.” Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology 22: 83–89. . 1973. “The Demographic Transition.” In Proceedings of International Population Conference, edited by the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, 1: 53–71. Liege, Belgium: IUSSP. . 1986. “Demographic Effects of Below-Replacement Fertility and Their Social Implications.” Population and Development Review 12 (supplement): 203–16. Coale, Ansley, and Edgar Hoover. 1958. Population Growth and Economic Development in Low Income Countries. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Davis, Kingsley, and Judith Blake. 1955. “Social Structure and Fertility: An Analytic Framework.” Economic Development and Cultural Change 4: 11–35. Der Speigel. 2013. “Reversing Population Decline: Germany’s New Immigrant Influx.” Accessed Oct. 26, 2014. http://www.spiegel.de/international/reversing-population-decline-germanys-new-immigrant-influx-a-880038.html. Desai, Sonalde. 1995. “When Are Children from Large Families Disadvantaged? Evidence from Cross National Analyses.” Population Studies 49, no. 2: 195–210. Drake, Michael, ed. 1969. Population in Industrialization. London: Methuen. Easterlin, Richard. 1978. “The Economics and Sociology of Fertility: A Synthesis.” In Historical Studies of Changing Fertility, edited by Charles Tilly, 57–133. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Ehrlich, Paul. 1968. The Population Bomb. New York: Ballentine Books. Eloundou-Enyegue, Parfait M., and Sarah Giroux. 2012. “Fertility Transitions and Schooling: From Micro-Level to Macro-Level Associations.” Demography 49, no. 4: 1407–32.
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. 2013. “The Role of Fertility in Achieving Schooling MDGs: Evidence from SubSaharan Africa.” Journal of Children and Poverty 19, no. 1: 21–44. Glasgow, Nina, Hosik Min, and David L. Brown. 2013. “Volunteerism and Social Entrepreneurship among Older In-Migrants to Rural Areas.” In Rural Aging in 21st Century America, edited by Nina Glasgow and E. Hellen Berry, 231–50. Dordrecht: Springer. Green, Anne, and David Owen. 1995. “The Labour Market Aspects of Population Change in the 1990s.” In Europe’s Population: Towards the Next Century, edited by Richard Hall and Peter White, 51–68. London: University College London Press. Haughton, Graham. 1990. “Skills Shortage and the Demographic Time-Bomb: Labour Market Segmentation and the Geography of Labour.” Area 22: 339–45. Hodgson, Dennis, and Susan Cotts Watkins. 1997. “Feminists and neo-Malthusians: Past and Present Alliances.” Population and Development Review 23, no. 3: 469–523. Inglehart, Ronald, and Christian Welzel. 2009. “How Development Leads to Democracy: What We Know about Modernization.” Foreign Affairs (Mar./Apr.): 33–48. Johnson, Kenneth. 2013. “Deaths Exceed Births in Record Number of U.S. Counties.” Fact Sheet no. 25. Durham: University of New Hampshire, Carsey Institute. Krause, Elizabeth. 2005. A Crisis of Births: Population Politics and Family Making in Italy. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth. Leahy, Elizabeth. 2007. “The Shape of Things to Come: Why Age Structure Matters to a Safer, More Equitable World.” Washington, D.C.: Population Action International. Leahy, Elizabeth, Beatrice Daumerie, and Karen Hardy. 2010. “The Effects of Age Structure on Development.” Policy and Issue Brief. Washington, D.C.: Population Action International. Lee, Ronald. 1988. “Malthus and Boserup: A Dynamic Synthesis.” In The State of Population Theory, edited by David Coleman and Roger Schofield, 96–130. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Lee, Ronald, and Andrew Mason. 2006. “What Is the Demographic Dividend?” Finance and Development 43, no. 3: 1–5. Lloyd, Cynthia B. 1994. “Investing in the Next Generation: The Implications of High Fertility at the Level of the Family.” Working Paper 63. New York: The Population Council. Mason, Andrew. 2001. “Population and Economic Growth in Eastern and South-Eastern Asia.” In Population Change and Economic Development in East Asia: Challenges Met, Opportunities Seized, edited by Andrew Mason, 1–30. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. . 2005. “Demographic Transition and Demographic Dividends in Developed and Developing Countries.” Paper prepared for the United Nations. Accessed Feb. 21, 2013. http://www.un.org/esa/population/meetings/Proceedings_EGM_Mex_2005/mason.pdf. . 2013. National Transfer Accounts and the Demographic Dividend: An Overview. Seminar presentation, July. Washington D.C.: World Bank. McNicoll, Geoffrey. 1986. “Economic Growth with Below Replacement Fertility.” Population and Development Review 12 (supplement): 217–38. . 1995. “On Population Growth and Revisionism: Further Questions.” Population and Development Review 21, no. 2: 307–40. Montgomery, Mark R., and Cynthia B. Lloyd. 1999. “Excess Fertility, Unintended Births, and Children’s Schooling.” In Critical Perspectives on Schooling and Fertility in the Developing World, edited by Caroline Bledsoe, John B. Casterline, Jennifer A. Johnson-Kuhn, and John G Haaga, 216–66. Washington, D.C.: National Research Council.
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Population Reference Bureau. 2012a. “The Decline in US Fertility.” Fact Sheet. Washington, D.C.: PRB. . 2012b. 2012 World Population Data Sheet. Washington, D.C.: PRB. Preston, Samuel. 1984. “Children and the Elderly: Divergent Paths for America’s Dependents.” Demography 21, no. 4: 435–57. Preston, Samuel, and Andrew Stokes. 2012. “Sources of Population Aging in More and Less Developed Countries.” Population and Development Review 38, no. 2: 221–36. Robinson, Warren S. 1950. “Ecological Correlations and the Behavior of Individuals.” American Sociological Review 15, no. 3: 351–57. Rosenthal, Franz. 1967. The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Rostow, Walter. 1960. The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto. Cambridge, Engl.: Cambridge University Press. Saifuddin, Ahmed, Quingfeng Li, Liu Liu, and Amy O. Tsui. 2013. Decomposition of Change in Dependency Ratios from 1960 to 2010 in African Countries: The Contributions of Fertility and Mortality Declines and Health and Economic Implications. Seminar presentation, July. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. Shapiro, David, and Basile O. Tambashe. 2002. “Fertility Transition in Urban and Rural SubSaharan Africa: Preliminary Evidence of a Three-Stage Process.” Journal of African Policy Studies 8, nos. 2–3: 103–27. Shattuck, Anne. 2010. “Older Americans Working More, Retiring Less.” Issue Brief 16. Durham: University of New Hampshire, Carsey Institute. Simon, Julian. 1981. The Ultimate Resource. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. United Nations. 1953. The Determinants and Consequences of Population Trends. Population Studies no. 17. New York: United Nations. . 2007. Development Implications of Changing Age Structure in World Population Focus, As Commission on Population and Development Opens Headquarters Session. Accessed Feb. 18, 2013. http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId = 31986. U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. 2013. “The World Factbook.” Accessed Sept. 13, 2013. https:// www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2127.html. Weeks, John. 2012. Population. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth. Warner, Mildred, George Homsey, and Esther Greenhouse. 2010. “Multi-Generational Community Planning: Linking the Needs of Children and Older Adults.” Policy brief. Ithaca, N.Y.: Department of City and Regional Planning. www.binghamton.edu/public-administration /faculty-staff/Warner%20Homsy%20Greenhouse.pdf. Williamson, Jeffrey, and Matthew Higgins. 2001. “The Accumulation and Demography Connection in Eastern and South-Eastern Asia.” In Population Change and Economic Development in East Asia: Challenges Met, Opportunities Seized, edited by Andrew Mason, 123–54. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
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9 DEVELOPMENT, DEMOGRAPHIC PROCESSES, AND PUBLIC HEALTH Joshua Stroud, Philip Anglewicz, and Mark VanLandingham
Substantial previous work on the demographic transition, including chapters in this volume, have focused on the underlying causes of the profound shifts in population size and structure that have taken place over the past three centuries, transforming human society. An underlying theme in those discussions is that shifts in fertility and mortality have taken place both in fairly automatic ways as responses to structural changes in social organization and from changes in purposeful individual behavior—that is, from agency. Indeed, a central controversy within the field involves the extent to which these demographic shifts were because of the former versus the latter. Missing from those discussions is a major role for purposeful collective action. We argue in this chapter that an important but often neglected force underlying these transformations is the rise of public health campaigns that orchestrated organized efforts to decrease fertility and to mitigate important sources of premature mortality and morbidity. We explore how development, public health, and demography are intricately linked and mutually reinforcing, and we consider how public health campaigns have evolved since the advent of public health as a profession and the ways in which they have maintained a marked similarity to the early and effective efforts of more than a century ago. For example, we consider what water and sanitation projects in London at the end of the nineteenth century have to do with human migration and urbanization in Nairobi today, and what the public health response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014 has to do with tuberculosis in the United States in the early twentieth century. We explore these and other important questions about mortality and fertility as we describe the emergence
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of public health as a social movement and as an applied scientific discipline in the midst of these demographic transitions.
THE DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION
The scope of demographic change over the past century has been transformational. Life expectancy in the United States and Europe has increased by more than thirty years since 1900. Improvements in mortality were particularly pronounced among those aged 5 and younger (Arias 2012; Hoyert 2007; Mackenbach and Looman 2013). Alongside these declines in mortality, fertility has fallen as well. Fertility declined from over six children per couple just fifty years ago to below-replacement levels today in some countries (World Health Organization 2013). As a result of these sequential mortality and fertility transitions, the age structures of most populations look dramatically different than they did a century ago. In this chapter, we revisit the mortality and fertility transitions that are the focus of other chapters in this volume, and we add to the mix a third remarkable transition and a social movement that occurred alongside and interacted with the mortality and fertility transitions: the epidemiologic transition, which is the shift in the cause-of-death profile for a population, and the emergence of public health as a social movement. As we shall explain, public health played a principal role in all three of these interrelated transitions. Hypothesized causal relations between economic development and declines in mortality and fertility are controversial. Some demographers argue that economic development is not necessary to achieve declines in mortality and fertility. Instead, some propose that political and social will are the primary engines underlying mortality decline. For example, John Caldwell suggested that government investment to increase access to and utilization of education and health services is crucial for mortality declines, whereas income is of “surprisingly little importance” (1986, 179). Others concluded that the historical record suggests that the relationship between economic growth and human welfare is interdependent (see, e.g., Szreter 1997), and development is characterized by economic growth that cannot be sustained without “the mediation of the social and institutional forces promoted by the politics of public health” (Szreter 1997, 719). Similarly, additional research suggests that increases in income bear relatively little responsibility for increases in longevity and decreases in mortality, finding instead that educational attainment accounts for the majority of the mortality decline observed since 1870 in a panel of seventy countries (Murtin 2013). Education affects fertility as well: six years of primary education could decrease fertility by as much as 80 percent in the same panel (Murtin 2013). In summary, a principal and simple causal role for economic development in mortality decline—an idea still widely promulgated in the popular press—is not a consensus view among development scholars and demographers. Rather, such declines appear to result from interactions involving economic development and new movements in education and especially public health, mediated and administered by increasingly
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sophisticated bureaucracies at the behest of governing bodies responding to social will and scientific knowledge. As we shall explain, public health as a social movement spurred the development of public health both as a discipline and as an important function of government.
T H E M O RTA L I T Y T R A N S I T I O N
The mortality transition refers to the shift from high mortality to low mortality that has come to characterize nearly all populations over the past two and a half centuries. In 1945, Frank Notestein provided the first formal elucidation of demographic transition theory when he proposed that mortality decreased in the context of economic development. The underlying idea suggests that expanding markets provided a buffer against local crop failures that had proven catastrophic in the past. However, well before then, there was substantial evidence that the context of such declines in mortality were in fact varied. Adolphe Landry observed in 1934 that mortality declines could occur without significant population-wide improvements in socioeconomic status (Kirk 1996). More recently, Ansley Coale and Susan Watkins (1986) summarized the European Fertility Project’s research on declining fertility in Europe and found that mortality (and fertility) declined under a wide variety of socioeconomic contexts. Although economic development is often still given a place of primacy in explaining demographic transitions, the current experience of very poor countries as they begin to transition from high mortality regimes to lower ones continues to belie this early generalization. One feature of this variability likely has to do with individual decisionmaking (i.e., agency). For instance, in the face of a raging cholera epidemic in nineteenth-century London, a factory worker might well choose to ride it out with relatives in the less-affected rural countryside. But, as we argue below, the collective purposeful decisionmaking that led to a nascent public health movement seems also to have played an important role in reducing mortality. This occurred first within the richer countries during the latter parts of their mortality decline during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and throughout the duration of the mortality decline within the poorer countries later in the twentieth century.
T H E F E RT I L I T Y T R A N S I T I O N
Coale and Watkins’s summary of the European Fertility Project provided substantial evidence that fertility declined across settings that varied considerably in social and economic status and that pre-modern contraception methods of fertility control were widespread, demonstrating an important role for purposeful individual action (Andorka 1986; Tilley 1986). Multiple frameworks and conceptual models have attempted to describe the fertility transition, some giving more weight to cultural factors, others giving more weight to economic factors, and still others highlighting the importance of increasing agency, especially among women. Increasing education for women is cited as evidence by all,
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and the empirical evidence supporting the important role of education in fertility decline is clear. Education is considered to be a primary driver of the European demographic transition, in large part because of its association with lower fertility (Murtin 2013). Discerning the mechanisms is more challenging. Female education can reduce childbearing by delaying marriage and thus reducing exposure to pregnancy during a woman’s most fertile period. Education can also shift the center of gravity in decisionmaking by increasing women’s agency, changing social norms, and providing women with skills for employment outside the home. The opportunity costs of childbearing increase considerably when household income loss is a consequence of having children. Education can induce changes in parental family size preference, access to contraception, and attitudes and beliefs about procreation and contraception, changes that may all foster lower fertility rates.1
THE EPIDEMIOLOGICAL TRANSITION
Abdel Omran (1971) first put forth the contention that underlying causes of mortality change as mortality shifts from high to low. Omran’s theory of epidemiologic transition consisted of five propositions that, taken together, described an overall shift in the causeof-death regime from principally infectious disease to principally chronic illness as populations develop economically and age. Notably, he showed how socioeconomic factors, modernization, and anthropogenic illness influenced shifts in morbidity and mortality. Since Omran’s original iteration of the theory, others have suggested that the theory of the epidemiological transition operates best as a model for understanding how population dynamics, mortality, and disease interrelate rather than as a predictive or explanatory model (McKeown 2009).
I N T E R A C T I O N S A M O N G F E RT I L I T Y, M O RTA L I T Y, AND SOCIOECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Declines in mortality and fertility can also leverage substantial changes in the pace of socioeconomic development by making possible a shift in how societies allocate societal resources, including those resources made newly available by socioeconomic development. Education may be a principal determinant of fertility decline, but widespread education is not possible without the wealth, efficiencies, and bureaucracies that accompany economic development. As societies are able to afford mass education and child labor is deemed less necessary, children’s school enrollment rates increase, marriage is delayed, and fertility rates decline. However, education is not an automatic consequence of economic development. A society must value education and prioritize it over alternative expenditures. Similarly for public health, the emergence of such a movement required not only a minimum threshold of economic development to make such an endeavor feasible but also purposeful collective action that was mission-driven.
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THE MISSING PIECE: THE EMERGENCE OF PUBLIC H E A LT H A S A D I S C I P L I N E
Often overlooked by both development and population scholars is that transformational improvements in public health drove—and were driven by—these economic and demographic transformations. Public health as a profession and as a function of government did not emerge automatically as a natural consequence of economic development. At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the wealthier classes in the United States and Europe were not inclined to be particularly concerned with the plight of those who labored for them, and the laboring classes had little or no leverage to demand conditions that would improve health and well-being (Shryock 1937). Public consciousness about the living and working conditions of the working class began to change as England enacted its Poor Laws in 1834, which, though heavy-handed, were an early effort to decrease illness among the poor (Krieger 1998). By the 1840s, conditions for the poor and working classes began to improve more rapidly with the publication of influential reports and campaigns to remedy these conditions. Louis-René Villermé published the first report on the condition of French workers in 1840, Edwin Chadwick began crusading for clean water and for public sanitary measures in 1842, Friedrich Engels highlighted the plight of workers in England and called for collective action to demand humane conditions in 1844, and in 1849 John Snow published his landmark discovery that cholera outbreaks in London were due to poor sanitation and the living conditions of the poor (see Birn, Pillay, and Holtz 2009; Krieger 1998; Shryock 1937). As a result, workers rioted across Europe in 1848, and Sikhs revolted against the British East India Company in 1848 and 1849. These revolts did not provoke any revolutionary changes, but they did facilitate the emergence of a perceived relationship between politics and public health, and Rudolf Virchow cemented this perception by writing in 1848 that democracy was necessary to prevent typhus outbreaks (Birn, Pillay, and Holtz 2009). A modern form of public health emerged as workers, owners, reformers, suffragists, scientists, politicians, prohibitionists, doctors, and bureaucrats began to focus their collective attention on a related set of issues: who was responsible for the health of the public; who should provide public health services; who should benefit from them; and who best understood the complex determinants of health. As a direct result of this initial focus, a wide variety of national and international committees, conventions, and associations were started, abandoned, or strengthened throughout the latter half of the 1800s and the early 1900s.2 The discipline and practice of public health evolved alongside economic development and modernization, demographic transitions that led to massive international migration, and biomedical advances. But public health developed in response to the social movements that emerged in the nineteenth century to address the lot of working people. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the new discipline had emerged both as a perspective and as an approach. As a perspective, the discipline of public health began by focusing on the determinants of morbidity, mortality, and general well-being or health. The study of epide-
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miology and demography are examples of the sort of research that informed this perspective. As an approach, the discipline of public health promotes initiatives that benefit the health of broad classes of people, often employing the resources and authority of government and other institutions. Modern family planning programs, vaccination campaigns, and antismoking legislation are examples of practical approaches to public health challenges identified by epidemiologists and demographers. But, during its early years, public health concerned itself with a much narrower range of activities. Containing the primary infectious disease killers, especially among the large numbers of new arrivals to America around a century ago, was its early focus. Quarantine and sanitation were principal tools. In the United States, these efforts were often conceived in new schools of public health that were being formed at the time (Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine was the first school of public health established in the United States, in malariaprone New Orleans in 1912)3 and planned and carried out by new bureaucracies such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.4 By the mid-twentieth century, in part beause of the expanding field of demography, public health began to look beyond infectious disease control as the discipline came to view entire populations as units of study (Duffy and Behm 1964). Today, public health embraces a broad range of issues, such as occupational and environmental health, reproductive health, mental health, food safety, water and sewage sanitation, and health systems effectiveness and efficiency as well as socioeconomic, gender, and racial disparities in health outcomes.
I M P R O V E M E N T S — A N D D I S PA R I T I E S — I N P U B L I C H E A LT H
As noted above, the past two centuries have witnessed profound improvements in longevity. However, variations in these improvements are also profound. Currently, life expectancy ranges from an average of 60 in low-income countries to an average of 80 in highincome countries (World Health Organization 2013). More worrisome, the previous brisk pace of improvement has slowed in many low-income countries. Intimately related to the stalled mortality transition in many poorer countries is the stalled epidemiological transition. Low-income countries are struggling to keep pace with the change in the causes of mortality that has been observed in the high- and middle-income countries, and they will find it increasingly difficult to catch up. In 2008, deaths due to communicable disease constituted 42 percent of all mortality in low-income countries but only 7 percent of all mortality in high-income countries; 50 percent of mortality in low-income countries resulted from noncommunicable illness whereas 84 percent of mortality in high-income countries came from noncommunicable illness (Figure 9.1). Discrepancies are also stark for children under age 5. Under-5 mortality fell globally by 20.5 percent between 2000 and 2010, but the biggest decrease was observed in uppermiddle-income countries (47.5 percent) whereas low-income countries saw a decrease in under-5 mortality of only 13.3 percent (World Health Organization 2013).5 Does economic development or advancing medical technology explain these contrasts?
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8%
8%
9%
10%
9%
50% 65%
68% 75%
Injuries
84%
Non-communicable Communicable
42% 26%
24% 15% 7% Low income
Lower middle income
Upper middle income
High income
World
FIGURE 9.1. Mortality Cause by Country Income Level, 2008. Source: Data from World Health Organization 2013.
Thomas McKeown and R. G. Brown (1955) proposed that mortality declines and population increases are due to nutritional improvements resulting from economic gains and better social conditions. Although such a thesis is appealingly clear, simple, and policyrelevant (investment in the economy is the best way to improve life expectancy), the historical record is much murkier. The proposed causal role for economic development is undermined by the fact that declining mortality can have a beneficial effect on economic output. Secular declines in morbidity and functioning usually accompany declines in mortality, and this delayed senescence results in a more economically productive population. A one-year increase in a population’s life expectancy can produce a 4 percent increase in output beyond what could be accounted for by the increased experience of older workers alone (Bloom, Canning, and Sevilla 2004). Some of McKeown and Brown’s hypotheses have been partially supported: for example, recent work has shown that economic growth can indeed stimulate the demographic transition, even if it cannot account for much of the total effect of the transition (Murtin 2013). But, in the aggregate, recent scholarship has not validated a straightforward causal role of economic development in improving nutrition and, as a result, reducing mortality as McKeown and Brown proposed. In addition to this better-understood but diminished role for economic development in mortality decline, similarly simplistic and popular theories linking improved longevity
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to medical advances have also fared poorly under careful scrutiny. By some accounts, biomedical advances in pharmaceuticals and prophylactic treatment accounted for only 3.5 percent of mortality declines in the United States from 1900 to 1973 (McKinlay and McKinlay 1977). But it is our contention that distinct—and less well studied—advances in public health played a very important role in the demographic and epidemiological transitions. We also contend that these public health advances were not independent from their much better studied medical and economic counterparts. Prior to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, massive public health interventions would have been neither technically nor bureaucratically possible. The major technological advances in engineering that drove economic development (such as steam and gasoline engines, mass production of steel, and implementation of assembly lines) and the resultant ability to administer public engineering projects on large scales laid the foundation for the subsequent investments in public health. Moreover, the political and bureaucratic structure required for enabling and regulating rapid industrialization provided the structure necessary for large-scale public health interventions, such as city-wide water and sanitation systems, quarantine protocols for preventing the spread of tuberculosis among new immigrants into the United States, and the massive malaria eradication campaigns in the southern United States. As an example, until the early decades of the twentieth century, much of what is now the city of New Orleans was covered by malariainfested swamps. In the late 1800s, in response to concerns over sanitation and housing shortages, the city of New Orleans appointed a committee to engineer a drainage solution. These early efforts, though not lacking political will, were only partially successful because pumps sufficient for such a task had yet to be developed (Colten 2002). However, in the wake of the rise of industrialization in the United States, a new type of pump adequate for such an ambitious project was developed in 1917 (Gilmore 1944). The new technological development of massive pumping engines along with the bureaucratic and administrative weight of a city’s government made feasible the effort to drain the swamps, rid the area of malaria, and make possible the expansion of the city. Although economic development was necessary (if not sufficient) for the emergence of public health as a movement, perspective, and approach, it is not essential for its continuation. Many public health campaigns are based on the adaptation of proven practical and often very simple interventions to new settings (Birn, Pillay, and Holtz 2009). One example is family planning, which has been a central obsession of public health since the 1960s; decades of assessment have shown the importance of such programs for fertility decline (Mauldin, Berelson, and Sykes 1978). Research and development remain important, but much of the future success of family planning programs will depend on the successful provision and management of existing technologies. Family planning methods and technologies are now diffused throughout the world, regardless of development status. Likewise, simple and practical public health programs that focus on childhood survival (e.g., vaccination programs) have contributed not only to mortality decline but also to fertility decline because such programs increase parents’
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confidence that their children will survive to adulthood (Brauner-Otto, Axinn, and Ghimire 2007).
I M P R O V E M E N T S I N P U B L I C H E A LT H FA C I L I TAT E T H E M O RTA L I T Y A N D E P I D E M I O L O G I C A L T R A N S I T I O N S
In this section, we highlight three areas in which public health has played a major role in facilitating the mortality transition and paved the way for the epidemiological transition: water and sanitation; tuberculosis; and malaria.
WAT E R A N D S A N I TAT I O N
By the mid- to late 1800s, most large U.S. cities had municipal water systems. However, these systems simply delivered untreated water to homes and businesses, and they often transported untreated wastewater back to the source. Rates of water-borne infectious morbidity and mortality were very high and led to the so-called “urban penalty,” a term first coined to describe the increased mortality rates of urban dwellers in England during the 1800s (U.N. Centre for Human Settlements 2001). With John Snow’s discovery in the 1850s that contaminated water at a community pump was responsible for a massive cholera outbreak and with the emergence of bacteriology in the 1880s, public health officials began advocating for the adoption of water sanitation technologies for municipal water systems. As cities developed water sanitation infrastructure, the declines in mortality were marked. Water sanitation technologies reduced mortality in major U.S. cities by 13 percent from 1900 to 1936 (Cutler and Miller 2005). This accounted for more than 40 percent of the total mortality reduction during that time, almost all of which was due to decreases in infectious illness. During the same period, infant and child mortality fell dramatically; water sanitation technologies accounted for close to three-quarters of the infant mortality decline and nearly two-thirds of the child mortality decline (Cutler and Miller 2005). Similarly, large mortality declines in French cities were observed after those cities adopted water sanitation technologies (Preston and van de Walle 1978). Declines in infectious disease–related mortality began to erase the urban penalty. In 1900–1902, the life expectancy of rural men was ten years longer than their urban counterparts (Klein 2004). By 1940, differences in life expectancy between rural and urban areas had disappeared (Haines 2001). The water and sanitation projects in nineteenth-century London, enacted in response to a rising public concern over the living conditions in London’s slums, offer a model for a public health response to the slums in Africa, where more than 70 percent of the population lives in slums in some cities (UN-HABITAT 2003b). Though not obvious at first glance, the similarities between nineteenth-century London and twenty-first-century Nairobi, for example, are evident in the ways that their slums developed and in the living conditions that their slums’ inhabitants endured (and, in Nairobi, continue to endure). In both cases, slums developed as low-skilled workers flocked to the urban centers in
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search of employment. Housing was in short supply, and unscrupulous landlords and developers offered low-quality, cramped, poorly ventilated, and dangerous shelter. Increasing affluence in London played a role in shrinking its slums, but in every case where slums have been eliminated or substantially reduced it has been the result of social will in the form of some combination of government intervention, new societal concerns about protecting the poor, active civic participation by the poor, and access to markets that had previously been unavailable to the poor (UN-HABITAT 2003a). As Nairobi today echoes nineteenth-century London and low-skilled workers flock to the city from Kenya’s rural areas, the rates of disease transmission are high, life expectancies are low, and water and sanitation are limited and of poor quality. The combination of technical innovation and social will that worked to end London’s slums does not need to be reinvented for Nairobi, and it does not require individual affluence. In London, reformers successfully brought social pressure to bear on the government and were successful in improving the living conditions and health of the poor without increasing individual incomes, although incomes did increase in the aftermath of these improvements. The hope is that cities like Nairobi with large slum populations can benefit from London’s hard-learned lessons and improve the lives and health of the poor without having to develop new technologies or new resources.
TUBERCULOSIS
Public health has also played a central role in the reduction of tuberculosis-mediated mortality. Active tuberculosis incidence in a population is high where there is overcrowding, poor nutrition, harmful working conditions, and low income (Hargreaves et al. 2011). The U.S. immigrant population of the early nineteenth century, therefore, was at very high risk of active tuberculosis. Underlying rates of (mostly latent) tuberculosis were high in Europe and the United States at that time (between 70 and 90 percent at the end of the nineteenth century), providing ample underlying prevalence to fuel outbreaks of active infections among poorly nourished immigrants living in cramped, poorly ventilated housing (Harvard University Library Open Collections Program 2014). As nascent epidemiologists began to focus more on the populations that contracted particular illnesses at higher rates than other populations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, tuberculosis control efforts focused on the quarantine of infected individuals. Public health leaders also began to advocate for improved living conditions for the poor, who contracted the illness at disproportionately high rates (Gandy and Zumla 2002). These public health interventions appear to be primarily responsible for the more than 75 percent decline in tuberculosis-related deaths in the United States between 1900 and 1940—which is before antibiotic therapy for tuberculosis had been developed (Centers for Disease Control 1999). In a similar way, the public health response to the Ebola crisis in West Africa that began in 2014 was shackled by the lack of a medical solution. Although work to develop
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a vaccination has been under way, the only medical option for Ebola was supportive clinical care. Efforts to curb the outbreak centered on identification and isolation of infected individuals (World Health Organization 2014). Public awareness campaigns and the mobilization of local groups to identify the infected have appeared to stem the tide of the crisis (World Health Organization 2015). Of course, it is too soon to tell if these efforts were entirely successful, but these methods have led to positive results over the past century in many settings, particularly when medical solutions have not been available.
MALARIA
In the Tennessee River Valley, malaria affected nearly a third of the population in the early 1900s (Centers for Disease Control 2012). Yet malaria was nearly eradicated from the area by 1947, fewer than fifteen years after the Tennessee Valley Authority was created to harness the hydroelectric power of the Tennessee River and to improve the land and waterways for economic development (Centers for Disease Control 2012). The inclusion of insecticide use and engineering solutions to reduce mosquito breeding grounds was responsible for essentially eradicating endemic malaria in the area (and in the entire United States several years later). This is a useful illustration of Simon Szreter’s (1997) contention that public health interventions and economic development are interdependent. This public health approach to malaria control in the Tennessee Valley and throughout the Deep South is a rare success story in an ongoing fight against a disease that has long stymied medical intervention. Modern treatment of malaria symptoms saves lives, too. But the lion’s share of mortality improvement is the result of approaches that are more accurately described as public health.
P U B L I C H E A LT H I M P R O V E M E N T S , E C O N O M I C D E V E L O P M E N T, AND THE EPIDEMIOLOGICAL TRANSITION
The epidemiological transition as a model for approaching interrelated processes provides insight into how the dramatic reductions in mortality and morbidity have been positive for economic development and productivity. Healthy labor forces are more productive, have fewer days of work missed due to illness, and are able to handle more physically demanding tasks. In addition, parents miss less work to care for ill children. Likewise, we see how economic development has been positive for health: it has enabled public health improvements that facilitated the epidemiological transition. In the United States, nineteenth-century industrialization created the wealth needed to fund massive public works projects like the creation and then sanitation of municipal water systems and the development of the Tennessee River Valley. The synergistic health and economic returns on these types of investment are illustrated by an increase in life expectancy by 44 percent between 1900 and 1950 and a disappearance of the urban penalty during that same period (National Center for Health Statistics 2011).
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At the same time that mortality and development were changing one another, populations began moving from rural to urban areas. Cities became centers of innovation, productivity, economic output, and public health innovation. Urbanization increased the efficiencies of delivering population-based health interventions like vaccination campaigns or treated water and sewage. The shift of centers of population from rural areas to cities occurred in the industrialized world during the Industrial Revolution, but this shift is now taking place nearly everywhere else. Edward Glaeser’s book The Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier (2011) chronicles this most recent global demographic shift of rapid rural-tourban migration and global urbanization. He argues that the concentration of resources and populations in cities increases human intelligence, attracts talent, enhances innovation, intensifies human capital, creates wealth, and generates efficiencies. Given these features of urban life, it is no accident that the birthing of public health as a discipline took place in the great cities of the Industrial Revolution, such as London, New Orleans, and New York City.
THE COMPLEX CONSEQUENCES OF THE DEMOGRAPHIC T R A N S I T I O N F O R P U B L I C H E A LT H
Ultimately, the effects of the demographic transition are mixed for public health as populations age, become more urban, and experience more nonchronic illness but less infectious illness. Older populations are frailer than younger ones and require increasingly costly medical care. Populations that experience increased mobility (whether because of increased incomes and opportunities, economic necessity, or war and violence) are at increased risk for new or reemerging infectious illnesses. The erasure of the urban penalty has led to urban population concentrations that have made possible denser sexual networks, increased crime, and social alienation. As a result, public health resources are stretched in more directions than ever to address an ever-widening array of demands. However, the demographic transition has led to numerous positive benefits as well. Higher survivorship among family members has benefits for the overall family unit both in terms of maintaining consistent household income and in ensuring that children receive adequate nutrition and education throughout the important early development years. Children born as mortality—and then fertility—begins to decline constitute a “dividend” generation who work their way through the age structure of the population during a period when previous—or older—cohorts are smaller (due to previously high mortality) and subsequent—or younger—cohorts shrink in size (due to the onset of low fertility). As seen in David Brown and Parfait Eloundou-Enyegue’s chapter in this volume, this generation is larger than the generations that precede and follow it, and it becomes a labor force with relatively fewer older and younger dependents. In the right circumstances, this dividend generation can increase per capita income and personal wealth due to the relative decline in both young and old dependents in the
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population, providing tax revenues and increasing human capital for further economic development. Moreover, increased urbanization has provided opportunities for personal enrichment and happiness not available in rural settings as well as opportunities for innovation, collaboration, and wealth creation. These demographic and epidemiological transitions provide large and unique opportunities to invest in the long-term public health of the transitioning population, especially during the period of the demographic dividend. Societies can invest in health infrastructure, research and development, and educational campaigns, all of which can have long-lasting positive effects for public health.
L O O K I N G F O RWA R D
An important accommodation of epidemiological transition theory to the recent historical record is that we cannot assume unilateral and steady improvement in mortality over time. A wide range of unpredictable factors can—and do—lead to setbacks. A prominent example is the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which reversed gains in life expectancy for much of sub-Saharan Africa and slowed them elsewhere. Other examples are the dire future implications of expanding obesity epidemics in both developed and developing countries, which, under some projections, could slow increases in life expectancy (Olshansky et al. 2005). Along with these threats, public health researchers and practitioners must also anticipate the effects of continued urbanization, continuing low fertility and low mortality, and continued high mobility for population health. Continued very low fertility and low mortality (i.e., high life expectancy) will also likely have mixed effects on economic development and public health. These trends may possess positive benefits if the experience of healthy older adults can be tapped for economic productivity and if fertility declines are not too swift or dramatic. However, living longer may not necessarily mean living healthier. Evidence suggests that increased longevity has been accompanied by declines in functional limitations at older ages (Crimmins 2004; Crimmins et al. 2005). These trends toward lower fertility and higher life expectancy have the potential to challenge economies, making investment in public health and other social programs geared toward social well-being more difficult. Continued urbanization will likely have mixed effects on economic development and public health. Positive effects may come from innovation in public health research and improved public health delivery as resources are concentrated and efficiencies of scale for implementation are achieved. However, concentrated urban populations are vulnerable to terrorist attack, the spread of new epidemics, and higher rates of crime. In the poorest urban sites, where those who dwell in slums can represent well over half of the urban population, these threats are magnified and combined with dangerous conditions such as a lack of modern water and sanitation systems, potential for devastating fires, and widespread poverty.
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Finally, very high mobility will also likely have mixed effects on economic development and public health. High mobility puts human populations at risk of facilitating and spreading new forms of highly lethal infectious diseases. Ebola, SARS, bird flu, and swine flu have all made frequent appearances in the news over the past decade as epidemiologists have scrambled to identify and trace new strains and paths of disease that have the potential for catastrophic morbidity and mortality in a mobile world. The AIDS pandemic would not have been possible during an earlier era of sparsely settled and immobile rural populations. Although deadly new forms of infectious disease have devastated local human populations since we emerged as a species, it is only after the emergence of dense, mobile, and interconnected patterns of settlement that such new diseases have the potential to inflict such widespread consequences. However, it may be that increased mobility could have positive effects by facilitating the exploitation of opportunities for improved well-being among investors and workers willing to take risks. The interplay among these new and still-emerging patterns of economic organization, demographic structure, and human settlement will have profound implications for the public health and well-being of future populations. N OT E S
1. However, the conceptualization of education as a form of purposeful collective action (i.e., as a social movement) has received little attention among demographers with regard to its influence on lowering fertility. 2. The American Medical Association (AMA) was founded in 1847. Britain’s General Board of Health was established in 1848. The American Statistical Association was founded in 1849 to support the AMA’s effort to measure conditions in urban areas. The London Epidemiological Society was founded in 1850. Various national sanitary conventions were held in the late 1850s, and the U.S. Sanitary Commission was legislated into being in 1861 to support U.S. Army soldiers during the Civil War. State Boards of Health began to be established in the second half of the 1800s. The American Public Health Association was founded in 1872, and the World Health Organization was founded in 1948. 3. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine was established in 1899. 4. The U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was established in 1953 and officially became the Department of Health and Human Services in 1980. Its forerunner had been established in 1798 when a network of hospitals was developed to care for ill or disabled seamen. However, the role of the federal government in promoting health initiatives on a large scale began expanding at about the same time that the first schools of public health were opening their doors. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, quarantine duties were shifted to the federal government from states, the U.S. Public Health Service was established, and the lab that eventually developed into the National Institutes of Health was founded (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2006). 5. Declines were modest in high-income countries as well, but this is to be expected since child mortality was already low there.
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REFERENCES
Andorka, Rudolf. 1986. “The Decline of Fertility in Europe: Review Symposium.” Population and Development Review 12, no. 2: 329–34. Arias, Elizabeth. 2012. “United States Life Tables, 2008.” National Vital Statistics Reports 61, no. 3: 1–63. Birn, Anne-Emanuelle, Yogan Pillay, and Timothy Holtz. 2009. Textbook of International Health: Global Health in a Dynamic World. New York: Oxford University Press. Bloom, David, David Canning, and Jaypee Sevilla. 2004. “The Effect of Health on Economic Growth: A Production Function Approach.” World Development 32, no. 1: 1–13. Brauner-Otto, Sarah, William Axinn, and Dirgha Ghimire. 2007. “The Spread of Health Services and Fertility Transition.” Demography 44, no. 4: 747–70. Caldwell, John. 1986. “Routes to Low Mortality in Poor Countries.” Population and Development Review 12, no. 2: 171–220. Centers for Disease Control. 1999. “Achievements in Public Health, 1900–1999: Control of Infectious Diseases.” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 48, no. 29: 621–29. . 2012. The History of Malaria, an Ancient Disease. Accessed Oct. 15, 2014. http://www .cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/. Coale, Ansley J., and Susan Cotts Watkins, eds. 1986. The Decline of Fertility in Europe. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Colten, Craig. 2002. “Basin Street Blues: Drainage and Environmental Equity in New Orleans, 1890–1930.” Journal of Historical Geography 28, no. 2: 237–57. Crimmins, Eileen. 2004. “Trends in the Health of the Elderly.” Annual Review of Public Health 25: 79–98. Crimmins, Eileen, Sandra Reynolds, Melanie Johnston, Arun Karlamangla, and Teresa Seeman. 2005. “Changes in Biological Markers of Health: Older Americans in the 1990s.” Journal of Gerontology, Biological Sciences, and Medical Sciences 60: 1409–13. Cutler, David, and Grant Miller. 2005. “The Role of Public Health Improvements in Health Advances: The Twentieth Century United States.” Demography 42, no. 1: 1–22. Duffy, Benedict, and Hans Behm. 1964. “Demography and Public Health.” The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly 42, no. 2: 276–86. Gandy, Matthew, and Alimuddin Zumla. 2002. “The Resurgence of Disease: Social and Historical Perspectives on the ‘New’ Tuberculosis.” Social Science and Medicine 55, no. 3: 385–96. Gilmore, Harlan. 1944. “The Old New Orleans and the New: A Case for Ecology.” American Sociological Review 9, no. 4: 385–94. Glaeser, Edward. 2011. The Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier. New York: Penguin Press. Haines, Michael. 2001. “The Urban Mortality Transition in the United States 1800–1940.” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series on Historical Factors in Long Run Growth, Historical Paper 134. Accessed Oct. 27, 2015. http://www.nber.org/papers /h0134.pdf?new_window = 1. Hargreaves, James, Delia Boccia, Carlton Evans, Michelle Adato, Mark Petticrew, and John Porter. 2011. “The Social Determinants of Tuberculosis: From Evidence to Action.” American Journal of Public Health 101, no. 4: 654–62.
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Harvard University Library Open Collections Program. 2014. “Contagion: Tuberculosis in Europe and North America, 1800–1922.” Accessed Oct. 15, 2014. http://ocp.hul.harvard .edu/contagion/tuberculosis.html. Hoyert, Donna. 2007. “Maternal Mortality and Related Concepts: National Center for Health Statistics.” Vital and Health Statistics 3, no. 33: 1–13. Kirk, Dudley. 1996. “Demographic Transition Theory.” Population Studies 50: 361–87. Klein, Herbert. 2004. A Population History of the United States. New York: Cambridge University Press. Krieger, Nancy. 1998. “A Vision of Social Justice as the Foundation of Public Health: Commemorating 150 Years of the Spirit of 1848.” American Journal of Public Health 88, no. 11: 1603–06. Mackenbach, Johan, and Caspar Looman. 2013. “Life Expectancy and National Income in Europe, 1900–2008: An Update of Preston’s Analysis.” International Journal of Epidemiology 42: 1100–10. Mauldin, William, Bernard Berelson, and Zenas Sykes. 1978. “Conditions of Fertility Decline in Developing Ccountries, 1965–75.” Studies in Family Planning 9, no. 5: 89–147. McKeown, Robert. 2009. “The Epidemiologic Transition: Changing Patterns of Mortality and Population Dynamics.” American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine 3: 19S–26S. McKeown, Thomas, and R. G. Brown. 1955. “Medical Evidence Related to English Population Changes in the Eighteenth Century.” Population Studies 9, no. 2: 119–41. McKinlay, John, and Sonja McKinlay. 1977. “The Questionable Contribution of Medical Measures to the Decline of Mortality in the United States in the Twentieth Century.” The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly 55, no. 3: 405–28. Murtin, Fabrice. 2013. “Long-Term Determinants of the Demographic Transition, 1870– 2000.” Review of Economics and Statistics 95, no. 2: 617–31. National Center for Health Statistics. 2011. “Health, United States, 2011: With Special Feature on Socioeconomic Status and Health. Hyattsville. MD.” Accessed Feb. 8, 2014. http://www .cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus11.pdf. Notestein, Frank. 1945. “Population: The Long View.” In Food for the World, edited by T. Schultz, 36–57. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Olshansky, S. Jay, Douglas Passaro, Ronald Hershow, Jennifer Layden, Bruce Carnes, Jacob Brody, et al. 2005. “A Potential Decline in Life Expectancy in the United States in the 21st Century.” The New England Journal of Medicine 352, no. 11: 1138–45. Omran, Abdel. 1971. “The Epidemiologic Transition: A Theory of the Epidemiology of Population Change.” The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly 49, no. 4: 731–56. Preston, Samuel, and Etienne van de Walle. 1978. “Urban French Mortality in the Nineteenth Century.” Population Studies 32, no. 2: 275–97. Shryock, Richard. 1937. “The Early American Public Health Movement.” American Journal of Public Health and the Nation’s Health 27, no. 10: 965–71. Szreter, Simon. 1997. “Economic Growth, Disruption, Deprivation, Disease, and Death: On the Importance of the Politics of Public Health for Development.” Population and Development Review 23, no. 4: 693–728. Tilley, Charles. 1986. “The Decline of Fertility in Europe.” Population and Development Review 12, no. 2: 329–34.
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U.N. Centre for Human Settlements. 2001. State of the World’s Cities 2001. Nairobi, Kenya: UN-Habitat Publications Unit. UN-HABITAT. 2003a. The Challenge of Slums. London: Earthscan Publications. Accessed Feb. 8, 2014. http://issuu.com/unhabitat/docs/1156_alt. . 2003b. Guide to Monitoring Target 11: Improving the Lives of 100 Million Slum Dwellers. Nairobi, Kenya: UN-HABITAT. Accessed Feb. 8, 2014. http://ww2.unhabitat.org /programmes/guo/documents/mdgtarget11.pdf. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 2006. Historical Highlights. Accessed Sept. 8, 2014. http://www.hhs.gov/about/hhshist.html. World Health Organization. 2013. World Health Statistics 2013. Geneva: World Health Organization. . 2014. Ebola: Protective Measures for the General Public. Accessed Oct. 14, 2014. http:// www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/what-you-need-to-know/en/. . 2015. The Ebola Outbreak in Liberia Is Over (9 May 2015). Accessed Mar. 2, 2016. http:// www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/2015/liberia-ends-ebola/en/.
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10 EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT David B. Bills
The idea that education leads to economic growth and development often seems so intuitive as to be not worth questioning. Sociologists have often joined with other social scientists in asserting, or often just assuming, that individuals, firms, regions, and nations are routinely and effectively schooled into the acquisition of the kinds of skills, habits of innovation, modern attitudes, and entrepreneurial casts of mind that produce higher levels of productivity and prosperity. Development agencies, educational administrators, and politicians, no less than parents and their offspring, operate on the belief that a more schooled society, not unlike a more schooled individual, is more likely to be economically dynamic than is a less highly educated society. This instrumental kind of thinking has not always dominated understandings of the purpose of education. In fact, the idea that economic growth relies heavily on the expansion of schooling and the related idea that the chief rationale for the expansion of schooling is economic development are both of relatively recent vintage. As Francisco Ramirez and his colleagues (2006) point out, the very concept “education for economic growth,” which is now virtually hegemonic, would rarely have resonated with earlier generations of political or even business and industrial leaders. Although national visions of the purpose of education have seldom been monolithic, nation building, military might, religious orthodoxy, and political fealty have more often than not trumped economic competitiveness as the underlying rationale for formal schooling.1 But if nations have only recently looked to schools to provide the resources for economic growth, where did they look for skilled and willing workers before mass schooling
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became so widely disseminated across the globe? Unlike today, when it makes some sense to think of “nations” as independent actors in the generation of manpower policies, in earlier eras this sort of agency was located elsewhere, in families, entrepreneurialism, or workplaces. Historically, urbanization has certainly done more to enhance economic development than has the spread of mass schooling. Schools came relatively late to the project of economic development.2 Schooling and economic development may have been loosely coupled in the hearts and minds of scholars and practitioners in the past, but this is clearly no longer the case. The association between education and economic growth is now made virtually everywhere in the world. Indeed, schooling has become the virtually paradigmatic rational investment, whether this is the individual pursuing his or her economic future or a political state investing in the education of its citizenry. On a simple empirical level, there is ample warrant for making this association. Volumes of research have documented— recent uninformed diatribes doubting the value of pursuing a postsecondary degree notwithstanding—that more educated individuals tend to do better economically than do less-educated people. Firms with many skilled employees are more productive than are those with fewer skilled workers. Regions with heavy investments in educational resources of various kinds are richer than regions that do not make these investments. And, for the most part, highly schooled nations are wealthier than less highly schooled nations. Although each of these statements merits an immediate “on the other hand,” each also contains enough empirical support to be taken seriously and to establish the groundwork for more nuanced causal accounts of just why schooling and development seem to fit together so snugly. The reasons for the empirical relationships between schooling and economic growth are problematic. What we can say for certain about the causal chains and underlying mechanisms for the observed linkages between education and economic performance, at any level, is distressingly shaky. As I will explain below, there are many reasons for this indeterminacy, but perhaps the most fundamental is simply that “the relationship between education and growth may not be directly observable” (Vogel and Keen 2010, 384). That is, both “education” and “economic growth” are large, complex, and dynamic sets of structures and processes whose relationships defy any simple or reductive accounting (Tilly 1989). Neither the theoretical nor the empirical literature on education and development has ever gotten much traction by conceptualizing an educational input that leads to an unambiguous economic output. The reminder that “correlation is not causation” is more than an adage learned in Sociology 101, and it takes on particular force when applied to such heterogeneous and ill-defined concepts as education and development. Two prominent contributors to the economics literature, Mark Bils and Peter Klenow (2000), believe that empirical analyses of education and economic growth have rarely been compelling enough to establish anything other than correlation. Much of the reason for this explanatory gap is no doubt the result of deficiencies in research design, poor quality or inappropriate data, and badly
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conceived measurement. Other problems are more theoretical and conceptual. As a few examples of the challenges facing researchers in this area, consider the following. First, researchers often pay too little attention to apparently simple matters of the direction of causation. As Cvrcek and Zajicek somewhat caustically observe, “[T]he whole education-growth nexus is riddled with endogeneity” (2013, 6). The “endogeneity problem” (most simply, the indeterminacy of which variable is independent and which is dependent in a given empirical relationship) is common in the social sciences, and sociologists have become adept at developing statistical ways to resolve endogeneity issues (see, e.g., Elwert and Winship 2014). At an empirical level, however, there is no obvious rationale for conceptualizing “education” as somehow causally prior to “development,” as if they were two uncoupled components of any given society. More accurately, the relationships between education and development are reciprocal, and the effects of level of development on educational expansion are as interesting and consequential as are the more commonly considered effects of education on development (Chabbott and Ramirez 2000). Economic development often does follow educational expansion, but this expansion in turn is often endogenous with respect to economic growth. As Philippe Aghion and his colleagues observe, “[A] state’s education investments are non-random. States that are richer, faster growing, or have better institutions probably find it easier to increase their education spending. Thus, there is a distinct possibility that correlations between education investments and growth are due to reverse causality” (2009, 1). Although the direction of causation between education and development is an open question in any given instance, it is also possible and in some cases probable that measures of education and development will be significantly associated with each other, but with no compelling causal component between them. That would be the case if there were a common cause—that is, a third variable or set of variables that “causes” both educational expansion and economic growth. It is not difficult to come up with such possible explanatory factors. Urbanization, the development of sanitation and other measures of public health, and demographic shifts might all affect education expansion and economic growth alike. Further, even if we take schooling as exogenous with respect to economic growth, any number of variables may intervene or mediate the relationships between education and growth. The search for the mechanisms that bring about the parameter estimates between schooling and development has not always been as aggressive as it has needed to be. It is possible, of course, that the largest contribution of schooling to economic development is the churning out of an endless supply of job-ready workers. More likely, it may be that schooling “causes” the production of healthier people with better work ethics and entrepreneurial attitudes who are poised to produce smaller families and serve as nodes on the social network that lead to spillovers and other externalities, and that some combination of these and other factors eventually leads to economic growth.3 The social science verdict is still very much out as to which of these factors are most consequential under varying conditions.
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Finally, even now much of the received wisdom about education and development relies on the analysis of cross-sectional data, when the questions at stake clearly demand the careful assessment of longitudinal data. When combined with such methodological problems as inconsistent measurement, imprecise designation of regional units, and often shoddy data collection, our evidentiary base is far weaker than the amount of research generated on education and development would have been expected to produce. Inevitably, reading the literature leaves one with a sense of tentativeness and unsettledness. This is not because of any lack of ambition on the part of the research community. Political scientists Norman Baldwin, Stephen Borrelli, and Michael New have observed that “[t]he volume of peer-reviewed research on the impact of education on economic growth is staggering—at least eight reviews have been published since 1995” (2011, 226). They add, though, that “this sheer bulk of rigorous research fails to produce cumulative, consensually accepted findings.” Many reviews of the education and development literature are framed around an obvious paradox: if the linkages between schooling and development are so empirically shaky, why is the public (and, to some degree, scholarly) faith in this relationship so strong? This is an interesting question that has produced some valuable insight into the role of mass schooling in the contemporary world (see especially Chabbott and Ramirez 2000). I will adopt a very different framing here. I argue that the relationships between education and development vary across different units of analysis. The relationship is a nested one, calling for different sociological concepts and theories depending on whether one is trying to account for linkages at the individual, firm, regional, or national levels. Sociologists stand to make their greatest contributions at the middle (or “meso”) levels, those of the firm and the region, and may be advised to shift—at least temporarily—their focus away from the individual and national levels. In this chapter, I will accept the fact of the (usually) positive empirical relationship between education and economic development, but I problematize it theoretically and conceptually as a nested relationship. Given the limited space available here, I am going to home in on economic development, ignoring for the most part the vast and important work on how schooling might contribute to, for example, political development, civic involvement, human rights, or family structure and stability (Hannum and Buchmann 2004).
W H AT I S E D U C AT I O N , A N D W H Y W O U L D W E E X P E C T I T TO PRODUCE ECONOMIC GROWTH?
Certainly there has been some simplistic thinking about education and development, but probably no one really believes that merely having a population amass years of class time in an educational institution is sufficient to drive economic growth. Still, at least until recently, many analysts have proceeded as if years of schooling provided a reasonable proxy for whatever it is about schooling that does matter for economic development. What
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might this contribution of formal schooling to the growth of the economy actually be? Why would we ever expect education to be related to economic development? As noted above, it was not until the rise of mass schooling that the belief that schooling provided the key to national economic performance became normative. The convention among sociologists for many years was based on modernization theory, which held that modern schooling “makes men modern” (Inkeles 1969). For modernization theorists, education—even more than working in industrial or post-industrial occupations and workplaces—creates the casts of mind and ways of seeing and participating in the world that are prerequisites to economic expansion. Modernization theory has justifiably come in for its share of criticism over the years, to the point where it is now generally considered to have been wrong (Hout and DiPrete 2006). But, though the theory has not held up well to empirical test, it was at least on the right track in seeking the mechanisms at work in the positive correlation between education and economic growth. Modernization theory never provided a persuasive account of the role of schooling in development, but it may be premature to dismiss more sophisticated extensions of the hypothesis that schooling generates various noncognitive orientations and perspectives in individuals, and that these orientations and perspectives in turn produce economic outcomes. Prosper Bangwayo-Skeete, Alaf Rahim, and Precious Zikhali, for instance, acknowledge that there is “no general consensus among researchers on the exact causal relationship between cultural values and economic progress” (2011, 163). Based on their careful analysis of the World Values Survey for forty-three countries, the authors reported that both formal and informal education have significant effects on the relative importance that people place on economic achievement relative to more traditional social norms. Thus, the authors provided some evidence that schooling can inculcate the kinds of cultural values that lead to economic growth. A more common explanation for the contribution of schooling to economic growth is that it provides students with the kinds of cognitive skills that employers value and on which economic expansion depends. Although human capital theory has rarely been portrayed quite this simply, certainly many of its adherents would be content with an explanation centered on cognitive skills. In a series of publications, economist Eric Hanushek (Hanushek 2013; Hanushek and Woessmann 2012) agrees that cognitive skill is the prime driver of economic growth, but he does not believe that the most important skills are easily acquired, nor are these skills adequately measured by years of schooling. Hanushek holds that societies need to invest heavily in the high-quality education that inculcates the most valuable skills. For him, the educational status quo—cheap, one-sizefits-all schooling—will do little to advance a nation economically. A crucial implication of this is that developed societies are in a strong position to extend their educational edge over developing societies. That is, closing the quantitative educational gap (i.e., years of schooling) between nations will have little impact on growth in developing nations as long as the qualitative gap in educational quality persists or expands. Thus, continuing
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to measure human capital as years of schooling is misleading and mistaken. Hanushek recommends instead that analysts adopt more finely grained measures of skills of the sort available in the Programme for International Student Assessment data.4 Modernization theory and the variant of human capital theory offered by Hanushek rest on the assumption that education influences economic development primarily by changing something about individuals and that these changes in turn aggregate up to societal-level changes. But schooling produces more than detached skills. It also produces a variety of meso-level outcomes in which both cognitive and noncognitive skills are embedded. For example, formal schooling generates social capital. It produces knowledge, processes, and products. Formal schooling produces externalities, complementarities, and spillovers (I describe all of these processes below). It produces categories of workers certified to perform specific tasks in a society’s division of labor (Meyer 1977). Perhaps the best way to understand these dynamics is by considering education and development as nested. I turn to this next.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AS A NESTED PROCESS
Sociologists often conceptualize social processes and relationships as being “nested” within processes and relationships at higher levels of analysis. Research on education, for example, might see students as nested within classrooms, which are in turn nested within schools, which may be nested within states, which are nested within nations. Adam Gamoran, Walter Secada, and Cora Marrett (2000) refer to this way of understanding hierarchical relations as the “nested layers model.” In this model, relationships at one level may influence those at higher and lower levels, and may be influenced by them in turn. As sociologist Richard Child Hill notes, “In a nested hierarchy, parts and wholes are not subordinated one to the other; the relationship is one of ‘energetic tension’ and mutual adaptation” (2004, 374). The nested layers model is useful for clarifying the hierarchical nature of many social relationships, including those between education and economic development (see Simon 1973 for a foundational statement on hierarchy in social systems). Perhaps a bit arbitrarily, we can conceptualize the often reciprocal relationships between schooling and economic development as taking place on four levels. First, at the lowest level, more highly educated individuals tend to command higher incomes than do less highly educated individuals. How much of the greater earning power of the more highly educated comes about as a causal effect and how much can be attributed to such other factors as credentialism and signaling is not entirely settled (Bills 2003). Because the study of the individual-level returns to schooling is a mid-sized industry in itself and has been extensively reviewed elsewhere (e.g., Card 1999; Hout 2012), I will say little about it here, other than to point out that many of the same conceptual problems that plague research at this level recur at higher levels. Second, we can ask about the relationship of education to economic growth or development at the level of the firm or workplace. Although the study of organizational-level
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processes would seem to be natural territory for sociologists, our knowledge base here is surprisingly thin. I suggest that, for sociologists to make an important contribution in this context, they need to engage more deeply with literatures that are typically unfamiliar to them, such as personnel psychology and strategic management.5 Third, education may influence economic development at various regional levels of broader scope than particular firms or workplaces. The focus here lies anywhere between neighborhoods and states or even multistate regions. Our sociological base here is similarly insecure, and sociologists might profitably turn some attention to such fields as economic geography. Finally, we have quite a lot of research at the national level. This work has been conducted primarily by economists. Again, our knowledge is often shaky. In fact, the trustworthiness of our theoretical and empirical understanding of education and development not only differs across these levels but seems to become less secure as we ascend from the micro- to macro-levels. As Wolfgang Lutz, Jesus Cauresma, and Warren Sanderson observe, “The empirical basis for assuming an important positive effect of education on economic growth is, however, surprisingly weak. Although it is well-established that, at the individual level, more years of schooling lead to higher income, at the macroeconomic level, the empirical evidence, so far, relating changes in education measures to economic growth has been ambiguous” (2008, 1047). However, sociological ambiguity and healthy skepticism do not necessarily entail cynicism and dismissal. I will argue that even the most suspicious observer is not justified in conceding the entire causal story of the effect of education on economic development, at any of the four levels. As Michael Hout has concluded, “Being educated is not only good in its own right . . . it also promotes good outcomes for individuals, their communities, and the nation as a whole” (2012, 380). We should be cautious about the degree to which education leads to prosperity and be persistent about identifying the conditions under which this is likely to take place, but there can be no doubt that much of the association between education and development is causal. Although the data are often fragile, problematic, contingent, and inconsistent, there is overwhelming evidence that schooling does produce outcomes—workers, skills, attitudes, products, processes, spillovers, and more—that at some times and under some conditions make societies richer. Specifying these conditions with some precision is the theoretical and empirical challenge to sociologists.
INDIVIDUALS
Individual-level wage equations are not, of course, what people typically think of when they hear “education and development,” a relationship that usually evokes analyses of economic growth at the community, regional, or national levels. Indeed, research on the individual-level socioeconomic outcomes of the attainment of educational credentials is often preoccupied with individual agency and decisionmaking (e.g., career aspirations or
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personal motivations to succeed). This focus is quite different from the question of how the socially organized production and provision of education leads to aggregate economic growth. Still, if schooling ultimately makes nations richer, it stands to reason that it does so to some degree by making individuals more productive and ultimately richer. This claim seems self-evident among many labor economists. Philip Stevens and Martin Weale, for instance, ask, somewhat rhetorically, “If people with education earn more than those without, should not the same be true of countries?” (2004, 164). They answer their own question quite directly: “Any analysis of the determination of economic growth has to have some connection with the microeconomic underpinning mentioned above. Because education delivers economic benefits to individuals, we should expect to see effects of education on groupings of individuals (nations)” (167). At the very least, individuals converting their schooling into income returns is the first link in the long causal chain that runs to the national level. Of course, making inferences at one level based on observations made at another level is risky and misguided, but the idea that societies become prosperous when their members become prosperous has considerable merit. A simple listing of empirical studies of the individual-level economic returns to education would fill a good-sized volume. Most research in this tradition is derived to some degree or another from human capital theory and the justly famous Mincer Model (Mincer 1974). Without belaboring the finer points of human capital theory, it holds that employers reward individuals for the skills that they acquire in formal schooling. In its barest form, individuals invest in the sorts of human capital that make them more productive workers, this productive capacity is costlessly acquired by employers, and higher incomes accrue to those with the skills to command them. The basic finding from this vast literature is clear: schooling pays off. Still, though the simple empirical fact of the effect of education on economic reward cannot be in doubt, the mechanisms underlying this relationship are more contested (Bills 2003). Even if we concede (as we should) that schooling imparts skills and dispositions that employers value, there are instances in which other mechanisms come into play. Schooling is to some degree a sorting device, permitting more able individuals to “signal” their exogenous productive capacity to potential employers. At other times, schooling may be a way for employers to select docile and dependable cogs for the machinery of industrial factories and postindustrial offices. Or the economic payoff to schooling may sometimes simply result from some large credentialist shell game in which employers unreflectively recruit the most highly schooled, even if there may be no productive advantage in doing so. Walter Muller and Yossi Shavit (1998), among others, have shown that the magnitude of and reasons for the individual-level relationships between schooling and incomes at the individual level vary greatly across societies and historical periods. Still, any reasonable reading of this literature has to conclude that more highly schooled workers are more likely to have the skills of interest to employers than are less highly schooled workers. The first link of the education/development chain is generally secure.
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FIRMS
If people acquire skills in school that ultimately find their way to economic development at the national level, the location at which this is directly instantiated is that of the workplace.6 That is, in its micro-foundations, economic growth happens when a particular individual applies a particular skill to a particular task in a particular setting. One might expect that the effects of education on growth and development at this meso-level (what we might variously label organizational, firm, or workplace) would be a natural area of study for sociologists. Sociologists have, after all, long had interests in work groups, factories, offices, and other settings for the organization of production. Still, though not entirely absent from this literature, sociologists of work and organizations have yet to fully engage with the vast body of theory and research on education and economic development. One could easily argue that the best and most rigorous empirical tests of the “education produces economic development” hypothesis are at the meso-level of the work setting. To the degree that educational credentialist processes can be verified at the individual level (that is, if formal qualifications are detached from actual skill), one can imagine a highly credentialed but incompetent performer holding a job indefinitely without being exposed as an unproductive bungler.7 It is less obvious how rampant credentialism, where skills and their certification are decoupled, could persist at the workplace level, which is presumably more subject to the discipline of the market. Highly educated workers who underperform may slip by indefinitely, but poorly performing firms with highly educated labor forces seem less likely to do so (at least in markets where they are less subject to competitive forces). Nevertheless, empirical tests of the linkages between education and economic growth above the level of the workplace (that is, those levels more abstracted from the settings in which skills are used and work actually takes place) typically have to rely on less direct observations of the causal mechanisms in play. Sociologists, with their fine-grained understandings of work settings, bureaucracy, and informal relations, should have a comparative research advantage at the level of the workplace. An important concept at the workplace level is that of externality. Economists, far more than sociologists, are concerned with the externalities that emerge out of social or economic relations. Put simply, externalities are the costs or benefits incurred by one party from the actions of another party. Externalities may be negative or positive. For example, a homeowner who keeps her yard in good repair and by doing so enhances her neighbor’s aesthetic experience has produced a positive externality; a less conscientious and more slovenly homeowner would provide her neighbors with a negative externality. There is considerable evidence that more educated workers bring positive externalities to workplaces. In other words, more educated workers somehow create conditions that make their less educated coworkers more productive and more highly rewarded (Lucas 1988; Moretti 2004; Mas and Moretti 2009).8 There are, of course, a variety of
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mechanisms that could bring about this relationship. It could be that more educated workers establish processes and routines that can be usefully adopted by less educated workers, or the more highly educated might model skills and other orientations that can be learned and applied by less educated workers. Although it is probably true that more educated workers are attracted to workplaces that are more productive in the first place (thus raising a “sample selection” problem), the influence of educated workers on the productivity of the less educated is almost certainly largely causal. Not surprisingly, much more is involved in the positive relationship between education and economic growth at the firm level than simply stacking educated people on top of each other and counting the benefits. Andrea Herrmann and Alexander Peine (2011) have shown that it matters how education and skills are distributed in a firm. Firms whose employees have widely dispersed educational qualifications are able to pursue some kinds of product innovations more efficiently and effectively than they can pursue other kinds of innovations, and firms with educational qualifications concentrated in the hands of fewer employees (e.g., scientists) are better positioned to pursue others. It may be that the preoccupation with individual-level wage equations that has guided the work of many sociologists has distracted them from pursuing interesting questions about the effects of education at the organizational level. This is unfortunate, because sociologists’ understanding of organizations, workplace behavior, and bureaucracy would seem to position them well to contribute to our understanding of how schooling brings about large-scale economic change.
REGIONS
Things get even more complicated and empirically less secure as we ascend from the workplace to the regional level (encompassing cities, counties, metropolitan areas, states, and any number of other agglomerations). Here, too, the contributions of sociologists are less apparent than are those of the practitioners of other disciplines (such as economic geography or urban and regional planning). Again, the reluctance of sociologists to engage with the relationship between education and economic growth at this meso-level is a missed opportunity, because on its face this level is intensely sociological. My treatment of the relationship of education and development at the regional level will be very selective. I will highlight a few interesting questions where sociologists potentially could have a greater impact. If schooling leads to growth at the regional level, how might this happen? This is in many ways a more difficult question than the comparable question on the organizational level. At least in a stylized sense, organizations have boundaries in ways that regions do not. Cities blend into metropolitan areas, which in turn blend into states and then into multistate regions. Counties, school districts, or labor market areas intersect these agglomerations in often haphazard ways. Defining the proper regional unit is crucial, but this is not always fully acknowledged. As Jaison Abel and Richard Dietz note:
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Because state governments are an important source of funding for US higher education institutions, much of the existing literature has attempted to examine the relationship between the production of degrees and stock of college graduates from the perspective of a state government analyzing the return on its investment. . . . From the standpoint of local economic development, however, a state may not be a meaningful unit of measure because it is often too large to capture the local labor markets in which colleges and universities are located. (2012, 668)
Two crucial lessons follow from this simple observation. First, the effects of schooling on regional economic growth may be more or less localized. The magnitude and scope of any effects depend on the broader ecology—the specific mix of industries, other educational institutions, networks, and demography—of the area. The use of the term “ecology” to describe this mix and the interactions between the various “players” in a region was once ubiquitous in the sociological literature but has, with some exceptions, fallen out of common usage. It does, however, effectively capture the sense of a shifting and dynamic milieu within which the relationships between education and economic development occur. A second lesson to keep in mind at the regional level is the fundamental importance of getting the counterfactual right. A counterfactual question is essentially a “what if?” that forces scientists to think through a causal argument as if a set of conditions were in place other than those that actually exist. For instance, assessing the effects of an educational institution on the level and speed of economic growth that takes place in a region (keeping in mind that those effects run both ways) demands thinking about what the region would be like in the absence of the educational institution. Too often, analysts proceed as if the region would have been a vacant lot. Up to this point, we have been conceptualizing the “education” side of the “education and development” relationship basically as the enhanced capacity that schooling provides to individuals, acting both singly as wage earners and collectively as parts of workplaces. We shift our understanding of education now to think of it more institutionally. We ask how education as an institution or as a corporate form might influence economic development. Building on a few simple concepts drawn largely from the economic literature on regional development—spillovers, counterfactuals, and externalities—we can ask a question that is on the minds of policymakers at all levels of government: can universities make states and regions richer? Universities certainly like to claim that they have the capacity to produce economic growth. It has become virtually mandatory for postsecondary institutions to highlight their supposedly objectively and scientifically determined contribution to local and state economies, and a robust industry of consultants, analysts, and strategic planners has arisen to help fill this need. Politicians demand and universities provide “precise” estimates of how many dollars they return for every dollar that is invested in them. Much of this “research” is little more than boosterism designed primarily to advance a fund-raising agenda, and it would fail to withstand serious scientific scrutiny. Certainly
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the best of this work can be effective at clarifying how the placement and operation of an educational institution in the broader ecology of a given region can add to the overall prosperity of that region. Too often, though, “impact studies” are seriously deficient in their design, conceptualization, and conclusions. John Siegfried, Allen Sanderson, and Peter McHenry (2007) offer a serious critique of research on local economic effects of colleges and conclude that the claims of many university-generated reports about their contributions to economic development lack credibility (see also Drucker and Goldstein 2007). Among other shortcomings of college impact studies are “the specification of the counterfactual, the definition of the local area, the identification of ‘new’ expenditures, the tendency to double-count economic impacts, the role of local taxes, and the omission of local spillover benefits from enhanced human capital created by higher education” (Siegfried, Sanderson, and McHenry 2007, 546).9 Bolstering this academic pseudo-science is an alliance of the popular press and industry boosters who have constructed an elaborate and widely accepted mythology surrounding the relationship between higher educational institutions and economic development. The contribution of Stanford University to the success of Silicon Valley or similar tales about Route 128 or the Research Triangle are part of the common understanding of American economic growth. The reality is more complex. In an exceptionally interesting analysis, Maryann Feldman (1994) challenged the “conventional wisdom on state and local economic development . . . that a research university is one of the necessary conditions for economic restructuring toward a technology-intensive industrial base” (1994, 67). Applying a counterfactual logic, Feldman showed that the efforts of even a great university (Johns Hopkins) were insufficient to foster economic growth. Instead, the inability of Johns Hopkins to drive the local economy was held back by persistent and chronic gaps in the regional infrastructure. In a similar vein, Heike Mayer (2006) has demonstrated that regions can prosper as high-technology areas even in the absence of major research universities. Mayer gives the examples of Portland, Oregon’s “Silicon Forest” and Washington, D.C., as illustrating that there are alternative paths to economic growth. Clearly, the relationships between education and economic development at the regional level are far from deterministic. Many of the effects of education on regional development are quite straightforward. To a significant degree, schooling simply and unambiguously increases the human capital of those who attend, and this enhanced skill aggregates up to regional growth. There is some evidence for this. Michael Paulsen and Nasrin Fatima’s (2007) careful analysis using exceptionally rigorous controls has shown that spending on higher education increased state-level workforce productivity between 1980 and 2000. Baldwin, Borrelli, and New (2011) have reported broadly consistent results for 1997–2005. Many advocates and researchers want to claim a greater role for education than simply the provision of human capital, and they have sought to demonstrate that universities have other impacts beyond the production of graduates with advanced skills. Some researchers focus on the “spillovers” generated by educational institutions—research and
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development, technology, innovations, and jobs (see, e.g., Abel and Dietz 2012). The presence of these spillovers is practically an article of faith among many researchers. Steven Caspar, in a generally skeptical appraisal of the literature on spillovers, asserts that “[t]he concept of regional technology spill-overs created by university research is one of the most enduring theories within the economic geography and innovation management fields” (2013, 1313). However, though many researchers take spillovers as foundational, sociologists have paid relatively little attention to this body of research. Spillover theory may be enduring, but the empirical evidence for any unproblematic linkage between educational investment and the realization on that investment in the form of various spillovers is not always as compelling. There is credible and even abundant research demonstrating significant spillover effects, but we are a long way from establishing much cumulative understanding of how and under what conditions these effects are expressed. Christopher Hayter (2013, 19), among others, has noted the “lack of empirical and systematic, longitudinal data” on the potential of university spin-offs to generate jobs and economic growth (see also Sand 2013). Perhaps to an even greater extent than is true at the workplace level, the direction and magnitude of spillover effects depend on contextual and ecological features of particular regions. Educational investments and opportunities that have economic benefits in one region do not necessarily do so in another. There are many examples of the importance of different ecological contexts in facilitating the ability of universities to have spillover effects on growth. Hayter (2013) reports that the extent to which academic entrepreneurship can have positive spillover effects depends on a complex combination of individual, university, firm, and policy factors. He found the commercial success of university spin-offs to be significantly influenced by, among other things, “venture capital, multiple and external licenses, outside management, joint ventures with other companies, previous faculty consulting experience, and—surprisingly—a negative relationship to post-spin-off services provided by universities” (2013, 18). Similarly, Robin Cowan and Natalia Zinovyeva (2012) have discovered that opening new university schools in Italy during the period 1985–2000 increased regional innovative activity in a remarkably short period of time (five years). The authors are careful to describe an array of conditions that had to be in place for this effect to occur. A Spanish case study by Josep Capo-Vicedo, Xavier Molina-Morales, and Jordi Capo (2012) found much the same thing. The university that they studied was able to influence the information and knowledge networks that developed in an industrial district, but only because of the prior ecology of the region.10 Research by Benjamin Sand reports that “the effect of the share of college graduates in a city on wages is remarkably unstable over time” (2013, 97). In the United States, there were spillovers of this sort in the 1980s but not in the 1990s. Demonstrating this instability is an important addition to the literature, although Sand provides little interpretation of why the positive effect in the 1980s dissipated by the 1990s. (For other analyses of how ecology can influence the expression of spillover effects, see Strotebeck 2014; Giuri and Mariani 2013.)
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As with the workplace level, the direction of causation at the regional level can be reciprocal and at times ambiguous. Caitlin Donaldson and Suzanne O’Keefe (2013) show that the manufacturing composition of U.S. regions (at the level of the metropolitan statistical area) predicted the level of educational attainment of the residents of that area. Specifically, regions with heavy concentrations of manufacturing industries have lower educational attainments but higher incomes. High rates of growth in manufacturing, however, decreased both educational attainment and income. Broadly the same thing seems to be true of cities as well: cities that are already highly skilled tend to become more advantaged relative to those that are less skilled (Florida et al. 2012). Steven Poelhekke (2013) found this in a sophisticated comparison of Munich and Bremen, the former having a much more skilled labor force than the latter. Poelhekke, however, identifies a number of caveats and contingencies associated with this general finding. He observes that the effects of skills on growth have typically been overestimated (because of using the “wrong” spatial area or failing to correct statistical biases). He adds that the apparent educational benefits come not necessarily from college educated workers per se but rather from the right mix of skills. At least in the case of Munich, these skills were more vocational than academic. Put simply, social and institutional context makes an enormous difference in the ability of educational institutions to contribute to regional economic development (see also Lendel 2010). Strong and supportive networks have to be in place before universities can have their optimal impact on economic growth (Berman 2012). Efforts to synthesize and make sense of these regional contextual matters would seem a promising road for sociologists to travel.
N AT I O N S
More educated people make more money. Companies with lots of educated employees adopt technology more effectively, innovate more rapidly, and facilitate workers’ learning from each other. Regions with educational institutions doing particular kinds of things tend to prosper as a result. But it does not necessarily follow that all of this aggregates up to any particular relationship between education and development at the national level. The relationship between education and economic development at the national level is surprisingly ambiguous and indeterminate (Hannum and Buchmann 2004). Many sociologists have contributed to the literature on education and economic growth at the national level, but the field is dominated by economists. The worst of this research, the kind regularly spewed out by think tanks and development advocates, is so simplistic as to be completely uninteresting and uninformative. Assuming that educational inputs can stimulate growth, without a sustained account of the attendant institutions, resources, markets, and other meso-level processes and structures, is naive. Fortunately, few serious economists produce such crude models, and theory and research on education and development is some of the most sophisticated in the economics lit-
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erature (see, e.g., Lucas 1988; Barro 1991). Rather than rehashing that literature here, I ask instead what sociologists might bring to the table. Some fifteen years ago, Colette Chabbott and Francisco Ramirez (2000) reached a few generally reasonable and empirically secure conclusions about the relationships between education and development at the national level from their broad and deep survey of the literature. They reported, among other things, that primary and secondary schooling have stronger effects on economic development than does higher education, that the economic effects of expanded schooling are stronger for poorer countries than they are for richer countries, that vocational schooling often has more payoff than does academic education, and that greater enrollments in science and engineering positively influence economic development more than do investments in other sorts of schooling.11 Even these generally straightforward conclusions must be routinely qualified by the contingencies of time and space. There are many interesting examples of research that studies these complexities. Economist Robert Barro (1991), for instance, argued that educational expansion accounts for less of the causal story than does the simple stock of human capital residing in a nation. In his analysis of a sample of ninety-eight countries in the years 1960–85, Barro found that economic growth was more an outcome of the initial level of human capital in the society than it was a result of the expansion of any level of the educational system. Put simply, having lots of educated people around enhances economic growth more than does any skill augmentation of those people. Gender also complicates the schooling/growth link. Aaron Benavot, looking at the years between 1960 and 1985, found that in less developed nations, in particular those that were exceptionally poor, “educational expansion among school-age girls at the primary level has a stronger effect on long-term economic prosperity than does educational expansion among school-age boys. This effect was not mediated by women’s rates of participation in the wage labor force or by fertility rates” (1989, 14). Dirk Krueger and Krishna Kumar (2004a, 2004b) have added a further refinement by showing that, in some eras (the 1960s and 1980s), the European emphasis on providing skill-specific, vocationalized education led to growth, and, in other eras (1980s and beyond), it did not have this effect. At the very least, phenomena like “educational expansion” and “economic development,” even if the relationship is salutary and causal, are huge and complex processes that take a long time to play out. Lutz, Cauresma, and Sanderson conclude, perhaps optimistically, that “better education does not only lead to higher individual income but also is a necessary (although not always sufficient) precondition for long-term economic growth. The fruits of investment in education need a long time to ripen, to translate the education of children into better human capital of the adult labor force. Education is a long-term investment associated with near-term costs, but, in the long run, is one of the best investments societies can make in their futures” (2008, 1048). What sociologists can bring to this vast literature is a big canvas that focuses on context—that is, the ecology of education and development. Sociology can pay particular attention to the
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unexpected consequences of the linkages between schooling and development, and to the mechanisms that instantiate these linkages.
CONCLUSIONS
The restrictively linear “effects of education on economic development” conceptualization is simply not an adequate way to think about the complex relationships between schooling and economic growth. The relationships between the vast categories of schooling and growth are reciprocal, contingent, conditional on time, space, and context, and systemic. Given the proliferation of better data, better models, and better theories that have characterized the social scientific literature over the past generation (a great deal of it from disciplines other than sociology), there is no excuse for clinging to simplistic theories with poorly defined counterfactuals and sloppy measurement and models. My basic conclusions are not much different from those of other sociologists who have reviewed the literature on education and economic development. Schooling, in its broadest possible conceptualization, bears often tentative but undeniably real causal relationships with economic growth. Schooling has a wide range of noneconomic benefits as well, which are related in complex ways to economic development. Schooling may, for example, improve the local cultural landscape or “cause” partners to rear fewer children in ways that promote economic prosperity. Analyzing these noneconomic outcomes, rather than being a separate object of study, is essential to understanding how systems of schooling contribute (or fail to contribute) to economic vitality. Sociologists need first to think more self-consciously about how the linkages between schooling and development differ across the four nested levels of analysis that I have offered here. The causal processes and social mechanisms that produce the coefficients in impact models are not self-evidently the same at each level. My sense is that the most important contributions to our understanding of the relationships between education and economic development that sociologists are likely to make will come at the firm and regional levels. Sociologists will continue to conduct important studies of individual-level wage attainment (e.g., Bol 2014) as well as nation-based analyses, but the comparative advantage of sociologists in understanding context, networks, and conflicting interests position them well to move the field forward. Sociologists would do well, too, to move away from a reliance on variables-driven studies of education and development and begin to conceptualize our object of study as systems of skill development. These four levels are only analytically distinct, and empirically there is a constant interplay between them. At the meso-levels, these systems of skill development include job seekers, students, community colleges, apprenticeships, partnerships, company training, industry certification, on-the-job training, states policies, production strategies, and party politics. Of course, some elements of these skilldevelopment systems are best measured on the national level. Baldwin, Borrelli, and
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New (2011, 227), for instance, have directed our attention to GDP, national savings deposits, spending on infrastructure, population growth, and initial GDP. Sociologists, at whichever of the four levels they choose to operate, need to be more assertive about striving toward some consensus on measurement, models, and operationalization. Too often, “research findings on the relationship between education and state economic growth are unstable artifacts related to model specifications, sample sizes, and variable measurements” (Smith 2003, cited in Baldwin, Borrelli, and New 2011, 240). A large share of the blame for the lack of cumulative research on education and development can be placed on simple methodological problems. To fulfill this sort of research agenda, sociologists are going to need to read more widely and engage more inclusively with other disciplines than they have up to this point. Despite much apparently common ground and explicanda, sociologists, with notable exceptions, have yet to fully engage with regional scientists, economic geographers, and development specialists. Finally, though this chapter has focused on the relationships between education and economic growth, the distributional effects of schooling are no less important. Any development policy, including those based on the expansion of schooling, creates both winners and losers. Christopher Wheeler (2005), for instance, demonstrated that, in the period 1950–90, American cities with more educated workforces were better able to generate technological change and subsequently to benefit from the productivity gains of those changes. The effect of this was to widen the economic gap between metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas. Sociologists might usefully build on their own expertise in examining broad patterns of inequality on a variety of different levels (Hout and DiPrete 2006).
N OT E S
1. As one particularly lucid example, an innovative study by Tomas Cvrek and Miroslav Zajicek (2013) showed that, in the Hapsburg Empire (ca. 1865), the provision of public schooling, while offering “practically zero return to education on the margin” (1), was supported by political elites as a means of managing nationalist conflicts within the empire. The masses who were supposedly the beneficiaries of the generation of human capital never agitated for expanded schooling and were instead resentful of the costs that they incurred. 2. I am grateful to Hal Hansen for making me think harder about the argument of this paragraph. 3. Aghion and his colleagues (2009) mention migration and patenting, among other factors, that mediate the effect of schooling on development. 4. Aghion and his colleagues (2009) have made a similar argument. They conceptualize the relevant educational distinction as “low brow” versus “high brow.” The former refers to schooling that is essentially imitative, whereas the latter is more innovative. 5. Again, I do not intend the delineation of four levels of education and economic development to be definitive or absolute. One could imagine, for instance, firms being nested within
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industries, or particular enterprises being nested within larger organizational fields (Fligstein and McAdam 2012). I am using the nestedness metaphor here primarily as a practical framework for working through some complex material. 6. “Workplace” is an expansive concept, and it includes any social setting in which someone is performing productive labor. In an ever-increasing number of settings, the workplace consists of a keyboard and computer monitor. 7. There are also reasons to expect highly educated underachievers to be “found out” over time. The literature on employer learning shows that, in time, employers are likely to catch on to underperforming workers (Light and McGee 2012). 8. Like so much of the knowledge base surrounding education and development, even this seemingly simple empirical finding is somewhat up for grabs. E. Canton (2007), for instance, found no clear evidence for human capital externalities in a sample of developed countries. 9. As just one example, the consultant’s report submitted to (and accepted by) one major American university maintained that the university provided “a return of $42 for each dollar received from the state.” Such figures, by no means uncommon, lack any credibility. 10. The study by Capo-Vicedo and his colleagues is especially informative in that the industrial district was a traditional one based on textiles rather than the sort of high-tech, information-based district more commonly associated with university/business collaborations and synergies. 11. They also found that the effects are reciprocal—that is, levels of development affect educational attainments.
REFERENCES
Abel, Jaison R., and Richard Deitz. 2012. “Do Colleges and Universities Increase Their Region’s Human Capital?” Journal of Economic Geography 12: 667–91. Aghion, Philippe, Leah Boustan, Caroline Hoxby, and Jerome Vandenbussche. 2009. “The Causal Impact of Education on Economic Growth: Evidence from the United States.” In Brookings Papers on Economics Activity, Spring 2009 Conference Draft, edited by David Romer and Justin Wolfers, 1–73. www.brookings.edu/economics/bpea/bpea.aspx. Baldwin, J. Norman, Stephen A. Borrelli, and Michael J. New. 2011. “State Educational Investments and Economic Growth in the United States: A Path Analysis.” Social Science Quarterly 92: 226–45. Bangwayo-Skeete, Prosper F., Alaf H. Rahim, and Precious Zikhali. 2011. “Does Education Engender Cultural Values that Matter for Economic Growth?” Journal of Socio-Economics 40: 163–71. Barro, Robert J. 1991. “Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 106: 407–43. Benavot, Aaron. 1989. “Education, Gender, and Economic Development: A Cross-National Study.” Sociology of Education 62: 14–32. Berman, Elizabeth Popp. 2012. Creating the Market University: How Academic Science Became an Economic Engine. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
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Bills, David B. 2003. “Credentials, Signals, and Screens: Explaining the Relationship between Schooling and Job Assignment.” Review of Educational Research 73: 441–69. Bils, Mark, and Peter Klenow. 2000. “Does Schooling Cause Growth?” American Economic Review 90: 1160–83. Bol, Thijs. 2014. “Economic Returns to Occupational Closure in the German Skilled Trades.” Social Science Research 46: 9–22. Canton, E. 2007. “Social Returns to Education: Macro-Evidence.” De Economist 155: 449–68. Capo-Vicedo, Josep, F. Xavier Molina-Morales, and Jordi Capo. 2012. “The Role of Universities in Making Industrial Districts More Dynamic: A Case Study in Spain.” Higher Education 65: 417–35. Card, David. 1999. “The Causal Effect of Education on Earnings.” In Handbook of Labor Economics, edited by Orley Ashenfelter and David Card, Vol. 3A: 1802–63. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Caspar, Steven. 2013. “The Spill-Over Theory Reversed: The Impact of Regional Economies on the Commercialization of University Science.” Research Policy 42: 1313–24. Chabbott, Colette, and Francisco Ramirez. 2000. “Development and Education.” In Handbook of Sociology of Education, edited by M. Hallinan, 163–87. New York: Plenum. Cowan, Robin, and Natalia Zinovyeva. 2012. “University Effects on Regional Innovation.” Research Policy 42: 788–800. Cvrcek, Tomas, and Miroslav Zajicek. 2013. “School, What Is It Good For? Useful Human Capital and the History of Public Education in Central Europe.” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 19690. Cambridge, Mass.: NBER. http://www.nber.org /papers/w19690. Donaldson, Caitlin Cullen, and Suzanne O’Keefe. 2013. “The Effects of Manufacturing on Educational Attainment and Real Income.” Economic Development Quarterly 27: 316–423. Drucker, Joshua, and Harvey Goldstein. 2007. “Assessing the Regional Economic Development Impacts of Universities: A Review of Current Approaches.” International Regional Science Review 30: 20–46. Elwert, Felix, and Christopher Winship. 2014. “Endogenous Selection Bias: The Problem of Conditioning on a Collider Variable.” Annual Review of Sociology 40: 31–53. Feldman, Maryann P. 1994. “The University and Economic Development: The Case of Johns Hopkins University and Baltimore.” Economic Development Quarterly 8: 67–76. Fligstein, Neil, and Doug McAdam. 2012. A Theory of Fields. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Florida, Richard, Charlotta Melander, Kevin Stolarick, and Adrienne Ross. 2012. “Cities, Skills and Wages.” Journal of Economic Geography 12: 355–77. Gamoran, Adam, Walter G. Secada, and Cora B. Marrett. 2000. “The Organizational Context of Teaching and Learning: Changing Theoretical Perspectives.” In Handbook of the Sociology of Education, edited by Maureen T. Hallinan, chap. 2. New York: Kluwer Academic/ Plenum Publishers. Giuri, Paola, and Myriam Mariani. 2013. “When Distance Disappears: Inventors, Education, and the Locus of Knowledge Spillovers.” Review of Economics and Statistics 95: 449–63. Hannum, Emily, and Claudia Buchmann. 2004. “Global Educational Expansion and SocioEconomic Development: An Assessment of Findings from the Social Sciences.” World Development 33: 333–54.
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Hanushek, Eric. 2013. “Economic Growth in Developing Countries: The Role of Human Capital.” Economics of Education Review 37: 204–12. Hanushek, Eric, and Ludger Woessmann. 2012. “Do Better Schools Lead to More Growth? Cognitive Skills, Economic Outcomes, and Causation.” Journal of Economic Growth 17: 267–321. Hayter, Christopher S. 2013.”Harnessing University Entrepreneurship for Economic Growth: Factors of Success among University Spin-offs.” Economic Development Quarterly 27: 18–28. Herrmann, Andrea M., and Alexander Peine. 2011. “When ‘National Innovation System’ Meet ‘Varieties of Capitalism’ Arguments on Labour Qualifications: On the Skill Types and Scientific Knowledge Needed for Radical and Incremental Product Innovations.” Research Policy 40: 687–701. Hill, Richard Child. 2004. “Cities and Nested Hierarchies.” UNESCO International Social Sciences Journal 56, no. 181: 373–84. Hout, Michael. 2012. “Social and Economic Returns to College Education in the United States.” Annual Review of Sociology 38: 379–400. Hout, Michael, and Thomas A. DiPrete. 2006. “What We Have Learned: RC28’s Contributions to Knowledge about Social Stratification.” Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 24: 1–20. Inkeles, Alex. 1969. “Making Men Modern: On the Causes and Consequences of Individual Change in Six Developing Countries.” American Journal of Sociology 75: 208–25. Krueger, Dirk, and Krishna B. Kumar. 2004a. “Skill-Specific rather than General Education: A Reason for US-Europe Growth Differences.” Journal of Economic Growth 9: 167–207. . 2004b. “US-Europe Differences in Technology-Driven Growth: Quantifying the Role of Education.” Journal of Monetary Economics 51: 161–90. Lendel, Iryna. 2010. “The Impact of Regional Universities on Regional Economies: The Concept of University Products.” Economic Development Quarterly 24: 210–30. Light, Audrey, and Andrew McGee. 2012. “Employer Learning and the ‘Importance’ of Skills.” Discussion paper 6623. Bonn, Germany: Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). Lucas, Robert E. 1988. “On the Mechanics of Economic Development.” Journal of Monetary Economics 22: 3–42. Lutz, Wolfgang, Jesus Crespo Cauresma, and Warren Sanderson. 2008. “The Demography of Educational Attainment and Economic Growth.” Science 319: 1047–48. Mas, Alexandre, and Enrico Moretti. 2009. “Peers at Work.” American Economic Review 99: 112–45. Mayer, Heike. 2006. “What Is the Role of Universities in High-tech Economic Development? The Case of Portland, Oregon and Washington, DC.” Local Economy 21: 292–315. Meyer, John W. 1977. “The Effects of Education as an Institution.” American Journal of Sociology 83: 55–77. Mincer, Jacob. 1974. Schooling, Experience, and Earnings. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research. Moretti, Enrico. 2004. “Estimating the Social Returns to Higher Education: Evidence from Longitudinal and Repeated Cross-Sectional Data.” Journal of Econometrics 121: 175–212. Muller, Walter, and Yossi Shavit. 1998. “The Institutional Embeddedness of the Stratification Process: A Comparative Study of Qualifications and Occupations in Thirteen Countries.”
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In From School to Work: A Comparative Study of Educational Qualifications and Occupational Destinations, edited by Yossi Shavit and Walter Muller, 1–48. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Paulsen, Michael B., and Nasrin Fatima. 2007. “Higher Education and Growth in State Workforce Productivity, 1980–2000: Evidence on the Public Benefits of College Education.” In Global Issues in Higher Education, edited by Pamela B. Richards, chap. 2. New York: Nova Science Publishers. Poelhekke, Steven. 2013. “Human Capital and Employment Growth in German Metropolitan Areas: New Evidence.” Regional Studies 47: 245–63. Ramirez, Francisco O., Xiaowei Luo, Evan Schofer, and John W. Meyer. 2006. “Student Achievement and National Economic Growth.” American Journal of Education 113: 1–29. Sand, Benjamin M. 2013. “A Re-examination of the Social Returns to Education: Evidence from U.S. Cities.” Labour Economics 24: 97–106. Siegfried, John J., Allen R. Sanderson, and Peter McHenry. 2007. “The Economic Impact of Colleges and Universities.” Economics of Education Review 26: 546–58. Simon, Herbert A. 1973. “The Organisation of Complex Systems.” In Hierarchy Theory, edited by Howard Hunt Patee, 1–23. New York: George Braziller. Smith, Kevin B. 2003. The Ideology of Education: The Commonwealth, the Market, and America’s Schools. Albany: SUNY Press. Stevens, Philip, and Martin Weale. 2004. “Education and Economic Growth.” In Economics of Education, edited by Geraint Johnes and Jill Johnes, chap. 4. Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar. Strotebeck, Falk. 2014. “Running with the Pack? The Role of Universities of Applied Science in a German Research Network.” Review of Regional Research 34: 139–56. Tilly, Charles. 1989. Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons. New York: Russell Sage Foundation Publications. Vogel, Richard, and W. Hubert Keen. 2010. “Public Higher Education and New York State’s Economy.” Economic Development Quarterly 24: 384–93. Wheeler, Christopher H. 2005. “Cities, Skills, and Inequality.” Growth and Change 36: 329–53.
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PART III
DEVELOPMENT DYNAMICS Spatial and Temporal Accounts
11 THE SOCIOLOGY OF SUBNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT Conceptual and Empirical Foundations
Linda Lobao
Spatial scale is an implicit but often unacknowledged organizing framework for sociological inquiry on development. The study of social change—including the causes and consequences of development—can be addressed at a variety of territorial resolutions. However, as is the case with sociological subfields, certain scales become privileged for theoretical and historical reasons. For the study of development, customary attention has always been given to the nation-state and beyond, a vast cross-national literature charting the position of nations in the global system. This renders other spatial scales of analysis nearly invisible to the point where development sociology is often viewed as synonymous with cross-national research or research on the nation-state, particularly in the Global South (Lobao, Hooks, and Tickamyer 2007). The purpose of this chapter is to explain the contours of the sociological study of development at the subnational scale. I draw together conceptual and empirical commonalities across studies, explain the theoretical history behind contemporary work, and denote research contributions and gaps. By the subnational scale, I mean regional territory below the nation-state level and beyond the limits of individual cities or communities. Research at this scale is significant for sociology because it addresses serious questions about development that span theoretical, substantive, political, and policy issues across territorial units within nation-states. Despite the eventual geographic leveling implied in the classical theories of Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Émile Durkheim and left unquestioned in much theorizing about modernity, uneven development persists within nations and is evident in geographic
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disparities in economic growth, socioeconomic conditions, health, and other forms of well-being. These disparities are reflected in regions that historically lag behind others (such as rural areas), in more recent spatial polarization from swings in global capitalism, and in incremental gaps in poverty and prosperity across places under national paths of development. Structural disadvantages because of class, gender, race, ethnicity, and other statuses also tend to be spatially distributed—and this renders national stratification systems more complex than assumed by conventional macro-level theory (McCall 2001). Processes and patterns of stratification vary geographically, and populations’ life chances along numerous well-being indicators are further moderated by the regional settings in which they reside. Therefore, geographic variations within nations raise profound substantive questions about development and inequality as well as challenges for conventional nation-state-oriented theory. Moreover, since national paths of development themselves are an aggregation of those occurring at lower geographic levels, subnational research offers an important testing-ground for and potential corrective to macro-sociological theory (Snyder 2001). More immediately today, the subnational scale has risen in importance for understanding the politics and policies of development. Social scientists have begun to see this scale as central to interpreting one of the most profound social changes over the past half-century: neoliberal development and particularly the rollout of the neoliberal state and its policies (Almeida 2012; Peck 2001). Under neoliberal development, nation-states tend to become rescaled internally with growing decentralization and greater responsibilities for economic growth and redistribution allocated to subnational governments (Brenner 2004). This tends to cut the power of central states, rolls back former equityoriented policies, and contributes to new rounds of uneven development more regionally and locally specific than in the past. In turn, the subnational scale becomes important for charting political responses to neoliberal development. Marked geographic variations in political partisanship highlight the need to understand development and social conditions across urban and rural regions in less developed nations (Almeida 2012; Hiskey 2005) as well as in the United States (Frank 2004). Subnational research has challenged the degree to which conclusions drawn from macro-level theory about the neoliberal state hold up universally within a nation (Lobao, Adua, and Hooks 2014). Researchers have further demonstrated that subnational political economic processes have had upward effects on national politics, contributing to the rise of the neoliberal state itself (Fortner 2010; Hooks and McQueen 2010). In sum, these studies suggest that, by not attending to subnational relationships, macro-level theory about development is inherently limited if not flawed. Although the subnational scale should be central to the study of development, it has been characterized as sociology’s “missing middle” because it represents a far less colonized territorial arena for theory and research as compared to the nation-state and the city (Lobao, Hooks, and Tickamyer 2007, 4). Rich conceptual traditions going back to sociology’s founding give attention to the nation-state and, conversely, to the city—in
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effect carving up sociological theory, research, and substantive foci into opposite ends of the territorial spectrum. As noted, research on nation-states remains the core of development sociology. Research on urban development is claimed by urban sociology, which has produced large literatures addressing growth and inequality within cities (O’Connor, Tilly, and Bobo 2003) and the evolution of large cities and, more recently, world-cities (Orum and Chen 2003; Sassen 2000). Related work on community development, captured by both urban and rural sociology, focuses on smaller-scale locales usually as unique, individual places rather than treating subnational development comparatively across places. Thus, the study of development is marked by a territorial gap. Illustrating this gap is that sociology has no customary term for the middle geographic scale between the nation-state and the city/community. Sociology’s treatment of the subnational scale varies from that of geography, regional science, and economics, which are less likely to reify and segment geographic territory and to theorize development processes as if they were unique to either the nation-state or the city.1 Although sociology is characterized by its neglect of explicitly theorizing subnational development (the discipline lacking coherent theoretical traditions such as found in cross-national sociology or even urban sociology), many empirical studies are situated at the subnational scale. These studies focus on shared attributes of localities, states, provinces, and other territorial units, with the purpose of examining how development and stratification unfold differentially within a nation. Subnational studies question why general, national patterns may not work out evenly within a nation; however, their scale of interest involves generalizing beyond single, individual localities and local-level actors and processes.2 In this chapter, I seek to impose order on the diverse studies addressing subnational development with the goals of making this line of inquiry more visible and advancing its progress. I highlight commonalities across wide-ranging studies, the theoretical history that gave rise to present work, and the state of the literature today with regard to its contributions, gaps, and similarities/differences with sociology’s cross-national tradition. This discussion proceeds in four sections. First, I provide an overview of shared features of contemporary research. Second, I trace theoretical development, including the contribution subnational research makes to building macro-level, cross-national theory. Third, I identify thematic lines of inquiry and their significance for answering key questions about development; here I also consider how the subnational tradition compares with sociology’s established cross-national development tradition. Fourth and finally, I outline the steps necessary to move future work forward. In tracing the manner by which sociologists study development at the subnational scale, I consider the classical sociologists and research conducted globally. When turning to categorizing specific substantive lines of inquiry, I draw from empirical examples mainly from the contemporary United States. As explained earlier, the subnational literature is diverse and fragmented in contrast to the more established contours of
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cross-national/national development sociology (Lobao, Hooks, and Tickamyer 2007). It can be characterized as a wide-ranging body of empirical work that needs greater conceptual synthesis and theoretical development to make its contributions broadly appreciated as a field of scholarship. A vast number of studies examine development-related issues subnationally in the case of the United States, and, by far, most research produced by U.S. sociologists is centered here. Attending to this nation foremost allows some order to be imposed on fragmented studies while providing illustrative coverage of key lines of substantive inquiry.
S U B N AT I O N A L R E S E A R C H : C O M M O N A L I T I E S A C R O S S S T U D I E S
The subnational scale can be broadly conceptualized as regional territory that goes beyond a single city or community, thereby potentially encompassing both urban and rural areas (Lobao, Hooks, and Tickamyer 2007). Studies at this scale range from giving complete coverage to all areas within a nation to covering only select areas. Although scholars often use local-place units of analysis such as cities and counties, their interests lie beyond the local to processes systemic to broader territory. They are concerned with a higher-order level of explanation about regional territory formed as a combination of local, state, or other subunits.3 Much like research conducted on nation-states’ development, the subnational literature tends to focus on two distinct questions. One set of literature is concerned with questions about why and how indicators of development and well-being vary across territorial units such as localities and states. This literature has generated the largest volume of work, and it shares similarities with quantitative cross-national research that has long examined the distribution of development and well-being indicators using nation-states as the unit of analysis (Babones 2013). The second literature questions the manner by which regions themselves are created from uneven development processes. It is often aimed at distinct historical regions such as the Amazon, Appalachia, and the U.S. South. In questioning how regions are produced under capitalism, it overlaps with classic questions posed in theories about nation-states’ development such as dependency theory and world-systems theory as well as more recent theories about development paths under neoliberalism (Evans 1995; Prasad 2006). In this volume, the chapter by Ann Tickamyer and Anouk Patel-Campillo is aimed at probing this second question in a more in-depth manner. Subnational studies share kindred interest in the types of development indicators commonly examined in cross-national research. Economic growth and distribution are given the most attention. Researchers examine why economic growth (income and employment) and distribution (as measured by well-recognized stratification indicators, such as poverty, income inequality, and education) vary across territory (Lobao, Hooks, and Tickamyer 2007). Other forms of inequality, such as health disparities, environmental degradation, public service availability, social safety-net generosity, and political conditions, are also addressed. Well-being is typically studied across general populations, but
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some studies drill down to more complex variations by race/ethnicity and gender (McCall 2001). Scholars have overlapping objectives for situating their work at the subnational scale (discussed further below). They may have intrinsic conceptual interest in this scale—for example, to understand the development of specific regions, such as the Amazon and Appalachia and to assess shifts in the distribution of poverty and prosperity within a nation. They may draw on the subnational scale to extend theory that is abstract or framed at the macro-level, such as theories about economic development, welfare states, and industrial restructuring. They may have policy and public sociology interests. Across the globe, governments and nongovernmental agencies track poverty and other wellbeing indicators at this scale, and they distribute funds accordingly. In terms of causal determinants, subnational studies reflect a genuinely sociological approach in that researchers build from common disciplinary principles about development and stratification. This approach varies from that of the other social sciences, which do not give as much attention to inequality and power, yet geography, regional science, and even, to some degree, economics devote more sustained effort to theorizing subnational development. Macro-sociologists have long outlined the manner by which inequality varies historically. Most fundamentally, the organization of the economy sets nations’ level of economic growth, and class actors struggle over its distribution (Lenski 1966). In modern stratification systems, the state is seen as an important institution that influences growth and mediates this struggle (O’Connor 1973). Distributional struggle among diverse social actors beyond class, including gender and racial/ethnic groups, is also emphasized (Tilly 1998). These insights, which are staples of stratification theories, political sociology, and economic sociology, are applicable for understanding the determinants of subnational development. But, though sociologists studying subnational development may recognize that causal determinants span economic structure, social actors, and the state, these determinants are fully articulated only in select qualitative studies (see, e.g., Bunker 1985 and Duncan 1999). Quantitative studies that constitute most of the contemporary literature take a more truncated view. Focus is largely on economic structure, particularly private employment sectors, and demographic attributes of race/ethnicity, gender, education, and age, with these attributes often considered as representing the varying power of social actors (Lobao, Hooks, and Tickamyer 2007). Geographic location is also addressed. Even though extant research focuses on a limited range of causal determinants, scholars aim to scrutinize fundamental sociological questions pertaining to who benefits from development, who loses, and where this occurs. They examine how where one lives affects one’s life chances and opportunities. Research designs are similar to those used in cross-national research. Researchers employ quantitative studies across many territorial units as well as qualitative comparative studies. A key difference from cross-national research, however, is that researchers need to consider intra-national regional dynamics (Almeida 2012; Hiskey 2005). Included here are three elements: the general conceptualization of regional processes;
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the geographic embeddedness of places in higher-order territories such as states and provinces; and measurement issues pertaining to spatial autocorrelation or spatial dependence due to diffusion processes (Irwin 2007; Matthews and Parker 2013; Voss 2007). Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology is increasingly employed to understand geographic patterns and diffusion processes, but its overall use remains slow and spotty in sociology. In the study of subnational development, GIS is employed more to address spatial inequalities and demographic questions; it has had less influence over other substantive areas denoted below. Subnational research contributes to building the sociology of development, as noted previously. This research addresses significant development issues requiring sociological attention and illuminates theory and findings from macro-level, nation-state research. Policy and political responses to development are defined and undertaken at the subnational level. In fact, in terms of public policy and outreach, sociologists have perhaps had their greatest impact on development through their subnational work with government agencies that benchmark regional development through social indicators and formulate policy and programs accordingly (see Wimberley 2008). Nevertheless, as discussed below and elsewhere (Lobao, Hooks, and Tickamyer 2007), the insertion of geographic space—especially at subnational levels—into sociological thinking about development was met with indifference if not hostility until quite recently. Although this view has waned as Marxist-oriented political economy theories were widely applied to both cross-national development and urban development from the 1980s onward, it tends to remain whenever researchers attempt to address different, less familiar geographic scales. The city and the nation-state have become hegemonic scales of study in sociology. The subnational scale is sociology’s spatial “other”—neither city nor nationstate—neglected by theorists and underestimated in its significance for the discipline.
S O C I O L O G I C A L T H E O RY
The evolution of theorizing at the subnational scale is marked by several characteristics. First, general neglect of this scale was built into sociology by the classical founders, so that subsequent research was left without explicit theoretical grounding. Second, contemporary work has sought to link back to classical theory, to extend theory from extant sociological subfields, and to introduce new literature from geography. Yet the theoretical lacuna remains. Finally, subnational research has important implications for development theory framed at the national/cross-national scale.
T H E C L A S S I C A L F O U N D AT I O N S O F S O C I O L O G Y A N D S U B N AT I O N A L D E V E L O P M E N T
The foundations of sociological theory reflect the elevation of time and history over space and geography (Soja 1989; Urry 1989). Marx, Weber, and Durkheim were concerned with
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the shift from feudalism and the subsumption of pre-capitalist societies to modern capitalist market relations. This concern focused on the temporal rather than the spatial dimensions of social change. It also implied eventual leveling of geographic differences within nations, diminishing the need to study them. Although the classical sociologists had other priorities, some attention to subnational development can be seen in their work. For Marx, interest was in the dynamic spread and leveling effect of capitalism across populations. This process resulted in the urbanization of the countryside, the growth of large cities (which rescues populations “from the idiocy of rural life” [Urry 1989, 298]), and the creation and mobilization of the proletariat. Edward Soja (1989, 85) notes that Marx’s views on subnational development were “submerged” in part because the first two volumes of Capital were widely disseminated prior to the Grundrisse where Marx began to suggest geographic variations. Marx planned subsequent volumes of Capital that would analyze the geographical expansion of capitalism and its potential unevenness. Early-twentieth-century theorists, such as Vladimir Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg, examined geographic issues in developing a Marxian theory of imperialism. But even here, Soja (1989) argues that their interest was not in subnational development processes but rather in how capitalism encountered national barriers that needed to be overcome via international expansion. Turning to Weber, John Urry (1989, 300) concludes that he gave little attention to space or geography. The City is probably Weber’s closest expression of geographic sensitivity; there he analyzed the manner by which medieval cities brought together shared market and political interests that challenged the persistence of the feudal system. Cities became central to market and political development owing to trade and transportation networks (Irwin 2007). Finally, in the case of Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society ([1933] 1964) focused on the intensification of societies’ division of labor due to increased population density and interactions as development proceeded. Societies shifted from a base of mechanical solidarity (exemplified by undifferentiated places such as small rural communities) to organic solidarity (complex, dense places of interaction with high occupational specialization such as exemplified by cities). Although Durkheim’s legacy was to yield a bimodal understanding of subnational development, it provided theoretical justification for studying urban-rural differences and strongly influenced rural sociology and human ecology. For much of the past century, the human ecology school (Hawley 1950; Odum and Moore 1938) framed sociologists’ understanding of subnational development. This line of research sought to catalog the distinct characteristics of regions’ social organization and culture—the U.S. South and rural areas forming the conceptual exemplars. Attention to subnational development conflicted with the worldviews of modern theorists for much of the post–World War II period (Lobao, Hooks, and Tickamyer 2007; Soja 1989). Rural-urban and other internal regional variations remained viewed as anachronistic legacies destined to erode in the course of development. For Marxists, regional variations and identities were particularly problematic because these inhibited
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the development of a united proletariat. Functionalists defended Western modernization, assuming its benefits would eventually extend to all populations across nations. Finally, the priorities of twentieth-century sociology centered on grand theory and generalization. The intrinsic specificity of regional contexts conflicted with deductive research agendas in which aspatial covering laws were assumed to work out everywhere across a nation.4
T H E O RY I N T H E C O N T E M P O R A RY P E R I O D
From the 1980s onward, sociology took more of a spatial turn. Geographic variations were given increased attention, including those pertaining to subnational development (Lobao, Hooks, and Tickamyer 2007). There was movement away from deductive theory and a focus on context, spatial as well as historical. Stratification theories expanded their reach beyond production and class relations to more fully consider reproduction and community (hence geographic space) as found in the work of Anthony Giddens (e.g., 1981) and Pierre Bourdieu (e.g., 1989). Marxian theory also evolved as the result of efforts of human geographers moving to neo-Marxist approaches (Harvey 1989). These approaches demonstrated the centrality of geography to capitalist development not only at the cross-national scale but also at the subnational scale. New methodologies from geography and spatially oriented fields also diffused into sociology. These influenced theory because they allowed regional processes such as spatial diffusion and contextual and network effects to be opened up to greater conceptual scrutiny. Other social sciences also turned their attention to geographic processes, expanding research on subnational development. In economics, Paul Krugman’s (1991) influential work extended the neoclassical model to account for path-dependent regional development. Political scientists have also given greater attention to subnational development (Sellers 2005; Snyder 2001). In sociology today, theorizing subnational development processes can be seen to proceed from three general directions. It is important to recognize, however, that no widely used theory (or theories) characterize the contemporary literature. First, there have been some attempts to develop or invoke theory to understand subnational development holistically in its own right. These revolve mainly around the use of human ecology and critical Marxist political economy. Human ecology is a functionalist perspective that generally neglects the agency of actors and deploys black-box-like concepts such as “adaptation” to explain social transformation. It attends to variations in the spatial organization of societies that stem from factors such as agglomeration and size of place, social organization and complexity (such as functional differentiation where higher-order services are located in large cities), and centrality of networks in transportation and communication (Irwin 2007; Irwin and Kasarda 1991). This yields a portrayal of subnational development as a web of places whose evolution is dominated by the growth and expansion of large cities. The human ecology view of subnational development is similar to that of general regional science (see Partridge and Rickman 2006).
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The human ecology approach also has been combined in a hybrid manner with Marxian political economy. This provides understanding of the spatial organization of a society and the manner by which capitalists work through this spatial organization to control labor and product markets and compete in the global division of labor (Goe 1994). The role of the state in uneven development has been similarly theorized in this hybrid manner (Hooks 1994). Charles Hirschman (1972) long ago noted other lines along which human and ecology and Marxism can be compatible. Sociologists also draw from the general insights about capital, labor, and the state provided in interdisciplinary Marxian political economy theory. These (neo-Marxist) political economy approaches are wide-ranging. They have evolved beyond older work on internal colonialism from the dependency school (e.g., Frank 1969) that simplistically analyzed regional development as unequal surplus exchange (such as viewing rural areas as underdeveloped due to exploitation by urban elites and urban-headquartered companies). Critiques and revisions of this older manner of political economic theorizing emerged first from researchers studying the Global South and include Fernando Cardoso and Enzo Faletto (1979), David Booth (1985), and Stephen Bunker (1985, 1992), discussed further below. In the case of developed nations, internal colonial theory gained little traction, even to explain cases such as Appalachia. Development processes were recognized to be fluid and complex across regions, with local rather than external elites often more culpable (Billings and Blee 2000). Today, analysts use a mix of recent political economy approaches. Most analysts draw from the general political economic framework, which calls attention to the relative power of capital and labor and the role of the state institutions. For example, Jonathan Hiskey (2005) builds on such general political economic insights to explain subnational economic well-being across Mexico. My work with Gregory Hooks (2003) draws from this general framework to explain income inequality across the United States. Other approaches extend specific political economy schools spatially. For example, Michael Wallace and David Brady (2010) extend Marxist social structures of accumulation theory to provide a view of regional development that is premised on capitalists’ use of “spatialization.” Here, real or perceived threats of firm relocation serve to discipline labor and communities so that they are forced increasingly to accept poorer conditions. A second strategy for theorizing—and probably the most common one—is to use the subnational scale in a narrower manner as a testing ground for theory derived from a particular substantive literature. This strategy is especially taken in studies that analyze market and state forces discussed later in this chapter. Here, theory pertaining to substantive concerns such as civic society, the state, and economic sectors (e.g., extractive industry and manufacturing) is extended spatially to explain variations in subnational development. For example, Charles Tolbert, Thomas Lyson, and Michael Irwin (1998) and Troy Blanchard, Charles Tolbert, and Carson Mencken (2012) build from the civic society literature that emphasizes the role of small business or independent middle-class producers in economic development. Small (relative to large) business tends to promote
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greater collective efficacy and democratic decisionmaking so that places with more locally owned small businesses have better socioeconomic conditions. The authors identify an important new determinant of subnational development while contributing to civic society frameworks. Finally, a third strategy seeks to extend cross-national theory downward to evaluate its explanatory power for subnational scale relationships. For example, Astra Bonini (2012) applies world-systems theory in a downward manner to challenge the conventional view that dependence on the extractive sector inherently reduces development and well-being. Paul Almeida (2012) extends cross-national theory to explain intra-national social movement opposition within El Salvador and Costa Rica and more recently across other Central American nations (Almeida 2014). J. Craig Jenkins, Kevin Leicht, and Heather Wendt (2006) build from cross-national welfare-state theory to analyze class and institutional determinants of state governments’ economic development polices. Stephanie Moller, Arthur Alderson, and Francois Nielsen (2009) employ institutional and political determinants drawn from cross-national research to assess whether similar determinants explain county-level income inequality. Although relatively few studies are aimed at extending cross-national frameworks downward, they suggest that these frameworks can yield insights applicable to subnational development.
H O W S U B N AT I O N A L R E S E A R C H I N F O R M S T H E O RY A B O U T N AT I O N - S TAT E S ’ D E V E L O P M E N T
Subnational research contributes to the advancement of broader cross-national development theory in a number of ways. First, a marker of strong theories is that they offer insights across contexts. This provides a reason for scrutinizing whether sociological theories work out across different spatial scales. Second, the subnational scale provides distinct empirical advantages for testing hypotheses derived from national-level theory. Relationships can usually be studied across large numbers of cases or place-aggregates. National averages themselves are fundamentally the summary across places. Further, data quality (at least for the subnational United States) tends to surpass that of cross-national data. The latter is prone to greater inaccuracy stemming from global variations among governments and timeperiod reporting processes (Snyder 2001). Third, the subnational scale provides a conceptual bridge between national/global and distinctly localized processes. Development processes flow upward and downward across spatial scales as well as spillover across nations. Such processes are particularly illustrated in the case of cross-border regions that provide a new window for development studies (Chen 2005; Orum and Chen 2003). Cross-border regions shed light on patterns of trade and migration and are often the site of serious environmental and political problems. Finally, macro-level theories about nation-states often implicitly depend on subnational relationships but are seldom directly analyzed (Fortner 2010). Theorizing about
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inequality in developing nations as well as in modern nation-states cannot be complete unless one takes into account the regional processes that drive it, such as urban-rural or other geographic differences in income-generating opportunities and wealth accumulation (Chakravorty 2006). Gregory Hooks and Brian McQueen (2010) demonstrate that regional-scale relationships are essential for understanding the American welfare state. Military spending in the 1940s in the U.S. North and West contributed to the defeat of Democrats, allowing Republicans to dominate at a historical juncture of policy establishment. The stinginess of America’s welfare state became institutionalized from these regional trends.
D E V E L O P M E N T I S S U E S I N H E R E N T TO T H E S U B N AT I O N A L S C A L E : L I N E S O F S O C I O L O G I C A L I N Q U I RY
Although research aimed at the subnational scale is fragmented and under-theorized, sociologists recognize that serious issues pertaining to development and well-being are manifest at this scale. Uneven development persists, which is evident in geographic disparities in economic growth, socioeconomic conditions, health, and other well-being along with disadvantages due to gender, race, and ethnicity. In this section, I denote four lines of inquiry inherent to development at the subnational scale. These areas vary in their coverage by sociologists, and I point out the gaps requiring attention. Since scholars have multiple research objectives, the areas of inquiry below should not be seen as mutually exclusive. As noted, the subnational United States is used as a touchstone for illustration of these thematic areas, the scope of sociology’s subnational literature being widest ranging and longstanding here.5 Finally, it should be recognized that there are other ways of organizing research areas and detailed subtopics with respective literatures under each of the four areas below. My goal, however, is to highlight commonalities among a vast array of studies and to draw comparisons with the macro-level, cross-national literature to demonstrate similarities and differences in the manner by which subnational researchers address key development issues.
R E G I O N A L D I F F E R E N T I AT I O N I N PAT H S O F D E V E L O P M E N T
Research at the subnational scale raises the general question of region-making: how and why do distinct territorial formations such as persistently disadvantaged regions arise in the course of a nation’s development? What paths of development do regions take over time?6 Scholars studying developing nations have explicitly theorized and made visible the problem of uneven development from the dependency school onward (Frank 1969; Cardoso and Faletto 1979). Persistently disadvantaged areas are generally conceptualized as generated by capitalist development; scholars emphasize different mechanisms by which this occurs. For example, the dependency school saw developing nations as characterized by a regionalized dual economy consisting of a modern, urbanized sector and a more
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impoverished extractive-sector based hinterland; this regional pattern was created through unequal surplus exchange processes benefiting urban and global elites. Nowclassic critiques of this conceptualization of regional dualism emerged over the extent to which class dynamics were missing and whether peripheral regions could catch up (Booth 1985; Brenner 1977). Nevertheless, the problem of uneven development was firmly recognized in the case of less developed nations. Rural, natural-resource-dependent regions, such as the Brazilian and Ecuadorean Amazon, have long served to illustrate conceptually the manner by which uneven development unfolds in the Global South (Bunker 1985, 1992; Rudel 2002; Rudel, Katan, and Horowitz 2013). In the case of the United States, sociologists have long studied uneven development but in a less theoretically coherent manner. Interest in regional development was explicit in the early work of the Southern regionalists and human ecologists (Hawley 1950; Odum and Moore 1938). They descriptively cataloged regional attributes using human ecology as a guide to explaining why regions varied from one another in terms of population, organization, environment, and technology. This approach was also taken by sociologists studying rural areas more generally for much of the twentieth century. In the contemporary period, attention to power and politics has replaced the older descriptive, human ecology approach. In contemporary work, the focus has been on select, historically lagging regions with high poverty rates, such as Appalachia and the rural South (Duncan 1999; Falk, Schulman, and Tickamyer 2003; Lyson and Falk 1993; Wimberley 2008), Native American reservations (Hooks and Smith 2004), and areas of Latino settlement (Saenz 1997). The historical legacy of poor economic opportunities, racial/ethnic inequality, power of elites, state institutions supporting elite interests, and remote rural location are often implicated in these studies. Almost all studies, however, seek to understand processes unique to these historically disadvantaged regions rather than to theorize uneven development across the United States. Another manifestation of region-making concerns new development patterns arising from economic polarization or other shifts. Over the past few decades, economic growth has been combined with income inequality, as occurs in the U.S. bicoastal West and Northeast (Lenz 2004). Economic polarization also has deepened in parts of the former northern manufacturing belt, with cities and counties unable to afford investments in their own people or in the basic infrastructure that will allow their region to catch up (Partridge and Rickman 2006). The impacts of the Great Recession, still largely studied in select urban areas, appear to have had an uneven regional impact (Grusky, Western, and Wimer 2010). Traditionally slow-growth regions such as the rural North Central states were less affected. But, though research on historical regions itself is limited in sociology, the development of new regional spaces has been given even less attention (for an exception, see Saxenian 1994). This contrasts with the broader social sciences, where new regional spaces are widely addressed globally, as seen in periodicals such as International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, International Regional Science Review, Regional Studies, and Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy, and Society.
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S P AT I A L I N E Q U A L I T Y: D I S PA R I T I E S I N W E L L - B E I N G A C R O S S P L A C E S A N D P O P U L AT I O N S
In terms of the volume of literature, the most commonly posed questions about subnational development center on spatial inequality: the degree to which and why forms of well-being vary across places and populations. Numerous studies address the distribution of employment, income, and population growth, socioeconomic disparities (particularly poverty and income inequality), quality of life conditions such as those pertaining to health status, crime, and environmental justice, and racial/ethnic and gender disparities. Much of this work employs methodological protocols grounded in sociology’s longstanding demographic tradition of ecological studies (Duncan, Cuzzort, and Duncan 1961). Research tends to be quantitative and aimed at generalizing across a nation. Counties, cities, and states/provinces are customary place-units of observation. Commonalities among these studies often go unrecognized because researchers scrutinize dependent variables compartmentalized by subfield (e.g., demography, stratification/inequality, economic sociology, rural sociology, and environmental sociology). Yet these studies remain connected in their fundamental focus on subnational well-being, using similar research designs and independent, determinant variables. Within this body of work, most research is concerned with economic-related disparities in the United States. It ties into an extensive social science literature on subnational “poverty and place” whose contours are reviewed in many studies. (For reviews from geography, see Chakravorty 2006 and Glasmeier 2002; from economics, see Partridge and Rickman 2006; from regional science, see Weber et al. 2005; and from sociology, see Brown and Schafft 2011 and Lobao, Hooks, and Tickamyer 2007.) Thematically, this literature identifies determinants of subnational economic disparities, typically using large-N studies with dependent variables such as poverty rates, income levels and inequality, and job growth. The stock of independent variables is similar with three sets commonly utilized: economic structure, such as the quantity and quality of local employment; demographic attributes, such as age, education, ethnicity, and family structure that reflect residents’ vulnerability to poverty or other disparities; and population geography, such as urban-rural location. Methodological approaches involve modeling relationships with county, city, or other aggregate-level, ecological unit data from secondary sources. Commonly hypothesized relationships are that economic well-being is greater in places with a greater share of higher quality employment (such as manufacturing), lower unemployment, a smaller share of vulnerable populations (higher working age population, higher educational attainments, and smaller minority population), and closer location to metropolitan centers. Another example of the spatial inequality tradition centers on population processes behind geographic disparities—processes that affect the growth, decline, and character of regions along with broader population well-being. Studies of migration (Brown 2002), population sorting/segregation by race, ethnicity, and class (Crowder, Pais, and South
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2012; Massey and Denton 1993), and, more recently, political sorting (Teixeira 2008) provide U.S. examples. Research on migration underpins the study of development globally (Bunker 1985; Chen 2005; Rudel 2002). Migration influences both aggregate population size (as seen in net migration trends) as well as population composition. China’s case of historically disadvantaged rural regions and restricted population mobility, and newer efforts to manage rural-to-urban migration, demonstrate how population flows and regional development are connected (Logan 2008; Seeborg, Jin, and Zhu 2000). Andres Rodriguez-Pose and Viola von Berlepsch (2014) show that nineteenth-century migration had positive, legacy effects on economic development visible across U.S. counties today. Population flows have been conceptualized in ways that jointly apply to developed and developing nations. For example, research on regional differentiation in paths of development discussed above has drawn from the conceptualization of poverty traps that restrict mobility both in the United States (Duncan 1999) and in less developed nations (Rudel, Katan, and Horowitz 2013). Subnational population flows have been conceptualized as part of a general “mobilities” framework (Urry 2000) that spans social as well as spatial stratification, and these flows have also been cast within broader frameworks theorizing globalization (see Favell 2001). Research on subnational inequality yields a body of work with generalizable findings and customarily expected relationships, especially in the case of economic disparities within the United States. But this work shares common limitations. Research tends to focus on a narrow range of causal determinants. These are often under-theorized or treated simply as demographic relationships rather than conceptualized through the lens of stratification theories. In the case of quantitative work, researchers still may neglect to consider spatial effects that can lead to misspecification in relationships. (For discussions, see Irwin 2007 and Matthews and Parker 2013.) Issues of endogeneity or causeand-effect are not often explicitly considered; that is, since present well-being is a function of past conditions, research must account for processes producing past conditions. Regional economists and geographers have moved forward by developing instrumental variable procedures to model causal processes at work (see, e.g., Rodriguez-Pose and von Berlepsch 2014). Still, endogeneity remains a concern in this line of inquiry owing to the many independent-variable-related causal processes that can produce it.
M A R K E T A N D S TAT E P R O C E S S E S A N D T H E I R I M P A C T S AT T H E S U B N AT I O N A L S C A L E
The subnational scale is important for scrutinizing market and state processes—how these unfold across nation-states and their effects on places and populations. The impacts of industries, firms, and jobs within nations often can only be rigorously assessed through comparative subnational research. Shifts in the central state under neoliberal development make the subnational scale a key site for analyzing governmental changes across developed (Brenner 2004) as well as less developed nations (Hiskey 2005). Research on post-
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socialist nations has also looked subnationally (Brown, Greskovits, and Kulcsar 2007). Economic and political sociologists have long examined development issues at the subnational scale. Researchers are interested in the business sector and/or the state and their relationship to economic growth and other well-being. Theory tends to be more clearly articulated in this thematic area as researchers seek to answer questions drawn from economic and political sociology. Research designs follow the spatial inequality tradition above, often using similar dependent well-being indicators. I distinguish the studies here, however, by their foremost concern with the independent variable of state and market forces. Of these two forces, private sector business receives far more empirical attention. The epochal deindustrialization experienced by developed nations in the 1970s, highlighted by Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison (1982), formed the inspiration for extensive sociological concern with the impact of manufacturing on subnational development and population well-being. Studies now span an array of economic sectors and development outcomes. Examples from the United States include attention to foreignowned firms and their effects on earnings inequality (Grant and Hutchinson 1996; Wallace, Gauchat, and Fullerton 2012), small, locally owned businesses and their impacts on general socioeconomic conditions and health status (Tolbert, Lyson, and Irwin 1998; Blanchard, Tolbert, and Mencken 2012), industries’ effects on regional environmental conditions (Hooks and Smith 2004), and the impacts of industrialized farming on socioeconomic, health, and environmental conditions (Lobao and Stofferhan 2008). Attention is also given to specific industries touted by public officials to increase economic development, such as high-technology industries (Jenkins, Leicht, and Wendt 2006), producer services (Goe 1994), and, for rural U.S. regions, prisons, which appear to be a de-development strategy (Hooks et al. 2004). The energy industry, particularly shale gasoil extraction, is also creating new regional disparities now being studied. In conceptualizing economic structure, researchers often draw from economic sociology’s industrial segmentation literature, which defines sectors by quality and quantity of employment. Higher wage industries, such as durable manufacturing and producer services, are usually contrasted with lower wage industries. Causal impacts of these sectors are assumed: studies rarely trace causal paths out. Economic sector or industry of employment influences growth and distribution in direct and indirect ways. Primary impacts are through earnings and occupational structures. Secondary impacts occur through economic multiplier effects. Higher-wage employment creates regional wage spreads as it drives up labor costs when employers compete in the labor market. Insofar as some sectors depend on local skilled or stable labor, employers may further support state interventions that enhance well-being. Research tends to find that places with greater manufacturing and other higher wage employment fare better: incomes are higher and more evenly distributed, and poverty is lower (Cotter 2002; Moller, Alderson, and Nielsen 2009). As the economy shifts, researchers modify sectoral classifications, but the principles above remain: higher quality employment casts a shadow effect where total regional populations benefit.
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Turning to the analysis of the state, a growing interdisciplinary literature sees the state as being “rescaled” in the neoliberal era owing to decentralization processes occurring across nations in the Global South, Europe, and the United States (Brenner 2004; Hiskey 2005; Kazepov 2010). Responsibility for growth and redistribution functions tends to shift downward, but, in any given nation, subnational governments vary in institutional capacity to fulfill these functions. Insofar as subnational governments lack capacity and resources, new rounds of uneven development, more regionally specific than in the past, are likely. For the United States and much of Europe, this shift under neoliberal development contrasts with the Keynesian period when central states were more concerned with equity or implementing policies to reduce regional inequality within their borders. In the present neoliberal era, efficiency or letting the market run its course has gained greater currency. Despite these changes, sociologists still focus overwhelmingly on the central or federal state, thereby missing the transformed roles of the local state in many nations. Research on select cities does exist, but sociological studies rarely analyze the local state in a generalizable manner within nations to address local governments’ changing roles, structure, institutional capacity, and impacts on development. Although studies examining the state across the subnational scale are limited, those that do so tend to focus on governments’ aggregate size as an employer, interpreted sometimes as the degree of state intervention in an area. Public sector employment tends to have a positive impact on distribution, reducing income inequality across the United States; however, it has mixed effects on income levels and growth relative to the private sector (Lobao and Hooks 2003; Moller, Alderson, and Nielsen 2009). Spending on income transfers also appears to be related to lower income inequality and poverty. One of the challenges in analyzing the public sector is that public employment tends to be higher in poorer places at the outset, which adds complexity in assessing the state’s causal role in future development outcomes. Some researchers have also looked subnationally to examine the development-related outcomes of specific policies. Research on federal-level policy decisions—such as the location of the defense industry (Hooks 1994; Hooks and McQueen 2010) and flood control programs (O’Neill 2006)—demonstrates that federal policy is not spatially neutral, and its implementation by actors and agencies operating at different territorial scales contributes further to regional uneven development. Sociologists also have scrutinized the impacts of welfare reform programs (such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), which are highly geographically varied due to a mix of federal, state, and county standards and norms for program operation (Fording, Soss and Schram 2011; Tickamyer et al. 2007). Here, too, government programs appear more to reproduce than to alleviate past spatial inequality. In regard to the distinct policies of state and local governments, sociological attention has been given mainly to policy choices (discussed below) rather than to policy impacts on development. Some sociological research has addressed the long-standing question of the effectiveness of local economic development programs: for example, Gary Green, Arnold Fleischmann, and Tsz Man Kwong (1996) and my work with Wilner
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Jeanty, Mark Partridge, and David Kraybill (2012) find mixed effects of these programs on growth and other well-being across the United States. Peter Dreier, John Mollenkopf, and Todd Swanstrom (2001) explain that local policies with regard to land use, infrastructure, taxation, and education indeed have subnational effects evidenced in regional patterns of segregation. Overall, however, generalizable research on policy impacts—though significant to assessing the effectiveness of the state—faces difficultly in accounting sufficiently for causal processes. Studies of specific programs and small areas can be more rigorous, but, when generalizing across regions, robust research to evaluate policy outcomes is limited not just in sociology but also across the social sciences (Bartik 2001). A shortcoming with subnational literature is that broader institutional capacity of the state overall to promote development and reduce poverty across the nation is rarely examined. This contrasts with cross-national work, given its comparative welfare states tradition (Huber and Stephens 2001, 2012; Prasad 2006), and sociology’s Weberian, statecentered tradition. From the cross-national literature, where government is larger and institutionally stronger (i.e., with greater bureaucratic and fiscal capacity), it should operate more effectively. The rise of leftist governments in Latin America has been found to reduce poverty rates, for instance (Huber and Stephens 2012). Questions about stateinstitutional capacity could be applied to all levels of the state (i.e., federal, state, and local governments) and how they affect subnational development. There is some evidence that local governments with stronger institutional capacity can enhance economic growth and reduce poverty across the U.S. (Lobao et al. 2012). In summary, the private sector’s impact on subnational development has long been studied. Although cross-national sociology and foundational neo-Marxian and Weberianoriented theories see the state as an important institution in development, its systematic study at the subnational scale is limited in sociology.
P O L I T I C A L P R O C E S S E S : P O L I C Y C H O I C E S O F T H E S U B N AT I O N A L S TAT E A N D C O L L E C T I V E B E H AV I O R
A final thematic area concerns political processes at the subnational scale—that is, the behavior of both subnational governments and their populations as political actors. Research here, too, is wide-ranging and fragmented, but distinct literatures have emerged around policy formulation by the subnational state and collective political behavior such as social movement activity. In both cases, researchers address the determinants of political processes conventionally studied aspatially or for nation-states as a whole (Almeida 2012, 2014; Hooks and Lobao 2010). Subnational research is seen to offer finergrained analyses that allow questions about the roots of these processes to be explored in greater depth within a nation, including questions about new causal determinants and regional variations (Almeida 2012, 2014). There is now increasing focus on the policies produced by subnational governments as critical changes in the state occur globally. European nations historically have had
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more centralized governance systems, and an emerging literature investigates the policies of regional and local European governments gaining new or greater autonomy (Kazepov 2010). In historically centralized nations, researchers have pointed to the potential for beneficial policy choices, such as the tailoring of policies to better fit local or regional needs. By contrast, the United States historically is highly decentralized, and this trend has further accelerated since the Reagan era. Here, subnational states’ policies are viewed as potentially more negative (Peck 2001). Localities and states take on functions that the federal government should provide, but their resources and political will to support policies benefiting the public over capitalists’ interests vary. This creates inequalities in the quality and quantity of government intervention across the nation. In cross-national research, economic development and social policies are usually analyzed separately (Prasad 2006). This gap also holds true for research on subnational states’ policies (Jenkins, Leicht, and Wendt 2006). Studies aim to understand policy determinants that drive governments to select business-friendly or, alternatively, procitizen, pro-poor policies. Subnational researchers generally hypothesize relationships similar to those expected from cross-national work that stresses jointly class-centered forces, such as political economic variables including business and labor power, and state-centered forces, such as administrative and other institutional capacity (Jenkins, Leicht, and Wendt 2006; Lobao, Adua, and Hooks 2014). Economic development policy is given the most attention. U.S. state and local governments have rapidly increased their development roles since the 1970s. They essentially set national economic development policy because of federal inaction in devoting resources to job creation (Bartik 2001). Economic development policies are typically conceptualized as ranging from high- to low-road strategies: the former emphasizes small business and human capital development; the latter stresses competitive business attraction thought largely to benefit big business. This work gained early prominence in John Logan and Harvey Molotch’s (1987) growth machine research. Local policy studies are usually based on samples of cities or counties (owing to the need to collect primary data) whereas studies of states provide national coverage. A weak working class, strong business power, and Republican orientation are generally hypothesized to produce less progressive policy. This relationship has been found for right-to-work policies (Dixon 2010) but only partly supported for business-attraction policies that the industrial working class may support (Jenkins, Leicht, and Wendt 2006). By contrast, institutional capacity tends to produce greater development policy activity of all types. Redistribution policies of subnational governments are given less attention because social policy remains classically studied at the federal level. Sociologists have examined the degree to which states and localities implement pro-poor policies using measures of policy selection and spending (Amenta and Halfman 2000; Fording, Soss, and Schram 2011; Fox 2010; Oakley and Logan 2007; Tickamyer et al. 2007; Zylan and Soule 2000). Determinants hypothesized here also tend to be class-centered, political economic forces and state-centered institutional factors. Since studies are few, consistent support for
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these determinants is limited. Political economic factors such as poverty (Tickamyer et al. 2007), fiscal problems and Republican partisanship (Zylan and Soule 2000), and weak leftist political parties and unions (Amenta and Halfman 2000) are found in some studies to be related to less progressive policy. Racial/ethnic variables tend to have more complex relationships than would be anticipated from racial-politics perspectives that assume that high minority areas have weaker public service provision (Fox 2010; Oakley and Logan 2007). Institutional determinants such as bureaucratic capacity and pathdependency or use of similar past policies appear especially important (Oakley and Logan 2007; Tickamyer et al. 2007; Zylan and Soule 2000). Finally, other policies reflective of neoliberal development, such as recent austerity policies and privatization, are still given little sociological attention. (For research that does exist, see Kazepov 2010; Lobao and Adua 2011; Warner 2006.) A subnational literature on collective behavior has also emerged as social movement researchers drill down to this scale to examine new causal determinants and how these play out in different contexts. This literature draws from the understanding of subnational regional processes to inform the study of social movements in a number of innovative ways. First, the subnational scale offers a general political context for exploring collective action. Political mediation explanations particularly stress regional or place-based contingencies for social movement development (Amenta 2014). For movements to take off, strategies and framing need to fit with specific political contexts such as the party in power, state bureaucrats’ interests, and levels of democracy and patronage. Regional differences in the push for old-age assistance programs during the New Deal, for example, show that a lack of democratization in the U.S. South and patronage-based policies in parts of the Northeast and Midwest depressed support for these programs (Amenta 2006). Second, researchers have emphasized the role of subnational infrastructure and the built environment. Such factors function as strategic local/regional resources that can be mobilized for collective action. Almeida (2012) finds that subnational collective action against privatization in El Salvador and Costa Rica was heightened in places with greater state and community infrastructure as indicated by public administrative offices, transportation, and local chapters of oppositional parties. Vincent Roscigno and William Danaher (2004) similarly stress the role of infrastructure in mobilizing Southern textile workers during the Depression. They show how the location of radio stations facilitated mobilization through protest music. With attention to infrastructure, subnational researchers broaden the conceptualization of political opportunity structures usually analyzed temporally by social movement scholars toward a spatial understanding of political opportunity. Third, subnational social movement research has pointed to the importance of spatial diffusion effects that are often analyzed using quantitative, geographic methods. Researchers usually hypothesize positive spatial diffusion. For example, Rory McVeigh, Daniel Meyers, and David Sikkink (2004) found that, during the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan
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had greater recruiting success in counties that were spatially proximate to the movement’s strongholds. Alternatively, negative, checker-board-like spatial diffusion effects may be expected in some instances. Stewart Tolnay, Glenn Deane, and E. M. Beck (1996) examined Southern lynchings, finding such checker-board effects: counties adjacent to those with a lynching were less likely to have them, since white dominance was previously demarked. Finally, subnational research has called attention to the importance of structural conditions within nations to explain social movements and political behavior more generally. Nella Van Dyke and Sarah Soule (2002) found that reactive social movements, indicated by patriot and militia organizing, were greater in states and counties that had experienced economic restructuring or loss of manufacturing and farms along with a higher white population. Studies of voting behavior for regressive policies have given similar attention to structural factors. Rory McVeigh and Maria-Elan Diaz (2009) found that voting to ban same-sex marriage was greater in counties with a more traditional family structure and gender roles and weak community cohesion. Urban-rural and red-blue state and county variations have also been explained by structural factors such as occupational sex segregation (McVeigh and Sobolewski 2007).
CONCLUSIONS
Sociology’s body of subnational research addresses significant questions about development. The causal pathways by which development disparities and processes emerge are central to the body of work. Among this wide-ranging literature, researchers speak to core questions about such issues as the spread of development within a nation (including long-term and new forms of regional advantage and disadvantage), disparities across a vast array of development indicators, shifts in state and market processes, and political processes involving subnational state and social movement actors who seek to promote change. Yet these questions remain unevenly studied, and, in some respects, sociology lags behind other social sciences in recognizing their importance. Theory building at the subnational scale remains limited in sociology, and this gap is particularly notable when compared to cross-national research with strong theoretical traditions that speak to many of the same substantive questions. Subnational research is central to building development sociology. An overriding contribution comes from situating the field’s big questions about development within the heart of its spatial knowledge gap. The body of research responds to serious issues that will continue to increase in importance as states and economies shift under neoliberal development (Brenner 2004) and as spatial disparities within nations globally are made more visible for public scrutiny (see, e.g., Lora-Wainright 2013). Subnational studies illuminate theory and findings from nation-state/cross-national research. In some instances, its finer-gained analysis has allowed scholars to challenge prevailing views of development put forth by macro-level research.
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In terms of development policy and public sociology outreach, U.S. sociologists may have their most concerted influence at the subnational scale. Research on the distribution of subnational well-being indicators informs federal, regional, and state agencies as well as nongovernmental organizations that tract well-being, often allocating funds accordingly. For example, the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) uses a countydistress index composed of per capita income, poverty, and unemployment in order to allocate funds. Sociologists often collaborate and consult with organizations such as the ARC. Some have actively worked with Congress and nongovernmental groups on regional poverty issues and had some success in moving the federal government toward more progressive action, such as in garnering support for a new federal agency on the impoverished Southern “black belt” region (Wimberley 2008). Sociological research on state and market sector impacts has been used by government and nongovernmental organizations to push for greater oversight and regulation of public and private sectors (Hooks et al. 2004; Lobao and Stofferhan 2008). To advance research on subnational development, I briefly outline some directions. First, efforts to build a more coherent body of research are needed. Research directed to the subnational scale from political sociology, economic sociology, and spatial inequality—along with insights from cross-national development theory—offer linked conceptual approaches. These traditions highlight the need for giving multifaceted attention to economic, political, and social institutions affecting growth and redistribution, to actors such as capital, labor, the state, civic society, and social groups by class, race/ethnicity, and gender, and to regional/global processes. Advancing research will require modifications in the manner by which theory is currently deployed. Most studies center on theorizing how a single or a few social forces, usually economic structure, affect development disparities. This limits and fragments research. Synthetic approaches, competitive tests among different theories, and subnational extensions of cross-national theory and interdisciplinary political economy approaches have the potential for broader headway. Second, most research centers on the manner by which development disparities are distributed across regions rather than the creation of poor or prosperous regions through uneven development processes. The latter issue entails focusing on distinct global, national, and local social forces and actors creating uneven development, how they shape a gestalt of regional attributes, and how they affect path-dependency in subsequent development. More work is needed on uneven development beyond regions customarily studied, such as the Amazon, Appalachia, and the U.S. South. Third, conceptual-methodological gaps need to be sorted out. Limited attention has been given to the delineating pathways by which economic and state institutions affect development and how regional processes intervene in relationships. Quantitative studies face problems such as spatial autocorrelation and endogeneity in regional processes. Researchers are still in the formative stages of understanding how to appropriately address these issues. GIS holds particular promise for subnational development research,
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but thus far its use in sociology has been limited, seen mainly in select demographic studies. Finally, we should work toward a larger project, building a more comprehensive sociological approach to the study of development. Here the importance of framing questions about development and inequality across a variety of spatial scales would be widely recognized. Sociology is uniquely positioned to contribute to carving out the study of development at all scales, especially in defining the policy and political responses that poverty and prosperity across regions entail. To do so, however, sociologists need to give concerted attention to subnational regions, because they provide new knowledge and challenges for the broader field of development sociology.
N OT E S
1. In geography, economics, and regional science, the term “region” is often used to refer to the subnational scale. However, in sociology, “region” is usually understood as a region of the country, such as north or south. Geographers, economists, and regional scientists also use region to refer to any territorial setting, from global to local. The term “subnational” conveys more explicitly the generic intermediate scale beyond the locale but below the nation state. For studies explaining the subnational scale in sociology, see Lobao, Hooks, and Tickamyer 2007; in political science, see Sellers 2005 and Snyder 2001. 2. I focus on the manner by which sociologists have studied subnational places as regional territories and intrinsic units of interest to highlight this tradition—just as studies of the city and of the nation-state as distinct places of interest have engaged sociology’s urban and crossnational traditions, respectively. 3. Spatial scales are fluid, of course, and processes at global levels influence local levels and vice versa. For the purposes of succinctly capturing and consolidating the wide-ranging work addressing subnational-scale development, I treat the subnational scale as a distinct analytical level of sociological inquiry. For an early discussion of the conceptualization and measurement of this scale in sociology, see Duncan, Cuzzort, and Duncan 1961. 4. It should be noted that Georg Simmel was an early exception in that he viewed space as fundamental for a sociological understanding of society. See Simmel (1908) 2009. 5. Because sociology gives primacy to the nation-state, subnational variations are understudied across the globe. Some scholars suggest that this problem is greater in the case of developing nations, where key political and economic questions about development are studied in a highly aggregated manner (Almeida 2012; Hiskey 2005). In part, this may be due to data availability. By contrast, in the U.S. case, scholars have a long history of using the extensive data available for cities, counties, and states from federal and other sources to study subnational scale relationships. 6. Regions within a nation can be delineated in various ways. Commonly, social scientists define them as historical (such as the U.S. north/south), functionally linked (such as labor markets), homogeneous (sharing elements in common such as urban areas, manufacturing belts, and farm belts), and general subnational territory. As previously noted, in sociology the term “region” tends to be equated with historical regions.
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12 SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT The Making of Regions
Ann R. Tickamyer and Anouk Patel-Campillo
How and why uneven development occurs has been the subject of inquiry across disciplines, including sociology, geography, planning, economics, and development studies. Less frequently addressed, especially in sociology, is how processes of uneven development create regions or territorially bounded spaces themselves. In this chapter, we examine processes of uneven development with a primary focus on subnational regions but with attention to how these relate to issues, concepts, and theories about regional development at a variety of spatial scales. Thus, we will attempt to conceptualize regional development at the subnational level by indicating how it links to more macro-level approaches and micro/macro links across national and international boundaries. We illustrate with a lengthier case study of Appalachia. In the developing world, political boundaries were drawn by European empires as a means to delineate national territories and as a way of “ordering” territorial space and society. Often drawn haphazardly, these boundaries provided imperial powers with a recognizable and familiar way of defining political relations, understanding and claiming territorial space. Whether the inhabitants of those territorial spaces agreed to such delineations was inconsequential. The goal was to stake territorial claims for purposes of extraction. Territorial boundaries in former colonies, therefore, were created for economic and administrative purposes, consolidating differences in power, unnaturally and illegitimately, and with a legacy that persists. Currently, boundaries are still drawn by external authorities, including policymakers and scholars, the latter to delineate territories as a means to understand spatial organization
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and social relations, including why and how uneven development occurs. This is the case with regions. When seeking to analyze uneven development, sociologists have predominantly focused on world regions, classified as core and periphery, and their economic and social interactions from a macro-historical perspective. A largely separate tradition focuses on urban inequalities, growth, and development. Regions exist—or, more accurately, are constructed—at a variety of spatial scales from the global to the local with very little consistency in how the term is conceptualized and operationalized. Increasingly, however, sociologists are examining subnational areas, including units termed regions, as a key form of uneven development (see Linda Lobao’s chapter in this volume and Lobao, Hooks, and Tickamyer 2007). In this chapter, we will examine different meanings and uses of “regions,” how they apply at the subnational level, and theoretical perspectives on uneven development, structure, and process along with the iconic example found in Appalachian development and underdevelopment. Finally, we will identify areas for future research. We emphasize the elusive and shifting nature of regional definition, with both the challenges and benefits this poses for a robust sociology of regional formation, uneven development, and related inequalities.
W H AT I S A R E G I O N ?
Region is primarily a natural language concept that has received little theoretical development in sociology. Dictionary definitions use terms like area, surface, space, and territory, typically specifying that they are contiguous, sometimes extending the definition to note that they have administrative though not necessarily fixed boundaries. A glance at standard sociology references such as the Annual Review of Sociology and various encyclopedias of sociology finds only vague entries for the term. It is much more likely to be specified and used analytically with more precision in geography, but here, too, its meanings vary greatly, as does the scale on which it is approached (Agnew 2000). As illustrated in this volume, the construct of regions is applied to various world regions with historical boundaries established in colonial times and reified over time (e.g., Southeast Asia, the Middle East), continental divisions with different development trajectories (e.g., Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America), subnational identities that have captured popular imagination (e.g., Appalachia, Amazonia), emerging and economically powerful units denoting urban agglomerations (world cities, such as New York and Miami), and declining rural hinterlands (Ozarks, Great Plains), among others. These may have multiple and shifting designations, boundaries, and identities. Regions are multi-scalar and may be part of larger administrative units and have a unique global reach (Agnew 2000; Hudson 2007) or cross political boundaries and stand in relative isolation. At whatever scale, they are historically and geographically contingent and typically nested in other socio-spatial units including other regions. For example, the Mississippi Delta of the United States is embedded in the “black belt” plantation economy of the American South—all of which are potential regional designations (Falk,
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Talley, and Rankin 1993; Wimberly and Morris 2002). Amazonia is a vast region located within and across South American national boundaries (Bunker 1984, 1989, 2003). Viewed from the opposite perspective on spatial hierarchy, the European Union incorporates multiple states, territories, and regions at every possible scale, and it continues to evolve over time and space from its inception in the Maastricht Treaty of 1993. Thus, regions are socially constructed and relational, and they can be made and unmade through policy, shifting flows of labor, capital, goods, technology, information, biophysical transformations, and, of course, people, with more or less fluid territorial markers and administrative jurisdictions (Agnew 2013; Jones and Paasi 2013). Historically, sociology has emphasized macro-level comparative studies of so-called world regions (Gereffi and Fonda 1992) or local-level case studies designed to investigate some particular social process or formation (Lobao, Hooks, and Tickamyer 2007). However, just as geographers have increasingly focused on subnational regions and urban agglomerations (Hudson 2007; Scott and Storper 2003), sociologists, too, are paying more attention to subnational units (Lobao, Hooks, and Tickamyer 2007) and global cities (Castells 1996; Sassen 2000) to explain variation and processes of development within and across bounded areas. Empirical studies will vary in their units of analysis depending on availability of data and the perspective of the researcher. Within the sociological literature, region may assume a variety of different meanings and scales of analysis. Similarly, theories of uneven development as focused on regions are uneven in their application. Region remains under-specified and theorized, whether at the global, local, or subnational scale. A common approach within sociology, at any scale, is to examine regions on the basis of an a priori historical identity that then must be explained after the fact, using the empirical tools at hand. The “place in society” perspective starts with a historical and geographic region and specifies the characteristics and relationships that distinguish it (Lobao, Hooks, and Tickamyer 2007). Alternatively, patterns that define or construct regions may emerge and change from cross-unit analysis of distance and clustering, seeking less to explain an identifiable place than to determine the scope and form of social and economic processes as they are distributed across spatial locations over time (Logan 2012). The “society in place” approach to understanding regional development dispenses with immutable boundaries and enduring identities in exchange for a dynamic understanding of place, including region (Lobao, Hooks, and Tickamyer 2007). Each approach is well-represented in the literature. The a priori historical/place in society perspective and the more fluid society-in-place approach are not mutually exclusive; rather, they are complementary but vary in emphasis. Both also call on long histories in sociology of seeking to explain social inequalities, whether individual, societal, or spatial. The place-in-society approach is characteristic of some of the earliest systematic sociological exploration of region at the subnational level, such as is found in the work of pioneering Southern “regionalists” Howard Odum (1936) and Rupert Vance (1932). They applied a human ecology perspective to explain development patterns in the
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American South that assumed that identifiable and historically unique regions are the product of the intersection of sociocultural and biophysical environments. Appalachia and its poverty is another subnational region that has been analyzed from virtually every possible disciplinary and theoretical stance but typically as a sui generis place, albeit with surprisingly little agreement or consistency in its boundaries. Thus, sociologists have joined geographers, anthropologists, historians, planners, social workers, journalists, fiction writers, and policymakers as they try to explain what constitutes Appalachia and why it lags other regions. It may be a social and political construct, but it is one with enduring interest that is rooted in both popular and scholarly imaginations over time (Billings and Tickamyer 1993). Nevertheless, there is great heterogeneity across the region both historically and currently (Fisher and Smith 2012; Pudup, Billings, and Waller 1995). Analysis of county-level census and economic data suggests that the central Appalachian coalfields of eastern Kentucky and West Virginia are perhaps the only “true” Appalachia remaining (Thorne, Tickamyer, and Thorne 2004). Pursuing a society-in-place perspective, patterns of out-migration from the concentrated areas of Mexican American settlement in the U.S. Southwest (“Aztlan”) demonstrate regional formation and change over time and space (Saenz, Cready, and Morales 2007) as do many theoretical and empirical studies that point to the role of migration in community and regional formation (Brown 2002). The rise (and sometimes fall) of (subnational) industrial regions such as the maquiladoras of the Mexican border (Sklair 2011) or the high-tech corridors of Route 128 in Massachusetts and Silicon Valley in California (Kenney 2000; Saxenian 1996) are a reminder of the dynamism of regional development. In both approaches and across the literature on regional uneven development, there is a tension between focusing on cross-sectional snapshots in time that emphasize boundaries, structures, and historical identities versus more process-oriented perspectives that highlight the changing and fluid nature of these territories. Similarly, there is a tension between naturalizing versus constructivist approaches to defining region that permeates much of the literature whether explicitly or implicit in the analysis. These tensions apply regardless of whether the region in question is cross-national or subnational and in fact may be more prevalent (or at least more obvious) under the close scrutiny of subnational analysis.
A N A LY T I C A L A P P R O A C H E S T O R E G I O N
The indeterminacy in defining regions complicates explaining their formation and development trajectories. Although there is general recognition that uneven development occurs across regions as they gain or lag in economic growth and income, poverty, inequality, and numerous other indicators of social welfare and well-being, explanations follow both theoretical perspectives and territorial focus. Macro-level theories, which have been the dominant sociological lens, have also been applied at different spatial scales and
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levels of analysis, with relatively little scrutiny of the degree to which they can successfully make the transition. Thus, sociological theories that traditionally have an equilibrium focus such as human ecology, modernization, and structure functionalism, on the one hand, and more conflict- and change-oriented perspectives found in Marxist and neoMarxist critical theories and political economic approaches, on the other, have all somewhat indiscriminately been applied to regional development at cross-national, subnational, and urban/community scales. In the following discussion, we select some of the most prominent explanations from both traditions to explore further their appropriateness for analyzing regional development as well as some newer approaches such as political ecology that have the potential to transcend old polarizing conceptualizations. In the post–World War II growth of social science, efforts to explain inequalities in wealth and power across nations initially were captured by naive modernization theories influenced by neoclassical economics. Uneven development was viewed from the miasma of imperialism as either a historical accident or the outcome of stagnation and wrong turns taken by socially and culturally “backward” nations. National and transnational regional inequalities were seen as the unfortunate by-product of cultural dead ends that could be ameliorated by diffusion or active transmission of modern institutions, practices, and technologies leading to “economic takeoff ” (Rostow 1960) that would ultimately bring all nations into the fold of free market prosperity and mass consumption. Modernization theory was sometimes directly applied to analysis of subnational regional development. For example, Appalachia (in part or whole) has frequently been characterized as the land and people left behind—physical and cultural isolation whose remedy was to create “ ‘corridors’ of development” (Billings, Pudup, and Waller 1995, 6). As alluded to previously, human ecology also saw service as an explanation for regional development. Although early Southern regionalists such as Odum and Vance influentially used a human ecology perspective to analyze the American South, and it was a widely promulgated stance in both sociology and demography (Hawley 1950), it was most commonly applied to patterns of urban and community growth and decline. It fell out of favor among a new generation of sociologists because of its focus on gradual change and “adaptation,” lack of attention to human agency, historical connections with rejected functionalist and modernization perspectives, and failure to adequately specify all components of the standard POET (population, organization, environment, and technology) model—the systems approach that emphasizes the interrelationships of these four factors to define development (Brown 2002). The dominance of equilibrium models in social science approaches to development increasingly was rejected and replaced with critical and political economic analyses. The rise of Marxist and critical theories, fueled by anticolonial movements and the evidence of huge and enduring levels of poverty and social inequalities throughout the Global South, provided a necessary corrective to the ascendancy of Cold War ideology that infused development theory and practice of the time. The concern then was primarily with world regions, and the rise of world systems and dependency approaches
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provided alternative theoretical perspectives based on Marxian theories about the growth of capitalism and relations of power and domination across nations. Although lacking spatial theorization, these same theories were later shoehorned into explaining subnational regional underdevelopment and uneven development. Thus, poor and lagging regions such as Appalachia and the American South were explained by an internal colonialism model that posited relations of domination and exploitation imposed by external powers for the purpose of resource extraction, capital accumulation, and cheap labor. Other accounts elaborated the forms of exploitation to recognize the roles of local elites, often integrated into both local and global class hierarchies, again based on various strands of Marxist political economy and world-systems theories. Specific models of uneven development vary by time and space. The decline of the U.S. “rust belt” (primarily the industrial upper Midwest) in the mid- to late twentieth century receives different treatment than the enduring poverty found in the Southern “black belt.” All models, however, focus on class relations, industrial structure, and access to capital and markets (Lyson and Falk 1993), whereas spatial units such as region remain insufficiently theorized and have an ad hoc character that may not be consistent across analyses. Numerous variations can be found in the literature and, more recently, have been augmented or superseded by both new theoretical perspectives and current events. These include the rise of post-structural theories, a fascination with globalization, numerous historical, political, and economic developments ranging from the fall of the Soviet Union (the “second world”) to the ascendancy of the neoliberal agenda in both national and international politics, and the growing concern with climate change, environmental catastrophe, and their impacts on different territories and ecosystems. Each of these perspectives can be seen as having an impact on the way regional development and formation is conceptualized. For example, some globalization theories have emphasized the “flattening” effect of rapidly expanding international commerce and markets as well as new communications and information technology with the resulting homogenization of distinct national and regional practices and identities (Friedman 2005). Similarly, a global cities approach emphasizes the centrality of urban hubs that connect across national and international boundaries as opposed to forming or maintaining identifiable local characteristics and relationships (Sassen 2000; Scott and Storper 2003). Although widely debated and disputed as to how flat is flat and what the implications are for the ultimate contours of local and regional identities, especially in the face of ever-growing numbers of regional conflicts, there can be little doubt that accelerating globalization, urbanization, and the growth of world cities influence regional development and formation, albeit with inadequate test of their effects. Furthermore, these strands of theory help shift emphasis from region as container to region as sets of networks and relationships—in other words, a society-in-place approach. (See the editors’ introduction and other chapters in this volume.) In addition to the dominant perspectives previously mentioned, post-structural perspectives reject the rigid and over-determined models of both human ecology and many
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political economy theories, recognizing the multilayered, multilevel, and intertwined nature of governance practices, jurisdictions, and territories (Elden 2013). Other analyses focus on the spread of the neoliberal agenda, otherwise known as the Washington Consensus, promulgated by a combination of transnational capital, Western geopolitical power, and the international agencies that legitimate and finance the world order. Although initially and primarily applied to the international arena, they find their counterpart in national states’ efforts to decentralize, devolve, and dismantle centrally managed state policy instruments to local jurisdictions and regional levels, with consequent subnational regional effects (Lobao 1996; Tickamyer et al. 2007). The rise of political ecology theories brings many newer strands of theory together, and to some extent it takes the study of regions full circle with earlier versions of human ecology by once again emphasizing the interface of the biophysical environment along with the social and political, differing from earlier human ecology in its critical perspective, focus on relations of power and inequalities, and emphasis on dynamic, sometimes catastrophic processes of change. The numerous strands of development theory spread across multiple disciplines and interdisciplinary perspectives defy easy classification or summary, especially since sociology has often been a lagging partner in their conceptualization and application. The next section describes how uneven development across regions is explained from the still dominant critical political economy and structuralist viewpoints favored by sociology and geography as well as some of the newer strands of theory, such as political ecology, where sociology is less well represented. We will then examine the ways in which sociology and related fields have approached the relationship between the constructs of region and uneven development. Finally, we will bring these perspectives together through the empirical lens of the Appalachian region.
UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT AND REGIONS FROM A MACRO PERSPECTIVE
Macro-level perspectives that followed modernization theories focused on the organization, growth, and relations of power, domination, and subordination within and across nations in an expanding capitalist economic system. Examples of this approach can be found particularly in the works of Marxist sociologists and economists in the structuralist and neo-structuralist vein. Within this strand of the literature, the link between uneven development and macro-regions is associated with the experience of colonialism and the class relations, intra-regional economic trade, and post-colonial power relations that emerged in countries in Latin America as a result. To analytically capture these relations, Fernando Cardoso and Enzo Faletto (1979) employed the constructs of “core” and “periphery” and the division of labor and, in doing so, placed the social relations engendered by the (post)colonial experience, class, and power at the epicenter of the sociological analyses of uneven development.
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This analytical shift made the concepts of core and periphery “portable” and the division of labor observable across scale and time, whereas the territorial aspects of empirebuilding, though still present, are subsumed under the social relations of power and domination. At the subnational scale, the constructs of core and periphery are frequently used to explain regional variation, often corresponding to dichotomized categories such as rural-urban or elite-peasant. Thus, though not exclusively conceptualized as a social relation between empires and their former colonies, the constructs of core and periphery and the division of labor shed light on the social relations at the root of uneven regional development. From a spatial perspective, it is important to note that uneven development and the constructs of core and periphery tend to favor explanations based on social relations over ones linked to particular spatial constructs, such as region. By adopting the constructs of core and periphery and adding one of their own(the semi-periphery), world-systems scholars reemphasized the analysis of (uneven) development from a perspective that prioritized economic hierarchies over material territorial domination. Because development from this viewpoint is that of the capitalist world system itself, national development is considered a zero-sum game where some states strive to “catch up” and others must decline (Wallerstein 1988). Paralleling the social relations of the core/periphery construct in macro-scale analyses, subnational analyses of economic development have deployed these concepts to the examination of uneven development and regional competition, among others. Within the context of processes of decentralization, local government economic policy, and global economic integration, subnational analyses of uneven development focused on the economic performance of regions often point to the primacy of metropoles and urban areas as nodes of accumulation pivotal to the location decisions of industries, the formation of industrial clusters, corridors, and other spatio-economic formations. Similarly, the analyses of regional competition echo the zero-sum game and race to the bottom—dynamics present in macroscale analyses of core/periphery relations of accumulation and competition.
REGIONS AS NETWORKED SPACES OF PRODUCTION: THE MACRO-MICRO LINK
To examine the relationship between the diffusion of capitalist modes of production and uneven development across time, space, and scale, world-systems analysts Terence Hopkins and Immanuel Wallerstein (1986) traced processes of capital accumulation and the division of labor associated with the production and circulation of specific commodities. Through what they termed the “global commodity chain” (GCC) approach, and without delving into conceptual specifications of “region,” these scholars made analytically visible the macro-micro links involved in the process of capitalist expansion via the lengthening of production networks and differential surplus accumulation rates across political boundaries. Because this perspective privileges the examination of the diffusion of social relations associated with capitalist modes of production as a means of organizing socio-
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economic and political relations into core/semiperiphery/periphery, a spatial conceptualization of geographic markers or units including region is largely missing. The theorization of space through a GCC approach is further complicated by the perceived ease with which transnational firms coordinate strategies of accumulation across space. Conceptualizing firm-led competitive strategies as relatively free of friction limits more nuanced analytical interpretations that account for why and how socio-spatial relations shape transnational economic activity, and vice versa (Patel-Campillo 2011). This presents two limitations for the analysis of socio-spatial relations. First, by privileging intra-chain relations characterized by cooperation (a prerequisite for the successful coordination of economic activity across space), what remains analytically elusive are instances where economic actors engage in contentious, cut-throat, and deviant behavior. This is analytically problematic because it obscures reasons (other than labor costs) that may explain shifts in the accumulation strategies of economic actors across space. A second and equally important analytical aspect marginalized by the focus on lead firms and intra-chain coordination is the role of regulation and its influence on economic activity. Although the GCC—and, later, the global value chain, or GVC (Gereffi, Humphrey, and Sturgeon 2005)—consider the importance of trade agreements for the location strategies of firms and their supplier networks, other forms of regulatory intervention remain less visible. Thus, because the focus remains on firms, the analytical focus of the GCC/ GVC approaches is on how transnational firms achieve capital accumulation and “flatten” spatial difference by engaging in the strategic coordination of their production and supplier networks. From a social-spatial perspective, the construct of region in the examination of transnational firm-supplier networks lacks analytical elaboration. Rather than being central to the analysis, region as a unit of analysis is important insofar as it defines how places are bound together through trade and the ways trade agreements encourage the specialization of production and wage differentials while creating market access, factors that allow transnational business networks to add value. Here, the construct of region matters as a function of the flow of economic activity across space rather than as a stand-alone analytical category with particular territorial demarcations. Regions, therefore, are analytically relegated to sets of networked production nodes (mostly located in developing countries), obscuring the colonial legacies and relations underlying international economic flows that the world-systems formulation sought to emphasize. Notably missing in this approach is application to territories whose economies are based on extractive industries, even though regional uneven development often is explicitly associated with the exploitation of areas dependent on natural resource extraction and even though prospects for growth and development “work differently in extraction and agriculture than they do in industrial production” (Bunker 1989, 590). In the extractive sector, Gavin Bridge’s (2008) work takes a spatial approach to regional development by examining the “resource curse thesis” that posits the exploitive nature of resource extraction for regional development. Based on a variety of factors, including
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poor governance and national state capacity, he highlights the relational role of the state and multiple actors to illustrate how extractive activities can lead to dependency and poverty rather than to more positive regional developmental outcomes (Bridge 2008, 411). Ironically, such examples are relatively rare, despite resource-based economies being the focus of underdevelopment studies. Other critics of structuralist approaches note the absence of key levels of analysis such as the household and its gendered inhabitants (women) and the inequalities perpetrated in household-level labor practices and relations (Dunaway 2001). As Wilma Dunaway notes, world-systems theory has been shockingly negligent in incorporating women’s productive and reproductive labor into its analyses despite its centrality to propping up the relations of production that constitute the world system and that perpetuate its inequalities. Women’s formal and informal labor, productive and reproductive work, exploitation and self-exploitation are the mainstays of the semi-proletarian household that permits the extraction of surplus value. Dunaway and others have sought to rectify these omissions. Concerned with increasing disparities and marginalization, sociologists, geographers, and others have used the GCC/GVC approaches to understand why and how processes of global economic integration work to marginalize particular actors, including women workers. As such, drawing from the world-systems preoccupation with the global division of labor (i.e., core/periphery) has opened the way to research linking the transnational accumulation strategies of firms to the feminization of labor. These findings, however, loop back to the core/periphery dichotomous division. The rise of political ecology and its relation to the concept of region also needs to be acknowledged. With some exceptions, sociologists who eschew spatial analyses tend to favor adaptations of either more macro- (dependency, internal colonialism) or micro-level (urban growth and decline) theories, demonstrating again the relative lack of uniquely sociological input into regional theory and research. An exception, Stephen Bunker’s (1989, 2003) political ecology analysis of regional development in Amazonia, which is based on extractive industry, demonstrates the interplay of place, geography, and political economy in development opportunities and trajectories. Often explicitly inter- and multidisciplinary and associated with other social science disciplines, particularly geography, regional science, and anthropology, political ecology is also relatively plastic in the way it is theorized and applied. In the words of one of its primary outlets, it features “research into the linkages between political economy and human environmental impacts across different locations and academic disciplines” (University of Arizona Libraries n.d.). It is particularly relevant to development studies, often as an elaboration of a political economy theoretical perspective, perhaps because of the central role exploitation of natural resources has played in the “development of underdevelopment.” There are numerous versions and varieties, many of which are little more than an assertion of the importance of nature and the environment as cause and consequence of other social arrangements. In most forms, it attempts to undermine false binaries between society and the environment, social and ecosystems, and built and
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natural environments. Thus, ecosystems take their place alongside other societal systems as mutually influential and formative factors. Emphasis varies as to whether the focus is on the political, social, or cultural impacts on the environment or vice versa, but all share an interest in analyzing the ways they are intertwined. As with other approaches, it is more often applied to scales other than the regional (see, e.g., Swyngedouw and Heynen 2003 for urban applications), though the emphasis on the biophysical environment makes it highly compatible with a focus on regional development.
A S U B N AT I O N A L P E R S P E C T I V E : T H E N I T T Y- G R I T T Y O F R E G I O N S
In the field of geography, there are three discernible strands in the literature on regions and uneven development: regional competition, global-city regions, and historicizing or path-dependent regions (Agnew 2000). In the regional competition strand of the literature, uneven development is often associated with the capacity of regions to attract capital investment vis-à-vis other regions. Attracting foreign investment is often predicated on the creation of an investment-friendly environment through favorable regulation and economic incentives to influence the location choices of firms. Regional competition produces uneven development by attracting mobile transnational capital, encouraging the emergence and expansion of firms, clusters, and other spatio-economic configurations in specific locations in and within regions (Agnew 2000). Renewed policy and scholarly interest on the role of subnational units of governance emerged largely as a result of national government–led neoliberal policies of the 1980s and the devastating socioeconomic impacts those had across scales of governance. From a policymaking perspective, regional approaches to economic development served to create differentiated forms of governance based not on political boundaries but on regional attributes to improve the competitive positioning of places within the broader national and international context, often requiring cross-scalar coordination. Interest in region as a unit of analysis has focused on rescaling and the role of socioeconomic assets and institutional thickness within broader processes of global market integration and competition (Brenner 2003). The literature on global city-regions (a strand of the literature on the political economy of scale), according to John Agnew (2000, 2013), emphasizes the role of regions as global economic nodes surrounded by peripheral areas from which they draw resources to grow industries, create clusters of related firms, and foster regional specialization. Based on the core/peripheral relationship that cities have with their adjoining regions, Neil Brenner (1998) suggests that the importance of cities in the world economy is influenced by the services they provide to the rest of the world. In the field of geography, regions have emerged as key territorial units of analysis, with much emphasis placed on the nexus between region and economic growth, competition, and governance within the broader context of global economic integration and processes of devolution (Hudson 2007). The proliferation of scholarly work focused on
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one particular scale—in this case, the region—has led scholars to question whether privileging one dimension presents an analytical trap by masking the relational nature of social phenomena across space. One alternative to de-centering the analytical primacy of any particular scale proposed by Brenner is to examine socio-spatial dynamics as processes rather than material and territorial units (Brenner 2001, 2004). To this end, Brenner and his colleagues suggest that, rather than taking a unidimensional approach favoring a particular socio-spatial configuration over another, vectors such as territories (material), places (social), scales (political), and networks (economic) be integrative and constitutive of social inquiry pertaining to contemporary capitalism (Jessop, Brenner, and Jones 2008). The third feature of the emerging political economy of regions is focused on historical trajectories and path dependencies. This literature is massive, but what is important to note here is that, from this perspective, regions have distinct attributes, structures, and institutions that coexist and yet differentiate them from one another. The economic history of particular regions thus shapes the ways in which they carve out economic spaces in a globally integrated world economy.
THE MAKING AND REMAKING OF APPALACHIA
Appalachia, the subnational territory loosely associated with the Appalachian mountain range in the Eastern United States, provides the quintessential example of virtually every aspect of what makes the term region so problematic. Although widely recognized as a region, most observers would be hard put to definitively explain what defines it, what its boundaries are, and how it is has changed over time. Portions of the region were named and described by the mid-nineteenth century, but its defining characteristics have been variously attributed to geography, topography, economy, history, demography, culture, and morality, often with surprisingly little overlap. Spatially, it varies dramatically, even after (and because) it had been given an official administrative definition in 1965 with the creation of the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) by an act of Congress. ARC designation has steadily expanded from its original 360 counties in 11 states to the current (and still expanding) 420 counties in 13 states. Both original and current versions include areas never previously defined as Appalachian but whose inclusion was the result of political brokering and compromise. In modern times, its most enduring identity has been with the persistent poverty exposed by the War on Poverty that resulted in the ARC, but, as numerous analyses have demonstrated, there is little historical, social, or spatial unity to what is labeled Appalachia (Billings and Tickamyer 1993). Because the Appalachian region was associated historically with large areas of persistent poverty and underdevelopment, it is also the site of numerous debates about causes and consequences that chart the changing fashions in scholarship on the topic. Thus, it has variously been seen as the archetypal culture of poverty inhabited by an ignorant, isolated, and violence-prone population; as a backwater ruled by grasping and corrupt
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local officials that requires the infusion of modern infrastructure and administration; as an internal colony exploited by external elites and multinational corporations for its natural resources; as a peripheral region whose incorporation into the world economy has experienced numerous boom-and-bust cycles associated with the ascendency of different commodities, production regimes, and markets; and as an imaginary whose defining characteristics are primarily fiction and media hype. In fact, Appalachia’s history is complex and incorporates elements of all of the above. As Dwight Billings and Kathleen Blee (2000) demonstrate in their carefully researched and nuanced account, The Road to Poverty, Appalachia as a region is heterogeneous and has witnessed numerous cycles of wealth and poverty and economic and demographic expansion and decline accompanying the rise and fall of demand for its products and access to markets. Equally important have been the actions of local elites and governance structures that provide the administrative and institutional framework for changing fortunes. Many of the myths associated with popular stereotypes of lawless and violent feuding are largely myths, rooted in reality, but distorted from actual historical events. Their analysis emphasizes that the combination of capitalist markets, state coercion, and cultural strategies were all instrumental in ultimately producing Appalachian poverty. The implication of path-dependent development processes that have resisted alternative futures is undermined by the diversity and complexity of the region. Even the coal industry—which has most typically provided the material foundation for its regional identity, history of poverty, and development path (Markusen 1987)— does not uniquely define Appalachia as a region. Some of the most persistently poor areas do not have any coal production. Conversely, coal-producing areas have a mixed history of boom and bust that has also produced local wealth and resources in addition to what has been exploited for external benefit. It is more accurate to see the region as a loosely linked territory with a history of successive extractive industries, including agriculture, salt, timber, coal, and now shale gas, whose industrial structures, labor relations, and political economy combined to create conditions for exploitation and underdevelopment. The multiplicity of meanings and identities for the Appalachian region has meant that, to date, there have been inconsistent efforts to apply the various analytic models to explain Appalachian uneven development. Its poverty and areas of underdevelopment have lent themselves to wholesale applications of dependency and internal colonialism models, and these remain a persuasive approach (Billings 1974; Lewis and Billings 1997; Walls 1976). Because of the historical dominance of coal extraction and associated forms of environmental degradation in some areas, it has been seen as an example of the resource curse, albeit with mixed results from empirical test (Partridge, Betz, and Lobao 2012). Other empirical analyses of the impacts of business characteristics on growth and development, such as firm size, distribution, and clustering for regions that explicitly or implicitly focus on Appalachia, use a variety of regional definitions (e.g., Feser, Renski, and Goldstein 2008; Komarek and Loveridge 2014). They have mixed results but
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demonstrate that regions matter and indirectly reinforce the case for better subnational regional conceptual development and analysis. Yet another approach is found in efforts to apply a political ecology perspective linking “historical struggles around environmental resource access, ownership and use” with its economic development (Nesbitt and Weiner 2001, 333). Finally, and most notably, there have been numerous attempts to address gender, race, and ethnic relations as they put their stamp on the region (Fisher and Smith 2012; Dunaway 2001; Hayden 2004; Miewald and McCann 2004; Oberhauser 1995; Tickamyer and Tickamyer 1988). Although these analyses tend to be less about regionmaking than about identifying how regional inequalities relate to other forms of social inequalities, they point to and begin to fill major gaps in accounts of regional formation, development, and underdevelopment. In particular, they demonstrate how both development practices and policies are gendered and raced, typically to the disadvantage of women and racial and ethnic minorities. Gender relations and divisions of labor underlie regional differences and social relations. The research on regional social movements also tends to view the region as a preexisting territory whose history and social relations frame and provoke protest and collective action. These may, in turn, reinforce regional identity and affiliation but as part of the “historical trajectories and path dependency” cited above. Thus, both historical developments and theoretical frameworks make and remake the region in their image, but underlying most of these accounts is an enduring image (or, in the language of geography, an imaginary) of the region. This creates an approach that views region as the context for social processes—whether defined by production networks, labor relations, or environmental struggles—rather than their outcome. The Appalachian exemplar, both as place and as a construct, provides fertile ground for application of different models, theories, and interpretations of region, development, and their intersection, depending on the perspective of the analyst and the analytic fashion of the day. What remains somewhat constant is the poverty and inequality that characterize substantial portions of the region.
W H AT I S M I S S I N G , W H AT N E E D S TO B E D O N E ?
In this chapter, we sought to understand various perspectives related to the ways scholarly analyses address how and why uneven development occurs across regions and, in turn, how these are instrumental in constructing regions. We traced sociological approaches to these questions from equilibrium and systems models to more recent structuralist and political economy strands of the sociological literature, and we found that, from this perspective, uneven development is explained by the experience of colonialism and empire-building and the social and power relations that it engenders. Here, development mostly refers to the development of the capitalist system that, by its own nature, produces uneven development. The constructs of core, periphery, and semi-periphery tend to be decoupled from territorial demarcations and instead favor social relations of power and
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domination that characterize uneven development. In this approach, regions are either ignored or considered to be historical legacies. With the turn to political ecology, there has been renewed interest and emphasis on the biophysical environment and the interplay between ecosystems and social systems. Here too, however, there is little systematic conceptualization of regions, especially subnationally, and this perspective is more commonly found in social science disciplines and multidisciplinary approaches other than sociology. Overall, the analysis of subnational regions tends to be ad hoc, with regions defined according to convention or convenience and little consistency or formal criteria. Thus, there is substantial room for both theoretical and empirical development of the concept of subnational region and how it relates to uneven development. Among the many topics raised in this review and in pressing need of further study and analysis are issues of definition and conceptualization, including the significance of regions as units of analysis for the study of development, the selection of boundaries and the delineation of regions at different spatial scales, the fluidity of boundaries over time and whether and how these can be fixed for analysis, and the relationship to biophysically defined territories such as ecological regions and watersheds. Similarly, theoretical issues and explanations that require much greater attention include the appropriateness of macro-, national-, and global-level models to subnational regions, the means and mechanisms of micro-macro links, the existence and salience of networks other than economic organizations to regional formation and uneven development, the intersectionality of sources of inequalities in development at the regional level, the impact of governance, political mechanisms, representation, and coordination, and criteria for “successful development” at different scales. Undoubtedly, many other avenues of investigation can be formulated and pursued. The important point is that this task be given priority. In conclusion, the literature on regional uneven development is itself highly uneven, reflecting different and sometimes incomplete paths of theoretical development for the concepts of region and uneven development—whether these concepts are viewed separately or joined in models of regional development and change. This is especially the case for sociological treatments of these issues. Sociology has not provided rigorous treatment of its own contributions to this topic and has somewhat haphazardly borrowed or collaborated with related social science disciplines. To understand the making of regions, it will be necessary to overcome disciplinary barriers and staked academic territory to create an integrated social science perspective in which sociology is an honored partner.
REFERENCES
Agnew, John. 2000. “From the Political Economy of Regions to Regional Political Economy.” Progress in Human Geography 24, no. 1: 101–10. . 2013. “Arguing with Regions.” Regional Studies 47, no. 1: 6–17. Billings, Dwight. 1974. “Culture and Poverty in Appalachia: A Theoretical Discussion and Empirical Analysis.” Social Forces 53, no. 2: 315–23.
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Billings, Dwight B., and Kathleen M. Blee. 2000. The Road to Poverty: The Making of Wealth and Hardship in Appalachia. Cambridge, Engl.: Cambridge University Press. Billings, Dwight, Mary Beth Pudup, and Altina L. Waller. 1995. “Taking Exception with Exceptionalism: The Emergence and Transformation of Historical Studies of Appalachia.” In Appalachia in the Making: The Mountain South in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Mary Beth Pudup, Dwight B. Billings, and Altina Laura Waller, 1–24. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Billings, Dwight, and Ann Tickamyer. 1993. “Uneven Development in Appalachia.” In Forgotten Places: Uneven Development in Rural America, edited by Thomas A. Lyson and William W. Falk, 7–29. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Brenner, Neil. 1998. “Global Cities, Glocal States: Global City Formation and State Territorial Restructuring in Contemporary Europe.” Review of International Political Economy 5, no. 1: 1–37. . 2001. “The Limits to Scale? Methodological Reflections on Scalar Structuration.” Progress in Human Geography 25, no. 4: 591–614. . 2003. State/Space: A Reader. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing. . 2004. New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bridge, Gavin. 2008. “Global Production Networks and the Extractive Sector: Governing Resource-Based Development.” Journal of Economic Geography 8: 389–419. Brown, David L. 2002. “Migration and Community: Social Networks in a Multilevel World.” Rural Sociology 67, no. 1: 1–23. Bunker, Stephen G. 1984. “Modes of Extraction, Unequal Exchange, and the Progressive Underdevelopment of an Extreme Periphery: The Brazilian Amazon, 1600–1980.” American Journal of Sociology 89, no. 5: 1017–64. . 1989. “Staples, Links, and Poles in the Construction of Regional Development Theories.” Sociological Forum 4, no. 4: 589–610. . 2003. “Matter, Space, Energy, and Political Economy: The Amazon in the WorldSystem.” Journal of World-Systems Research 9, no. 2: 219–58. Cardoso, Fernando Henrique, and Enzo Faletto. 1979. Dependency and Development in Latin America. Berkeley: University of California Press. Castells, Manuel. 1996. The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Dunaway, Wilma A. 2001. “The Double Register of History: Situating the Forgotten Woman and Her Household in Capitalist Commodity Chains.” Journal of World-Systems Research 7, no. 1: 2–29. Elden, Stuart. 2013. “Secure the Volume: Vertical Geopolitics and the Depth of Power.” Political Geography 34: 35–51. Falk, William W., Carence R. Talley, and Bruce H. Rankin. 1993. “Life in the Forgotten South: The Black Belt.” In Forgotten Places: Uneven Development in Rural America, edited by Thomas A. Lyson and William W. Falk, 53–75. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Feser, Edward, Henry Renski, and Harvey Goldstein. 2008. “Clusters and Economic Development Outcomes: An Analysis of the Link between Clustering and Industry Growth.” Economic Development Quarterly 22, no. 4: 324–44.
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Fisher, Stephen L., and Barbara Ellen Smith, eds. 2012. Transforming Places: Lessons from Appalachia. Champaign: University of Illinois Press. Friedman, Thomas L. 2005. The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Gereffi, Gary, and Stephanie Fonda. 1992. “Regional Paths of Development.” Annual Review of Sociology 18: 419–48. Gereffi, Gary, John Humphrey, and Timothy Sturgeon. 2005. “The Governance of Global Value Chains.” Review of International Political Economy 12, no. 1: 78–104. Hawley, H. Amos. 1950. Human Ecology: A Theory of Community Structure. New York: The Ronald Press Company. Hayden, Wilburn. 2004. “Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Appalachia.” Journal of Appalachian Studies 10, no. 3: 293–306. Hopkins, Terence K., and Immanuel Wallerstein. 1986. “Commodity Chains in the WorldEconomy Prior to 1800.” Review 10, no. 1: 157–70. Hudson, Ray. 2007. “Regions and Regional Uneven Development Forever? Some Reflective Comments upon Theory and Practice.” Regional Studies 41, no. 9: 1149–60. Jessop, Bob, Neil Brenner, and Martin Jones. 2008. “Theorizing Sociospatial Relations.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 26: 389–401. Jones, Martin, and Anssi Paasi. 2013. “Guest Editorial. Regional World(s): Advancing the Geography of Regions.” Regional Studies 47, no. 1: 1–5. Kenney, Martin. 2000. Understanding Silicon Valley: The Anatomy of an Entrepreneurial Region. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Komarek, Timothy, and Scott Loveridge. 2014. “Firm Sizes and Economic Development: Estimating Long-Term Effects on US County Growth, 1990–2000.” Journal of Regional Science 55: 262–79. Lewis, Ronald L., and Dwight B. Billings. 1997. “Appalachian Culture and Economic Development.” Journal of Appalachian Studies 3, no. 1: 43–69. Lobao, Linda M. 1996. “A Sociology of the Periphery versus a Peripheral Sociology: Rural Sociology and the Dimension of Space.” Rural Sociology 61, no. 1: 77–102. Lobao, Linda M., Gregory Hooks, and Ann R. Tickamyer, eds. 2007. The Sociology of Spatial Inequality. Albany: SUNY Press. Logan, John R. 2012. “Making a Place for Space: Spatial Thinking in Social Science.” Annual Review of Sociology 38: 507–24. Lyson, Thomas A., and William W. Falk, eds. 1993. Forgotten Places: Uneven Development in Rural America. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Markusen, Ann R. 1987. Regions: The Economics and Politics of Territory. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield. Miewald, Christiana E., and Eugene J. McCann. 2004. “Gender Struggle, Scale, and the Production of Place in the Appalachian Coalfields.” Environment and Planning A 36, no. 6: 1045–64. Nesbitt, J. Todd, and Daniel Weiner. 2001. “Conflicting Environmental Imaginaries and the Politics of Nature in Central Appalachia.” Geoforum 32, no. 3: 333–49. Oberhauser, Ann M. 1995. “Gender and Household Economic Strategies in Rural Appalachia.” Gender, Place and Culture 2, no. 1: 51–70.
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Odum, Howard W. 1936. Southern Regions of the United States. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Partridge, Mark D., Bichael R. Betz, and Linda Lobao. 2012. “Natural Resource Curse and Poverty in Appalachian America.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 95, no. 2: 449–56. Patel-Campillo, Anouk. 2011. “Transforming Global Commodity Chains: Actor Strategies, Regulation, and Competitive Relations in the Dutch Cut Flower Sector.” Economic Geography 87, no. 1: 79–99. Pudup, Mary Beth, Dwight B. Billings, and Altina Laura Waller. 1995. Appalachia in the Making: The Mountain South in the Nineteenth Century. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Rostow, Walt Whitman. 1960. The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto. Cambridge, Engl.: Cambridge University Press. Saenz, Rogelio, Cynthia M. Cready, and Maria Cristina Morales. 2007. “Adios Aztlan: Mexican American Out-Migration.” In The Sociology of Spatial Inequality, edited by Linda M. Lobao, Gregory Hooks, and Ann R. Tickamyer, 189–214. Albany: SUNY Press. Sassen, Saskia. 2000. Cities in a World Economy. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Pine Forge Press. Saxenian, AnnaLee. 1996. “Regional Advantage Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128.” Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Scott, Allen J., and Michael Storper. 2003. “Regions, Globalization, Development.” Regional Studies 37, nos. 6–7: 579–93. Sklair, Leslie. 2011. Assembling for Development: The Maquiladora Industry in Mexico and the United States. London: Routledge. Swyngedouw, Erik, and Nikolas C. Heynen. 2003. “Urban Political Ecology, Justice and the Politics of Scale.” Antipode 35, no. 5: 898–918. Thorne, Deborah, Ann Tickamyer, and Mark Thorne. 2004. “Poverty and Income in Appalachia.” Journal of Appalachian Studies 10, no. 3: 341–58. Tickamyer, Ann R., and Cecil H. Tickamyer. 1988. “Gender and Poverty in Central Appalachia.” Social Science Quarterly 69, no. 4: 874–91. Tickamyer, Ann R., Julie White, Barry Tadlock, and Debra Henderson. 2007. “Spatial Politics of Public Policy.” In The Sociology of Spatial Inequality, edited by Linda M. Lobao, Gregory Hooks, and Ann R. Tickamyer, 113–39. Albany: SUNY Press. University of Arizona Libraries. n.d. “Journal of Political Ecology.” Accessed Sept. 6, 2014. http://jpe.library.arizona.edu. Vance, Rupert Bayless. 1932. Human Geography of the South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1988. “Development: Lodestar or Illusion?” Economic and Political Weekly 23, no. 39: 2017–23. Walls, David S. 1976. “Central Appalachia: A Peripheral Region within an Advanced Capitalist Society.” Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare 4, no. 2: 232–47. Wimberley, Ronald C., and Libby V. Morris. 2002. “The Regionalization of Poverty: Assistance for the Black Belt South?” Southern Rural Sociology 18, no. 1: 294–306.
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13 MIGRATION AND DEVELOPMENT Virtuous and Vicious Cycles
Sara R. Curran
The migration and development relationship is frequently articulated in terms of reciprocal, relatively simple theoretical standpoints. These formulations have variously informed policy debates about how the linkages between the two phenomena yield positive or negative outcomes. In contemporary times, the migration and development relationship has garnered renewed debate among scholars and policymakers (as summarized in de Haas 2012; Glick Schiller 2012; Portes 2007; Ratha, Mohapatra, and Silwal 2010). On the one hand, some scholars and policymakers see migration as a short-term response to relative underdevelopment and limited, local opportunities in origin communities, followed by return migration or remittances that increase human capital and financial investments in communities of origin for productive returns—in other words, a virtuous cycle of reciprocally positive impacts in sending and receiving places. On the other hand, others observe a vicious cycle of reciprocally negative impacts in sending and receiving places. In these scenarios, migration undermines endogenous economic growth possibilities and perpetuates structural inequalities in origin communities. And, structural inequalities in destinations, coincident with growing globalization of trade, finance, and capital movement, fuel migration of both low-skilled and high-skilled labor, segmenting labor markets and limiting economic mobility among low-skilled workers in destinations. For the most part, the policy debates, theoretical formulations, and empirical evidence assume an articulation between migration and development—that is, a set of mechanisms that link the two processes together. Less often questioned is the possibility of a disarticulation or independence of migration from the development process. Some
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recent scholarship and policy briefs propose that the migration and development relationship is increasingly disarticulated under some circumstances and that concerted development efforts in origin communities will never stop the flow of migrants where there are well-established migrant networks (de Haas 2007). Within the literature focusing on migration and development are two strands: one focuses on the consequences for sending (origin) countries (communities) (Castles 2010); the other focuses solely on immigration and the implications for receiving (destination) countries. In this latter strand, only a few scholars explicitly note how migration can either promote or undermine economic development in destinations, depending on the policies or practices shaping the context of reception (Portes 2007). The distinction between origin and destination communities is increasingly fuzzy because the networks linking places make distinguishing effects and causality increasingly difficult. However, the distinction still organizes much of the scholarship in the field, partially because social science has not fully embraced methods that explain complex systems. Given that much of the migration scholarship continues to organize itself around these conceptual distinctions and for heuristic purposes, this chapter reifies the distinction and then, in the conclusion, offers reasons for breaking down the conceptual boundaries. Whether the focus is on origin communities or destinations, debates abound about the pros and cons of migration impacts on economic outcomes. To overcome these debates, social science scholarship requires development of theories and evidence that reveal migration systems dynamics (across space and time) and the increasingly multilevel and systemic nature of economic development and how it is embedded within global political, social, and cultural transformations. There are important conceptual and empirical efforts required by scholars in both fields to elucidate and explain the varying interdependencies of both systems across space, time, and social organization. Substantiating an argument for future scholarship, I first provide a contemporary assessment of mobility and economic growth. Second, I provide a brief history of how the debate about migration and development has evolved since World War II. Empirical and theoretical investigations have mirrored ideological debates about how human welfare is best progressed (de Haas 2010). This historical context provides a theoretical review for scholars of the sociology of development and situates migration theory within that work. For the most part, most migration theorizing and research has followed, rather than led, theoretical insights in the development field. Third, I review explanations and evidence for how migration and development are understood as virtuous cycles or vicious cycles. I discuss the migration and development relationship as it relates to both remittance flows and human capital flows (brain drain or gain). Proponents on either side of the virtuous or vicious cycle debate identify similar, key factors operating to affect outcomes and differ only in the relative importance they place on the preeminent role of economic forces and the countervailing political, cultural, and structural forces. Fourth, the chapter concludes with two discussions. One is about how migration and development are variously articulated (or even disarticulated). In other words, I argue that the
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premise of an articulated relationship between migration and development, assumed by both virtuous and vicious cycle arguments, needs to be re-examined. The second discussion focuses on how developments in migration scholarship, especially those developments that have uncovered transnational migrant systems, might lead, rather than follow, development theorizing and policies. Transnational migration and transnationalism scholarship have made apparent how individual identities are not fixed in places within nations and how those identities cohere and fuel emergent institutions that challenge national prerogatives and priorities. Several methodological challenges always arise when studying migration, and these challenges create opportunities for theoretical and conceptual insights about social behavior and societal welfare. It is important to point them out before proceeding further. First, migration is dynamic. Although there are some predictable patterns and it is a highly selective process (at least initially), the very act of migration is substantially disruptive to migrants and nonmigrants and to communities of origin and destination. This social and physical disruption necessitates a reorganization of social life at all levels and places and, in turn, changes the conditions for migration. The fluidity of migration is at once extraordinarily challenging and revealing. Second, deciding to migrate is a notably selective process that is often highly correlated with outcomes or factors also associated with greater welfare, making it very difficult to disentangle cause and effect. The challenge of endogeneity bias requires careful study designs and frequently confounds the possibilities for conclusive findings. Third, the systematic observation and recognition of migration is plagued by methodological nationalism and somewhat contrived distinctions between types of migration, such as international versus internal or regular versus irregular. This third point obscures the possibilities of fully addressing the first methodological point. In other words, how data are collected and aggregated limits our understanding of the systemic and fluid nature of migration. Migration scholars have become increasingly adept at overcoming these limitations through innovative study designs and iterations between theory, quantitative studies, and qualitative evidence (Curran et al. 2006).
M I G R AT I O N A N D E C O N O M I C G R O W T H
Current debates about migration occur within a context of several decades of growing mobility, though not at unusual levels relative to the scope of human history (de Haas 2007; Skeldon 2008). About 3.2 percent of the world’s population is international migrants (UNDESA Population Division 2014); that number is relatively small, on a global scale, but it masks the highly concentrated and large impact of migration on particular sending and receiving places. What is unusual about the more recent patterns of migration, since World War II, is the shift from a predominately north-to-north flow to a south-to-north flow by the beginning of the twenty-first century. Among international migrants, South Asians (16 percent of international migrants) and Latin Americans
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(11 percent) are the largest diaspora groups, and nearly two-thirds of migrants live in Europe and Asia, but the fastest growing migrant destination is North America. These patterns are not fixed, and the pattern that marked the second half of the twentieth century has changed again in the first few decades of the twenty-first century. The most striking change in patterns of international migration over the past decade has been the shift from a predominately south-to-north migration flow to one that equally favors a south-to-south migration flow (UNDESA Population Division 2014). It has been speculated that the growth in the south-to-south migration flow partially reflects the emergence, and growing number, of regional economic growth poles or global assemblages (Sassen 2006; UNDESA Population Division 2014). These patterns of global development also link internal migration with international migration flows. Importantly, internal migration stocks and flows are rising faster than international migration (Skeldon 2006). Among adults, internal migrants are estimated to be about 8 percent of the world’s population (and the total figure, including children, would more than double that proportion), according to a recent Gallup poll (Esipova, Pugliese, and Ray 2013). As with international migration, some places are more internally mobile than others, especially those that are most industrialized. These migration flows are composed of young people with secondary or tertiary education, and the socioeconomic mobility of this spatially mobile group is mixed. Most are employed but are more likely to be underemployed or unemployed relative to their nonmigrant counterparts. Even though these migrants are underemployed, they are more likely to send financial support to than receive it from their origin communities (Esipova, Pugliese, and Ray 2013). Substantial internal migration in developing economies is involuntary and associated with war, violence, “development” projects, and natural disasters. These patterns partially explain the persistent underemployment or unemployment conditions of migrants in many destinations. International migrant remittances have driven much of the resurgent scholarly and policy interest in assessing the relationship between migration and development. World Bank estimates show that migrants from developing countries sent over $315 billion to their origin countries in 2009 (Ratha, Mohapatra, and Silwal 2010; World Bank 2013), although this figure is understood to be a significant underestimate because many migrants send remittances through informal channels (de Haas and Plug 2005; de Haas 2012). The size of estimated remittances sent back to developing countries is larger than overseas development assistance and private investment (Grabel 2010; UNCTAD 2012; World Bank 2013), and remittances are often larger than foreign exchange reserves (World Bank 2013). A significant collection of studies also suggests that remittances reduce poverty in sending countries (Adams and Page 2005; Ajayi et al. 2009; Anyanwu and Erghijakpor 2010; Fajnzylber and Lopez 2007; Gupta, Pattillo, and Wagh 2007; Martin 1991) and that these remittance flows are fairly resilient, quickly rebounding after the 2008 financial crisis (Ratha, Mohapatra, and Silwal 2010), and even counter-cyclical (Grabel 2010). Thus, remittances may have an income-stabilizing effect at both the
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macro- and micro- (household) levels (Ratha, Mohapatra, and Silwal 2010; Taylor and Dyer 2009). However, evidence has also shown that remittances are positively associated with income inequality, at least in the short term, and they have mixed results for improving rural economies (Taylor and Dyer 2009; World Bank 2013). There are very high transaction costs associated with migration and remittances, including labor recruiter fees, subsidization of initial migrant living costs, and transmission fees charged for remittances sent via wire or bank transfer systems. Finally, some of the highest remittance flows are those along south-to-south migrant corridors in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia (including flows between South and Southeast Asia) and not along north-to-south migrant corridors. This finding invites questions about the extent to which remittances can significantly rebalance regional inequalities. Theory and evidence are mixed on whether these flows reflect emergent and endogenously driven economic development or drains on productive growth (World Bank 2013). Human and immigrant rights advocates, as well as both migration and development scholars, offer cautionary evidence and reasons for not placing too much weight or responsibility on the shoulders of migrants as vehicles for effective development aid in their origin communities (Castles 2011; Glick Schiller 2012). These authors point to the significant, structured inequalities that segment a majority of migrant laborers into workplaces that are underpaid, insecure, and unsafe as well as limiting their rights to establish legal residency in destinations that offer far more opportunities for personal and intergenerational mobility than their origin communities (Castles 2011; Delgado Wise and Covarrubias 2009; Glick Schiller and Faist 2009; Newland 2007). As with remittance flows, high-skilled labor mobility has grown dramatically, with annual growth rates of almost 5 percent since 2000 (UNCTAD 2012). However, unlike remittances, the evidence for vicious cycle outcomes is far more preponderant than for virtuous cycle outcomes, despite efforts to suggest otherwise (Pellerin and Mullings 2013). As opposed to patterns of remittance flows, the predominant flow of high-skilled labor is through south-to-north migrant corridors. The distribution of this flow is most concentrated and most impactful for least developed countries. Highly skilled emigration rates in these countries are upward of 18 percent and represent those countries that are poorest in Africa, Asia, and Latin America (UNCTAD 2012). The negative externalities associated with this form of emigration cuts across all dimensions of a nation, including loss of knowledge and human capital, lowered productivity and slower economic growth, reduced trade advantages through changes in relative resource endowments, and lower supply and demand for high functioning institutions in home countries (Easterly and Nyarko 2009; Pellerin and Mullings 2013; UNCTAD 2012). Finally, it is important to acknowledge irregular migration and its relationship to the migration and development processes. The latter part of the twentieth century and the first part of the twenty-first century gave rise to a growing number of irregular migrants. There are several factors that have contributed to the rise of irregular migration and
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political concerns about it. By the turn of the century, irregular migration represented about one-third of U.S. total migration and about half of European migration (Hollifield, Martin, and Orrenius 2014). Estimates of the cost of illicit human trafficking are about $7 billion (Doomernik 2013; Ghosh 2000). One explanation for the rise in irregular migration is that the primary destination countries have become far more restrictive. Among 190 countries that serve as regional or global destinations, 6 percent had policy barriers in place to lower and slow immigration in 1976, and by 1995 that rate had jumped to 35 percent (Ghosh 2000). Furthermore, managing migration has become increasingly difficult because of unpredictable and high intensity flows resulting from wars and disasters. In addition, there are an ever-growing number of source countries, which are no longer more likely to be contiguous, former colonies, or share cultural affinities. Transportation costs have shrunk, information has grown, migrant networks have expanded, and legal and illegal institutions facilitating migration are increasingly multi-country operations (Ghosh 2000).1 To fully appreciate the debates about migration and development, it is important to provide a historical context within which these debates have emerged and continue to resonate. In the next section, I provide a brief history of how the debate about migration and development has waxed and waned since World War II.
T H E H I S TO RY O F M I G R AT I O N S C H O L A R S H I P I N R E L AT I O N TO S O C I O L O G Y O F D E V E L O P M E N T T H E O RY
Following World War II and the post-colonial period, considerable optimism reigned among policymakers, neoclassical economists, and functional sociologists about how migration from developing countries to developed countries might speed the development “takeoff.” Capital and knowledge transfers by migrants back home would yield important returns for countries of origin. Furthermore, the opening of trade and markets through the free movement of labor and capital was predicted to lead to labor flowing to places where labor is scarce and capital flowing to where labor is plentiful (Todaro 1969). The idea of a balancing equation between places because of unconstrained factor mobility informed most migration theory (Zelinsky 1971). Development theorists, in contrast, though subscribing to the notion of a balancing equation, took the migration process one step further and argued that migrants would convey ideas, money, and technology and would accelerate the spatial diffusion of development (Morris and Adelman 1988; Thomas 1973). Both narratives fall well within modernization, functionalist, and neoclassical explanations for social change that predominated during this period (see, e.g., Skeldon 1997). In fact, many developing countries did become sources of migrants and actively sought to encourage migration (Beijer 1970; Bertram 1986; Kindleberger 1965; Papademetriou 1985), and some nations still pursue these policies (Bertram 1999). By the mid-1960s, the optimism about migration and development that characterized the early postwar period had diminished. Gunnar Myrdal’s (1957) prescient assessment
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about how capitalist development can exacerbate inequality and create vicious or downward cycles of poverty heralded a new critique of development theories rooted in modernization paradigms. Building on Myrdal’s work, and seeking to explain what led to such vicious cycles, several new schools of thought emerged, including underdevelopment theory (Amin 1976; Frank 1966), dependency theory (Frank 1969; Cardoso and Falletto 1979), and world-systems theory (Frank 1978a, 1978b; Wallerstein 1980). These theories fall within the realm of political economy or neo-Marxist schools of thought and sought not to frame the development condition as an equilibrium-seeking system, as was true of functionalism. In all of these cases, migration is implicated as the vicious cycle grows, causing brain drain and exacerbating spatial economic disparities (Baldwin 1970; Cohen 2006; Piore 1980; Skeldon 2008; Straubhaar 2008). The resulting asymmetric growth overturns models of balanced factor distribution and instead generates growing dependency of underdeveloped peripheral regions on core, developed regions. Studies of migration impacts in sending regions appeared to confirm these predictions (Cohen 2006; Lipton 1980; Portes and Walton 1981; Reichert 1981), such as shortages of labor supply and diminished agricultural productivity as well as the loss of people with the most potential for human capital investment (Taylor 1986). To the extent that migrant remittances flow back to origin communities, the evidence within this body of literature suggested that migrant family consumption inflates local land prices, shifts consumption desires away from traditional and locally produced goods, and disrupts traditional systems of caregiving and community well-being (King and Vullnetari 2006; Rubenstein 1992; Russell 1992). One of the challenges in the 1980s facing both scholars and policymakers in resolving these debates was that the empirical evidence had not caught up with grand or middle-range theories. The evidence to support either a virtuous or a vicious cycle explanation was mixed or inconsistent. For the most part, larger policy agendas or extensive research projects left the migration and development linkage unremarked (de Haas 2010). Migration scholars were focused on either immigrant impacts or immigrant assimilation in receiving countries, not origin or sending countries. Meanwhile, development scholars were focusing on rural community development and collecting evidence under the aegis of a variety of bilateral and multilateral agencies (Willis 2011). Part of the reason for these endeavors were the very mixed results of development projects that had focused purely on technical solutions and failed to account for political, social, and cultural contexts of their implementation. The consequence of this singular focus was many dramatic development failures. In response to the growing number of failed development projects, social scientists were increasingly incorporated into large-scale micro-development projects sponsored through bilateral and multilateral agencies (Collinson and Platais 1994; Goldman 2006; Kapur, Lewis, and Webb 1997; Kassam 2007; Cernea and Kassam 2007). The picture that emerged from the evidence gathered by these social scientists indicated far more heterogeneity in development outcomes than would have been predicted by structural development theorists or modernization theorists (Warwick 1993; Willis 2011).
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The seeds for a resurgent articulation about migration and development were sowed in these efforts. Among development scholars, what was revealed from the micro-survey projects of the 1980s was the role of households and communities for mediating individual behavior; these contexts were also highly contingent. Rural development agencies, development economists, and rural sociologists pointed to a combination of structural constraints, individual human capital resources and desires, and, most importantly, family and household financial and social capital. A key component factor in these accounts was the role of migration for household livelihoods (Stark 1991). This turn in evidence also coincided with a turn in the social sciences toward a more contingent, contextualized account of social change that accounted for both agency and structure (Giddens 1984). Among anthropologists, sociologists, and economists of developing societies and rural development, a focus on household strategies gave way to livelihood strategies for understanding how individuals and families navigate within risky and constrained settings (Ellis 2000). With the emerging evidence about households and livelihoods came the observation that migration of at least one member was an important option within a household’s livelihoods choice set. The new economics of labor migration paradigm emerged coincidently with the livelihood strategy literature and follows roughly similar lines of reasoning. Qualitative and quantitative evidence suggested that the choice of migration (as a substitute or in addition to other strategies) depended on access to assets, perceptions of opportunities, and aspirations of individuals. These differ from household to household and individual to individual, resulting in heterogeneous development outcomes (Bebbington 1999; Ellis 2000; Stark 1991). Such theorizing about multi-level explanations for migration and development also coincided with new statistical, multilevel modeling approaches that supported more complex theorizing about individual and contextual patterns of outcomes (Bryk and Raudenbush 1992; Goldstein 1995). As better and more evidence about migration grew, so did migration rates. By the early 1990s, many writers heralded the phenomena as the second age of migration (see, e.g., Castles and Miller 2009; Massey et al. 1998). The rapid increase in migration levels led increased efforts to theorize and better understand the role of migration in the world and in advancing national interests and human welfare. Several large-scale studies documented the phenomena of rising migration in the face of globalization (Castles and Miller 1993; Kritz, Lim, and Zlotnik 1992; Massey et al. 1998). Globalization intensified connections between places through trade, integration of financial institutions and financial transfers, media, and communication, and travel reorganized production processes allowing for global commodity chains to reach ever farther into hinterlands around the world and mobilizing labor for wage labor in manual, manufacturing, and service sector jobs (Harvey 1989; Held et al. 1999). Circuits of exchange tightly integrated cities around the globe, fueled an acceleration of globalization, and transformed development processes (Castells 1996; Sassen 2011). Alongside these theories of globalization, Douglas Massey’s (1990) articulation of how migration fits within micro-level economic contexts and larger economic forces provided a particularly compelling narrative that attempted
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to resolve heterogeneity of migration and development outcomes; he built on the scholarly and policy recognition that global networks of connections between places around the globe fueled migration systems. Massey’s theory of migrant cumulative causation argued that, with each migrant from origin to destination, a web of relationships grew that made subsequent migrant trips less costly and more fruitful. The migrant social capital residing in this web of relationships was enhanced through travel, communication, remittances, and enclaves in destinations. This web of connections linking origin and destination also yielded migrant institutions that facilitated migration, including labor brokers (both legal and illegal) and numerous other third-party agents that could make labor mobility and migrant remittances easier (Massey et al. 1998). Massey predicted and demonstrated that growth in the number of ties fueled an exponential growth in migration, net of other possible explanations (Massey and Espinosa 1997) and inexorably tied migration systems to the intensification of international linkages associated with globalization. Soon, critical development theorists adopted parts of Massey’s account (Cohen 2001; Fry 2011; Guilmoto 1998). It was also a narrative that could explain the flow of remittances back to origin countries and communities and lent support for an emerging, neoliberal agenda that focused on remittances and immigrants as key resources for development agendas. A theory of migrant cumulative causation helps to integrate multiple levels of contexts, bring coherence to understanding migration, and refocus the debate about the pros and cons of the relationship between migration and development. Another consequence of this paradigmatic shift in understanding migration also brings forward several other questions that had fallen by the wayside previously. First, the recent evidence about the role of networks, while making sense of how migration works across time and space and relates to contingent economic conditions, also reveals how migration may now be disarticulated from development (de Haas 2012) but highly articulated with larger transformations resulting from globalization. More legal barriers to migration are unlikely to make much difference in migration flows, and economic development in sending areas may become less likely to change migrant motives. These observations require questioning the premise of any linkage between migration and development, not just the nature of that linkage. Second, at the same time that a focus on migrant networks and the diaspora communities linking sending and receiving nations animates a growing number of studies and large-scale comparative projects, migration becomes a site for revealing hidden hierarchies of power, social status, and rights and provides a new lens for understanding structure and agency in a context of globalization (Castles 2011; Puentes et al. 2010). The coincidence of scholarship that followed migrant lives through networks and across space and time with scholarship on globalization revealed an entirely new conceptual field structure: transnationality (see, e.g., Castells 1996; Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004; Sassen 2011; Smith 2005). Transnationality and transnational migrants invite new questions about who participates in and benefits from national progressive agendas, especially when transnational individuals are simultaneously located
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in multiple nations (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004; Levitt and Jaworsky 2007; Sassen 2011). Before turning to these more recent arguments for a new synthesis that explains the conditions under which there might be articulation and disarticulation between migration and development, it is important to review the classic heuristic devices that have divided migration and development scholarship: virtuous versus vicious cycle arguments. The purpose of the next two sections is to describe the arguments and evidence associated with each as well as to link these conceptualizations to the coincidental and contentious policy debates between state-led, structural development approaches versus neoliberal “free market” approaches. How scholars and policymakers think about and study the relationship between migration and development is inevitably tethered to larger ideas about the role of the state and markets for influencing social and economic progress. These sections will map that theoretical and evidentiary terrain.
V I RT U O U S C YC L E A R G U M E N T S A N D E V I D E N C E
Development economists and functionalist theorists in the 1950s and 1960s viewed labor migration as a necessary component of modernization. Their argument proposed that, as societies start to develop, individuals rationally choose to migrate based on a costbenefit assessment of wages to be earned by moving or staying put (Harris and Todaro 1970). Economic disparities between places tip the balance and lead to labor flowing from surplus locations to deficit labor places. The pull of destination opportunities and the push of poverty in origin are frequently encapsulated as the push-pull theories of migration. Although these theories have been extended beyond economic mechanisms to include cultural, political, and environmental mechanisms and contexts, they are at their core neoclassical, individualized theories of migration (Massey et al. 1998). The assumptions of the model are that individuals are fairly knowledgeable about employment or wage earning opportunities in both origin and destination places, individuals are free to move, and there are no structural constraints to movement. The virtuous cycle starts with the beginnings of development in poor countries, which leads to migration toward countries with more economic opportunities, earnings remitted home improve productivity back in the home country (origin countries), growing labor surpluses in destination countries lower wage inequalities between sending and receiving regions, migration out of sending areas slows with decreasing labor surpluses combined with increasing capital flows back to sending areas, and then returns to human capital equalize in both sending and receiving places. The empirical evidence supporting such virtuous cycles is disappointing. In the cases of sending countries (e.g., Morocco, Turkey, and the Philippines) and receiving countries (e.g., France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States), the evidence is hardly favorable. The long-term results of labor recruitment schemes shows little economic benefit to the country of origin. By the 1980s, the general conclusion was that migration
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tends to undermine prospects for local economic development and can yield a state of stagnation and dependency (Abadan-Unat 1988; Massey et al. 1998). Thus, for much of the 1980s and early 1990s, the conclusion among most policymakers and many scholars was that there was no positive relationship, or virtuous cycle, between migration and development (Castles 2008; Martin 1991; Massey et al. 1998). These scholarly conclusions coincided with a shift in global economic production from industrialized to less industrialized countries and the resulting export-driven, trade regimes that characterized growth in the 1990s (Held et al. 1999). As capital became more mobile, manufacturing technologies became less place-dependent and transport technologies lowered the costs of moving goods; rather than drawing surplus labor from less industrialized places to industrialized places, firms moved production to cheaper, wage labor markets (Held et al. 1999; Sassen 2006). Global cities in less industrialized countries were increasingly important hubs, facilitating capital flows around the globe and accumulation of wealth in the transformed global economy (Sassen 2006). Global cities became crucial for leveraging labor from rural hinterlands (Held et al. 1999; Skeldon 1997). The global transformations under way throughout the world during the 1980s and onward led to the coincident observations about the importance of rural-to-urban migration. And, these observations fueled a resurgence of ideas about the virtuous possibilities of migration and development. By the end of the 1980s, this noted phenomenon was encapsulated in a new theory: the new economics of labor migration. Most prominently promulgated by Oded Stark (1991), the theory argues that individuals, residing within households, decide to migrate as part of a household risk minimization and income diversification strategy. The argument provides some nuanced understanding of the previously disappointing evidence for a virtuous cycle. Stark’s observations drew on evidence from Asia and Africa, where cities were rapidly growing and rural-to-urban migration was a considerable phenomenon (Stark 1984, 1991; Stark and Bloom 1985; Stark and Lauby 1988). According to the new economics of labor migration theory and evidence, those households that send migrants are not the poorest with the fewest resources to support a migrant trip and are not the wealthiest with the most economic security. Instead, households considering the migration of a household member observe their relative deprivation in comparison to wealthier households and have enough resources to absorb the opportunity cost of lost labor and underwrite the cost of a migrant trip (Stark 1991; Stark and Bloom 1985). As the evidence grew from around the world, it soon became apparent that migration was increasingly a deliberate choice to maintain, secure, and improve family livelihoods (Stark 1991). In these scenarios, the positive effects of migration come from its ability to compensate for market imperfections. Even when remittances are spent on consumption, rather than on productive investments, they still generate multiplier effects within the local economy (Massey et al. 1998). Furthermore, even if migrant remittances generate inequality in sending communities, the argument is that such an outcome is an inevitable short-term result of sending communities becoming articulated with global
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economic systems. In the longer term, these reanimated neoclassical theorists argued, the return investments can propel several other economically related outcomes including increased savings, growth in productive returns to capital, increased human capital investments, and shifts in labor from less to more productive activities (Stark 1991). As the drumbeat for the virtuous possibilities of remittances for development grew during the 1990s, policymakers soon reengaged with discussions and agendas that focused attention on what appeared to be a critical development tool: remittances. The idea of remittances coincided with the neoliberal turn in development planning (Craig and Porter 2006). Microcredit, entrepreneurship, economic development from below, lowered public sector investments and greater emphasis on the private sector, and a capabilities approach to development (Sen 1999) were ideas that coincided closely with individually motivated, diaspora philanthropy and family-related remittance flows (Agunias 2006; de Haas 2007; Taylor and Wyatt 1996; Taylor et al. 1996). The early critiques of such virtuosity—that is, remittances causing inequality or poor productive investments—were soon challenged and the virtuous possibilities substantiated, albeit with some qualifications that might limit the scale of positive possibilities (de Haas 2007). There are four substantial and important qualifications. Migration remains a highly selective process that minimizes the cumulative and widespread distribution of progressive outcomes. The taxation and facilitating institutions that manage migration from, and remittances back to, sending countries are variably present, variously predatory, and differently effective in directing progressive outcomes at all levels of social development. The contexts of migrant reception in receiving countries are also fraught. Migrants are variously absorbed into more or less regular labor markets, and that variable pattern affects the possibilities for sufficient economic security that might enable altruistic remittances (de Haas 2007; Portes 2007). The growth in legal barriers to migration in a wider array of destination countries has led to an increasing number of irregular migrants with significant livelihood insecurities that hinder their incorporation and create unregulated illicit markets for trafficking that are quite large but not directed toward progressive infrastructure investments in either sending or receiving countries (Doomernik 2013; Ghosh 1998, 2000; Hollifield, Martin, and Orrenius 2014). Following a similar intellectual and political trajectory, there are virtuous arguments about migration, human capital formation, and development. As with the remittances narrative, in the middle of the twentieth century, migration to labor deficit destinations was often viewed as an opportunity for human capital formation that would eventually return to sending countries and bring increased capacity for improving labor productivity. Such demographic dividends were relatively simply characterized, at least initially, as undifferentiated types of labor mobility that would uniformly benefit and add to a brain gain (Portes 2007). However, this literature disregarded the well-known observation that the movement of labor tends to be highly selective and not circular. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, policymakers and scholars soon recognized that the possibilities of a brain gain were undermined by the more substantial brain drain of
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highly selected, elite, and relatively well educated upper or upwardly mobile middle-class members (see the review in Portes 1976; Portes and Walton 1981; Zolberg 1989). As scholars focused on differentiated labor flows and who benefits or gains from migration of different types of labor, a version of the new economics of labor migration theorized a broader array of direct and indirect effects of differentiated labor flows for human capital formation among both migrants and nonmigrants. This version is called the new economics of the brain drain (Docquier and Rapaport 2012; Stark 2004). In some instances, these scholars argue, if education yields higher returns for migrants then it can stimulate a demand for education among nonmigrants or “not yet migrants” within the origin countries (Stark, Helmenstein, and Prskawetz 1997). These scholars proposed that the relationship is nonlinear. As high-skilled labor migration increases from 0–10 percent among all high-skilled labor in a developing country then the positive consequences (knowledge transfers, continued home country investment in education, remittances) outweigh the negative consequences. However, once the brain drain rate rises to above 15–20 percent, the negative consequences begin to outweigh any positive gains (Beine, Docquier, and Rapaport 2008; McKenzie and Rapaport 2011; Docquier 2006). Similarly, William Easterly and Yaw Nyarko (2009) argue that remittances from high-skilled migrants can result in a net positive outcome as long as the remittances of the migrant exceed 30 percent GDP per capita in the home country. These are fairly stringent conditional requirements for positive outcomes. A recent U.N. study concludes that most of the contemporary evidence argues against a virtuous cycle outcome (UNCTAD 2012). Nevertheless, scholars continue to look for positive outcomes. Recently, several studies identified how highly skilled migrants engage in diaspora philanthropy and engage significantly and influentially in their origin country’s political, economic and cultural livelihoods (Guarnizo 2003; Guarnizo, Portes, and Haller 2003; Portes 2003; Saxenian 1999, 2002; Vertovec 2004). An important caveat, relevant to understanding remittance impacts and whether “brain gains” exist, is the distinctly selective processes of migration. Among all highskilled labor migration, 50 percent travels along south-to-north migrant flows. Most of the high-skilled labor migrants in destination countries come from Asia and Africa. The countries that suffer the most and with the highest rates of brain drain are those in the least developed countries of Africa, Latin America, and the Pacific (UNCTAD 2012). Despite tremendous efforts by many scholars and policymakers to find substantial evidence beyond anecdotal accounts of brain gains, there is very little evidence that emigration yields brain gains for least developed countries (Agrawal et al. 2010; Gibson and McKenzie 2011; Kapur and McHale 2005a, 2005b; McKenzie and Rapaport 2011; UNCTAD 2012). Associated with the assessments of the virtuous possibilities for remittances, there are a set of critical qualifications about the virtuous possibilities for migration, human capital formation, and development. Just as with the migration and remittance scholarship, these noted qualifications or conditions are informed by the theoretical and
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empirical challenges identified by those who would argue that the migration and development relationship tends toward a vicious cycle. These include the extent to which migration is selective for education, the concurrency of public sector investments in education in sending countries, and the context of reception for arriving migrants in terms of their own human capital returns in the new labor market, or their ability to maximize human capital acquisition either through the labor market or via formal education in the destination country.
V I C I O U S C YC L E A R G U M E N T S A N D E V I D E N C E
Early articulations of a vicious cycle emerged in the 1970s (Lipton 1980) and fit with prevailing world-systems theory and cumulative causation theory, as it was developed by Myrdal (1957). Alejandro Portes (2007) neatly summarizes the argument and substantiates it with evidence from the U.S.-Mexico case. Labor migration to core countries results from penetration of peripheral countries by core country economic and political institutions and yields a structural imbalance through the loss of labor in origin communities. Then, the loss of labor undermines the possibilities of endogenously derived economic growth while diffusing consumption expectations that bear little relation to local lifestyles and economic means (Portes and Walton 1981). Mario Barrero (1980) demonstrates the initiation of Mexico-to-U.S. migration by center-based capitalist interests through direct labor recruitment to ranches in the U.S. Southwest. Once started, the flow was sustained because of continued capitalist penetration and endogenously derived relative deprivation (see Portes 2007). Some of these scholars argue that the NAFTA trade agreement represents the institutionalized culmination of structural imbalance and center-periphery penetration because it turns the Mexican state into a giant reservoir of agricultural products and labor for the United States (Delgado Wise and Covarrubias 2006). In this case, migration is linked to development—not in a positive, virtuous cycle but instead in a vicious cycle (Alba 1978; Portes 2007; Sassen 1988). Furthermore, vicious cycle outcomes have been exacerbated by the growth in state-level legal barriers to entry that have increased the numbers of irregular migrants; in addition to growing inequality, political (wars) and environmental disruptions are creating even greater numbers of prospective migrants from a growing number of source countries (Ghosh 2000; Hollifield, Martin, and Orrenius 2014; Sassen 2011). In general, most scholars would agree that a move abroad is economically beneficial to migrants and their families, migrant flows are welcomed by employers, remittances help local communities (especially with infrastructure projects or income smoothing where public works or financial institutions are not accessible or out of reach in the hinterlands), and remittances can also acquire structural importance as a key source of foreign exchange (Portes 2007). However, vicious cycle arguments claim that the virtues of migration are exaggerated because structural conditions mitigate against significant, positive development impacts for origin communities (de Haas 2012) and there are
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inherently negative outcomes that undermine both origin and destination places. When migrants bring their families with them, the process of depopulation accelerates and return migration is limited in sending countries. Family resettlement fosters secondgeneration disadvantages, which can yield downward assimilation with negative impacts in both receiving and sending communities (Smith 2005; Portes 2007). A similar and generalized vicious cycle has also been described for both low-wage, unskilled labor migration and highly educated labor migration. Such an articulation does not entirely negate a neoclassical economic argument that typically aligns with a virtuous cycle line of reasoning. Even under the vicious cycle structural conditions described, it is possible to observe individual migration based on costbenefit analyses of wage differentials between places. However, the larger, positive outcomes across a regional or national economy that might be predicted with a neoclassical argument are not realized unless migrants both remit and return home, alongside national government investments in public and private sector productive infrastructures that subsidize endogenously derived economic growth and direct migrant remittance into productive investments (Portes 2007). As the emblematic Mexico-to-U.S. case shows, substantial cross-border migration hollowed out the Mexican economy, and many migrants permanently resettled in the United States, resulting in a depopulation of the Mexican rural countryside, a slowing of remittance income, and few productive outlets for remittance investments that might yield multiplier effects (Portes 2007). In other contexts, some scholars have also argued that migration flows can disrupt traditional kinship systems and care structures, contribute to the loss of community solidarity, lead to the breakdown of institutions regulating social and economic life, create consumer identities that require migration to satisfy those desires, and generate a culture of migration that has little to do with economic development imperatives, whether identified by individuals, households, communities, or nations (de Haas 2005; Heering, Van Der Erf, and Van Wissen 2004; Kandel and Massey 2002; King and Vullnetari 2006). The preceding discussion has focused primarily on vicious cycle effects in origin communities, but the nature of labor migration incorporation in receiving countries can also contribute to vicious cycle outcomes. It is both the barriers to entry at the borders of receiving countries and the nature of immigrant incorporation that amplifies a vicious cycle. Whether it is the United States, Australia, or Europe, each attempts to control and severely curtail legal movement across their borders. Irregular migration is far greater than regular migration and driven by employer demand in receiving countries and migrant motivations in sending countries (Massey et al. 1998). The challenges of making an illegal foray across these borders are immense, and the possibilities of upward mobility, safety, and security once inside the border are severely limited. The growing securitization of borders and threat of deportations means that, once migrants cross illegally, they are unlikely to make frequent return or circular trips, instead choosing to settle in the shadows of the receiving country and raise a second generation (de Haas 2007; Portes 2007). To succeed, these second-generation migrants must rely on significant
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family and community capital (economic and social) to propel themselves out of contexts of racism, dual labor markets, and negative social affiliations and deviant lifestyles. For those whose parents possess professional skills, economic and social capital helps tremendously. For those whose parents possess few job skills, then the negative contexts propel them downward. Portes and his colleagues have aptly described this as segmented assimilation (Fernandez-Kelly and Curran 2001; Portes and DeWind 2004; Portes and Rumbaut 2005; Portes and Zhou 1993). These dynamics can yield a vicious cycle of poverty and underdeveloped immigrant enclaves in receiving countries. Such enclaves may become breeding grounds for nefarious, illegal smuggling networks and sometimes when these families or youth are deported back to their origin communities they bring along with them deviant lifestyles (Smith 2005). The brain drain metaphor offers a similar vicious cycle argument about professional labor migration. As developing countries invest in their education infrastructure, usually adopting training models from developed countries, the beneficiaries of that investment migrate away because the training they received is most appropriate and best remunerated in core countries rather than in their own country, given its relatively underdeveloped economic infrastructure (Baldwin 1970; Lowell and Findlay 2002; Portes 1976; Stark, Helmenstein, and Prskawetz 1997). Filipino healthcare workers are a good example of this phenomenon and result, as are migrants from Korea and Taiwan (Carrington and Detragiache 1999). Furthermore, in advanced, industrialized economies, scientific innovations and demand for technical services create labor shortages that lead those countries to seek skilled labor from abroad, further fueling out-migration of skilled labor from south to north (Portes 2007). Although there is substantial evidence supporting these claims, there are also emblematic, counterfactual cases from India and many examples of highly skilled, professional labor diasporas reinvesting in their home countries (Alarcon 1999; Saxeniaen 2002, 2005; Smith 2005). The brain drain deprives countries of origin of some of the most qualified persons whom they have educated and trained. This loss becomes especially acute as the global economy becomes increasingly knowledge-based. Studying abroad is also a route to the brain drain, even though many students are encouraged to return or their documentation requires them to return. In general, the greater the gap between origin and destination country conditions, the higher the likelihood that the students will not return (Finn 2014; see Mary Kritz’s chapter in this volume). Among foreign doctoral candidates, 62 percent are likely to stay in the United States rather than return home five or more years after receiving their degree. Understanding development transformations through human capital investments is just as complex as estimating the direct and indirect impacts of remittances on a sending economy. For example, the expansion of tertiary education throughout Ethiopia hides the effect of the brain drain on the country. Only 6 percent of higher education instructors hold Ph.D.s, and the number of Ph.D.s of Ethiopian origin living in foreign countries is estimated to be more than twice as high as those living in Ethiopia. In order to respond to the need for more qualified university teachers and
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professors, the Ethiopian government has launched a recruitment campaign aimed at expanding those numbers, especially for individuals from India. Such recruitment strategies rely on limited foreign exchange reserves (UNCTAD 2012) that might otherwise be invested for economic growth. Comparative advantages that might agglomerate with growth in a skilled labor force are also dissipated with labor migration. Foregone tax revenues further undermine development and progressive transformations when home country skilled labor leaves to work abroad. And, these impacts will continue because those migrants rarely return home. Thus, there are second-order opportunity costs since the children of highly skilled laborers also become highly skilled workers and move abroad with their parents. This only serves to hollow out the possibilities of endogenously derived economic growth. Among both policy analysts and scholars, the qualifying, conditional statements associated with revised claims about either virtuous or vicious cycle arguments are mostly agreed upon. Generally, there are two institutional sets of mechanisms that must be better understood and incorporated into policies or theories related to linkages between migration and development: the role of state institutions in both sending and receiving places, and the transnational institutions that emerge to facilitate migration independent of conditions in either sending or receiving places (Castles 2008; de Haas 2012; Portes 2007). However, there is less agreement on how to embed these two sets of mechanisms within processes of political, economic, and cultural globalization and subsequent global social transformations. In order to do so requires a far more comprehensive account of migration systems and development transformations (Castles 2008; de Haas 2012).
M I G R AT I O N A N D D E V E L O P M E N T ( D I S ) A RT I C U L AT I O N S W I T H G L O B A L I Z AT I O N
In the preceding sections, migration and development have been placed within a context of larger trends, understood along a historical trajectory of ideas, and placed within the predominate two frameworks animating debates about the relationship between the two phenomena. There are three conclusions to be drawn from these discussions. Though migration and development have received sporadic but occasionally intense attention among scholars and policymakers, the focus of this attention tends to exaggerate the momentary or epiphenomenon of migration and underemphasize its dynamism and ubiquity. Even though virtuous and vicious cycle arguments share systemic inclinations and acknowledge similar mechanisms, they both suffer from reductionist tendencies and underestimate noneconomic structures and motivations. Until recently and more often than not, migration and development theorizing and research have followed rather than led ideas about development transformations. Some scholars have argued that we exist in an age of migration (Castles and Miller 1993; Massey et al. 1998), whereas others suggest that such claims hide critical features of migration and that it would be better to consider how migration is both a constant in
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human history and highly concentrated in contemporary times (Bakewell 2008; de Haas 2007; Skeldon 2008). Spatial mobility driven by human agents and larger governing bodies has been a ubiquitous feature of societies throughout recorded history (Skeldon 2008). One key feature of contemporary spatial mobility is its highly concentrated pattern of flows to a few receiving countries and regions. Another key feature is that the experience of spatial mobility is extraordinarily different for elite or professionals versus low-skilled, low-wage laborers. In no other time since the start of the twentieth century is it easier for elites and professionals to move, whereas it has never been harder and more dangerous for low-skilled, low-wage workers (Bakewell 2008; Castles 2011). In both instances, the results have generated a myopic or disjointed perspective about causes and consequences of migration and its relationship to development processes. In particular, these disjointed arguments have tended to place an overemphasis on the virtuous potential of remittances and migrant diasporas for fueling development or policies preventing vicious outcomes through more trade and aid in sending regions that would solve the “migration problem.” A notable finding among both virtuous and vicious cycle research is that the relationship between migration and development is nonlinear. In other words, the poorest nations and regions are not the source of most migrants, and some emerging economies do not generate significant emigration flows (de Haas 2007). If scholars were to assume that migration is ubiquitous but still dynamic and variable, then the question for scholarship is to examine places where migration systems did and did not emerge as a key component of the social development process. This means that the premise of a linkage should be questioned—that is, how articulated are migration and development systems? Dichotomous debates are fundamentally reductionist and distract from a complete understanding of the interaction between migration and development. In fact, the mixed evidence and unresolved debates point directly to incomplete theorizing and unnecessarily constrained methodologies in examining the dynamic between migration and development. There are some commonalities between the virtuous and the vicious cycle debate that may help to overcome the debate and redirect policy attention and research direction. In the first place, there is general agreement that institutions in both contexts of departure and contexts of reception must be accounted for simultaneously in explaining the dynamic between migration and development. Most scholars agree that global economic disparities are reinforced with contradictory immigration policies that encourage highskilled labor migration and militantly regulate low-skilled labor migration, both of which only further fuel migration systems (de Haas 2007; Sanderson and Kentor 2009). In the contexts of departure, the accounting exercise needs to observe the presence and strength of institutions that facilitate endogenous economic growth. In the contexts of reception, the accounting exercise needs to question how inclusive the regulatory regime for incoming migrants (Phillips 2009; Portes 2007; Puentes et al. 2010) and the segmented nature of the labor market may or may not facilitate social and economic mobility.
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In the second place, a growing number of scholars and policymakers on both sides of the debate recognize that the institutions regulating the context of migrant flows can be both benevolent and exploitative (Castles 2011; de Haas 2007). On the one hand, transit institutions can extract an extraordinarily high price for those transactions (both in financial and in human life terms), whether it is moving people or money across borders. On the other hand, a few diaspora communities offer opportunities for philanthropy and investment that might not otherwise be possible (Mullings 2011; Portes 2007; Ratha, Mohapatra, and Silwal 2010; Rodrick 2005; Saxenian 2002; Shindo 2012; UNCTAD 2012). Thus, formal and informal transnational institutions that engage sending and receiving nation-states and their populations in the process of migration and development are now seen as a critical mechanism for policy leverage, but they are still poorly understood (UNCTAD 2012). Both sides of the virtuous and vicious cycle debate agree on the need for paying greater attention to economic and political economy institutions in sending, receiving, and transit contexts, but they also share in a relatively limited attribution of the migration and development relationship to informing only economic transformations. Instead, sociology of migration scholarship points to other dimensions of migration, including how migration is motivated by aspirational desires, not just monetary ones, and that these desires are present whether or not economic disparities exist (de Haas 2007). Migration is a profoundly transformational experience, not just for the migrant but also for the nonmigrant. For example, the literature on gender and migration demonstrates how gender is transformed in both origin and destination, depending on how sex segregated the migrant flow and the gender relations in both origin and destination (Curran et al. 2006). Social remittances, not just financial remittances, can also reorganize and profoundly influence sending contexts (Levitt 2001; Smith 2005; Waldinger 2008). Hometown associations linking sending and receiving places can influence development outcomes, politics, and cultures in both origin and destination, for better or for worse. And, bilateral cooperation and influence can be instantiated precisely because there are large numbers of migrants with substantial influence in both sending and receiving places (Bauböck and Faist 2010; Brubaker 2005; Smith 2005; Vertovec 2004, 2009). What kind of influence, how sustained, and whether these transnational networks are understood to advance human progress are questions that require research and answers, especially among scholars of migration and development. Consequently, just as the sociology of migration seeks to demonstrate how migration is embedded in economic, political, and cultural processes, the migration and development literature might also be better articulated in relation to larger global social transformation processes, not just economic ones (Cohen and Jónsson 2011). Castles (2011) has argued that, despite the importance of labor mobility for international economic growth, it is one of the last remaining economic factors not globally governed. Trade, finance, and intellectual property are globally regulated, but labor is not, precluding opportunities to effectively ensure migrant protection and access to human rights
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(Castles 2011). Although there is an international convention to protect migrant workers and their families, signatories only include migrant-origin nations. A recent “high level dialogue,” the Global Forum on Migration and Development, launched in 2007 under the auspices of the U.N. Secretariat, is meant to enhance international cooperation but is largely driven by migrant receiving nations concerned about skilled labor shortages. Ruben Puentes and his colleagues (2010) have argued that one of the stumbling blocks for achieving global governance of international migration is the paucity of empirical evidence about the entire migration system and its relationship to economic, political, and social systems that link individuals, communities, and nations around the globe. Similarly, Ronald Skeldon (2008) points to how the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, though seeking to enhance human welfare worldwide, completely ignore the role of migration while generating numerous indicators and studies about other forms of human progress and transformation. Such disarticulations are striking, given how much consensus there is among scholars and policymakers about the integral linkage between migration and development. One solution, as Puentes and his colleagues (2010) argue, is to launch a major empirical effort to more fully integrate observations of migration at multiple levels of analysis into studies of social and economic development in both sending and receiving places. Such an endeavor fits well within a renewed focus among sociologists studying migration and development that should address either (1) the full range of migration patterns across all forms of global economic and political relations or (2) how international and internal migration are critical sites for investigating how structure and agency inform development processes and help us better understand the cultural, social, economic and political components at all levels of analysis that shape human welfare and inequality. Both points of research redirection offer an opportunity for migration scholarship to lead the development of theory that better explains how globalization is differentiating exclusion and inclusion in world capitalist relations, how the current international system of equality among nation-states and citizens is belied by a hidden complex hierarchy of power, social status, and rights, and how networks from above and networks from below give as much weight to the global as to the local (Castells 1996; Curran 2008). To accomplish this redirection and contribution to a larger sociology of development endeavor, as well as to get beyond virtuous and vicious cycle debates, migration scholarship needs to get beyond reliance on nation-state-based migrant stock and flow assessments and to observe and measure recurring, circular, and onward migration and transnational and diaspora networks. Once this observational challenge is accomplished, several other critical aspects of migration will be revealed. For example, migration is a multidimensional experience transforming individuals, communities, and institutions, nonmigrants as well as migrants, sending and receiving places, and the transit institutions that link the two. A multidimensional perspective reveals the tensions between individuals and society (decisionmaking, incorporation, reintegration), behavior of people in groups (networks, transnational communities, diasporas, enclaves), and dynamics
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of structure and action (laws and policies influencing migrant behavior and, importantly, vice versa). Such an agenda will naturally reembed the migration and development literature into a larger endeavor to better understand globalization processes and eliminate the deadlocked debate between virtuous and vicious cycle arguments.
N OT E
1. Though it is not directly relevant to this discussion about migration and development, I would be remiss in omitting the observation that these countervailing forces, increased regulatory barriers to migration, and growing migration systems set the stage for rapid-onset migration crises. When conditions worsen in places of origin, the acceleration of out-migration is facilitated by preexisting migration systems. At the same time, recently imposed, regulatory schemes are poorly equipped to manage the rapidly increasing flows of people. The European migration crisis of 2015 and beyond and the U.S. child migration crisis during the summer of 2014 partially resulted from the collision of expanding migration systems with newly erected barriers, exacting extraordinary human tolls and social costs. One outcome of the crises has been renewed attention to the linkages between migration and development, with high-level policymakers in the refugee field collaborating with multilateral and bilateral development agencies to implement programs that explicitly link development funds, humanitarian aid, and settlement/resettlement efforts (European Commission 2016).
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Puentes, Ruben, Alejandro Canales, Hector Rodriguez, Raul Delgado Wise, and Stephen Castles. 2010. Towards an Assessment of Migration, Development and Human Rights Links: Conceptual Framework and New Strategic Indicators. Mexico City: People’s Global Action on Migration, Development and Human Rights. http://www.un.org/esa/population /meetings/ninthcoord2011/assessmentofmigration.pdf. Ratha, Dilip, Sanket Mohapatra, and Ani Silwal. 2010. Outlook for Remittance Flows 2010–11: Remittance Flows to Developing Countries Remained Resilient in 2009, Expected to Recover During 2010–11. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. Reichert, Joshua S. 1981. “The Migrant Syndrome: Seasonal U.S. Labor Migration and Rural Development in Central Mexico.” Human Organization 40: 56–66. Rodrik, Dani. 2005. In Search of Prosperity: Narratives on Economic Growth. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Rubenstein, Henry. 1992. “Migration: Development and Remittances in Rural Mexico.” International Migration 30, no. 2: 1992. Russell, Stanon S. 1992. “Migrant Remittances and Development.” International Migration 30, nos. 3–4: 267–87. Sanderson, Matthew R., and Jeffrey D. Kentor. 2009. “Globalization, Development and International Migration: A Cross-National Analysis of Less-Developed Countries, 1970–2000.” Social Forces 88, no. 1: 301–36. Sassen, Saskia. 1988. The Mobility of Labor and Capital: A Study in International Investment and Labor Flows. New York: Cambridge University Press. . 2006. Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. . 2011. Cities in a World Economy. Pine Forge, Calif.: Sage Publications. Saxenian, Anna. 1999. Silicon Valley’s New Immigrant Entrepreneurs. San Francisco: Public Policy Institute of California. . 2002. Local and Global Networks of Immigrant Professionals in Silicon Valley. San Francisco: Public Policy Institute of California. . 2005. “From Brain Drain to Brain Circulation: Transnational Communities and Regional Upgrading in India and China.” Studies in Comparative International Development 40, no. 2: 35–61. Sen, Amartya. 1999. Development as Freedom. New York: Anchor Books. Shindo, Reiko. 2012. “The Hidden Effect of Diaspora Return to Post-Conflict Countries: The Case of Policy and Temporary Return to Rwanda.” Third World Quarterly 33, no. 9: 1685– 1702. Skeldon, Ronald. 1997. Migration and Development: A Global Perspective. Essex: Longman. . 2006. “Interlinkages between International and Internal Migration and Development in the Asia Region.” Population, Space and Place 12, no. 1: 15–30. . 2008. “Of Skilled Migration, Brain Drains and Policy.” International Migration 47, no. 4: 3–29. Smith, Robert. 2005. Mexican New York: Transnational Worlds of New Immigrants. Berkeley: University of California Press. Stark, Oded E. 1984. “Rural-to-Urban Migration in LDCs: A Relative Deprivation Approach.” Economic Development and Cultural Change 32: 475–86.
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14 TERTIARY EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT Strategies of Global South Countries to Meet Growing Tertiary Demand
Mary M. Kritz
Social scientists have studied the relationship between education and development extensively but continue to debate its direction and importance relative to other factors (see David Bills’s chapter in this volume). This debate persists in academic circles, though there is widespread acceptance among development policymakers that education does indeed have positive effects on development (Bezanson and Sagasti 2005; Chabbott and Ramirez 2000). That acceptance is demonstrated by the increasing aid that donors have provided for education in recent decades: global education assistance increased from $6.5 billion in 2002 to $13.9 billion in 2010 (UNESCO 2014).1 However, since the development era started fifty to sixty years ago, the education activities given priority by donors have changed as structural conditions have changed. Based on a review of education and development, Colette Chabbott and Francisco Ramirez (2000) argue that, when modernization and human capital theories dominated the development discourse in the 1960s, the leading education priority was to strengthen tertiary education systems because countries in the Global South emerging from colonial rule had a dearth of high-level human resources. That priority changed in the 1970s as development advocates made the case that people’s basic needs, poverty reduction, and equity needed attention as well as broader economic conditions. To address those problems, education investments shifted toward expanding primary and secondary education and providing provide literacy education for adults (Chabbott and Ramirez 2000). Tertiary education was deemphasized based on the premise that the scientific knowledge and technologies needed to spur economic growth were readily available in the global economic marketplace (Bezanson and Sagasti 2005, 26).2
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By 2000, the development discourse had shifted again and refocused on the importance of tertiary education for development. Development professionals were arguing that tertiary education could no longer be neglected based on a growing body “of empirical evidence that endogenous capabilities in knowledge and technology are key factors that separate economically successful from economically unsuccessful countries” (Bezanson and Sagasti 2005, 26). These arguments gained sway with the multilateral agencies that direct international development assistance—the World Bank and the United Nations—as well as with Global South countries seeking to speed up their development and compete more effectively in the knowledge- and technology-driven global economy (Yusuf et al. 2009). According to a 2013 U.N. report, “Every country that has experienced sustained high growth has done so through absorbing knowledge, technology and ideas from the rest of the world, and adapting them to local conditions. What matters is not just having technology, but understanding how to use it well and locally. This requires universities, technical colleges, public administration schools and well-trained, skilled workers in all countries” (United Nations 2013, 11). The problem now confronting Global South development professionals is how to build tertiary education systems3 that have sufficient capacity to provide advanced training in science, technology, engineering, and mathematic (STEM) fields. Although recognition of the importance of tertiary institutions in the development process is an important first step, achieving this outcome is difficult because most Global South countries have shortages of teachers with doctoral or advanced degrees in STEM fields. Several other realities also complicate the process, including rapid population growth in Global South countries, which creates increasing demand for further investments in primary education and basic needs (such as food, housing, and medical care). Growing numbers of Global South countries have already achieved universal primary enrollments and have growing secondary completion rates that are also fueling demand for tertiary education. Responding to this growing tertiary demand is exacerbated by the brain drain that Global South countries have experienced in recent decades. These problems, of course, differ widely across countries. Some East Asian countries have largely achieved universal primary enrollment and slowed rapid population growth, but most sub-Saharan African countries have not. However, even assuming that development experts solve these problems, they still have another problem—namely, how to strengthen tertiary institutions within a reasonable time frame given that faculty development and scientific research are inherently slow processes. It typically takes five to eight years following the baccalaureate to obtain a doctoral degree and several additional years to build strong teaching and research centers. In this chapter, I discuss these problems and describe strategies that Global South countries are taking to address them. Given the diversity across Global South countries on a number of development indicators, including population size and growth, GDP per capita, human development, and political stability, it should be acknowledged at the outset that only a subset of these countries, mainly middle-income ones with relatively
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large populations and/or relatively high GDP, have developed strategies to strengthen their tertiary capacity. That group of countries includes BRICS,4 most G20 countries, and some others.5 I first review trends in tertiary education demand and supply and underscore differences between Global North and Global South countries in these trends. Given that tertiary demand now exceeds supply in most Global South countries, I next discuss how this problem is related to increasing international student mobility and identify trends in outbound mobility that could reduce Global South brain drain in the years ahead. Since an alternative approach to outbound student mobility is for countries to expand tertiary training capacity at home, the chapter then reviews strategies that countries are taking to achieve that end, including building education partnerships with Global North universities.
T R E N D S I N H I G H E R E D U C AT I O N D E M A N D A N D S U P P LY
Figure 14.1 shows trends in the absolute numbers of enrolled tertiary students in seven world regions from 1970 to 2009. In 1970, North America and Europe had more tertiary students (13.6 million) than all other world regions combined (just over 10 million). By 2009, that had changed, and the East Asia and Pacific region had the largest number of enrolled students (52.4 million). Student numbers also grew in other Global South regions but at a slower pace than they did in East Asia and the Pacific. Sub-Saharan Africa had the largest percentage increase in enrollments (2,350 percent), but that statistic stemmed from its low starting base: in 1970, sub-Saharan Africa had fewer than 200,000 tertiary students because countries in the region were just emerging from colonial rule and most of them had few universities and colleges. Enrollments were higher in the English colonies and have increased faster since independence largely because the British institutional structure was more adaptable to change (Garnier and Schafer 2006). Given that absolute numbers of tertiary students reflect regional/country differentials in population size as well as differential country responses to rising tertiary demand, the gross enrollment ratio (GER) provides a better gauge of changing demand. The GER is calculated by dividing the number of students enrolled in tertiary institutions by the number of tertiary age students.6 Students enrolled abroad are not included in the numerator, and the denominator is restricted to the five-year age group that follows the average age of secondary school completion. Figure 14.2 shows that, in both 1970 and 2009, the GERs were highest in North America/Western Europe and Central/Eastern Europe, but there were also increasing GER differentials between Global South regions. Whereas in 1970 the GERs were below 10 percent and comparable throughout the Global South, by 2009 sub-Saharan Africa was the only region that still had GERs below 10 percent. Latin America/Caribbean had the fastest GER growth (37 percent), followed by East Asia/Pacific and Arab states. These enrollment trends suggest that both population growth and institutional factors shape tertiary demand. In 1970, population growth was a rising concern in the development
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55,000
50,000
45,000
40,000
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30,000
25,000
20,000
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10,000
5,000
09 20
07 20
05 20
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80 19
19
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0
E. Asia & Pacific
S. & W. Asia
Arab States
sub-Saharan Africa
Latin America & Caribe
C. & E. Europe
N. America & Europe FIGURE 14.1 Absolute Numbers of the Tertiary Age Population Enrolled in Tertiary Studies by World Region, 1970–2009. Source: UNESCO 2009, table 8.
80
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S. & W. Asia sub-Saharan Africa C. & E. Europe
FIGURE 14.2 Percentage of the Tertiary Age Population Enrolled in Tertiary Studies (Gross Enrollment Ratio), 1970–2009. Source: rates calculated from UNESCO 2009, table 8.
community, given annual growth rates of 2.5 to 3 percent throughout the Global South. Today, in contrast, population growth has slowed to about 1 percent in Asia and Latin America but remains high in Africa (2.7 percent). This divergence occurred because Asian and Latin American countries were more receptive than African countries to the argument that rapid population growth could slow their development. Several countries in Asia, including China, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, started delivering family planning services in the 1970s, and Latin American countries followed in the 1980s. Although debate continues whether the economic growth that the Asian tigers experienced in the 1990s can be attributed to the demographic bonus that follows population decline or whether economic growth preceded population declines (Pritchett 1994), age structures do unquestionably become older as population growth declines and can give countries a demographic bonus (see David Brown and Parfait Eloundou-Enyegue’s chapter in this volume). During the bonus period, countries have more economically active workers relative to dependents (youth and elders) and can generate more resources that can be used to improve education and health services and quicken economic growth. Africa, Asia, and Latin America responded differently to population growth, but they also differed in their education and development investments. Carl Dahlman argued, for instance, that “[f]orty years ago, Ghana and the Republic of Korea had about the same income per capita. By 1990, Korea’s income was six times higher than Ghana’s. While part of the difference is due to more investment and more workers, half of the difference is attributed to Korea’s greater success in organizing and using knowledge” (quoted in Bezanson and Sagasti 2005, 27).
I N T E R N AT I O N A L S T U D E N T M O B I L I T Y T R E N D S
As demand for tertiary education has risen in recent decades, so too has international student mobility (see Figure 14.3), and evidence suggests that these two trends are linked. In 1975, there were only half a million international students, but, by 2009, there were almost 3.5 million. While numbers of Asian students abroad increased by 32 percent between 2003 and 2008, the numbers from Europe and the United States/Canada increased by 2 and 17 percent, respectively. Increases from other regions ranged from 13 percent in sub-Saharan Africa to 24 percent in Latin America. Since 2000, China, India, and South Korea have been the largest senders of international students, but their numbers abroad are small relative to those enrolled at home. In general, small population countries have a higher percentage of their tertiary students abroad. I found (2015b) that countries with populations under two million had 34 percent of their tertiary students abroad, on average, compared to 6 percent for countries with populations over two million. The two largest countries, China and India, only had 1.7 percent and 1.1 percent, respectively, of their total number of tertiary students abroad in 2008. These trends raise questions as to what accounts for country differentials in outbound student mobility and whether countries that have less tertiary capacity or supply have more students abroad. Studies have looked at the relationship between tertiary supply and
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FIGURE 14.3 Global Numbers of International Mobile Students, 1975–2009. Source: UNESCO 2014.
outbound student mobility and found support for the thesis that countries that have limited tertiary capacity have significantly higher outbound mobility rates (Kritz 2015a, 2015b; Lee and Tan 1984). I also found (2015b) that student outflows correlated positively with GDP per capita and developed country status. Those findings are consistent with the “constrained schooling” thesis, which holds that Global South countries have to send students abroad for advanced study because of the lack of training capacity at home. An alternative theory, dubbed the “migration for employment” thesis, holds that students go abroad for the same reasons that international migrants do, namely because of poverty, low wages, and the lack of work opportunities at home (Clemens 2009; Lowell and Khadka 2011; Rosenzweig 2006). Empirical support for the migration-for-employment thesis comes from studies by Mark Rosenzweig (2006, 2008) and Lindsay Lowell and Pramod Khadka (2011), which found that the wage differential between skilled workers in students’ homelands and the United States was positively related to the number of international students from those countries in U.S. universities. I have argued (2015b) that the contradictory findings between the constrained-schooling and migration-for-employment theses likely stemmed from use of different methodologies and focus on different sets of sending countries. Global South students may not leave their homelands with the intent to stay abroad, but research on the brain drain indicates that many of them who study in Global North countries do make that decision as they learn about economic opportunities abroad. Given that most international students receive support from relatives, some may
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decide to stay abroad following graduation to earn money to pay them back. One study found that 83 percent of U.S. international undergraduates and about half of international graduates were funded by personal and family funds in 2008 (Bhandari and Chow 2008). Several articles in recent World Bank publications (Docquier and Marfouk 2006; Özden and Schiff 2006) provide a useful overview of the brain drain debate and advance the argument that “brain circulation” may be a more apt term than brain drain to depict what happens when tertiary students do not return or when other high-skilled workers emigrate. Available data indicate that non-return rates vary depending on where students do their studies and their study fields and origin countries. Karine Tremblay (2005) found, for instance, that 48 percent of Chinese students who did their studies in France returned, but only 14 percent returned of those who studied in the United States. Retention rates for students receiving doctorates in science and engineering were over 50 percent in the United States compared to 27 percent in the United Kingdom and 15 percent in Canada and New Zealand (Finn 2003; Suter and Jandl 2006). Michael Finn (2003) found that over 70 percent of international students from Indonesia, South Korea, Japan, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and France who studied in the United States were back home in 1996, compared to only 5 percent of Chinese, 12 percent of Indians, and 31 percent of Iranians. Global North countries differ in whether they allow international students to stay following study completion, but most now make it easier for them to do so because they, too, want to increase their skilled worker pools (Schuetze 2012). International student destinations started to change around 2000, and, if that trend continues, non-return may become less of an issue in the future. Although all world regions received more international students in 2010 than they did in 2000, numbers grew fastest in Oceania (mainly Australia and New Zealand [195 percent]), Latin America/Caribbean (150 percent), Asia (126 percent), and Europe (114 percent) (see Figure 14.4). Numbers in the United States/Canada grew at a pace comparable to growth in sub-Saharan Africa (55 and 57 percent, respectively). As a result, the share of international students in the United States fell from 26 percent in 2000 to 17 percent in 2010. Increases in student numbers in Global South countries is expected to continue to pick up momentum given the aggressive steps that Asian and Pacific countries are taking to improve their tertiary education systems and recruit international students (WENR 2013). According to the 2013 QS World University Rankings, there are now sixteen Asian universities in the top-100 listing, but they are located in just six countries (China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan).7 In 2003, Japan was the only Asian country with any universities in the top 100. At this point, only a few countries beyond North America and Europe receive many international students, but that is starting to change. In Asia, the largest receivers of international students are Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and China; in Latin America, they are Cuba, Brazil, and Mexico; and in Africa, most international students go to South Africa.
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FIGURE 14.4 Numbers of and Change in International Students by Destination Region, 2000–2010. source: OECD 2012, table C4.6.
B U I L D I N G E N D O G E N O U S T E RT I A RY C A PA C I T Y T O A D VA N C E D E V E L O P M E N T
There is growing recognition not only in Asia but throughout the Global South, especially in middle-income countries with rapid GDP growth, of the need for strong tertiary institutions that can train nationals in STEM fields and conduct the scientific research that is required to adapt foreign technologies to national conditions. Improving food supply, for instance, is an important objective in most Global South countries, but achieving that goal requires endogenous agricultural and social science research on soils, climate, food preferences, and a host of other factors that can affect planning choices. Western seeds, fertilizers, and technology cannot be assumed to be appropriate for all Global South contexts. Similar rationales are applicable for health, energy, environment, and other development sectors. To strengthen endogenous research and teaching capacity and to speed up the training of the next generation of scientists at national universities, Global South countries are increasingly using a three-pronged approach: (1) forming partnerships with Global North universities that allow them to expand in-country training capacity by bringing in expatriates to offer courses or by allowing them to set up branch campuses; (2) setting up incentive programs to induce nationals working abroad to return home or, if they remain abroad, to engage them in selective research and teaching activities in their homelands; and (3) providing scholarships to nationals in selected STEM fields for study abroad. The sections that follow elaborate on these three approaches.
P A RT N E R S H I P S B E T W E E N G L O B A L S O U T H A N D N O RT H U N I V E R S I T I E S
To strengthen higher education systems, especially in STEM fields that are closely linked to innovation and development, Global South countries need to increase their stocks of doctoral-level faculty or well-trained equivalents. They are confronted, however, with a dilemma: whether to train more nationals at home even though they do not have sufficient faculty and university infrastructures to do so, or to send students abroad and run the risk that they will not return. Increasing the amount of training at home has the disadvantage that it can only be done by asking skilled faculty already in place to teach more or larger classes. Taking that option can dilute the quality of teaching and encourage overloaded nationals to go abroad where workloads and remuneration are more favorable. Nonetheless, many Global South universities have taken that approach and asked faculty to increase their workloads without receiving increased remuneration. To accommodate growing tertiary demand, several countries have passed laws that require universities to admit all eligible students or that restrict the fees universities can charge students to cover the costs of training more students. This approach has resulted in unwieldy institutions with humongous numbers of students, such as the National Autonomous University of Mexico (330,000 students), the University of Buenos Aires (311,000 students), and the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (180,000 students). Some universities in Asia
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have over a million enrolled students (e.g., Indira Gandhi National Open University, Islamic Azad University in Iran, Allama Iqbal Open University in Pakistan, and Bangladesh National University). Shortages of faculty, physical infrastructure, labs, libraries, and equipment have led to the deterioration of higher education in much of the Global South and exacerbated brain drain. Institutions of higher education in Global North countries have sought to capitalize on growing Global South demand for tertiary education and skilled workers by admitting more international students and developing partnership training programs with Global South universities. Changing demographics underlie the approaches that Global North and South countries are taking. Although Global North countries have large tertiary training capacity, their domestic demand is leveling off because of aging populations and high tertiary enrollments (70–80 percent of the tertiary age population is already enrolled in most Global North countries). Countries in the Global South, in contrast, have limited tertiary training capacity, young age structures, and rapidly growing tertiary age populations. Increasing demand for tertiary education in the Global South also stems from investments made in primary and secondary education systems in recent decades. Primary school completion is now universal in most middle-income Global South countries, and secondary school enrollment and completion rates are growing rapidly. Rising secondary completion, in turn, stimulates demand for tertiary education. Collaborative partnerships between Global North and South universities range from distance-learning initiatives to the opening of branch campuses in Global South countries. Typical partnerships, however, usually consist of two- to four-week exchanges during which professors from Global North universities teach condensed courses at Global South universities. Cross-border partnerships tend to be seen as a “win-win” for both partners. Universities in the Global North like them because they offer a means to internationalize their campuses and promote cultural and political understanding. This occurs when the partnerships open up study abroad opportunities for Global North students. Partnerships can also increase Global North university revenue because Global South students usually pay full tuition. Under some arrangements, Global South universities or governments pay Global North universities for services rendered to their nationals. Global South universities win because cross-border partnerships give their students more study options domestically and internationally, which allows them to train a larger number of students more quickly. Although faculty and students from Global North countries have traveled to Global South countries for decades to do research and collaborate with foreign scholars, what differs now is that universities throughout the world, and in some cases governments, are entering into formal agreements that specify the services to be exchanged, who pays, and which institutions award degrees. While faculty may work closely with university administrators in setting up formal partnerships, because institutional agreements are binding for both partners, they have legal implications. That is why these agreements are usually managed by administrators who have the expertise to deal with country regula-
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tions that guide university establishment, recognition, and accreditation. Depending on country regulatory frameworks, cross-border partnerships can range from quasi-informal program collaborations in specific fields (e.g., Asian studies) to structured programs that lead to degrees awarded by both partners or to branch campuses at which degrees are awarded by the Global North partner alone. Program partnerships in specific academic fields usually involve institutional collaborations in course delivery or program design. A terminology has evolved to classify crossborder arrangements (Knight 2006, 23–26). Franchising refers to arrangements under which a Global North university8 authorizes a Global South university to deliver courses or study programs that it then recognizes or certifies. For example, Heriot-Watt University (U.K.) franchised the American University in Egypt to offer an MBA program under its name; the University of Hawaii franchised the University of Hue, Vietnam, to offer a bachelor’s degree in tourism (Altbach and Knight 2007). Twinning agreements involve collaborations between Global North and South universities on study programs that allow students from both institutions to take courses at the partner institutions. Under these agreements, Global South students typically study for two to three years at home and then go abroad to complete their degree at the Global North university partner. Since students from the Global South follow the same curriculum as those from the Global North, they can transfer without losing credits. Indian universities have been particularly active in setting up twinning agreements with Global North universities (Chhapia 2013). One example is a program set up by Western Michigan University with Christ University in India to increase its numbers of Indian students (Zerilli 2012). Participating in a twinning program is attractive to international students because they pay lower fees at home for the first two to three years of college but then obtain their degrees from an international university. Articulation programs take twinning a step further by allowing students to obtain joint or dual degrees from partners that offer the same curricula at both universities. Articulated programs are attractive to students because they receive two degrees, which gives them additional credentials in today’s highly competitive global marketplace. Western Michigan University, for example, has articulation agreements with several Malaysian universities (Zerilli 2012). Sandwich programs are often used for training graduate students. They typically involve study abroad for one to two years by graduate students already enrolled in a study program at a Global South university. After their study abroad, students return home to complete their degrees. Global South countries like sandwich programs because they allow students to draw on the expertise and resources available at Global North universities while reducing the risk of non-return that occurs if students do their full study program abroad. An example of a sandwich program is one managed by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, which works closely with RUFORUM, an international program set up by the alliance to increase African capacity in agricultural sciences. Under this program, students enrolled in doctoral and master of science programs in plant breeding and agriculture at selected African universities receive funding to study for six to twelve
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months at a Global North university partner. For instance, Michigan State University and Ohio State University receive graduate students enrolled at Makerere University (Uganda), Jomo Kenyatta University (Kenya), and Sokoine University of Agriculture (Tanzania). Branch campuses are the most complex and formal cross-border partnerships because they involve student or faculty mobility as well as degree-awarding arrangements between Global North and South universities. Most countries restrict tertiary education delivery by foreign providers, which is why branch campuses are less common than other crossborder activities and are located in just a few countries. Given that branch campuses require a physical infrastructure, Global North universities often partner with a local college that already has a physical campus. In other cases, Global South countries have built physical campuses to attract foreign universities. Qatar Foundation, for instance, built Education City in Doha and invited U.S. and European universities to offer degree programs in specialized fields consistent with Qatar’s national development program (Lindsey 2013). In response, several Global North universities set up degree programs at Education City that allow students to take the same curriculum as students do at their home campuses. U.S. universities that have degree programs at Education City include Carnegie Mellon University, which awards undergraduate degrees in business and computer science; Cornell University’s Weill Cornell Medical College, which offers a two-year pre-med program followed by a four-year medical degree program; Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, which awards an undergraduate degree in foreign affairs; Texas A&M, which offers undergraduate and graduate programs in chemical, electrical, mechanical, and petroleum engineering; Northwestern University, which offers undergraduate degrees in journalism and communications; and Virginia Commonwealth University, which awards a bachelor of fine arts degree in communication design, fashion design, or interior design. Enrolled students receive degrees from the foreign university. There are similar education hubs elsewhere. Dubai Knowledge Village was set up in 2003, but higher education was subsequently spun off to Dubai International Academic City where Michigan State University, Murdoch University, Rochester Institute of Technology, and American University award degrees. Malaysia already has several branch campuses set up by Australian universities and is now launching Iskandar Malaysia, dubbed EduCity, as a trading zone that will focus on tertiary training in education, tourism, and healthcare fields. EduCity’s goal is to become the leading educational hub in Southeast Asia and attract international students from Southeast Asia, China, India, the Gulf states, and Africa (Dyson 2013). As program partnership and branch campus arrangements expand to additional countries, they will give Global South nationals the choice of doing their studies at home, in a neighboring country, or in North America or Europe. Students in the Gulf states, Malaysia, and a few other Asian countries (such as Singapore, China, and South Korea) already have that choice, and nationals of other countries may have them soon, given initiatives under way. Although Global North universities have been the main actors in the cross-
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border education market, Global South universities, including ones in China, India, Iran, and Malaysia, have also started to recruit international students. China has focused on building partnerships and branch campuses with African universities to complement its growing investments in Africa. Iran mainly assists universities with Islamic populations (Afghanistan, Armenia, Lebanon, and Dubai). These examples indicate that geopolitics influence cross-border collaborations. As Global South universities have started to attract more students from neighboring countries, international student flows are changing. In Malaysia, international student numbers rose from 19,000 in 2000 to 58,000 in 2010. In that same period, Qatar’s international student numbers grew from 1,600 to 5,400, and, by 2010, China (including Hong Kong and Macao) had 95,500 international students, Singapore had 49,000 international students, and South Korea had 59,000.
G L O B A L S O U T H S T R AT E G I E S TO AT T R A C T S K I L L E D N AT I O N A L S HOME AND MOBILIZE THE DIASPORA
As the development community became more aware of the link between science, technology, and development, countries in the Global South realized that they have large stocks of people with that knowledge in their diaspora populations, and they began to take steps to attract nationals home or engage them in teaching and research activities from abroad. Estimates of the numbers of skilled nationals working abroad run as high as 24 percent for low-income countries (Newland and Plaza 2013), and it is likely that most of them started their sojourns abroad as international students. Return programs are relatively recent, and it remains unclear whether they will be successful given that most expatriates have put down roots abroad and are reluctant to give up well-paying jobs, labs, research support, and collegial access to return home to work at universities or other institutions where conditions are less favorable. Based on a review of return policies and programs, Kristian Thorn and Lauritz Holm-Nielsen (2008) concluded that programs directed toward attracting individuals back were less effective than broader approaches that focused on strengthening the research and institutional environment. Individual-based approaches include efforts to prevent or restrict skilled nationals from leaving, to subsidize their return, or to provide incentives such as taxation benefits to nationals who do return. These individual-based programs may attract back some nationals who have a strong commitment to their countries, but they have high costs and run the risk that returnees will leave again if the conditions that stimulated them to go abroad or stay abroad have not improved. Policies and programs that focus on systemic problems in work environments have a higher probability of success, but it is costly to improve salaries, research infrastructure, and technology systems. Thorn and Holm-Nielsen argue that countries need to strengthen all elements of their national innovation systems, including “private enterprises, public research institutes, and universities” if they wish “to create opportunities for research, innovation, and entrepreneurship” (2008, 156). They also point out that only a few middle-income countries have successfully developed national innovation systems,
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including Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan, although there are other countries that are seeking to do so, including Brazil, Chile, China, and Mexico. Merit-based incentives are a key component of innovation systems. Chile launched the Millennium Science Initiative in 1999 with World Bank support to allocate research funding to Chilean science teams by involving international scientists in its peer review systems. China has also implemented competitive peer review systems to allocate research funds to scientists. Since China established its merit-based systems and invested in research labs and graduate education, return rates of Chinese scientists and students have increased (Xinyu 2011). Singapore’s efforts to strengthen its higher education system have reduced the number of nationals who study abroad and have turned Singapore into an education hub for students from neighboring countries (Ziguras and Gribble 2014). Global South countries are exploring other strategies that tap the scientific and technical skills of their diasporas. Rather than seeing skilled workers abroad as a drain on homecountry capacity and development, as has typically been the case, advanced-degree holders living abroad are being seen as a resource that can advance STEM capacity, innovation, and development at home. Contemporary travel and communication systems make it feasible for people in different countries to collaborate on research and teaching projects. Global South countries also recognize that many of their skilled nationals abroad work for prominent universities and IT companies that give them access to state-of-the-art knowledge, technology, and resources. Devesh Kapur (2010) argues that India has benefited greatly from its large number of skilled nationals abroad. To mobilize its diaspora, India now hosts an annual Celebration of Overseas Indians, and since 2005 it has allowed Indians holding citizenship abroad to register as Overseas Citizens of India (Kapur 2010, 15). To date, most of India’s diaspora activity has focused on building networks and encouraging venture capital investment in development projects, particularly IT services. Kapur says that “[b]y the 1990s, India’s human-capital-rich diaspora, especially in the United States, emerged to become an international business asset for the country. Its success in Silicon Valley provided broader externalities, including improved perceptions of Indian technology businesses” (2010, 19). China and South Korea have also taken steps to involve nationals abroad in teaching, research, and business activities at home (Song 2014; Xinyu 2011). Singapore has focused on attracting nationals back by emphasizing the obligations that its citizens abroad have to serve the homeland. It also started to recognize foreign qualifications and provide financial incentives to returnees (Ziguras and Gribble 2014). Growing numbers of Global South countries now permit dual citizenship as a means of keeping nationals abroad committed to their homelands. Dina Ionescu (2005, 27–30) developed a typology for diaspora initiatives and found that they ranged from networks that promote business and professional activity to community and gender groups. Scientific networks are a separate category in the classification and of particular interest from the standpoint of strengthening university capacity. Ionescu identified over 200 scientific diaspora networks, all of which operated via a web portal and most of which consisted largely of informal communications among network members.
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Some research approaches are more effective than others, but most lose momentum after a few years (Agunias and Newland 2012; Biao 2007; Cai 2012). For example, the South African Network of Skills Abroad (SANSA) program, which was launched in 1998 by the University of Cape Town’s Science and Technology Policy Research Centre (Marks 2004) to encourage collaboration and skill transfer between scientists working abroad and at home, languished after the website was moved from the University of Cape Town (Crush 2012). At its peak, SANSA had more than 2,000 members in sixty countries. CALDAS, a Colombian scientific network, started with similar ambitions but also fell apart (Thorn and Holm-Nielsen 2008). The Chinese Students and Scholars Association, in contrast, has been relatively successful because it receives financial support from the Chinese government and identifies Chinese expatriates with appointments at Global North universities who are willing to teach short courses and collaborate with scholars at Chinese universities.
G L O B A L S O U T H S C H O L A R S H I P S U P P O RT T O E N A B L E N AT I O N A L S TO S T U DY A B R O A D
To strengthen tertiary teaching and research systems, some countries in the Global South have started to award scholarships to nationals to allow them to go abroad to do advanced study in STEM and other fields considered important for their development. The new government-funded scholarship programs, however, differ from those that were sponsored by international agencies and private foundations in the 1960s–1980s that led to high nonreturn rates. Most of the new programs only award scholarships to nationals for graduate study abroad in STEM or other fields, and funding is limited to “sandwich” programs that allow students to study abroad for six to twelve months before returning home to complete their degrees. One example is the Scientific Mobility Scholarship Program launched by Brazil in 2011. Brazil plans to award scholarships to more than 100,000 Brazilians to permit them to study at prestigious North American and European universities (Monks 2012). For study in highly specialized STEM fields, Brazil may fund a full doctoral program, but most scholarships support master’s degree training or post-doctoral studies (Monks 2012). Several other countries have started similar fellowship programs since 2000, including Ecuador (Bajak and Solano 2012), Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates (Adams, Duschang, and Weinhold 2008). Government scholarship programs are starting to reshape international student flows. For instance, statistics from the Institute of International Education in 2013 indicate that students receiving scholarship funding from foreign governments or universities increased by 31 percent between 2008 and 2012 and funded 7 percent of all U.S. foreign students; ten years earlier, fewer than 3 percent had government funding (Bhandari and Chow 2013). Given that funds to support international students are tight, U.S. universities find it attractive to admit students with full scholarship support. Thus, it is not surprising that U.S. enrollments are increasing from countries that have scholarship programs, including Brazil, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. The King Abdullah Scholarship Program only started
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in 2005, but 71,000 Saudi students were studying in the United States in 2012, compared to 4,100 in 2002. China and South Korea continue to provide scholarships for advanced study in selective fields, but U.S. enrollments from Korea have dropped since 2007, and enrollments from China have stabilized largely because tertiary education is improving in those countries (Fischer 2013). U.S. enrollments from India, however, have continued to rise, which is consistent with the cross-border emphasis on twinning favored by that country.
DISCUSSION
In recent decades, demographic and economic growth in Global South countries has stimulated demand for higher education. Although some of this demand has been met by international student mobility to North America and Europe, most tertiary students study at home because they cannot afford to go abroad. Unfortunately, most Global South countries have a limited supply of doctoral-level nationals in STEM and other advanced fields, which makes it difficult for them to expand capacity fast enough to keep up with rising demand given their other fiscal demands. Faculty shortages have been exacerbated by high non-return rates of Global South nationals who complete their graduate studies abroad. To strengthen tertiary education quantity and quality and to build national innovation systems, Global South countries are using several strategies: tertiary education partnerships with Global North universities that allow them to draw on excess Global North tertiary capacity to expand program offerings and set up advanced degree programs in specialized fields; incentive programs directed toward attracting the return of skilled nationals; diaspora networks that engage the scientific and technical skills of nationals living abroad in short-term teaching, research, and other activities in their countries; and scholarship programs that enable nationals to study abroad in selective STEM fields using sandwich model collaborations with Global North universities. In this chapter, I reviewed trends in these cross-border activities and their strengths and weaknesses. Given that cross-border collaborations and programs have only started to build momentum since 2000, it is too early to evaluate their contribution toward strengthening the quality and quantity of Global South teaching and research institutions. However, emerging evidence suggests that university quality is strengthening in those countries: as mentioned above, sixteen Asian universities are now in the rankings of the world’s top-100 universities, compared to one in 2003. Other trends are also positive. Growth in the number of international students who now study in neighboring Global South countries rather than in North America or Europe should result in higher return rates following study completion. The increasing return rates of Chinese and Korean students from North America suggest that nationals will return if salaries and working conditions improve and if they have opportunities to continue participating in international scientific networks. These trends do not mean that Global North universities are likely to see their international student enrollments decrease in the near future, given that the higher education
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pie is expanding for both Global North and Global South institutions and will likely continue to do so for decades, given the low GERs in Global South countries and the scientific excellence of Global North universities. In addition, given that countries in the Global South have very different economic and demographic structures and increasingly are choosing different development paths, it is clear that no one strategy fits all countries. The strategies described in this chapter are largely being pursued by countries that have large populations, market-based economies, or sustained GDP growth. Countries with small populations have different constraints (Martin and Bray 2009) and will probably not find it cost effective to build universities that provide training in all scientific fields; instead, they may opt to allow their nationals to go abroad for specialized training even though there is a risk that they will not return home. Political instability in other countries complicates development efforts. It also needs to be recognized that most international students are subsidized by their parents—and, for now, the people who pay (mainly Global South elites) prefer to send their children to North America or Europe.
N OT E S
1. Donor assistance for education previously doubled from $3.4 billion to $6.7 billion between 1998 and 2003 (Jamison and Radelet 2005). 2. Tertiary education is the term used internationally for post-secondary education programs. It includes education offered by colleges and universities, technical institutes, teaching colleges, vocational schools, and other programs beyond secondary that lead to academic diplomas, degrees, or certificates. Higher education as used in the United States refers to education offered by colleges and universities. The broader term, tertiary education, recognizes that countries differ in how they structure their post-secondary education systems. UNESCO, which gathers data annually from countries on the numbers of tertiary students enrolled in their tertiary institutions, does not ask countries to identify the type of institution where international students are enrolled. 3. It is not only Global South countries that are taking steps to strengthen their tertiary education systems in order to improve their competitive ability in the global economy. Many Global North countries, including those that have advanced economies, are doing the same (Kapur and McHale 2005; Kuptsch and Pang 2006). This chapter, however, focuses on Global South countries because they have different problems than Global North countries do. 4. BRICS comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. 5. The G20 comprises BRICS and Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union. 6. The GERs can be calculated for country or regional tertiary age populations. Conceptually, the tertiary age group refers to the five-year cohort that follows the average age when students complete their secondary schooling. However, that age varies across countries, which means the tertiary age category is not a standardized age cohort. 7. Japan has five of the top-100 universities (University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, Osaka University, Tohoku University, and Nagoya University). China has three (Peking University, Fudan
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University, and Tsinghua University), Hong Kong has three (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, University of Hong Kong, and Chinese University of Hong Kong), Singapore has two (National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University), South Korea has two (Seoul National and Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), and Taiwan has one (National Taiwan University). See Quacquarelli Symonds Limited 1994–2015. 8. Not all cross-border programs involve Global North and South countries, but, because they include the largest number of partnerships, I focus on them here.
REFERENCES
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Clemens, Michael. 2009. “Skill Flow: A Fundamental Reconsideration of Skilled-Worker Mobility and Development.” Working Paper 180. Washington, D.C.: Center for Global Development. Accessed Nov. 8, 2015. www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/1422684. Crush, Jonathan. 2012. “No Use Ignoring Diaspora in Africa Itself.” Business Day, May 25, 2012, Nigeria. Accessed Nov. 8, 2015. www.cigionline.org/articles/2012/05/no-use-ignoringdiaspora-africa-itself. Docquier, Frederic, and Abdeslam Marfouk. 2006. “International Migration by Education Attainment, 1990–2000.” In International Migration, Remittances and the Brain Drain, edited by Caglar Ozden and Maurice Schiff, 151–99. Washington, D.C.: World Bank and Palgrave Macmillan. Dyson, Jonathan. 2013. “Malaysia: More Universities Attracted to Iskandar Education Hub.” University World News Global Edition, no. 263. London: Higher Education Web Publishing. Finn, Michael G. 2003. “Stay Rates of Foreign Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities, 2001.” Oak Ridge, Tenn.: Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education. Accessed Sept. 2, 2010. http://orise.orau.gov/files/sep/stay-rates-foreign-doctorate-recipients-2005.pdf. Fischer, Karin. 2013. “In Big Shift, India Heats Up and China Cools Off in U.S. Graduate Enrollments.” Chronicle of Higher Education, Nov. 5, 2013. Accessed Nov. 6, 2013. http:// chronicle.com/article/In-Big-Shift-India-Heats-Up/142823/. Garnier, Maurice, and Mark Schafer. 2006. “Educational Model and Expansion of Enrollments in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Sociology of Education 79, no. 2: 153–76. http://soe.sagepub.com /content/79/2/153.abstract. Ionescu, Dina. 2005. “Engaging Diasporas as Development Partners for Home and Destination Countries: Challenges for Policymakers.” Geneva: International Organization for Migration. Accessed Nov. 8, 2015. http://books.google.com/books/about/Engaging_diasporas_ as_development_partne.html?id = px8WAQAAIAAJ. Jamison, Dean T., and Steven Radelet. 2005. “Making Aid Smarter.” Finance and Development 42, no. 2 (June). www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2005/06/jamison.htm. Kapur, Devesh. 2010. Diaspora, Development, and Democracy: The Domestic Impact of International Migration from India. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Kapur, Devesh, and John McHale. 2005. Give Us Your Best and Brightest: The Global Hunt for Talent and Its Impact on the Developing World. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press. Knight, Jane, ed. 2006. Higher Education Crossing Borders: A Guide to the Implications of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) for Cross-Border Education. Translated by Division of Higher Education. Vancouver and Paris: Commonwealth of Learning and UNESCO. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001473/147363e.pdf. Kritz, Mary M. 2015a. “International Student Mobility and Tertiary Education Capacity in Africa.” International Migration 53, no. 1: 29–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/imig.12053. . 2015b. “Why Do Countries Differ in Their Rates of Outbound Student Mobility?” Journal of Studies in International Education 20, no. 2: 99–117. Kuptsch, Christiane, and Eng Fong Pang, eds. 2006. Competing for Global Talent. Geneva: International Institute for Labour Studies, International Labour Office. Lee, Kiong Hock, and Jee Peng Tan. 1984. “The International flow of Third Level Lesser Developed Country Students to Developed Countries: Determinants and Implications.” Higher Education 13: 687–707.
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Lindsey, Ursula. 2013. “Qatar Sets Its Own Terms for U.S. Universities.” The Chronicle of Higher Education Global. Washington, D.C.:Chronicle of Higher Education. Accessed Nov. 18, 2013. http://chronicle.com/article/Qatar-Welcomes-American/143087/. Lowell, B. Lindsay, and Pramod Khadka. 2011. “Trends in Foreign-Student Admissions to the U.S.” In High-Skilled Immigration in a Global Labor Market, edited by Barry R. Chiswick, 83–110. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute. Marks, Jonathan. 2004. Expatriate Professionals as an Entry Point into Global KnowledgeIntensive Value Chains: South Africa. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. Accessed Dec. 13, 2013. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EDUCATION/Resources/278200–1126210664195 /1636971–1126210694253/South_Africa_Diasporas.pdf. Martin, Michaela, and Mark Bray. 2009. “Tertiary Education in Small States: Development Trends and Policy Implications.” Paper presented at the International Institute for Education Planning (IIEP) Policy Forum, July 2–3, Paris, France. Accessed Mar. 29, 2016. http:// unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002121/212196E.pdf. Monks, Edward. 2012. The Brazil Scientific Mobility Undergraduate Program in the United States: A New Phase in U.S.-Brazil Educational Exchange. New York: Institute of International Education. Accessed Nov. 8, 2015. www.iie.org/Research-and-Publications/Publicationsand-Reports/IIE-Bookstore/Brazil-Scientific-Mobility-Undergraduate-Program-UnitedStates-2013. Newland, Kathleen, and Sonia Plaza. 2013. “What We Know about Diasporas and Economic Development.” MPI Policy Brief 5. Washington, D.C.: Migration Policy Institute. Accessed Nov. 8, 2015. www.migrationpolicy.org/research/what-we-know-about-diasporas-andeconomic-development. OECD. 2012. Education at a Glance 2012: OECD Indicators. Paris: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/eag-2012-en. Özden, Çaglar, and Maurice Schiff, eds. 2006. International Migration, Remittances and the Brain Drain: Washington, D.C.: World Bank and Palgrave Macmillan. Pritchett, Lant. 1994. “Desired Fertility and the Impact of Family Planning Programs.” Population and Development Review 20, no. 1: 1–55. Quacquarelli Symonds Limited. 1994–2015. “QS World University Rankings 2013.” Accessed Apr. 15, 2016. www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2013. Rosenzweig, Mark R. 2006. “Global Wage Differences and International Student Flows.” In Brookings Trade Forum 2006: Global Labor Markets, edited by Susan M. Collins and Carol Graham, 57–86. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Press. . 2008. “Higher Education and International Migration in Asia: Brain Circulation.” In Higher Education and Development, edited by Justin Yifu Lin and Boris Pleskovic, 59–84. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. Schuetze, Christopher F. 2012. “European Countries Compete to Attract and Retain Foreign Students.” New York Times, Aug. 11, 2012, New York. Accessed Nov. 8, 2015. www.nytimes .com/2012/08/13/world/europe/13iht-educside13.html. Song, Changzoo. 2014. “Engaging the Diaspora in an Era of Transnationalism: South Korea’s Engagement with Its Diaspora Can Support the Country’s Development.” IZA World of Labor 64. Accessed Jan. 18, 2015. http://wol.iza.org/articles/engaging-the-diaspora-in-anera-of-transnationalism.
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Suter, Brigitte, and Michael Jandl. 2006. Comparative Study on Policies toward Foreign Graduates: Study on Admission and Retention Policies toward Foreign Students in Industrialised Countries. Vienna: International Centre for Migration Policy Development. Accessed Oct. 4, 2013. http://research.icmpd.org/1280.html. Thorn, Kristian, and Lauritz B. Holm-Nielsen. 2008. “International Mobility of Researchers and Scientists: Policy Options for Turning a Drain into a Gain.” In The International Mobility of Talkent: Types, Causes, and Development Impact, edited by Andrés Solimano, 145–67. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tremblay, Karine. 2005. “Academic Mobility and Immigration.” Journal of Studies in International Education 9, no. 3: 1–34. UNESCO. 2009. Global Education Digest 2009. Montreal, Canada: UNESCO Institute for Statistics. . 2014. “Education for All.” Global Monitoring Report, Policy Paper 13. Paris: UNESCO. Accessed Nov. 8, 2015. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002280/228057E.pdf. United Nations. 2013. A New Global Partnership: Eradicate Poverty and Transform Economies through Sustainable Development. New York: United Nations. Accessed Nov. 5, 2013. www .post2015hlp.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/UN-Report.pdf. WENR. 2013. “The World Ranking of Universities in Developing Regions.” World Education News and Reviews, Nov. 4. Accessed Mar. 29, 2016. http://wenr.wes.org/2013/11/the-worldranking-of-universities-in-developing-regions/?utm_source = rss&utm_medium = rss&utm_campaign = the-world-ranking-of-universities-in-developing-regions. Xinyu, Yang. 2011. “Mobility Strategies and Trends: The Case of China.” In International Students and Global Mobility in Higher Education: National Trends and New Directions, International and Development Education, edited by Rajika Bhandari and Peggy Blumenthal, 25–42. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Yusuf, Shahid, Angus Deaton, Kemal Dervis, William Easterly, Takatoshi Ito, and Joseph E. Stiglitz. 2009. Development Economics through the Decades: A Critical Look at 30 Years of the World Development Report. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. Zerilli, Ursula. 2012. “Western Michigan University Continues Reach for International Students, Signs Agreements with Malaysian, Turkish Institutions.” All Michigan, Aug. 18, 2012, Kalamazoo. Accessed Nov. 8, 2015. www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2012/08 /western_michigan_university_co_7.html. Ziguras, Christopher, and Cate Gribble. 2014. “Policy Responses to Address Student ‘Brain Drain’: An Assessment of Measures Intended to Reduce the Emigration of Singaporean International Students.” Journal of Studies in International Education 19, no. 3: 146–264.
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15 MIGRANT NETWORKS, IMMIGRANT AND ETHNIC ECONOMIES, AND DESTINATION DEVELOPMENT Kim Korinek and Peter Loebach
From the technology sectors in global cities such as San Francisco, to the classic enclaves like Koreatown in Los Angeles and Little Havana in Miami, to the workforce of agricultural and manufacturing firms that have stretched beyond traditional gateways and into new destinations, the past and present social, political, and economic impacts of immigrant communities and immigrant networks on American life are extensive and diverse (Zúñiga and Hernández-Leén 2005; Parrado and Kandel 2008; Lee 2013). Looking globally, the reach of immigrant networks is also abundantly apparent, from flourishing Chinese entrepreneurship in ethnic enclaves in “remote” locales turned emerging economies from Romania to South Africa (Haugen and Carling 2005) to business formation by Bangladeshi immigrants in once ethnically homogeneous, now increasingly diverse, cities of Japan (Rahman and Fee 2011). These trends speak to the force of migrant networks as conduits of ethnic capital and transnational connections, shaping development across the globe. Scholarly conceptualizations of migrants vis-à-vis development processes have shifted greatly in recent decades. The field once emphasized the “impact of migration on development” and stressed the often ill effects of emigration on origin societies and rising asymmetries between sending and receiving countries (Papademetriou and Martin 1991), but, more recently, “migrants’ contributions to development” are at the center of social scientific research and policymaking discourse (Piper 2009, 94). A rich literature on migration as it influences development via financial and social remittances, brain circulation, return migration, and other pathways has emerged in sociology and allied
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disciplines. The resulting “mantra on the migration-development nexus” has concentrated on countries of emigration (Faist 2007, 185). This chapter is oriented to a different question, one in ways relatively novel yet that addresses longstanding themes in international migration scholarship. Specifically, we seek to illuminate migrant networks and associated immigrant economies as they relate to development in societies of destination. The distinctive communities, networks, and organizations that form among immigrants in settings of destination have far-reaching economic, social, and human development impacts of their own, for both individual immigrants and the broader communities and societies of which they are a part. Often transnational in character, they have the potential to unloose resources of development at multiple levels, from bonding and bridging social ties activated to find a job, to the cross-border recruitment networks that channel labor supply to destination employers, to the immigrant businesses that rejuvenate local economies. Three linked objectives guide this chapter. First, we provide a brief historical overview and theoretical synthesis on global international migration flows and immigrant communities as they emerge in tandem with the dynamics of economic globalization and economic development in host societies. Second, we explore migrant social networks as they are implicated in destination context development processes. This section of the chapter will engage with scholarship on immigrant and ethnic enclaves and, within these, immigrant entrepreneurship and self-employment. Globally, enclaves have often emerged as sites of economic vibrancy, in particular when viewed alongside nativist discrimination and bars on immigrant economic participation in mainstream economies. Yet development and mobility outcomes within the enclave have been mixed, so that often the goal for the next generation is to escape its risks, ambiguous status, and round-the-clock demands to achieve a position beyond the enclave (Kim 2004). Third, we examine one group whose international migration experiences at the start of the twenty-first century are redefining U.S. demography and race relations while pushing enclave forms and network relations into novel territory—that of Latino immigrants in new immigrant destinations. We conclude the chapter with summary remarks and suggestions for further investigation of migrant social networks vis-à-vis destination development.
M I G R AT I O N , I M M I G R AT I O N C O M M U N I T I E S , A N D DY N A M I C S O F E C O N O M I C G L O B A L I Z AT I O N
William McNeill (1984) describes migration as evolving alongside and providing a critical demographic impetus for the major social and technological shifts in human history, from the emergence of slash-and-burn agriculture, to transoceanic seafaring, to the division of labor and frontier expansion occasioned by agricultural surplus. In McNeill’s characterization, migration has been fundamental to the major social, political, and technological developments of the modern era: “As collisions of tectonic plates provoke geological spectaculars—mountain ranges, earthquakes, volcanoes—so also in human
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affairs it seems likely that political spectaculars like the rise and fall of civilizations rested on [these] basic currents of human migration” (1984, 7). Since the sixteenth century, human migration has been an integral element in the process of capitalist expansion and the development of an integrated world economy (Castles, Miller, and Ammendola 2003; Sanderson and Kentor 2008, 514). Karl Marx and Max Weber noted the mobility of the rural English peasantry—in response to the investment of the bourgeoisie in agricultural land and the passage of the Enclosure Acts—as predicating the subsequent development of an urban, wage-labor class (Marx and Engels [1867] 1996; Weber [1923] 1981). As industrialization and economic integration spread across the European continent, similar “currents of migration” (Ravenstein 1885, 198), from rural, agricultural areas to urban centers of commerce and industry, were recurrently reproduced. Migration during the early modern and industrial periods was not only internal; displaced agrarian workers in an industrializing Europe also sought futures in other regions of Europe and across seas in the Americas and other European-founded colonies (Hatton and Williamson 1994; Held et al. 1999). In addition, the slave trade, followed by the mass migration of Asian “coolies” and other indentured workers, provided labor to areas of the world with high labor demand, fueling the growth of merchant capital, colonial power, and the world economy (Williams 1994). These mass movements of people from labor exporting to importing regions, impelled by capitalist pressures and made possible by advancements in transportation and infrastructure—and, in the case of slave and coerced labor, propelled by violence and military force—were a prelude to the “migration systems” (Kritz, Lim, and Zlotnik 1992; Massey et al. 1999) that would be established across the globe in the twentieth century (Castles, Miller, and Ammendola 2003). Several related and not incompatible theories predominate as accounts explaining how global developmental processes have yielded the spatial patterning in immigrant communities and migrant flows observable across the world. Neoclassical economic approaches to migration are premised on a view that individual decisionmaking about cross-border moves is driven by wage differentials across labor markets that diverge in their relative supply of capital to labor. The dual labor market theory articulated by Michael Piore (1980) posits that the conditions of modern industrial development create an inherent “pull” for international migrant labor. In particular, the economic dualism that typifies advanced capitalist labor markets not only generates demand for “immigrant jobs” but also the means for recruiting immigrant labor across borders (Catanzarite 2000). Likewise, historical structural accounts influenced by the world-systems perspective argue that migration streams and wider migration systems arise from the actions of powerful economic and geopolitical actors, and that gains accrue to powerful state and economic interests through migration systems which, organized through law and coercion, externalize the costs of labor power renewal (Burawoy 1976; Portes 1978; Portes and Böröcz 1989). In support, colonial legacies, state policies, foreign capital investment, and supply-side demographic pressures have all been found to play determining roles in
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the creation, sustenance, and transformation of prominent migration streams flowing between more and less developed countries, independent of wage differentials (Hatton and Williamson 1994, 2003; Sanderson and Kentor 2008; Fargues 2011). Aside from nation-state-level developmental processes, Saskia Sassen (1988, 2006) draws attention to the large concentrations of migrants in “global cities” across the world. These global cities are important “nodes” in cross-border networks, sites from which powerful economic actors manage their global operations. Although the employment directly associated with management of global operations is high-income, skilled work in the service sector and utilizes specialized knowledge in such areas as law, accounting, and business, these global cities have also generated a need for low-wage, low-skilled labor within the service sector. Hence, in certain key cities of the world, one can find high concentrations of immigrants employed in the low-wage, low-skilled service sector. Examination of the emergence and shifting size and direction of major global migration streams is telling of the structural forces driving contemporary migrations. The changing direction of migration streams over time maps onto the spatial patterning of demand for immigrant labor, as can be seen in the sizable flows of agricultural workers into the U.S. Southwest during the bracero era and into domestic service in global cities such as Los Angeles and Rome in the late twentieth century (Sassen-Koob 1984; Massey 1988; Parreñas 2001). Shifts in the size and direction of major global migration streams over time are telling of the actors and structural forces driving contemporary migrations. Core nations in the world system dominate as destinations for mobile labor, and the dislocations of colonialism and foreign capital investment on workers of periphery nations is widely apparent. An important point in the rise of the North American migratory system, for example, was passage of the bilateral Bracero Treaty between Mexico and the United States in 1942 that placed immigrants as agricultural workers in the U.S. Southwest during the labor-scarce years of World War II. The continuation and expansion of these flows in the post-bracero era, through the twentieth and into the twenty-first centuries, reflect the persistent structural demand for this labor in the U.S. labor market, not to mention the ill effects of NAFTA on the livelihoods of Latin American campesinos, whose agricultural employment was jeopardized by terms of trade that favored U.S. exports (Oliver 2007). Very similar such guest-worker programs, with quite similar lasting effects, were instituted across Western Europe in the postwar years. Another prominent example of this development/migration spatial dynamic, turning on demand for immigrant labor, exists in the massive flow of immigrants from Africa, neighboring Middle Eastern countries, and especially South and Southeast Asia to laborscarce, oil-producing countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Foreign-labor dependency of the international oil industry brought streams of skilled and semi-skilled workers to the region, especially to Iran and the Persian Gulf from the Indian subcontinent, as early as the 1910s (Seccombe and Lawless 1986). On the heels of the 1973 oil embargo, a tenfold increase in Asian workers in the Middle East followed as a consequence of the demand for labor in countries whose citizens are averse to manual labor and female
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labor force participation as well as the vast wage differentials across destination and sending countries (Arnold and Shah 1984). As conveyed in the analyses by Phillipe Fargues (2011) and others, international migrants, especially those from Asia who remained on the very margins of closed Gulf societies due to prohibitions on naturalization and intermarriage and through restrictive laws and employment policies, provided the labor that fueled large-scale modern infrastructure programs and the transformation of oil wealth into economic well-being for the region’s citizens. The terms of migration imposed within the Gulf states fostered remarkable economic growth as well as uniquely dual societies in which migrants were incorporated into the economic structure but were “excluded from the social structure” with “separation, not integration or assimilation” the goal (Weiner 1982, 27). Ultimately, the oil wealth generated by foreign labor has permitted the development of pronatalist policies that encourage natural demographic growth among the region’s citizens, such as by generous family allowances, and thereby enhanced regional security, all the while maintaining citizens and non-nationals as two separate (and deeply unequal) entities (Fargues 2011, 280). From shifting demographic behavior among native-born citizens to the transformation of infrastructure and institutions in the region and widespread regional economic growth, the development consequences of migration within the late twentieth-century Gulf region are many (Shah 2006). In addition to international movements of people, internal, rural-to-urban migrations continue to occur, particularly in developing regions of the world. These movements are dramatic and large-scale, reflecting the uneven nature of development within countries of the Global South (Milanovic 2007)—the result, in part, of the rural labor displacement effects of foreign direct investment (Bradshaw 1987; McMichael 2012a; Sassen 1988, 1990; Sanderson and Kentor 2009). Whereas 16 percent of the population of the developing world lived in cities in 1950, that number increased to 41 percent by the year 2000 (Araghi 2009). Though differential rates of natural increase are partially responsible for this demographic phenomenon, domestic, city-ward migrations account largely for the trend. The availability of cheap food imports and the penetration of highly capitalized agro-industrial enterprises into rural developing areas has rendered small-scale agricultural production insufficient for the provisioning of household needs (Ellis 2006; Kay 2000; McMichael 2012b). Petty commodity production as an alternative has become an option for some—but generally this strategy is feasible only for the relatively affluent capable of investing in capital-intensive technologies (Bernstein 1996). Instead, supplementing or replacing home agricultural production with wage-labor employment has become a necessary adaptation (Kay 2000; Reardon, Berdegué, and Escobar 2001). Rising nonfarm employment has taken numerous forms, including working for the large, highly capitalized agro-industrial firms that have penetrated rural areas of the Global South (McMichael 2012b) or wage employment in the nonagricultural sectors, in areas such as road and housing construction or food processing and packaging (Kay 2000). Often, however, urban-based employment demand has made the search for nonfarm-
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based livelihoods entail move to the expanding cities of the Global South (Berdegué et al. 2001; Bryceson 1999; Reardon, Berdegué, and Escobar 2001). Late-twentieth-century special economic zones (SEZs) in developing societies of Latin America and East Asia, and more recently those financed by Chinese interests in Africa, geared toward the attraction of multinational corporate investment, demonstrate another means through which economic globalization generally, and periphery countries’ courting of foreign capital in particular, influence the dynamics and spatial patterns of internal migration (Bräutigam and Xiaoyang 2011). From the maquiladoras of the U.S.-Mexico border to the rapid rise of Shenzhen, China, we observe how the plentiful migrant labor pulled toward SEZs has fostered twentieth-century export-oriented industrialization programs across low- and middle-income countries (Liang 1999; Fernández-Kelly 1983). However, the benefits to transnational corporations and national income often overshadow ill development consequences of SEZs at the individual and local levels, as the zones tend to be built by “footloose” capital and built upon precarious low-skilled, lowquality, and low-stability employment (Rondinelli 1987; Ngai 2004). The rise of slum and squatter settlements on the edges of SEZs that lack suitable housing infrastructure suggest some of the social costs of export-led growth born by local and regional economies (Leinbach 1982; Rondinelli 1987). Although the pushes and pulls of uneven economic development across the globe affect the directional ebb and flow of major migration streams of the past century, “economic facts” are just part of the story because migration is an inherently social process (Massey and España 1987). Migrant networks are behind the institutionalization of migration that has yielded the large sustained flows from Mexico to the United States and post-guest-worker immigrant communities in Europe (Boyd 1989). Even in contexts like East Asia and the Gulf oil states, where restrictive labor contracts and residence in segregated compounds organized migration in a way that seemed to curtail family reunion and network formation (Boyd 1989), the growth of immigrant populations and the formation of immigrant communities suggest a role for interpersonal ties among migrants (Castles 2002).
MIGRANT NETWORKS, IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES, A N D D E S T I N AT I O N E C O N O M I E S
The concept of migrant networks, articulated by Douglas Massey as “the sets of interpersonal ties that link migrants, former migrants, and nonmigrants in origins and destination areas through bonds of kinship, friendship and shared community origin” (1988, 396), is broadly engaged in sociological scholarship (Light et al. 1994). Migrant networks have demonstrated salience in all stages of the migration process, and, because they serve to regulate migration flows, structure settlement and adaptation, and provide a conduit for structural power, they channel migrants’ impact on the economic and social landscape of destinations (Hagan 1994, 1998). Though clearly related to the themes of economic
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and human development, the broad literature on migrant networks as structures lowering the costs and risks of international migration, facilitating cumulative causation dynamics in sending regions, and shaping the pace and quality of host society adjustment is too large to examine in this chapter. Rather, our review focuses on migrant network ties and structures as they have been implicated in destination development processes. Writ at the macro-level, migrant networks have facilitated transnational recruitment that plays into the interest of core economy employers seeking to minimize costs and address labor shortages. Following influential theorizing on social capital and embeddedness in economic sociology that has attended to immigrant families and social network forms, such as the rotating credit association (see, e.g., Coleman 1988; Granovetter 1985; Portes and Sensenbrenner 1993), we are also concerned with social relations within and beyond immigrant communities as they structure micro-level economic action and, thereby, individual economic mobility experiences of immigrants. Overarching our discussion is an interest in networked relationships among migrants as a unique social force shaping the course of economic relations both globally and locally. Beyond their capacity for “putting a destination job within easy reach” of individual migrants (Massey 1988, 398), migrant networks operate on several levels to establish and expand access to employment opportunities for immigrants. The informal ties of kinship, friendship, and shared community origins that link immigrants to other destination co-ethnics, as well as to their home communities, have proven integral for the recruitment of labor across diverse industries and firms. Massey’s (1986) accounts of early Mexican migration to the United States demonstrate how dynamic, socially organized, and networkguided migration ebbed and flowed to meet the shifting demands of early-twentieth-century industrialization. A notable Mexican presence in Chicago’s steel mills was occasioned by a handful of pioneers, and then became perpetuated through migrants’ social ties of information, support, and recruitment that reached back to origin communities and to Mexican railroad crews in the Southwest (Massey 1986). These recruitment networks served to generate a continual supply of inexpensive labor to the U.S. Midwest until the Great Depression suddenly halted demand and precipitated widespread repatriation of Mexican workers. Massey’s (1988) characterization of Mexican migration during the bracero era further demonstrates how U.S. industries came to rely on migrant social network relations to generate the flexible, inexpensive labor force most suited to profit their industries. He elaborates that, with the rise of demand for agricultural labor outstripping government-organized bracero contracts, flows of undocumented workers emerged that were generated by personal relationships between migrants and employers, which as conduits of recruitment and information “bypassed official bracero recruitment centers” and became preferred because they provided stable and reliable labor without legal obligation and without the bracero program stipulation of covering migrants’ transportation costs (Massey 1986, 107). This is consistent with Monica Boyd’s observation that, in contrast to the perception of state control and a temporary regime of immigration occasioned by bilateral agreements such as the Bracero Treaty, such programs tend to create a “bridgehead”
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of migrants in destination communities who represent “one end of a migratory chain,” dynamically perpetuated and expanded through kinship and community ties (1989, 646). Ultimately, socially networked relations among migrants, return migrants, and potential migrants, coupled with destination-based labor demands, generate a dynamic channeled by social networks that eludes governmental policies. Employers’ reliance on network recruitment, valued for providing an inexpensive, reliable workforce with little to no managerial effort, coupled with network-driven migration processes and ethnic capital, helps to explain the distinctive ethnic divisions of labor that often emerge in firms or occupational niches (Waldinger and Lichter 2003). Because homophily influences referral such that many U.S. workers, and especially Latinos and immigrant newcomers, rely on insider referrals rather than formal job matching processes (Granovetter 1995; Elliott 2001), and because ethnicity features prominently in shaping personal associations, recruitment channels “become bounded by occupational and ethnic ties” and networked processes of recruitment tend to yield new workers efficiently and reliably but in a manner that socially reproduces an exclusionary, racially, and ethnically segregated workforce (Waldinger and Lichter 2003, 108–9). As major employers, such as large agribusiness operations, hotels, and restaurants, seek to reduce risk and increase efficiency in hiring by relying on incumbents to refer new workers, they tend to create shop floors and housekeeping staffs dominated by Mexicans and Central Americans, kitchens that are almost exclusively Latino, and accounting departments staffed solely by Filipinos (Waldinger and Lichter 2003). The result can be exclusion of entire racial-ethnic groups in areas of employment not purely because of discriminatory hiring practices but also because of the social reproduction tendencies of networks. Employers relying heavily on “word of mouth” hiring and incumbents will thus “bring in more of the same”—that is, co-ethnic brothers, cousins, neighbors, or friends (Waldinger and Lichter 2003, 109; Moss and Tilly 2001). As James Elliott (2001) and others conclude, Latino immigrants’ tendency toward networked job searches, as compared to African Americans’ tendency toward more formal job matching approaches (Green, Tigges, and Diaz 1999), helps to explain how large waves of immigrant workers could enter with relative ease into a restructured late-twentieth-century U.S. economy that devastated native-born African Americans’ job prospects. However, networked searches have shown to lessen the earnings of Latino workers (Green, Tigges, and Diaz 1999), suggesting that, as employers benefit from the efficiency and risk-reduction of insider referrals, the economic mobility of many Latino immigrants is often curtailed, and ethnically homogeneous workforces are maintained (Mouw 2002). As research on migrant networks has matured, scholars have focused a critical lens on their embeddedness within, and potential to reproduce, systems of structural inequality. Starting with the assumption that migrants are linked to one another, and to coethnics, in networks of obligation and shared understandings of kinship and shared community of origin, scholars like Sara Curran and Abigail Saguy (2001, 60) point to the varied understandings of community, kinship, and obligation across migrants and
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the implications of these varied meanings for migration behaviors. Other works further reveal that migrant networks are dynamic and complex in their structure and reflect the broader systems of structural power along lines of gender, ethnicity, and generation in which they are embedded (Hagan 1998; Curran and Saguy 2001; Curran et al. 2005). For instance, Jacqueline Hagan’s (1998) analysis of Mayan immigrants’ workplace experiences in the United States demonstrates the consequential intersection of destinationcontext labor markets and structural power along lines of gender. She observed that, because men concentrated in a densely networked, growth industry with a co-ethnic system of recruitment, whereas women disproportionately labored in a competitive industry that lacked social exchange, reciprocity, and horizontal links with co-ethnics, men’s and women’s employment opportunities diverged over time to favor men as a result of their expanding networks and women’s contracting networks. Cecilia Menjívar (2000, 231) echoes these themes in her analysis of Salvadorans in San Francisco, revealing that the networks that immigrants draw on in destination are “fluid, contingent, and changing.” The strains and vicissitudes of the destination context, brought on by fluctuations in labor market opportunities and immigration policies as well as their positions of structural power and vulnerability within the destination, limit migrants’ capacity to provide or rely on network-based support and solidarity over time.
M I G R A N T N E T W O R K S , E N C L AV E S , A N D I M M I G R A N T ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Immigrant entrepreneurship is one vein through which the character of migrant networks influences destination development. Immigrants’ rates of self-employment and small business ownership significantly exceed those of non-immigrants, and this tendency extends far beyond enclave-based “mom and pop” shops (Raijman and Tienda 2000). From Scottish-born Andrew Carnegie to Russian-born Sergey Brin, immigrants have made outsized contributions to innovation and entrepreneurial ventures in the United States, such that today more than 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children. Immigrant entrepreneurs, in addition to making contributions to co-ethnic communities and broader constituencies in destination settings, increasingly draw on and create transnational ties and operations that interconnect and mutually benefit origin and destination economies (Saxenian 2006). The entrepreneurial activity of immigrants, the forms it takes, and the broader organizational forms in which it unfolds are widely heterogeneous. The breadth and depth of scholarship on the theme clearly demonstrates that immigrant and ethnic entrepreneurship is far more than mere “recourse against destitution” but, rather, encompasses diverse pathways of individual and collective mobility (Raijman and Tienda 2000; Portes and Yiu 2013, 75). Through their exercise of social ties that span transnational space, transnational immigrant entrepreneurs are transforming ways of doing business in both origin and destination as well as growing interconnectedness within the global economic system (Guarnizo 2003).
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Ivan Light and his colleagues (1994) note that migrant networks benefit immigrant entrepreneurs by providing access to low-cost, co-ethnic labor, dispersing economic information vital to the creation and successful operation of business and generating mutual aid, assistance, and credit otherwise inaccessible through formal markets. Migrant networks, then, support the creation of additional opportunities for employment within the immigrant entrepreneurial sector, and ultimately they may place upward pressure on wages in the general economy (Light et al. 1994). Literatures on both “middleman minorities” and similarly situated ethnic groups, specifically ethnic enclaves, reveal the salience of co-ethnic ties in providing a competitive advantage for conducting business in destination societies. Increasingly, middleman minority and ethnic enclave entrepreneurs are conceived as occupying positions on a developmental continuum according to the extent to which they engage in business with co-ethnics and other ethnic groups exclusively or jointly (Zhou 2013; Aldrich and Waldinger 1990). In Edna Bonacich’s analysis (1973), historically, middleman minorities delineated a niche position and competitive edge as trading peoples, successful in commerce across wide-ranging host countries, due to their status as sojourners, which implies self-segregation and resistance to assimilation, accompanied by strong in-group ties and ethnic solidarity derived from attachment to a shared homeland (Gold and Light 2000). Enclave economy entrepreneurs, too, though not defined by an “outsider” or sojourner status, have benefited from co-ethnic ties and internal solidarity while often facing labor market constraints in the host country’s general labor market. Where network ties to co-ethnics and affinity for and affiliation with the homeland govern social and economic life in the host society to a strong extent, particular livelihoods emerge that shape economic participation of the migrants and the economic forms in which they engage. The strong in-group cohesion and density of ethnic networks that solidify and strengthen the economic position of middleman minorities and ethnic enclave economies also reflect an adaptation to economic exclusion (Aldrich and Waldinger 1990). In other words, denial of access to host country opportunities (e.g., citizenship, education, intermarriage, employment) begets ethnic group resources, or internal solidarity. Where they have been regarded as alien to the host society and provided limited opportunities for inclusion, middleman minorities have garnered economic success by “closing ranks” and occupying the position of “strangers” vis-à-vis host society majority and minority groups (Bonacich 1973). The ethnic enclave economy and ethnic entrepreneurship take on broader significance for destination-based economic development when successful businesses proliferate and provide economic opportunities that would not be available were it not for the influx of immigrants and the co-ethnic ties that undergird their entrepreneurial activity. Min Zhou’s (2013) description of Los Angeles’s vibrant Koreatown, revived following the economic devastation of civil unrest in the 1990s, portrays the economic vitality and resources for recovery conveyed through rich co-ethnic business activity, shared cultural institutions, Korean foreign investment, and class-diversified and regionally dispersed
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co-ethnic relations. Inter-group conflicts with African American and other communities of color notwithstanding, the Koreatown enclave has flourished by fostering “ample economic and institutional resources” for low-income residents of Koreatown as well as being a “magnet for attracting suburban middle-class co-ethnics who have moved out of the area” yet are pulled toward the area’s work, leisure, and cultural activities and ongoing social relationships with resident co-ethnics (Zhou 2013, 2). Miami’s Cuban population represents, perhaps better than any other U.S. case, the portrait of an ethnic enclave in which immigrant entrepreneurship has taken on dynamic, diverse, and expansive forms to generate a sustained, vibrant ethnic economy, and one whose impacts extend beyond U.S. borders. As a consequence of ethnic enclave economic activity, Miami emerged as a center for international investments from Latin America and an entrepôt for international trade due in large part to Cuban entrepreneurs’ expansion from a Cuban refugee client base to non-ethnic clientele and ultimately into a wide range of export-oriented industries (Aldrich and Waldinger 1990). The process whereby diaspora networks generate foreign investment in the origin society and enhance exports from the origin society has also been demonstrated in cross-national analyses of diaspora communities and global investment and trade flows (Newland and Plaza 2013). Diaspora networks can put origin countries on the global investment map by “breeding familiarity” and providing information about overseas markets among potential investors, thereby lessening transaction and information costs (Leblang 2010, 584). Diaspora networks, through interpersonal ties and entrepreneurial ventures, can also create demand for a range of home country products, such as ethnic foods, beverages, and clothing, that extends beyond the ethnic community and thereby expands the market for origin country exports (Orozco 2013). Recent sociological analyses of a unique immigrant niche, that of widely proliferating Vietnamese nail salons, demonstrates how destination institutional and policy conditions, such as policies that press immigrants to labor in less regulated industries, coupled with inclusionary-exclusionary practices, funnel co-ethnics into industries where, once a “beachhead” is established, newcomer co-ethnics gravitate toward workplaces that offer ethnic solidarity and cultural familiarity (Eckstein and Nguyen 2011). The impacts of this phenomenon on the wider economy follow from “niche stretching” by Vietnamese manicurists who, through numerous business innovations (such as walk-in service or neighborhood-based salons), made affordable, accessible nail care a mass service. Here, again, an ethnic niche serves to transform consumer demand and the nature of service delivery in a manner that reverberates widely through the general economy. Transnational migrant networks have been central to theorizing on migration’s development consequences in origin regions, but new scholarship reveals that transnational ties with the home country are often critical to the viability of immigrant businesses in the destination society (Portes and Yiu 2013). Patricia Landolt, Lilian Autler, and Sonia Baires’s (1999) typology of immigrant business suggests that certain types of enterprise, such as ethnic enterprises and transnational firms in expansion, thrive by importing
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some of their business goods from the home country or by expanding a home country business to the expatriate community, respectively. Each of these entrepreneurial modes demonstrate the role of transnational migrant networks and a community that spans borders in the operation of ethnic businesses (Portes and Yiu 2013; Zhou 2004). In a survey of immigrant entrepreneurs in the United States, over half indicated that they rely on various transnational ties for the survival and/or expansion of their firms (Portes, Guarnizo, and Haller 2002). Certainly, immigrants’ transnational ties to home mean that a zero-sum “brain drain” is not the most apt description of who benefits from immigrant entrepreneurship. Transnational projects fuel economic and technological development in both the destination and the origin societies to an extent not anticipated a decade ago (Portes and Yiu 2013; Agarwala 2012). Furthermore, at the macro-level, bicultural immigrants working transnationally in an English-dominant global economy lead to a situation in which immigrant entrepreneurs enhance the U.S. exports and thus reduce the U.S. balance of payments (Light, Zhou, and Kim 2002). This is supported by analyses by Light and his colleagues (2002) that show an independent influence of immigrant entrepreneurship, transnationalism, and middleman minority status on exports but not on imports, suggesting that transmigrant entrepreneurs are responsible for some portion of the increased U.S. international trade since the 1970s. Although the engagement of migrants with their home communities (Levitt and Jaworsky 2007) and the existence of cohesive diasporic communities (Portes 2003; Smith 2003) are not novel phenomena, global integration of the late twentieth century has caused a shrinkage of space that has socially closed the distance between migrants, their co-ethnics in the destination, and their home communities. This has occasioned novel degrees of collective economic, political, and sociocultural participation by immigrants in their home communities (Glick Schiller, Basch, and Blanc-Szanton 1992; Portes, Guarnizo, and Landolt 1999). Cell phones, the Internet, and attendant social media programs facilitate migrants’ social connectivity at a variety of levels; they assist them in connecting to their homelands and in connecting to co-migrants at destination sites. Furthermore, new technologies and media connect migrants across destination sites and contribute to the maintenance of cohesive diasporic communities that span national boundaries (Brinkerhoff 2009; Oiarzabal 2011; Schrooten 2012; Tyner and Kuhlke 2000). These advancements permitting communication across space, combined with parallel advancements in the transportation realm (Levitt, DeWind, and Vertovec 2003; Portes 2003), now provide contemporary migrants an unprecedented ability to maintain a continued presence in their home communities. Evidence is also mounting that they serve as circuits promoting destination-based social development and entrepreneurship. One manifestation of immigrant transnational life, of significant theoretical and practical interest, is the migrant transnational organization (MTO). A qualitatively novel, formal social network, the MTO comprises immigrants in destination societies sharing a common community or country of origin and acting on countries and communities of origin (Itzigsohn et al. 1999; Itzigsohn 2000; Levitt, DeWind, and Vertovec 2003;
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Orozco and Lapointe 2004; Portes, Guarnizo, and Landolt 1999). MTOs have proliferated since the mid-twentieth century, and, though significant scholarship exists on the social, political, and economic impacts of MTOs at country and community levels in both origin and destination sites, relatively little work has examined the implications of these organizations at the individual level. Research on the implications of transnational organizations at the individual level has concentrated on examining whether participation in these organizations impedes or encourages migrants’ integration and participation in host societies (Smith 2003; Morawska 2004). We suggest a third strand of research, one that addresses the consequences of MTOs for human development outcomes among individual immigrants and destination community members. MTOs, like ethnic enclaves and the migrant networks long found to enable the migration of others, are specific network forms that likely bring benefits to constituent members in the community of destination. Although MTOs are defined according to interest in improving conditions in home societies, many also indicate an interest in improving the conditions of co-ethnics in the destination communities in which immigrants reside, effectively blurring the distinction between civil society groups missioned around improving the condition of co-ethnics and migrant transnational organizations. A tabulation of responses given by MTO leaders surveyed under the Comparative Immigrant Organization Project, conducted by Princeton University’s Center for Migration and Development (n.d.), finds that 14.6 percent express “improvement of education in the US” as a purpose of their organization, and 12.5 percent list “processing of legal documents” as a main organizational activity (our calculations). A high proportion of leaders also identified friendship and emotional support as benefits accrued to members, echoing the findings of qualitative studies, such as Robert Smith’s (2003) seminal ethnography of Mexican transnational organization in New York. The extent to which migrant transnational organizations, as formalized entities that mobilize immigrant social networks, bestow human development benefits on participants—whether in terms of legal status, language proficiency, employment, business transaction costs, or physical and mental health—are questions deserving of greater scholarly attention.
L I M I T S TO M I G R A N T N E T W O R K S A N D E T H N I C C A P I TA L
Migrant enclaves and networks, and the relationships of supportive co-ethnicity they are presumed to generate, are not a panacea for economic mobility or integration of immigrants in host societies. Cross-national analyses of employment across eighteen Western industrial economies indicate that, within traditional receiving societies, immigrants “profit from the ethnic capital available in their communities,” or the tendency that immigrants are more willing to help co-ethnics over others in offering jobs, buying goods, and lending money (Van Tubergen, Maas, and Flap 2004, 710). Viewed in one light, this finding suggests that immigrants can only gain by a sizable, visible, concentrated
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co-ethnic community and the resultant ethnic capital it yields. Yet in another light, it suggests critical threshold effects in the returns to ethnic capital, such that gains to coethnicity are possible only where immigrant communities are sufficiently large to garner resources, and, in such settings, where immigrants reach a critical mass, individuals may be more likely to experience discrimination in the general labor market due to natives’ perceived “group threat.” Other investigations generate further questions about the value of ethnic capital as well as the structural forces through which it emerges. Contemplating the mobility experiences of natives and immigrants in a French immigrant-receiving city, Roland Rathelot and Mirna Safi (2013) note that clustering in residential (or, by extension, employment) enclaves is unlikely to reflect merely the pursuit or maintenance of ethnic capital generated by co-ethnic ties. It also reflects an outgrowth of structural factors, such as housing discrimination, which makes segregation in the enclave less a matter of choice than one of necessity. Research by Seok-Woo Kwon, Colleen Heflin, and Martin Ruef (2013) also alludes to a potential trade-off between dense co-ethnic networks and connectedness and social trust beyond the enclave. Dense participation exclusive to the enclave has the result of limiting voluntary membership and shortchanging the formation of social trust in the broader community, a consequence with far-reaching consequences for racial-ethnic relations and social cohesion in immigrant-receiving societies. Whether migrant social capital fosters mobility and improvement in immigrant livelihoods depends on the wider destination context and labor market opportunities as well as the form and composition of social capital in question—that is, the extent to which migrant networks provide bonding, bridging, or linking ties. Agnieszka Kanas and her colleagues (2012), for instance, demonstrate that both bonding capital (contacts with co-ethnics) and bridging capital (contacts with native-born residents) play significant roles in immigrant economic integration in Germany. However, though greater social contacts, in general, facilitate higher incomes, co-ethnic ties do not have a positive influence on occupational status (Kanas et al. 2012; Lancee 2012). Kanas’s study and others (e.g., Lancee 2010; Korinek, Entwisle, and Jampaklay 2005) demonstrate the importance of considering both bonding and bridging social capital of immigrants as well as the geographic concentration or dispersion of immigrants in destinations in order to grasp how social networks among immigrants facilitate their integration and development. On the one hand, research on particular ethnic economies, or the more specific subset of ethnic enclaves, suggests that these forms provide unique mobility pathways to new arrivals, superior to those in the open economy. On the other hand, Latino immigrants’ jobsite concentration with co-ethnics, within so-called “brown collar” settings, has shown to correlate negatively with wages, suggesting that the concentration of co-ethnics in certain circumstances does little to foster integration and upward mobility but, rather, yields segregation that fosters pay suppression (Catanzarite and Aguilera 2002, 120). Though hampering upward mobility in the immigrant community, such co-ethnic concentration has shown to characterize the U.S. informal sector economy, from the garment industry to restaurants and hotels, supporting subcontracting arrangements with
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informal firms that benefits firms’ competitiveness in the formal economy by subverting formal payment of wages and employee benefits and labor regulations. Besides featuring concentrations of co-ethnic (disproportionately undocumented) immigrants, informal enterprise in the United States has often also been immigrant owned (Portes and SassenKoob 1987). Jan Rath and Robert Kloosterman, reflecting on immigrant entrepreneurship in the Netherlands, suggest that the structural positioning of immigrant small businesses—their low barriers to entry and reliance on kin and co-ethnic employees in markets saturated with co-ethnic competition—tend toward informalization: “Consequently, immigrant entrepreneurs frequently have to accept small profit margins, while some are forced to close down after a relatively short period. To survive in these markets, they do not always conform to the prevailing laws and regulations, so that some of their activities may take on a (semi-) informal character . . . the subsequent phase of growth which is necessary to formalize often does not materialize” (2000, 660–61). The “willing self-exploitation” found within the enclave economy and fostered by the normative expectations of reciprocal obligation and promise of mobility (Portes and Bach 1985, 343; Sanders and Nee 1987) continues to raise questions about the power of ethnic solidarity, its role in organizing work relations in the enclave, and its potential abuse. The macroeconomic conditions surrounding ethnic enclave employers must also be considered, as in New York City’s garment industry, which continues to absorb thousands of low-skill immigrants. In this industry, risk-taking entrepreneurs employ their newcomer, lowskilled brethren within sweatshop conditions akin to those experienced by their counterparts left behind in Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean (Hum 2003). Shifting from a micro- to a macro-lens, ethnic solidarity and reciprocal obligations of the enclave facilitate worker relations in contemporary global economic production. The conditions of enclave employment, in some instances, closely resemble the precious, low-wage positions of the secondary sector. Saskia Sassen’s (1994) observation over two decades ago is still apt: the close intersection of informal sector development and immigrant co-ethnic employment reflects the course of expanding informalization in deindustrializing advanced capitalist economies. By focusing on the internal power dynamics of enclave economies, many scholars have revealed deeply stratified access to group resources and uneven opportunities. The findings of Patricia Pessar (1999), Min Zhou (1992), Greta Gilbertson (1995), and others reveal that, across a range of enclave firms, women are subject to discrimination and exploitation by their co-ethnics, garnering few of their male counterparts’ employment and mobility advantages. Clearly, the enclave is not universally a “springboard” to opportunity, nor does it offer protection against discrimination equally for all of its members. The inner workings of immigrant enclaves are complex, and, to address questions about relative mobility pathways within and beyond the enclave, we must attend to factors of selection into the enclave economy, lines of stratification within and outside the enclave, and the nature and organization of employment in the enclave and the relevant open economy that influence opportunity structures. Not all immigrants begin their host
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country employment within the enclave, and long-term trajectories within and outside the enclave reflect, in part, selection into the open versus enclave economy (Roth et al. 2012). A developmental understanding of immigrant integration and mobility dynamics is captured more completely through a longitudinal, life-course perspective on enclave participation as well as a critical analysis of the types of immigrants—spanning family reunification, employment, and refugee categories—likely to gain from ethnic capital within enclave work and residential contexts (Roth et al. 2012). Our understanding of the conditions under which immigrant enclaves serve as contexts for mobility, where co-ethnic employment serves as a “stepladder” and training ground for entrepreneurship (Bailey and Waldinger 1991; Raijman and Tienda 2000) or as vehicles for “ethnic attachment” (Min 1993) that result in “mobility traps” (Sanders, Nee, and Sernau 2002), will advance through broader and more critical analysis of social network structures across national origin groups and the wider host society contexts in which migrant enclaves are situated. For example, we have little knowledge of how migrant social capital and enclave forms of residence and employment influence immigrant outcomes in settings of the Global South. In an important study that shifts the lens to domestic and south-to-south international migrants, Tyler Myroniuk and Jo Vearey (2014) examine the associations between social capital and household income across native-born residents, internal migrants, and international migrants in Johannesburg, South Africa, one of the top international migration destinations in sub-Saharan Africa. They find, contrary to many results in the Global North, that social capital does not exhibit a significant association with household income. This pattern of results, though puzzling, suggests that critically analyzing and refining our models and measures of migrant social capital may be in order as we apply these constructs to heterogeneous migrant populations outside the United States. The findings are further illuminated through research on network ties and social trust in several migrant-receiving cities of Africa. Citing the very low levels of in-group and out-group trust across natives, foreigners, and co-ethnics in African cities characterized by recent rapid urbanization, complex mixtures of domestic and international migrants in transient, fluid host communities, and the relative absence of legitimate social and political host community institutions, Sangeetha Madhavan and Loren Landau reason that such communities (or “cities of strangers”) “call into question the presumed value of integration with host/local communities as a means of accruing social capital and its promised socioeconomic benefits” (2011, 474). Certainly, future investigation ought to attend to the urban contexts—and their degrees of material deprivation, class and ethnic conflict, and changing demographic landscapes—in which social trust and social capital formation may occur or be stunted. As sociological research moves in new directions, such as urban migration destinations of the Global South, questions arise as to the best means by which to measure social capital in its various forms and to model the contextual variables that influence social capital formation. Recent research on immigrant enclaves and socioeconomic mobility
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has also raised questions about the ill consequences of social capital, like those formulated by Alejandro Portes and his colleagues (see, e.g., Portes 2000; Portes and Sensenbrenner 1993). Fueled by ongoing debate of the “enclave hypothesis” (Portes and Jensen 1989; Sanders and Nee 1992), extensive analyses have questioned whether banding together in tightly knit enclaves, as early Chinese immigrants did to survive in the face of nativist hostility (Zhou 1992), is uniformly beneficial for immigrant economic integration and mobility in destination labor markets. Keeping in mind the many distinctive forms under consideration, from ethnic niches to ethnic economies and ethnic enclaves, this collective body of research suggests that the benefits of working in the enclave labor market over the general labor market are conditioned by the broader context and by migrants’ structural positions as shaped by gender, group affiliation, and other characteristics (Logan et al. 1994; Hagan 1998). Scholars who have analyzed how ethnic capital, homogeneity, and isolation of the enclave can result in negative returns, such as normative support for domestic violence (Morash et al. 2008) or exploitation of co-ethnics in abusive, dangerous employment arrangements (Kwong 1996), demonstrate the importance of conceiving of development within immigrant communities broadly, beyond employment and earnings, and encompassing dimensions of human development such as quality of life, education, and freedom from abuse.
MIGRANT COMMUNITIES AND MIGRANT NETWORKS I N N E W I M M I G R A N T G AT E WAYS
Along with the rise of transnational organizations that shape immigrants’ civic engagement and human development prospects in destination contexts, the dispersion of immigrants beyond traditional gateways to new destinations is another transformative characteristic of twenty-first-century migration with far-reaching implications for destination development processes (Lichter and Johnson 2009; Korinek and Maloney 2010). The dramatic dispersal of immigrants to emerging and reemerging gateways beginning in the late 1980s is a by-product both of changes in U.S. immigration policies, primarily the blanket amnesty of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act that allowed freer mobility and more dispersed job opportunities to once-undocumented migrants, and of patterns of economic development in the U.S. economy that diverged widely by region as the result of large-scale industrial restructuring (Marrow 2005; Singer 2004). The quadrupling of foreign-born populations within twenty years in settings as varied as metropolitan Atlanta and Las Vegas and small towns of the Southeast, Great Plains, and Midwest demonstrates how the dynamic synergy of regional economic restructuring and immigrant social networks could dramatically and rapidly alter long-established patterns of international migration and settlement (Singer 2004). The fact that a preponderance of immigrants settling in new destinations hail not from the historically dominant sending regions of central-western Mexico but rather from central and southeastern Mexico suggests that new sending regions of Mexico are
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feeding new destination expansion. As economic restructuring is creating destinationbased employment demand on the U.S. side of the border and is driving post-NAFTA rural displacement on the Mexican side (Riosmena and Massey 2012), it is clear that regional undercurrents of development account for the new geography of immigrant settlement in the early twenty-first century. Development of new destinations, and the pull toward these sites, is rooted not only in push factors associated with regional economic decline in traditional gateways or border control policies that shifted pathways into the United States but also in a role for immigrant enclaves and supportive social connections. David Card and Ethan Lewis (2007) reveal the role of nascent enclaves in attracting immigrants to new destinations as handfuls of risk-taking pioneers set the foundation for future waves of immigrants to move beyond the gateway to emerging destinations of the U.S. South, Midwest, and West. As these enclaves grew more vital, they developed their own cumulative dynamics, drawing more new migrants to the new destinations and away from long-standing traditional gateways (Leach and Bean 2008). Consistent with historical structural perspectives emphasizing immigrants’ acceptance of secondary sector jobs as fueling migration from less developed regions to developed industrial economies (Piore 1980), emergent immigrant gateways in the 1990s and 2000s reflect the geography of industrial restructuring (e.g., agriculture, animal processing) and service industry expansion (e.g., tourism, personal services) that have been buoyed by immigrant workers and their networked relations of recruitment, support, and settlement (Parrado and Kandel 2008). A case in point is the rapid increase in Latino immigrants to Dalton, Georgia, as documented by Rubén Hernández-León and Victor Zúñiga (2000). Dalton’s status as the world’s “carpet capital,” where the majority of the world’s wall-to-wall carpeting is manufactured, represents industrial restructuring toward U.S. peripheries where labor law and unionization rates permit a more flexible, low-wage labor force. The influx of Latino immigrants to undertake low-wage manufacturing in Dalton’s carpet manufacture sector, constituted both of secondary migrants and of new settlers directly from Mexico, illustrates the central place of migrant social networks in bridging the transnational distances separating firms with labor demand to potential migrants in sending communities. Another prominent example of immigrant networks channeling new arrivals to emerging gateways can be seen in agro-processing industries across the United States. As cattle, poultry, and other agro-processing industries have restructured, production has shifted to a handful of dominant firms located in rural areas of the South and Midwest with weak unionization, resulting in the proliferation of low-status, flexible, low-wage jobs with uniquely difficult and dangerous working conditions in places like Storm Lake, Iowa, and Siler City, North Carolina (Kandel and Parrado 2005; Parrado and Kandel 2008). The influx of immigrants into these nonmetropolitan areas, fostered in no small part by network recruitment across Latin American immigrant co-ethnics, has permitted U.S. agribusiness to remain globally competitive by accessing a regular supply of
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inexpensive, flexible labor in what are typically excessively high turnover jobs held in low regard by native-born workers (Kandel and Parrado 2005; Piore 1980). The movements of Latino immigrants to hundreds of nonmetropolitan communities across the American Midwest, Southeast, and Great Plains have also induced dramatic demographic changes across the U.S. landscape. “Dying towns” in hundreds of nonmetropolitan counties across the United States have been revitalized by immigrants in the first decade of the twenty-first century, their populations stabilizing or growing, rather than declining, purely as a result of Hispanic population growth (Johnson and Lichter 2008; Lichter and Johnson 2009). Although immigrants may be revitalizing the economies of new destinations and enriching firms in restructured industries, their experiences of social, economic, and political incorporation in these communities, as compared to immigrants settling in long-established urban enclaves of traditional gateways, are more mixed (Koball et al. 2008). This stems in part from the characteristics of immigrants moving to new destinations. For example, Heather Koball and her colleagues (2008) found that immigrants settling in new rural destinations were more linguistically isolated than their counterparts in metropolitan and traditional rural destinations. Ethnic resources conveyed via immigrant and co-ethnic social ties tend to be scant in new destination communities (Pfeffer and Parra 2009), raising questions about the employment and mobility channels open to immigrants who settle outside of the enclave and, in particular, in new rural destinations with limited social and institutional resources for immigrants and with entrenched racial-ethnic divides (Marrow 2011). Latino farmworkers located in isolated labor camps of upstate New York, for instance, experience conditions that inhibit the creation of virtually any meaningful social ties. Lacking the bridging and bonding social capital that might aid in their development of human capital (e.g., English proficiency) or employment mobility, immigrants in rural areas “outside the enclave” more often “must strike out on their own” to experience mobility outside of farmwork, but this demands substantial human capital, legal residence, and English proficiency (Pfeffer and Parra 2009, 266). When immigrants are lacking basic necessities for navigating contemporary labor markets, with “no phone, no vehicle, no English and no citizenship,” and are in relatively isolated rural communities without the benefit of bridging or bonding ties, they are not only challenged in finding employment but are also vulnerable to an array of worker and human rights violations (Douglas and Saenz 2008, 161). Along with immigrant employment trajectories, the structure of migrant networks also stands to influence emerging racial-ethnic relations in new destinations. In a comparative analysis of two new destination counties in North Carolina, Kevin O’Neil and Marta Tienda (2010) observe that immigration was viewed more positively in the community where social, employment, and residential arrangements facilitated sustained “bridging” ties between immigrants and established native-born residents. Anti-immigration sentiment was more pervasive where only superficial contact occurred across communities. In new destinations, the strength of weak ties is apparent (Granovetter
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1973) and consistent with Robert Putnam’s (2000) characterization that bonding ties are for “getting by” whereas bridging ties are for “getting ahead.” But bonding ties, which reach out of the enclave and into the wider community, also suggest a route to “get ahead,” past established lines of segregation in communities long ethnically homogeneous or characterized by a white-black divide, and thus to create communities for genuine and successful immigrant incorporation.
CONCLUSION
Decades of study of migration processes have revealed that migration is not the inevitable consequence of underdevelopment, as economic determinist theorizing of the 1970s and 1980s alleged (de Haas 2010). The dominant paradigm now conceives of migration as an endogenous variable in relation to development (de Haas 2010), and the “migration/ development nexus” has been found to feature the dynamic interaction of the three levels of social processes. Economic factors exert consistent influence on migratory movements as the spatial patterning of current and past migration streams demonstrate; they supply conditions under which migration processes are typically unloosed. Likewise, political factors figure heavily into the initiation, the encouragement, or the curtailing of flows. But human migration also entails its own processes—many of which have been intensified by global connectivity. We have focused here on research into specific dynamics of networked migrant relationships under current, highly globalized conditions. Considered at the micro- and macro-levels, destination-based development processes are shaped by the social organization of immigrant communities, including emerging transnational ties and organizations, and by the enclaves in the making across new destinations across the U.S. South and Mountain West. The social relationships among immigrants and their links to co-ethnics and native-born social and economic actors are pivotal in the mobility paths experienced by immigrant newcomers and the second generation. The social relational structures in which immigrants are embedded, and which exist within and extend beyond the enclave and sites of immigrant residential and employment concentration, impact development along many lines and from the micro- to the macro-level of social organization. Because of immigrants’ prominent place in U.S. history and society, immigrant communities and migrant social networks matter not only for the immigrant community but also for the social and economic development of the entire society. Recent analyses by Putnam (2007) suggest that, contrary to the image of the United States as a nation of immigrants, strengthened by its cultural and ethnic diversity, contemporary immigration and diversity—by undermining individual-level trust, civic collaboration, and otherwise leading Americans to “hunker down” rather than socially engage—pose a significant challenge to social capital and social solidarity. Our analyses have focused on the immigrant community and immigrant networks, composed of bonding and bridging ties to co-ethnics and native-born community members and increasingly providing transnational connections
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to origin communities as they influence development. Many questions remain about the intersection of immigrant networks and communities with mainstream social institutions and social networks composed of native-born citizens. A continuation of this exploration of the migration/development nexus vis-à-vis immigrant networks and communities ought to engage critically with the ways immigrant communities—given their segregation from native-born minorities and majorities, their dense, often homogeneous internal networks, and their potential to generate notions of social threat and nativist sentiment—influence social interactions, social capital, and social trust more broadly in the society. How immigrants are integrated into mainstream political and social institutions—the electorate and systems of higher education, for example—will be critical to the course of development in immigrant receiving countries, and immigrant social capital and enclave forms will play a central role in shaping this incorporation.
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PART IV
BUILDING STATES AND FAILING STATES Development Triumphs and Disasters
16 THE STATE AND DEVELOPMENT Samuel Cohn
The role of the state in development is one of the foundation stones that allow development sociology to make an intellectual contribution to the study of development over and above that of development economics. At issue is how much of the development process is the pure result of market forces, and how much of a contribution is made by sociological factors that are wholly or partially independent of such neoclassical forces. The question of the relative weight of “sociological versus neoclassical” forces is precisely the dilemma that faced economic sociology when it first sought to legitimate itself (Dobbin 2004; Smelser and Swedberg 1994). It is not the case that modern development economists completely eschew sociological factors in their work. Both institutions and education are important variables in that discipline (Szirmai 2005). However, completely neoclassical market models do exist in development economics—and these often represent a template for important work. The Harrod-Domar model in which the size of an economy is purely a function of the capital stock and the supply of labor continues to be a cornerstone of development economics, even though everyone since Robert Solow and Edward Denison have made adjustments for sociological determinants of productivity (Denison 1985; Szirmai 2005; Solow 1956). In this debate, the state is the elephant in the room. It is striking how many different ways states affect rates of economic growth and the substantial importance of each causal mechanism. The following lists outline the various ways in which the state can potentially have a positive or negative effect on the economy.
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Potential Positives
1. Creating and legitimizing money. 2. Creating and legitimizing credit institutions. 3. Regulating the money supply to manage demand. 4. Providing Keynesian stimulus of the economy through public spending. 5. Regulating fraudulent or parasitic business practices. 6. Enforcing contracts and arbitrating business disputes. 7. Securing private property. 8. Creating human capital by providing education. 9. Increasing access to proprietary technology by funding scientific research. 10. Promoting innovation through patent protection for investors. 11. Providing basic infrastructure in transportation, communication, energy, and utilities. 12. Defending, with force, the foreign investments of local capitalists as well as their access to foreign markets. 13. Waging wars that stimulate demand through military spending and through the replacement of capital destroyed in hostilities. 14. Protecting local capitalists from foreign competition. 15. Adjudicating class conflict through legitimation, repression, or mediation. 16. Maintaining local demand through welfare state protection of local income. 17. Conserving public goods and ensuring access to resources. 18. Compensating for market failures by investing in industries that are viable in the long term but are not profitable in the short term. 19. Reducing crime and facilitating the safe passage of goods and assets. 20. Subsidizing inputs to private industry. 21. Promoting particular industries by tax incentives. 22. Shaping the value of space by zoning and by regulating the strategic location of public goods. potential negatives
1. Corruption can raise the cost of doing legitimate business. 2. States can impede business as a strategy to obtain bribes. 3. Governments allied with organized crime can increase extortion and the risk of loss through violence. 4. Taxation reduces the disposable income available to private firms for investments. 5. Government borrowing raises the cost of money to private-sector investors.
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6. Government monopolies can charge monopoly rent. 7. Government investments can be made for political rather than economic reasons, leading to the artificial sustaining of “loser” enterprises. 8. Pro-labor governments can increase wage costs. 9. Warfare can produce catastrophic economic losses. 10. Arbitrary governments can increase the insecurity of private property. Not all of these mechanisms are of equal importance. The negative list contains many “worse case” scenarios that are primarily applicable to highly dysfunctional governments such as kleptocracies or warlord states. The positive list contains some “saint” items that refer to the actions of the most technocratic developmentalist states; however, it contains many general features of governance that apply to most states, even those of average or mediocre capacity. Overall, however, these lists are a reminder of the many ways in which states affect development and of the profound consequences that such governmental action can have. A student of development ignores the state only at his or her peril. This chapter will not exhaustively review every conceivable causal mechanism by which states affect their economies. On some questions, like the capacity of the state to regulate levels of economic activity through Keynesian or monetary means, the literature is more extensive and developed in the field of macroeconomics. What this chapter does do is review the most prominent sociological perspectives on the state and development. The contribution of sociology to these debates is often misunderstood by development sociologists because the relevant theoretical traditions come from a wide variety of disparate subdisciplines within sociology. Parsonsian theory is generally only read by theorists. Social democratic theory and O’Connorian theory are generally only read by labor sociologists and students of comparative differences in advanced capitalism. Development sociologists pay more attention to traditions derived from underdevelopment theory and world-systems theory; thus, hard-bargaining theory and theories of the developmentalist state are more salient to these authors. Development sociologists do occasionally draw from economic sociology, so institutionalist theories of the state are not foreign to those discussions. Theories of corruption, rationality breakdown, and foreignexchange management receive selective attention in sociology, even though economists and political science give these matters more thought. All of these theories contribute significantly to an understanding of the state and development, and all are suitable for reviewing here.
P A R S O N S I A N M O D E L S O F T H E S TAT E
Functionalist theory and modernization models of development are widely scorned by macro-sociologists. The case against functionalism/modernization is well known: an inability to account for or predict sustained exploitation or sustained conflict; a false
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assumption that integration into the world system would produce unambiguous benefits for the Global South; utter indifference to either women’s struggles or the struggles of indigenous populations to resist globalization; and an indefensible positing of the AngloAmerican model as the standard to which all future societies will converge. However, these battles have already been fought and won. Neo-Marxism, underdevelopment theory, world-systems theory, feminist theory, and the antidevelopment critique have all won respected places in the pantheon of sociological theories. Once one accepts that structural functionalism is not the only model for macro-sociology, one can consider individual strands from structural functionalism when they turn out to be useful. Some of the propositions of the old Parsonsian/Smelserian schemes turn out to be relevant to the study of the state and development. Parsonsians believed that the state would be fundamental to development—and that purely economic models of growth were wrong. The AGIL scheme of Talcott Parson’s The Social System ([1951] 1991) argued that A (adaption or economic functions) was profoundly linked to G (goal attainment or governance). The functionalists did not anticipate a developmentalist state (although A–G subsystem linkages would have been wholly consistent with such a conception). Instead, they argued that the state provided the institutional and cultural underpinnings that made growth possible. These underpinnings include, but are not limited to: 1. The creation of money and media of generalized value (Parsons 1964). 2. The enforcement of workplace discipline (Parsons 1971). 3. The creation of a commercial legal system (Parsons 1971). 4. The reduction of ascriptive limits on recruitment to elite positions to permit the rise of meritocracy (Parsons 1964). 5. The creation of labor, financial, and commodity markets by eliminating barriers to factor mobility (Parsons 1971). 6. The provision of education (Parsons 1971). 7. The provision of political mechanisms of legitimation to induce the citizenry to accept the larger system (Parsons 1971). Note that many of these arguments have been echoed by Marxists, world-systems theorists, and economic sociologists. Point (1) is financialization; (2) is the repression of the labor force; (3) is the creation of a legal system dominated by capitalist interests; (5) is proletarianization; (7) is the creation of Gramscian hegemony; and (4) and (6) probably represent consensus points about the role of the state in enforcing equal opportunity and the role of education in producing scientific advance. A critical point for Parsons that would then become elaborated by Shmuel Eisenstadt is that big states are more effective than small states. Parsons (1971) was more concerned about the particularism associated with feudal mini-states. Eisenstadt (1993) added the common sense observations that:
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1. Big states produce big markets and thus foment economic growth. 2. Big states have a larger base population to tax and can thus provide more dramatic and more useful public goods. 3. Big states pacify a larger population and produce a larger sphere of social peace. The ability of states to provide these services depends on their capacity to tax. The fall of empires (and the prosperity associated with them) is linked to declines in the ability of such empires to extract resources from their constituent regions—and a decline in the normative and cultural unity associated with legitimation (Eisenstadt 1993). Neil Smelser’s Social Change in the Industrial Revolution (1959) has been surprisingly influential. Most sociologists criticize the book and claim to hate it. However, many turn around and appropriate that book’s ideas—merely giving Smelser’s variables different names. In Smelser, the state was used to reintroduce social equilibrium after disequilibrating differentiation in the adaptive sector. The example he gave was the separation of home and factory in the industrial revolution, the social tensions brought on by women’s work, and the state stepping in to preserve the family system by banning women from factory work. Feminist scholarship has raised real questions about whether the exclusion of women from factories was good or bad (Kessler-Harris 1993). But the idea of the state relieving the contradictions between the forces and relations of production is nontrivial and can be found in most theories of capital and the state (Barrow 1993; Offe 1984).
T H E S TAT E I N U N D E R D E V E L O P M E N T T H E O RY: C O M P R A D O R , H A R D - B A R G A I N I N G , A N D D E V E L O P M E N TA L I S T S TAT E S
Underdevelopment theory offers three views of the state: wholly compromised, two-thirds uncompromised, and wholly uncompromised. These are, respectively, the comprador, hard-bargaining, and developmentalist states.
C O M P R A D O R S TAT E
In underdevelopment theory overall, the imperialist nations are attempting to extract the maximum possible value out of weaker nations with whom they are in a dependency relationship. The imperialist wants land suitable for export agriculture transferred out of food production or other uses and put under the control of foreign nationals or their allies. The imperialist wants free access to the local market for its own manufactures and wants the weaker country to provide no competition to the imperialist’s own products. The imperialist wants cheap labor in the dependency plus access to any manufacturing technology that country might have developed. Plus, the dominant country wants the dependent nation to serve as its proxy in global warfare. Obtaining control of the local state is often critical to attaining these objectives. If the dominant state formally colonized the state, it can use its legal rights to structure the
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colonial state as it pleases. If the dependent state is a former colony, its political structures are often inherited from the colonial legacy. If neither condition holds, the imperialist states can use gunboat diplomacy, the threat of proxy war, the financial control made possible by international indebtedness, or a dominant position as a market for the weaker nation to obtain whatever political concessions might be necessary. Eduardo Galeano (1997) documents all of these processes for Latin America. Whether or not a formal relationship of colonialism prevails, some form of local elite is usually recruited to work the imperialist nation’s will. A state dominated by such collaborationist elites is referred to as a comprador state. These local elites or their family members often work for (or own the local subsidiary of ) the foreign companies whose interests they represent. They may also receive direct financial benefits from the foreign nation—or indirect benefits from the foreign nation guaranteeing their continuance in power. What does a comprador state do to reproduce dependency in a peripheral nation? Gunder Frank (1967) provides a reasonable discussion on this point, which I summarize here: 1. The comprador state facilitates the cheap extraction of natural resources, charging foreign companies little for the minerals and agricultural products removed from the country. 2. The comprador state facilitates the easy repatriation of capital by foreign firms so that money made in the country is not reinvested in the country. 3. The comprador state advances the acquisition by foreign interests of local corporations, land, and natural resources, facilitating the proletarianization of peasants and the shedding of labor by the new foreign corporate owners. 4. The comprador state borrows extensively from foreign banks—occasionally to promote social welfare spending but more often to enrich the comprador elite or to pursue the military aims of the foreign patron. Debt dependency increases rates of repatriation of capital and increases the leverage of foreigners over the economy. 5. The comprador state lowers or eliminates tariff barriers to facilitate local access to local markets—and by doing so reduces the prospects of infant industry protection. 6. The comprador state represses labor and progressive rural movements. 7. The comprador state is often massively corrupt, actively stifling economic innovation and otherwise worthwhile economic activity originating from the local non-comprador bourgeoisie and diverting to itself funds that would otherwise support local investment, infrastructure, or social welfare spending. Note that a key difference between the comprador state formulation and the anti-statist formulations of neoliberals is that the comprador state can only survive with the explicit,
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proactive support of the developed core nations. Furthermore, the actions of the comprador elite are generally beneficent when it comes to supporting the interests of the foreign companies themselves.
H A R D - B A R G A I N I N G S TAT E
Most of the other dependency-related theories of the state argue that successful semiperipheral and peripheral states resist foreign capital. A hard-bargaining state, however, negotiates aggressively with multinational capital in a country where multinational penetration is extensive. The classic exposition of this model is Peter Evans’s Dependent Development (1979), a formalization and cleaning up of a set of looser ideas that Celso Furtado developed in his 1963 history of Brazil. Evans refers to the model as “dependent development” rather than the “hard-bargaining state.” Furthermore, to do justice to his case, he combines aspects of hard-bargaining with aspects of the developmentalist state— which is what mid-twentieth-century Brazil in fact did. However, because aggressive negotiation with foreign investors is conceptually different than direct state allocation of capital using nonmarket mechanisms, it is best to treat the two arguments that Evans makes separately. What kind of limits did the Brazilian state impose on foreign capital? 1. They imposed strict limits on the capacity of multinationals to repatriate capital back to their home countries. (This, to my mind, is the most important item on the list, and it represents the purest example of strict negotiation with foreign companies while permitting them to do business locally.) 2. They maintained national ownership and control of petroleum extraction in their territory—allowing them to keep 100 percent of the proceeds of this strategic sector. 3. They imposed rigorous pro-worker labor laws on the foreign sector (and on large domestically owned firms) that provided wage protection, generous fringe benefits, and substantial employment security. 4. They guaranteed the participation of significant portions of national capital in industries penetrated by multinational capital (at a higher level and more broadly distributed than would be the reservations for cronies in comprador states). 5. They prevented the acquisition by foreigners of strategic national enterprises. 6. They created explicitly corporatist arenas of joint negotiation and planning between foreign capital, local capital, and the state to ensure the mutual well-being of all parties. This occurred politically through public and semipublic planning agencies or financially through the intermediation of state development banks.
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Evans also argued that the efficacy of the hard-bargaining state could be undercut by the very penetration of the multinationals such a state is meant to regulate. This prophecy was clearly confirmed by the experience of the neoliberal era. Foreign indebtedness reduced the financial independence of the Brazilian state. The multinationals already present in the country legitimated and, with access to all of the levers of political, used the temporary weakness of the state to “undo” many of the hard bargains that had been negotiated in the 1960s and 1970s—notably those involving capital repatriation and limits on the capacity to buy out Brazilian competition (Tavares 1999). Hard-bargaining gains can be very real—but also very temporary. Hard bargaining can be just as common in resource-based economies as it is in diversified semiperipheral economies such as Brazil. The radical stances of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia are well known. However, other oil economies in the Global South—notably pre-Chavez bourgeois Venezuela—had a strong record of negotiating tough terms with foreign petroleum companies (Yergin 1991). This is one of the causal mechanisms explaining the poor performance of resource-curse models of energy and mineral wealth (Torvik 2009).
T H E D E V E L O P M E N TA L I S T S TAT E : T R A D I T I O N A L A C C O U N T S AND CONTROVERSIES
The theory of the developmentalist state is probably the most popular and widely accepted theory of the state and development in development sociology. This theory claims that economies with technocratic states that allocate capital by bureaucratic rational criteria can substantially outperform economies that leave investment purely to market processes. Generally, developmentalist states combine industrial policy with a broad array of other interventions in the market, including instituting import substitution, investing heavily in education and infrastructure, implementing land reform, and maintaining labor repressive regimes. However, all of these cognate policies stem from the same source, a highly advanced planning bureaucracy that maintains a free capitalist market but, within the confines of market exchange, actively intervenes in nearly every aspect of economic life. What makes the formula work is a combination of a very high level of technical competency on the part of state administrators and nearly absolute state autonomy that allows public policies oriented toward promoting long-term societal growth to be executed without being subverted by private parties interested in short-term particularistic gains. This combination of high levels of both technical proficiency and effectively centralized political power is very rare; fully articulated developmentalist states have only been observed in East Asia. The theory is appealing for three reasons. First, it offers a compelling account of the dramatic economic success of the East Asian Tigers. Second, if one accepts the conclusion of underdevelopment theory that the activities of foreign capital seriously underdevelop peripheral economies, then developmentalist states effectively keep such multinational forces at bay. Third, if, as a development sociologist, you believe that social
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structures have as great an impact on economic growth as market forces, then the dramatic successes of the developmentalist states provide a profound reaffirmation of such a belief. The essence of the developmentalist state is the substitution of rational technocratic government allocation of capital for leaving the distribution of investments to the free market. Government allocation of capital can take several forms. States can directly own companies, starting public corporations and financing these with tax revenues. States can nationalize previously private companies and then finance them with public monies. States can provide subsidized capital to preferred economic activities (often through the vehicle of a nonprivate development bank). States can offer tax incentives for preferred activities. They can subsidize inputs to the preferred sectors (generally raw materials, energy, or personnel training). They can prop up revenue streams with guaranteed sales or guaranteed profits. They can also prop up revenue streams by protecting the local market via tariff protection or import restrictions; conversely, they can promote export sales of strategic local products overseas. The four classic developmentalist states— Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and China—made ample use of these tactics (Amsden 1985, 1989; Cumings 1984; Johnson 1982; Wade 1990; Woo-Cumings 1999). When would government allocation of capital outperform investment decisions made by free markets? A crucial underpinning of the orthodox developmentalist state is that markets have failed somehow. When markets fail, the pattern of investments produced by laissez-faire is, in principle, suboptimal. What produces market failure? Early development sociologists and economists argued that traditional societies were fundamentally non-entrepreneurial and non-capitalist. This was the result either of a premodern aristocratic orientation among the elite (Hagen 1963; Hoselitz 1963) or of a reasonable discouragement on the part of the investment class in terms of the sheer obstacles confronting new industrial investment (Myint 1964; Rosenstein-Rodan 1943). The high actual amounts of observed investment and rationality by entrepreneurs in peripheral economies (Aubey 1979; Cardoso 1971) gainsay these older explanations. However, more recent specifications put the theory of market failure on a more solid foundation. One can identify three primary types of market failure, as follows. Temporal failure. This is when a project has high anticipated profitability but a very long gestation period before becoming profitable. Most private investors could not tolerate a twenty- or thirty-year wait to obtain a positive return on their investment. This is particularly the case when there is some aspect of risk associated with the project. When profitability horizons are very long, investors have to be very patient. Because the state is not under pressure from shareholders for immediate returns, it is the funding source of choice for such projects (Block 1987; Papanek 1992). The empirical illustrations of the successful applications of this principle are well known: Japanese, Mexican, and Brazilian automobiles, Taiwanese computers, and South Korean domestic appliances are just a few examples. Spatial biases toward home regions of investors. Investors may have systematic biases against viable projects not in their home regions. Because there are more investors in
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wealthy than in poor areas, this can lead to overinvestment in the center and underinvestment in the periphery—even among projects of equal viability. A famous example of this can be found in Evan’s (1979) account of the origins of the Brazilian steel industry where American and European investors turned down opportunities to invest in virtually ideal steel-making facilities in Brazil, preferring facilities in their own countries. Michael Hechter (1975) shows similar patterns of English investors overinvesting in England itself and underinvesting in the Celtic periphery. Subsidized inputs to other sectors. Governments sometimes invest in industries—not because they represent a potential for profit but because they provide critical inputs for other sectors of the economy. The energy industry is an obvious example of this type. Governments build power grids that may or may not be profitable; the purpose of the grids is to provide energy to the rest of the economy. Joseph Stiglitz (2006) notes that sometimes investments in heavy industry can serve this function. For instance, the government of Taiwan invested heavily in steel and plastics, creating large state-owned corporations to provide both. Neither firm was particularly profit-maximizing, but both provided other Taiwanese industries with extremely inexpensive raw materials (Amsden 1985). These subsidized raw materials were essential in helping the rest of the economy become capable of competing in global markets (Stiglitz 2006).
E VA L U AT I N G T H E T H E O RY O F T H E D E V E L O P M E N TA L I S T S TAT E
As mentioned above, the theory of the developmentalist state is the dominant state and development theory in development sociology. One indicator of this is the large number of works that have been written explaining why other places (generally those that are not in East Asia) do not have developmentalist states, and because of this are doomed to poverty (Chibber 2006; Kohli 2004; Lange and Rueschemeyer 2005). The high esteem in which the theory of the developmentalist state is held is well deserved. The theory overwhelmingly explains successful growth in the fastest growing cases of economic development ever observed empirically—the nations of East Asia. The nations that grow more slowly really do have fewer and less autonomous developmentalist institutions than do the East Asian Tigers. Moreover, the logic of market failure is generally compelling. That said, the success of the theory on its own home turf has blinded sociologists to a number of problems with the theory. These tend to be sins of omission rather than sins of commission—but the number of sins of omission is striking. First of all, capital markets often do not fail. When failure does happen, state administration of investment is markedly less effective. States outperformed markets in the allocation of investment in East Asia because there were clearly observable breakdowns in capital markets. The famous publicly administered investments of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan were often characterized by the following factors: Temporal failures. These often involved heavy industry with high start-up expenditures in equipment and primary inpunts—plus long learning curves involving the mastery of
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completely new technologies. Not all industries involve either high up-front capital expenditures or difficult exotic technologies. Ethnocentric spatial biases by investors. In the mid-twentieth century, the East Asian economies were isolated from Western capitalists by substantial linguistic barriers, cultural barriers, geographic distance, and high transportation costs. American and European investors knew little about these nations, had few ways of learning about them, would have had to master new cultural protocols to manage in these environments, and would have incurred substantial costs supervising these investments from afar. Globalization has reduced many of these barriers. Reduced transportation and communications costs, a substantially greater physical presence of Asian entrepreneurs and managers in the West, and successful previous experience investing in the region has broken down the isolation that would have produced nationalistic biases in investment. In the age of Nike-ism, it is harder to say that Western corporations are unwilling to invest overseas. Subsidized inputs to other sectors. Many of the famous early East Asian state investments were in “infrastructure-like” industries such as energy, mining, cement, chemicals, and steel, all of which are used as inputs for other industries. Not every industry is critical to the rest of the economy or at the center of a national Leontief input-output matrix (which is a sophisticated matrix-algebra-derived measure of the relative contribution of different industries in the economy to total economic growth). In the current era, a substantial proportion of most economic activity occurs in sectors with light capital needs and well-known and nonproblematic technologies; these sectors enjoy access to global product markets, do not produce critical inputs to the economy, and—if they are of a scale sufficient to attract the attention of local macro-capital—could probably also attract the attention of global macro-capital. Under these conditions, capital markets might be expected to work efficiently and well. My own work (2012) has shown that government-directed investment in Brazil was markedly ineffective when applied to sectors where few obstacles to the rationality of private capital markets existed—in this case, in the hotel and restaurant sector. The second “sin of ommission” by sociologists is an indeterminacy of just what developmentalist states are supposed to do. Everyone knows that developmentalist states are supposed to invest in a “rational technocratic” manner. Just what “rational” and “technocratic” mean, however, is in the eye of the beholder. There are certainly no shortage of economic planning wannabes in Ministries of Finance or Industry all over the world who cannot put up results comparable to those of East Asia. Dani Rodrik (2007) argues that there is no general formula for how to run a developmentalist state, because every economy has its own unique problems. Is there an insufficiency of savings or of consumption? Is capital short, or is capital available but merely in need of guarantees? One size will not fit all in economic planning. Rodrik’s argument gains substantial additional force when one considers the problem of industrial mix. Which industries a developmentalist state should build is a judgment call requiring a nuanced assessment of local advantages and disadvantages in natural
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resources and skill sets, plus an evaluation of the state of the competition. State planners face the same challenges designing a portfolio of public investments that private fund managers face designing a portfolio of stocks and bonds. Funds management requires an enormous understanding of local context—and, frankly, individual portfolio managers differ enormously in their personal capacities. This makes it hard for a development sociologist to predict differences in the growth rates of national economies based on adherence to some “standard” correct model of public investment. The third point overlooked by sociologists is that many other factors contributed to East Asian success. Developmentalist states undoubtedly contributed to East Asia’s success, but they are not the whole story. East Asia benefited from very high levels of education and female labor force participation (Krugman 1994). Early reductions in mortality also led to abnormally high rates of saving for old age, giving East Asia a superior local capital stock (Kinugusa and Mason 2007). Furthermore, South Korea and Taiwan were strategically important in the Cold War, being key military outposts in the war against communism. These nations had far more ability to stand up to foreign capital than countries in Latin America or Africa would have, because the United States would have been reluctant to punish these governments with the threat of regime change for fear of the military repercussions in North Korea and China. Fourth and finally, developmentalist states have only been able to be instituted in nations wth a colonial history that produced an autonomous state. Vivek Chibber (2006), Atul Kohli (2004), and Matthew Lange and Dietrich Rueschemeyer (2005) have argued that strong state autonomy is an essential precondition for a developmentalist state. Such autonomy was often, though not exclusively, the legacy of having been colonized by the Japanese, who engaged in much more effective state-building than did the Western colonial powers. In nations where the state lacked the centralized power to stand up to local economic interests, those interests tended to capture the state and subvert developmentalist policies into either outright corruption or the protection of politically well-connected but unstrategic weak firms whose flabby performance drained state dollars without providing any long-term prospect of international competitiveness. The conditions for producing developmentalist states are quite rare, since most peripheral and semiperipheral nations have relatively weak state apparatuses. This implies that the theory of the developmentalist state will be largely irrelevant for the vast majority of the Global South. Development sociologists simply have to invoke other theories of the state to cover the vast majority of the world’s cases where the preconditions for a developmentalist state do not apply.
P R OT E C T I O N I S M
Most dependency-theory-derived theories of the state argue that the state should protect infant industry from foreign competition by imposing high tariff walls. Free trade is
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presumed to cause a flooding of local markets with higher-quality, lower-cost manufactured goods from the core, driving local manufactures out of the market. This idea originated in the writings of Alexander Hamilton ([1790] 1904) and Friedrich List (1983). Within sociology, it obtained currency through the writings of Ha-Joon Chang (2008), who argues compellingly that virtually every core nation—including Britain—used tariff walls during early industrialization to protect its base industries. Erik Reinert (2007) has argued that the loss of protection from imports is the fundamental reason the Global South is poorer than the Global North. There is reason to be skeptical of this formulation. Jeffrey Williamson (2006) argues that nineteenth-century Latin America had some of the highest tariffs in economic history; the effectiveness of these enormous tariffs in promoting industrialization appears to have been negligible. Worse, historical within-region tests of the effects of tariff walls on growth generate wildly inconsistent findings, with different regions showing either high positive or high negative correlations between tariffs and growth in manufactures (Williamson 2006). Barbara Stallings and Wilson Peres (2000) show that the opening up of Latin American economies to free trade in the 1990s did not produce across-theboard reductions in economic growth. Nations with strong firms in a particular industry saw those industries grow under free trade; nations whose firms in that industry were relatively weak saw that industry decline. Tariff walls produce both winners and losers, making their effect on growth relatively ambiguous.
O ’C O N N O R I A N S TAT E
The emphasis on underdevelopment theory in development sociology, as reasonable as this may be for the study of the global periphery, tends to distract attention from the equally valid consideration that development also occurs within the core. Neo-Marxist theories of capital accumulation in mature capitalism also attribute a fundamental role to the state. A full review of the capital-state literature is beyond the scope of the present chapter. However, one contribution must be addressed because of its critical importance to development in the core and periphery alike. This is the “fiscal crisis” theory developed by James O’Connor. O’Connor’s The Fiscal Crisis of the State ([1973] 2001) laid out a general model of the role of the state in capital accumulation. The argument was very simple: 1. States produce economic growth by constructing physical infrastructure that capitalists would never construct themselves. 2. States produce economic growth by investing in human capital that capitalists would never finance themselves. 3. States legitimate capitalism by providing welfare. 4. States maintain aggregate demand with Military Keynesianism. 5. Limits on the ability to collect taxes produce a fiscal crisis that inhibits the state’s ability to perform items (1) through (4).
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6. Monopoly capital expropriates most of the benefits of state spending since government programs disproportionately favor large corporations. 7. Monopoly capital effectively avoids taxation due to its influence on the tax code. 8. The tax burden thus effectively falls on petty capital and on individuals. 9. Once petty capital and individuals become fully class-conscious about this process, they will mobilize against the state by refusing to pay taxes. 10. This will produce a fiscal crisis of the state—which will inhibit state capacity to provide the programs required for the reproduction of capitalism. Capitalism will fall not from catastrophic collapse but from slow decay. For the purposes of development theory, what matters is items (1) through (4), the specification of the routine “garden variety” government programs that generate development. O’Connor is all about building roads, building airports, building schools, supporting science, and running pension programs. There is little that he advocates that would actually be in opposition to the World Bank’s 2002 report on the appropriate role of the government in responsible pro-capitalist development—or to Stiglitz’s heterodox prescription for state-led economic growth in Making Globalization Work (2006). What empirical support is there for the O’Connorian model? On the role of education, see the chapter by David Bills in this volume. On the role of war-making and Military Keynesianism, see the chapter by Gregory Hooks. This section will discuss what is not covered elsewhere in the volume: the role of infrastructure. Airports have a marked effect on economic growth. John Kasarda and his colleagues have shown a very strong correlation between U.S. metropolitan growth and air traffic (Irwin and Kasarda 1991; Kasarda and Sullivan 2006). What keeps this finding from being artifactual (since cities with a lot of economic activity generate a lot of traffic) is the hub system of American air transit, where hub cities get disproportionate amounts of fly-through traffic. It is precisely these hub cities with disproportionately large airports that receive the bonus rates of economic growth. I replicated these findings in Brazil using an independent methodology (Cohn 2012). Brazilian cities that expanded their airports saw dramatic increases in total GDP, agricultural GDP, retail GDP, and service GDP; they also saw superior growth when compared to matched states with no such expansion. Doreen Massey (1974) has shown that the economic rise of London and southeastern England—at the expense of traditional manufacturing centers in the Midlands, Lancashire, the northeast, and Scotland—was almost entirely due to the superior international air connections London enjoyed because of Heathrow Airport. In U.S. and British economic history, there is a substantial body of work linking nineteenth-century economic growth to railway construction (Dobbin 1997; Hawke 1970; Reed 1969) or, for some contrarians, to canal construction (Fogel 1964). John Fernald (1999) shows parallel substantial positive results for the mid-twentieth-century
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construction of the interstate highway system, although road construction after the completion of the basic network showed diminishing economic returns. Alfredo Pereira (2000) correlates private sector productivity to five different categories of state-provided infrastructure. Outside of the United States, I have shown positive employment effects in Brazil for water, sewage, bus terminal, and road projects (Cohn 2012). Johannes Fedderke, P. Perkins, and J. M. Luiz (2006) show that South African GDP benefited from railway lines, volume of rolling stock, telephone lines, paved roads, electricity provision, and air passenger volume. Etsuro Shioji (2001), studying Japan, found that the effects of physical infrastructure were substantially greater than those of education. A study of India finds positive effects on the industrial efficiency of Indian states of roads, electricity, railroads, postal services, education, and health (Mitra, Varoudakis, and Veganzones-Varoudakis 2002). There are parallel findings for cross-national data (Aschauer 2000; Esfahani and Ramirez 2003). Overall, the provision of basic public goods seems to have a substantial effect on stimulating development. Evidence suggests that infrastructure-based jobs tend to be broadly dispersed and that they provide substantial benefits for the poor (as opposed to disarticulated development that benefits only a small elite) (Cohn 2012). Often, states stimulate development by routine policies, which may be drab and unexciting but are effective at improving human welfare.
S O C I A L D E M O C R AT I C M O D E L S
One significant aspect of the state is that it is an arbiter of internal class conflict. Sociologists of development in the Global South are most familiar with alliances between the state and capital to control the working class. Labor-repressive regimes are common. These are used to maintain the competitiveness of a nation’s exports by reducing the cost of labor— with obvious adverse consequences for human welfare (Deyo 1987; Lenin [1901] 1969). However, the mid-twentieth-century West European and Japanese experiences are very different from those in the Global South. The former show an alternative, more humanistic model by which the state allies with labor against capital and produces significant economic growth as a result. The theoretical model for how this can occur was first laid out by Sydney Webb and Beatrice Webb in their Industrial Democracy (1898). The Webbs argued that the economies of societies as a whole can be hurt by “industrial parasitism,” which referred to employer exploitation of laborers so severe that it produced adverse repercussions on overall social functioning. The examples given by the Webbs drew from the social debates of turn-of-the-century Britain. One was employers who pay “starvation” wages, or payment insufficient to provide workers with a basic ration of food. The Webbs argued that malnutrition would make workers sick; this in turn would increase the mortality of the general population by both weakening the genetic stock and promoting the transmission of infectious disease. Another example was child
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labor, which keeps children out of school and so lowers rates of literacy and skill in the general population. The Webbs argued that orthodox trade unionism would be insufficient to eliminate industrial parasitism. This is because unions generally organize strong workers, whereas the employees of parasitic employers are generally too weak to mobilize. The only viable strategy for eliminating abuses would be for the state to prohibit such parasitic practices by law. The Webbs argued that state regulation of workplace practices would produce significant economic growth by eliminating the “low road” of merely trying to compete by cutting wages. This would require companies to compete by skill and professionalism, rather than labor cost reduction, raising productivity and producing a more robust economy that sells better, higher-quality products. Within contemporary sociology, this position has been argued most forcefully by Wolfgang Streeck (1992, 2008). Drawing from the work of corporatists such as Walter Korpi (1978) and Philippe Schmitter (1979), Streeck argues that West Germany achieved a position of international economic dominance by having the state guarantee union power and employment security to its working class. West Germany significantly restricted employers’ right to fire workers—making Fordist strategies of shedding labor nonviable. West Germany also legislated large, nation-wide wage agreements that reduced (though did not eliminate) employers’ capacity to obtain competitive advantages by paying lower wages than other national rivals. German employers then behaved exactly as the Webbs predicted they would: deprived of any capacity to make wages equal to marginal productivity by cutting wages, they were forced to seek labor market equilibrium by raising productivity to meet externally fixed high rates of wages. West German employers invested heavily in research and development as well as in worker training— with both activities subsidized somewhat by the state. To utilize these skills, the Germans moved into upmarket premium niches where prices were higher, margins were higher, and overall sales were less subject to business cycles because of the more robust purchasing capacity of luxury consumers. The result was a set of highly profitable national industries with strong export performance, protection from competition through proprietary technology, strong local demand because of a consuming class with stable high incomes, and some protection from international cyclical forces. Streeck’s findings generalize to other settings. David Cameron (1988) has shown that nations with a strong political left (and the corporatist institutions associated with same) have had lower unemployment than advanced capitalist nations with weaker labor parties and fewer workers’ rights. Streeck and Kozo Yamamura (2001) show that Japan’s economic success came from Japan’s intentional adoption of successful German political and economic institutions. Patrick Heller (1999) has shown that workingclass mobilization and the institution of a leftist government in Kerala, India, led to significant land reform, an improvement in agrarian performance, an improvement of management techniques in industry, and a substantial improvement in human development indicators.
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B R I E F O B S E RVAT I O N S I NSTITUTION AL QU A LITY
Currently, the dominant approach to dealing with the state and development in institutional economics is to emphasize the role of institutional quality (Lin and Nugent 1995). These arguments are reasonable (Portes and Smith 2012). However, China has experienced the fastest rate of economic growth in capitalist history, with a significant lack of due process or Northian property guarantees. Andrew Walder (1995) discusses how successful Chinese development occurred in the absence of universalistic institutions.
CORRUPTION
Sociologists tend to turn a blind eye to corruption. Some forms of corruption hurt development; others are merely nuisances. Sociologists know too little about the epidemiology or effects of crony capitalism and rent-seeking.
SMALL SIZE
Alec Nove (2003), in a devastating critique of Soviet demand-style economies, argues that entire national economies are too complex for any bureaucracy (including corporations) to manage rationally. States make fewer planning errors managing smaller projects such as individual firms or industries. It is worth noting that the great developmentalist states have tended to be located in small territories, such as city-states (Babones 2009). Chinese developmentalism worked by devolving nearly all meaningful planning to the state or municipal level rather than making detailed decisions at the national level (Walder 1995).
D E BT AV O I D A N C E
Albert Fishlow (1990) argued that it does not matter whether states are interventionist or laissez-faire—so long as they stay out of debt. The grim toll of the 1990s debt crisis strongly confirms Fishlow’s warning. Fernando Cardoso (2009), who, as president of Brazil, had to personally repair the effects of a devastating debt crisis, argues that the prime responsibility of the governments of poorer nations is to stay out of debt. Decisions involving spending and revenue collection are discretionary, and even the most peripheral of states have some choice as to whether they allow themselves to fall into the grasp of international creditors. States that limit their expenditures to programs they can finance with their own resources avoid the risk of default and the risk of devastating externally imposed repayment plans. Protecting one’s nation from the rapacity of foreign creditors may be the most effective state developmentalist policy of all.
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REFERENCES
Amsden, Alice. 1985. “State and Taiwan’s Economic Development.” In Bringing the State Back, edited by Peter Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol, 78–106. New York: Cambridge University Press. . 1989. Asia’s Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization. New York: Oxford University Press. Aschauer, David. 2000. “Public Capital and Economic Growth: Issues of Quantity, Finance and Efficiency.” Economic Development and Cultural Change 48: 391–406. Aubey, Robert. 1979. “Capital Mobilization and the Patterns of Business Ownership and Control in Latin America: Case of Mexico.” In Entrepreneurs in Cultural Context, edited by Sidney Greenfield, Arnold Strickon, and Robert T. Aubey, 225–42. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Babones, Salvatore. 2009. The International Structure of Income: Its Implications for Economic Growth. Saarbruecken: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller. Barrow, Clyde. 1993. Critical Theories of the State: Marxist, Neomarxist, Postmarxist. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Block, Fred. 1987. Revising State Theory: Essays in Politics and Postindustrialism. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Cameron, David. 1988. “Social Democracy, Labor Quiescence and the Representation of Economic Interest in Advanced Capitalist Society.” In Order and Conflict in Contemporary Capitalism, edited by John Goldthorpe, 143–78. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Cardoso, Fernando Henrique. 1971. Política e Desenvolvimento em Sociedades Dependentes. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar. . 2009. “New Paths: Globalization in Historical Perspective.” Studies in Comparative International Development 44: 296–317. Chang, Ha-Joon. 2008. Bad Samaritans: Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism. New York: Bloomsbury. Chibber, Vivek. 2006. Locked in Place: State Building and Late Industrialization in India. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Cohn, Samuel. 2012. Employment and Development under Globalization: State and Economy in Brazil. Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan. Cumings, Bruce. 1984. “Origins and Development of the Northeast Asian Political Economy.” International Organization 38: 1–40. Denison, Edward. 1985. Trends in American Economic Growth 1929–1982. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press. Deyo, Frederic. 1987. Political Economy of the New Asian Industrialism. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Dobbin, Frank. 1997. Forging Industrial Policy: United States, Britain and France in the Railway Age. New York: Cambridge University Press. . 2004. “Sociological View of the Economy.” In New Economic Sociology, edited by Frank Dobbin, 1–48. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Eisenstadt, Shmuel. 1993. Political System of Empires. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers.
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Esfahani, Hadi Salehi, and Maria Ramirez. 2003. “Institutions, Infrastructure and Economic Growth.” Journal of Development Economics 70: 443–77. Evans, Peter. 1979. Dependent Development. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Fedderke, Johannes W., P. Perkins, and J. M. Luiz. 2006. “Infrastructural Development and Long Term Economic Growth: South Africa 1875–2001.” World Development 34: 1037–59. Fernald, John. 1999. “Roads to Prosperity: Assessing the Links between Public Capital and Prosperity.” American Economic Review 89: 619–38. Fishlow, Albert. 1990. “Latin American State.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 4: 61–74. Fogel, Robert. 1964. Railroads and American Economic Growth: Essays in Econometric History. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press. Frank, Gunder. 1967. Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America. New York: Monthly Review Press. Furtado, Celso. 1963. Economic Growth of Brazil: A Survey from Colonial to Modern Times. Berkeley: University of California Press. Galeano, Eduardo. 1997. Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent. New York: Monthly Review Press. Hagen, Everett. 1963. On the Theory of Social Change: How Economic Growth Begins. Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey Press. Hamilton, Alexander. (1790) 1904. “Report on Manufactures.” In The Works of Alexander Hamilton, edited by Henry Cabot Lodge, 12 vols., 4: 70–163. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Hawke, Gary Richard. 1970. Railways and Economic Growth in England and Wales 1840–1870. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hechter, Michael. 1975. Internal Colonialism: Celtic Fringe in British National Development 1536–1966. Berkeley: University of California Press. Heller, Patrick. 1999. Labor of Development: Workers and the Transformation of Capitalism in Kerala, India. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Hoselitz, Bert. 1963. Sociological Aspects of Economic Growth. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press. Irwin, Michael, and John Kasarda. 1991. “Air Passenger Linkages and Employment Growth in U.S. Metropolitan Areas.” American Sociological Review 56: 524–37. Johnson, Chalmers. 1982. MITI and the Japanese Miracle: Growth of Industrial Policy 1925–75. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Kasarda, John, and David Sullivan. 2006. “Air Cargo, Liberalization, and Economic Development.” Annals of Air and Space Law 31: 214–30. Kessler-Harris, Alice. 1993. Women Have Always Worked: An Historical Overview. New York: Feminist Press. Kinugasa, Tomoko, and Andrew Mason. 2007. “Why Countries Become Wealthy: The Effects of Adult Longevity on Saving.” World Development 35: 1–23. Kohli, Atul. 2004. State-Directed Development: Political Power and Industrialization in the Global Periphery. New York: Cambridge University Press. Korpi, Walter. 1978. Working Class in Welfare Capitalism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Krugman, Paul. 1994. “Myth of Asia’s Miracle.” Foreign Affairs 73: 62–78. Lange, Matthew, and Dietrich Rueschemeyer, eds. 2005. States and Development: Historical Antecedents of Stagnation and Advance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
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Lenin, Vladimir Ilych. (1901) 1969. What Is to Be Done? Burning Questions of Our Movement. Moscow: International. Lin, Justin Yifu, and Jeffrey B. Nugent. 1995. “Institutions and Economic Development.” In Handbook of Economic Development, vol. 3A, edited by J. Behrman and T. N. Srinivasan, 2301–70. Amsterdam: North-Holland. List, Friedrich. 1983. Natural System of Political Economy. London: Cass. Massey, Doreen. 1974. Towards a Critique of Industrial Location Theory. London: Center for Environmental Studies. Mitra, Arup, Aristomene Varoudakis, and Marie-Ange Veganzones-Varoudakis. 2002. “Productivity and Efficiency in Indian States Manufacturing: The Role of Infrastructure.” Economic Development and Cultural Change 50: 395–426. Myint, Hla. 1964. The Economics of the Developing Countries. London: Hutchinson. Nove, Alec. 2003. The Economics of Feasible Socialism. New York: Taylor and Francis. O’Connor, James. (1973) 2001. The Fiscal Crisis of the State. Piscataway, N.J.: Transaction Publishers. Offe, Claus. 1984. Contradictions of the Welfare State. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Papanek, Gustav. 1992. “Effect of Government Intervention on Growth and Equity: Lessons from Southern Asia.” In State and Market in Development: Synergy or Rivalry, edited by Louis Putterman and Dietrich Rueschemeyer, 131–70. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Parsons, Talcott. (1951) 1991. The Social System. New York: Routledge. . 1964. “Evolutionary Universals in Society.” American Sociological Review 29: 339–57. . 1971. System of Modern Societies. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Pereira, Alfredo. 2000. “Is All Public Capital Created Equal?” Review of Economics and Statistics 82, no. 3: 513–18. Portes, Alejandro, and Laurie Smith. 2012. Institutions Count: Their Role and Significance in Latin American Development. Berkeley: University of California Press. Reed, M. C., ed. 1969. Railways in the Victorian Economy: Studies in Finance and Development. Newton Abbott, U.K.: David and Charles Publishers. Reinert, Erik. 2007. How Rich Countries Got Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor. New York: Public Affairs. Rodrik, Dani. 2007. One Economics, Many Recipes: Globalization, Institutions and Economic Growth. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Rosenstein-Rodan, Paul Narcyz. 1943. “Problems of Industrialization of East and South-East Europe.” Economic Journal 53: 201–11. Schmitter, Philippe. 1979. Trends towards Corporate Intermediation. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications. Shioji, Etsuro. 2001. “Public Capital and Economic Growth: A Convergence Approach.” Journal of Economic Growth 6: 205–27. Smelser, Neil. 1959. Social Change in the Industrial Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Smelser, Neil, and Richard Swedberg. 1994. “Sociological Perspective on the Economy.” In Handbook of Economic Sociology, edited by Neil Smelser and Richard Swedberg, 3–26. New York: Russell Sage.
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Solow, Robert M. 1956. “A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 70, no. 1: 65–94. Stallings, Barbara, and Wilson Peres. 2000. Growth, Employment, and Equity: The Impact of the Economic Reforms in Latin America and the Caribbean. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press. Stiglitz, Joseph. 2006. Making Globalization Work. New York: Norton. Streeck, Wolfgang. 1992. Social Institutions and Economic Performance: Studies of Industrial Relations in Advanced Economies. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications. . 2008. Re-forming Capitalism: Institutional Change in the German Political Economy. New York: Oxford University Press. Streeck, Wolfgang, and Kozo Yamamura. 2001. Origins of Nonliberal Capitalism: Germany and Japan in Comparison. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Szirmai, Adam. 2005. Dynamics of Socioeconomic Development: An Introduction. New York: Cambridge University Press. Tavares, Maria de Conceição. 1999. Destruição Não Criadora: Memórias d um Mandato Popular Contra a Recessão, o Desemprego e a Globalização Subordinada. São Paulo: Record. Torvik, Ragnar. 2009. “Why Do Some Resource Abundant Economies Succeed While Others Do Not?” Oxford Review of Economic Policy 25: 241–56. Wade, Robert. 1990. Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian Industrialization. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Walder, Andrew. 1995. “Local Governments as Industrial Firms: An Organizational Analysis of China’s Transitional Economy Source.” American Journal of Sociology 101: 263–301. Webb, Sydney, and Beatrice Webb. 1898. Industrial Democracy. 2 vols. London: Longmans, Green and Co. “Printed By the Authors For the Trade Unions.” Williamson, Jeffrey. 2006. Globalization and the Poor Periphery before 1950. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Woo-Cumings, Meredith, ed. 1999. The Developmental State. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. World Bank. 2002. Globalization, Growth and Poverty. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. Yergin, Daniel. 1991. The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power. New York: Free Press.
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17 WOMEN, DEMOCRACY, AND THE STATE Kathleen M. Fallon and Jocelyn Viterna
What role do states and democracies play in development? Although many scholars have addressed this question, fewer have done so with respect to women. In this chapter, we argue that renewed attention to the relationship between states and women would powerfully improve existing sociological analyses of development. We begin by defining how states are fundamentally gendered institutions, and how states both create and reproduce gender relations in the societies they govern. We then turn to the question of whether states are valid sites of contestation for empowering and emancipating women. We examine this question across three different categories of states: Western nations, East European nations, and developing nations. We conclude that a feminist perspective of the state would powerfully extend existing theories about whether and how states influence “development.” This is especially true for a new generation of state-centered development research that examines how individuals, through social mobilization and participatory democracy, can influence state development practices (see, e.g., Baiocchi, Heller, and Silva 2011; Evans 2010; Lee 2007; Wolford 2010. See also Paul Almeida’s chapter in this volume). Our chapter is premised on the understanding that gender1 is always implicated in sociological analyses of development, regardless of how development is formally defined. Our arguments below prioritize a capabilities approach to development, where the importance of gender is relatively straightforward. In this approach, an “ideally” developed society requires that every individual’s rights, resources, and “capabilities” exist wholly independently of his or her gender or sexuality (Nussbaum 2000). Yet we note
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that the more traditional, market-based approaches to development are also fundamentally gendered (see Valentine Moghadam’s and Rae Lesser Blumberg’s chapters in this volume). The way a society defines “men” and “women” in turn structures the organization of its families, its labor markets, its wealth transfers, its use of technology, and its knowledge production, among other factors commonly analyzed in development studies. Gender, we argue, mediates states’ influence on these development processes.
G E N D E R A N D T H E S TAT E
To best understand the relationship between states and gender, feminist scholars advocate studying both the gender of governance and the governance of gender (Brush 2003). In the former, gender systems structure states. In most West European countries, democracies began with men in rule and with women excluded from political participation (Yuval-Davis 1997). During that time period, women were viewed as nurturing and were expected to remain in the home, attend to domestic affairs, or work within feminine-related occupations, such as education or tailoring. The West European society shaped the political realm, and these societal and political constructions were later exported through the process of colonization (Mamdani 1999; Oyěwùmí 1997). Although pre-colonial countries did not necessarily structure their governance according to male leadership, colonizers exerted their force and implemented male-dominated government institutions (Fallon 2008; Parpart and Staudt 1990). Because of men’s historical dominance in society, leading to the initial creation of male-only national governments, men continue overwhelmingly to occupy the most powerful positions within government today. For example, in 2014, men held approximately 78.2 percent of all parliamentary positions around the world, whereas women made up only 21.8 percent (Inter-Parliamentary Union 2014). Based on the historical development of state institutions, the assumptions of male dominance continue to influence the structuring of state agencies, laws, and programs in countless ways.2 The gender of governance leads, in turn, to the governance of gender; scholars agree that all states “govern” gender because their institutions, policies, and practices help create, maintain, and reproduce the categories of men and women in both direct and indirect ways (Phillips 2012). Directly, states use the categories of “men” and “women” to dictate, among other things, who can vote, who can go to school, who can marry whom, who has the right to control their own sexual and reproductive behavior, and who can be drafted into military service. Indirectly, states shape gender in countless additional ways: for example, social welfare programs formally define what can constitute a “family”; taxations systems place differential values on paid and unpaid labor; the presence, absence, or form of parental leave programs shape expectations and opportunities for mothers and fathers; the availability of affordable child care mitigates mothers’ access to paid labor and economic independence; and public healthcare systems determine who can control their own sexual health and reproduction through the drugs and procedures they provide (Brady 2009; Misra, Moller, and Budig 2007; Orloff 2009).
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Whether using the frame of the gender of governance or the governance of gender, feminist scholars overwhelmingly agree that states are gendered institutions. However, they frequently disagree about whether states are valid sites of contestation and change for citizens seeking gender equity (Borchorst 1999; Brush 2003; Phillips 2006). In the more pessimistic camp, scholars argue that fighting for women’s rights within a masculine state has ultimately been self-defeating because it reifies the category “woman” (Squires 2001, 2008), changes women’s dependence from private patriarchy to public patriarchy (Eisenstein 1981; Holter 1984), or simply augments state power and control over citizens in ways that reinforce the existing “condition and construction of women” (Brown 1995, 173). Others see “the state” as too ambiguous and unwieldy to be a useful category for analysis or a useful target for activists (Allen 1990; Kantola 2007). The most radical in this camp argue that the state is simply irredeemable: it is too sexist and too masculine to serve as a vehicle for change (Gould 2014; Davis 2001; MacKinnon 1989; Smart 1989). Therefore, pessimists often suggest that feminist activism is more profitably targeted at other social relations, such as gendered interactions in day-to-day relationships, rather than at “state transformation.” By contrast, scholars in the more optimistic camp argue that states are “where the power is” (Brush 2003, 3; see also Dahlerup 1994). These scholars agree that state structures, policies, and ideologies generally work to reinforce masculine privilege. They maintain, however, that state institutions still provide important sites of contestation and negotiation for women (Chapman 1993; O’Connor, Orloff, and Shaver 1999; Orloff 1996; True and Mintrom 2001; Watson 1990). Indeed, scholars have documented how women’s activism has fundamentally altered states’ genders in terms of extending voting rights to women (McCammon 2001; McCammon et al. 2001), expanding welfare benefits to reduce women’s dependence on men (Brady 2009; Bolzehndahl and Brooks 2007; Gordon 1994; Koven and Michel 1993; Skocpol 1992), and increasing legal protections against gender discrimination in the workplace, in the legal system, in the home, and surrounding the body (Bauer 2008; Chaudhuri 2010; Cooke 2007; Gelb and Hart 1999; Gould 2014; Rhode 1989). Working within a masculine state structure certainly limits, and sometimes undermines, women’s victories, they argue, but the state is simply too powerful an arena for leveraging power for feminists to disassociate from it completely (Brush 2003). In the next section, we review existing arguments about whether states can be sites for gendered change in Western nations, in Eastern Europe, and in developing countries.
W E S T E R N W E L FA R E S TAT E S
Most early theorizing about states and gender in mainstream sociology focused on wealthy nations.3 In the 1980s, Catherine MacKinnon (1989), Carole Pateman (1988), and others opened the conversation by arguing that (Western) states are inherently male institutions, created by men, in male-dominated societies, to maintain a social order that
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privileges hegemonic masculinity. Feminist scholars supported these contentions by demonstrating, for example, how welfare systems encouraged women’s continued reliance on men (Gordon 1990, 1994), how legal systems were more concerned with regulating—rather than prohibiting—rape (MacKinnon 1989), or how variations in states’ support and organization of child care directly affected women’s power in labor markets and politics (Ruggie 1984; Siim 1990). As the field developed, feminist scholars became increasingly interested in gendered variations across welfare states. They sought to document whether some states were more “women friendly” than others (Borchorst 1994; Brady and Burroway 2012; Orloff 1996; O’Connor, Orloff, and Shaver 1999; Sainsbury 1996; Wernet 2008) and what historical processes (especially women’s mobilizations) might account for these variations (Abramovitz 1988; Muncy 1991; Skocpol 1992; Sklar 1993; Gordon 1994; Goodwin 1997; Pini, Panelli, and Sawer 2008).4 They concluded that women’s movements’ successes in creating more women-friendly states depended on a number of factors: how they framed their issues (Ferree and Gamson 2003; Hobson 2003; Stetson 2001); the organizational structure of the movement (Clemens 1993; Staggenborg 1988); the strategies they utilized (McCammon et al. 2001; Taylor and Van Dyke 2004); the cohesiveness of the movements (Lovenduski 2005); and whether they had allies within the government (Mazur 2001; Stetson 2001). They also found that historically specific characteristics of the state influenced the outcomes of women’s mobilizations, attributing cross-national variations to, for example, “strong” versus “weak” states (Koven and Michel 1993), a history of fascism (Bock and Thane 1991), the balance of power among workers, employers, and the state (Pederson 1993), or the demands placed on feminists by the small realm of available allies (Gordon 1994). These theories demonstrate that states are complex systems of institutions, strategies, and ideologies and tend to reinforce hegemonic masculine privilege in their respective societies, but that states are also vulnerable to change according to historical developments and the influence of (generally women’s) mobilizations. Feminist scholars of Western states have given us important tools for theorizing from what types of mobilizations, and under what social and political conditions, gendered change might be possible. However, given their focus on rich, relatively stable nations, these studies often conceptualize states’ genders as something that crystallized in the past with the formation of states’ welfare systems. They frequently see states as valid sites for contesting gender inequalities, but the changes they study are often incremental, such as modifications of state policies or personnel—the kind of changes expected from social movements operating under the protections, and limitations, of long-standing democratic systems. Thus, feminist theories of Western states provide an important framework from which to start our analysis, but their ability to answer questions about how women’s movements might target less-democratic states, or how radical state transformations might lead to more justly gendered political systems, is limited.
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EASTERN EUROPE
The political, social, and economic transformation of Eastern Europe in the 1990s encouraged scholars to ask how states’ genders might change in moments of radical transformation. Feminist scholars were initially highly optimistic about the possibility of women’s empowerment in the transitioning nations of Eastern Europe. Since women were already active within the government and the public sphere under the former communist regimes, scholars anticipated that this historical female presence in political positions would help create a more feminist-oriented state with democratization (Einhorn 1993). Yet, contrary to this expectation, the transition did not create more women-friendly states, and many writers would argue it reinforced the masculinity of the state apparatus (Einhorn 1993; Watson 1993). With democratization, women’s participation in the state dropped precipitously, and men came to dominate the national government and its agenda. To illustrate, in the first post-transition elections, women’s representation dropped from 29.5 to 6 percent in the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, from 20.9 to 8.5 percent in Bulgaria, from approximately 50 to 9.5 percent in Poland, and from 33 to 3.5 percent in Romania (Watson 1993). Moreover, maternity leave policies were curtailed, women’s legislative quotas were dismantled, funding for child care centers decreased significantly, and there were attempts to end women’s rights to abortion (Einhorn 1993; Gal and Kligman 2000; Haney 1994; Pascall and Manning 2000; Watson 1993). After democratization, many of the East European states began to resemble the highly masculine makeup of their West European neighbors. How did this “democratic” transformation generate more highly masculine government structures? In hindsight, scholars concluded that the original communist states’ “women-friendliness” was perhaps only an appearance. Women’s representation within the legislative bodies was high because of quotas, but these legislatures were mere window dressings for the Central Committees of the ruling Communist Parties, where the policies and agenda of East European states were determined. Women’s representation in the Central Committee for the Communist Party in the Soviet Union was less than 5 percent, and thus women’s actual political power in the state was weak. The Communist Party also exalted women as both laborers and reproducers of the nation; thus, they were expected to have children, care for the family, and work regular shift hours (Einhorn 1993; Watson 1993; Haney 1994; Gal and Kligman 2000; Pascall and Manning 2000). Because of these multiple demands, women attempted to subvert the state by using the home as a refuge from the communist state’s agenda (Einhorn 1993; Gal and Kligman 2000; Gerber and Perelli-Harris 2012; Haney 1994; Watson 1993). In addition to overestimating the women-friendliness of the pre-transition states, scholars argued that the former Communist Party’s iron-handed control over political organizing, and the sense that women had in some ways already achieved equality, meant that women were poorly mobilized as women before the transition so were not able to act on behalf of women during and after the transition (Einhorn 1993). Although women’s
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organizations existed, they were generally not unified and tended to focus on educational and economic concerns (Berthusen Gottlick 1999; Silova and Magno 2004). Women’s organizations in pre-transition Eastern Europe had remained relatively localized, further limiting their connections to the international women’s movement (Fallon, Swiss, and Viterna 2012). Moreover, because the former Communist Party expounded a commitment to gender equality, albeit more in ideology than in practice, women as well as men conflated gender equality and feminism with communism in the post-transition period, and they distanced themselves from these terms and representations (Haney 1994; Gal and Kligman 2000). As the years have progressed post-transition, women’s political access to and participation within the state appears to be improving. From the initial drop post-transition to 2014, women’s representation increased from 6 percent in the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic to 19.5 percent in the Czech Republic and to 18.7 percent in Slovakia, from 8.5 to 20 percent in Bulgaria, from 9.5 to 24.3 percent in Poland, and from 3.5 to 13.5 percent in Romania (Inter-Parliamentary Union 2014). This increase in representation has occurred despite the fact that Eastern Europe continues to lag behind other regions of the world in the adoption of quotas guaranteeing minimal levels of women’s representation (Fallon, Swiss, and Viterna 2012). The initial democratic transition led women to withdraw from, while men usurped, political power. Often, men who held pre-transition political power were the first elected to new political offices with democratization. However, as women became increasingly savvy about how to effectively engage the new democratic systems, post-transition limits on political office eventually helped force old-guard male politicians out of power, creating space for new players. The lessening of state coercion, combined with women’s growing familiarization with and trust of the new democratic system, increased women’s willingness to engage the state on behalf of their gendered rights (Fallon, Swiss, and Viterna 2012). East European women gradually reentered politics. Moving forward, current research is now beginning to examine how women’s increasing physical presence in political structures may promote gender-equitable states (Forest 2006; Fuszara 2010; Millard 2014). In sum, although democratization in Eastern Europe initially created more highly masculine states rather than more gender equitable states, scholars have not pessimistically dismissed the state as irredeemable. Rather, the East European case has provided additional evidence that states’ genders are strongly influenced by path-dependent historical processes and by the presence or absence of feminist movements and allies.
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Feminist scholars of developing nations lament that much theorizing about gender and the state has been developed in Western contexts (Waylen 1996). Such theories do not easily translate to non-Western nations, where men’s and women’s patterns of political engagement with the state are strikingly different. Often these gendered political patterns
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in developing nations are rooted in European colonial histories. In many cases, colonizers usurped and restructured existing political institutions to best meet their own needs, often by encouraging women to remain in the domestic realm while encouraging men to become educated or active laborers (Bujra 1986; Fallon 2008; Stamp 1986). For example, among the Igbo in Nigeria, the obi, who traditionally represented the needs of the men within the community, were appointed to local government positions by the British. However, the omu, who represented the needs of the women within the community, were disregarded by colonial institutions. Similarly, among the Kikuyu in Kenya, male elders, who had held positions within their lineage prior to colonization, were appointed as chiefs, sub-chiefs, and judges under new colonial systems. Yet women, who also traditionally held positions of power within their lineages, were not appointed to new colonial positions. When European colonies gained independence, their new post-colonial governments often initially proved weak and unstable. Newly independent states seldom had the resources necessary to run governments, and the state institutions they inherited had been created to serve their colonizers’ needs rather than the needs of their own populations (Rodney 1972). Often, the withdrawal of colonial authorities left a power vacuum, and, with no institutional process in place for choosing new leaders, many nations experienced political instability. The outcomes of those instabilities varied across nations, with some countries developing formal democratic systems, others coming under control of authoritarian regimes, and still others experiencing years of civil strife. As a result, most developing nations tend to be weak in their administrative capacities and typically have little funding for social welfare or policy enforcement, which influences how states can interact with women.5 States most often figure in non-Western women’s lives when they transgress some social boundary and are returned to order by brute state force (Rai 1996, 36). Moreover, women in developing nations often have lower levels of literacy and employment and higher levels of income inequality than their West or East European counterparts and are more likely to engage the state outside of conventional politics. Not surprisingly, then, much research on gender and the state in developing nations has called for a broader definition of the political and has focused on the rich tradition of women’s mobilizations and participation in civil society as key components of state challenges. Unfortunately, the result of this focus on women’s mobilizations has been the conversion of the state into a secondary character, which is often treated monolithically as “good” or “bad” in its reactions to women’s organizing. Yet state structures are important because, as state structures vary, so do their responses to women’s mobilizations. One particular variation in state structures, the presence of women, is critical not only in determining responses to women’s mobilization but also in determining legislative action. For example, in relation to women’s political presence, local councils in South Africa that have more women are more likely to focus on the urgent issue of HIV/AIDS (Lieberman 2012), and, in India, village councils with more than one-third women are
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more likely to address the needs of women, such as access to drinking water—minimizing women’s time spent collecting water from afar (Chattopadhyay and Duflo 2004). At the national level, women legislators in Malaysia worked to address child care, child education, and child safety concerns (Zakuan 2010); in Tanzania, they focused debates on issues ranging from education to health, poverty, water, and energy and managed to pass legislation addressing concerns ranging from sexual offenses to access to land and girls’ education (Yoon 2011); in Timor-Leste, women legislators passed a resolution on gender-responsive budgeting (Costa, Sawer, and Sharp 2013). Cross-nationally, as women’s legislative representation increases, children’s health also improves (Swiss, Fallon, and Burgos 2012). These findings suggest that understanding the gendered state becomes essential to the process of development. Moreover, the role of the gendered state in tandem with women’s mobilization is particularly important across developing countries, where political instability and variation of government rule (or lack thereof ) exists.
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Over the past several decades, transitions to democracy across Africa, Asia, and Latin America have provided women’s mobilizations with unprecedented opportunities to fundamentally transform existing state structures and promote new “women friendly” political institutions (Fallon, Swiss, and Viterna 2012; Hassim 2006; Huiscamp 2000; Viterna and Fallon 2008). Buttressed by international conventions like CEDAW and the international women’s movement, local women’s movements have routinely taken advantage of the unprecedented political opening of transition to push newly democratizing states to adopt national quotas6 and to create national political institutions specifically tasked with supporting and maintaining gender equity in state policies and practices (Chen 2010; Krook 2006). Unlike Eastern Europe, these developing states had little pretext of being “women friendly” prior to their transitions.7 Whether transitioning from dictatorships or civil strife, undemocratic regimes were highly masculine (Manuh 1993; Tsikata 1989). Unlike men, women could not gain political positions through coups, bribes, or appointments by other men (Tripp 1994). Women who did gain political positions often did so through family members, or they held positions with little influence on government policy (Geisler 1995). Women’s absence from formal political structures in authoritarian states contrasted sharply with women’s central role in the civil society mobilizations that forced these authoritarian states into democratic transitions. Feminist research documents extensive and powerful mobilizations of women’s organizations against authoritarian states (and especially against their human rights abuses) at precisely the moment when more typically masculine forms of doing politics (political parties, labor unions) were effectively silenced by state repression (Alvarez 1990; Fisher 1990; Noonan 1995). Women also
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constituted an estimated 30 percent of the guerrilla armies that quite literally fought to dismantle authoritarian regimes in nations like Nicaragua and El Salvador (Viterna 2006, 2013). Given scholars’ previous findings that feminist changes in state structures occur most readily when women are mobilized, it is perhaps not surprising that scholars anticipated similar feminist outcomes in transitioning states. Women had proven themselves fearless fighters for political transformation under repressive authoritarian regimes; how could they not continue the political fight for gender equity under new democratic institutions? Despite the initial optimism about organized women’s potential to transform states’ gender with democratization, early studies often reported disappointing outcomes.8 Numerous case studies found that, with democratization, women’s gains during pretransition mobilizations were overturned (Cagan 2000; Chinchilla 1994), there was a widespread reassertion of traditional gender expectations (Jaquette 1994; Rai 1996), women’s pre-transition mobilizations waned in the post-transition period (Craske 1998), and, in some nations, women’s electoral representation in parliament actually declined (Fisher 1993; Jaquette and Wolchik 1998; Jelin 1990). Democratic transitions may have eliminated authoritarian barriers to women’s political participation, but studies consistently found that women’s political power increased little, if any, with initial democratization (Bystydzienski and Sekhon 1999; Geisler 1995; Friedman 2000; Jaquette and Wolchik 1998; Kelly et al. 2001; Walby 1992), and some argued that women were likely worse off after democratization—politically, socially, and economically—than they were under previous regimes (Hawkesworth 2001).9 As in Eastern Europe, scholars of developing countries generated a number of explanations for women’s disappointing gains with democratization. First, several scholars argued that the countries’ historical and political contexts shaped the manner in which women mobilized under authoritarian regimes, and this choice of strategies limited women’s ability to gain political power after democratization. By closing down political options typically considered “masculine” (such as political parties and labor unions), repressive authoritarian regimes inadvertently promoted women’s “feminine” mobilizations through community-based, family-oriented protests. Women protestors shrewdly incorporated the authoritarian regimes’ own gendered discourse of women as pious, self-sacrificing mothers into the framing of their claims against the state. Authoritarian regimes thus found themselves in the uncomfortable position of trying to justify the repression of women who had mobilized around feminine themes that the regime itself had earlier exalted (Alvarez 1990; Chuchryk 1989; Friedman 2000; OkekeIhejirika and Franceschet 2002; Ray and Korteweg 1999; Sternbach et al. 1992).10 With democratization, however, new political players on both the left and the right utilized women’s own discourse of motherhood, and of innate gender differences, to encourage women’s return to the household (Chinchilla 1994; Fisher 1993; Friedman 1998; Schild 1994).11
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Second, many argue that democratization marginalizes women because, under democratization, political parties—not social movements—control access to the state (O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986). Given that political parties are typically patriarchal and resistant to women’s participation, women have historically found their strongest political voice within social movements. Paradoxically, then, authoritarian states may have opened space for women’s mobilizations that was in turn closed by democratization and the institutionalization of conventional political channels (Friedman 2000; Jelin 1990; Nelson and Chowdhury 1994). A third proposed explanation is that pre-transition women’s mobilizations were co-opted or institutionalized by the state and by political parties after democratization (Alvarez 1999; Okeke-Ihejirika and Franceschet 2002; Richards 2004; Vargas 2002). For example, women associated with political parties prior to the transition often found their gender-specific goals subsumed to the party’s “mainstream” goals (Luciak 2001). Likewise, states sometimes instituted a new women’s office within the state machinery after democratization, but they constrained the effectiveness of these new institutions with laws, bureaucracy, and funding shortages. Leaders of women’s movements were often the first to transition to the leadership positions within new women’s offices of the state or women’s branches of parties, or even new gender-specific NGOs, thus crippling women’s social movements by removing many movement leaders at the precise moment of democratic opening (Hassim 2006; Viterna and Fallon 2008). Moreover, women who find themselves in paid positions often tend to be of a higher class, and better educated, than women who remain in community-based social movements, leading to a problem of cohesion and collaboration within the movements themselves (Waylen 1994). This concern about co-optation has led many women’s movements in developing nations to declare autonomy from states and political parties, thus giving them freedom to pursue their own agendas and collaborate with a wide range of political interests, even though it may limit their access to the state and their funding options (Alvarez 1999; Beckwith 2000; Jaquette 1994; Tripp 2000; Waylen 1994).12 The final argument explaining democracy’s disappointing outcomes for women is the one most familiar to development scholars: the neoliberal economic policy changes that typically accompany democratization diminished women’s ability to participate in politics by increasing women’s already unfair workload (Cagan 2000; Jelin 1998). Privatization and structural adjustment made basic necessities like food, healthcare, and education increasingly difficult to access, thus increasing women’s time spent in care-giving roles, while liberalization of the economy reduced wages and opportunities for organizing on the job, especially in export-oriented production work often dominated by women’s labor (Blumberg and Salazar-Palacios 2011; Darkwah 2010; Gideon 1999). Because of neoliberal policies accompanying democratization, then, women’s free time was restricted, and their associations with individuals and organizations outside the home were limited, resulting in women having little time, resources, or networks to facilitate any sort of political involvement (Yoo 2011).13
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Amid the many pessimistic prognostications for women’s gains with democratization is a small, optimistic literature focusing on gender and revolution. In an initial theoretical investigation of gender and revolution, Valentine Moghadam (1997) argues that some revolutions, like those in Nicaragua, Afghanistan, and South Yemen, are modernizing, egalitarian, and focus on women’s emancipation, whereas others, like revolutions in Iran and Poland, stress family and gender differences and reinforce patriarchy. In Latin America, Karen Kampwirth (2004) uses case studies to argue that revolutionary movements inadvertently engendered feminist movements by providing women with new ideologies of equality, new political skills, and new networks with other women activists, both locally and internationally. Both conclude that revolutions may not have transformed the gender of the state, but they did transform the lives of the women activists within the revolution, such that these women have launched strong, vibrant, autonomous feminist movements that are qualitatively different from feminist movements in the West. More recent studies provide additional reasons to believe that, with time, democratic transitions may improve women’s legislative representation, potentially transforming the gender of governance. Similar to Eastern Europe, democratization had a curvilinear effect on women’s national political representation in developing states (Fallon, Swiss, and Viterna 2012; Bjarnegård 2013). With the initial transition to democracy, nations often experienced a precipitous drop in representation. However, with each additional year, women’s representation improved. Countries that had longer histories with nominally competitive (albeit undemocratic) elections prior to their transitions saw relatively faster increases in women’s legislative representation after their transitions, suggesting that women’s representation improved as their familiarity with the electoral system increased (Fallon, Swiss, and Viterna 2012). Although all countries gained from democratization, those that transitioned from civil strife appear to have gained the most (Hughes 2009), in part because they were the most likely to initiate working electoral quotas with their transitions (Fallon, Swiss, and Viterna 2012). In short, the implementation of quotas plus women’s increasing trust of, and adaptation to, the new political systems seem to account for these gradual improvements in women’s political representation (Bjarnegård and Melander 2011; Fallon, Swiss, and Viterna 2012; Tripp and Kang 2008). Although it remains to be seen how women’s increasing legislative presence may affect gender-equitable development, we point to four additional reasons for optimism in state-gender relations among developing nations. First, women’s movements in developing nations often connected to the international women’s movement prior to democratization, and these transnational resources proved useful for successfully pressuring democratizing states to implement gender-equitable laws and institutions during the transition (Bush 2011; Krook 2009; Viterna and Fallon 2008). These transnational con-
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nections seem to have given many women’s movements in the Global South an ally that East European women’s organizations were slower to expropriate, and we anticipate that transnational allies will continue to be influential. Second, the new global trend of implementing gender quotas has spread even to nations with low levels of democracy and less powerful women’s movements (Bauer 2012; Fallon, Swiss, and Viterna 2012; Paxton, Hughes, and Painter 2010; Stockemer 2014; Tripp and Kang 2008). Given quotas’ proven potential for powerfully increasing women’s formal political representation, we suggest that quotas may help build women’s political power from the top down, even in contexts where bottom-up mobilizations may struggle. Third, as women gain increased access to state resources and representation, and as they continue to be connected to international mobilization, they also successfully work to implement laws to protect women. Laurel Weldon and Mala Htun (2012), for example, demonstrate that domestic violence laws and resources to support survivors of domestic violence are more successful in countries where women’s local and international movements are active. Fourth and finally, many developing states are experimenting with their own novel practices for equalizing political power, such as the implementation of participatory direct democracy in nations like Brazil and India (Baiocchi, Heller, and Silva 2011). These new options for political participation have already increased women’s participation at the local level in at least some instances (Agarwal 2010; Gibson 2012). Given findings that women’s formal representation increases as their familiarity with electoral politics improves, we anticipate that the long-term impacts of such local-level participation on state structures may ultimately be very positive. In sum, although scholars initially reached a largely pessimistic consensus about democracy’s ability to create more justly gendered states and societies in developing nations, later studies demonstrate that, as democracy progresses, it does provide new space for women to increase their political power and participation. Women have become more involved with national politics through democratic political structures, and they have lobbied for changes in policies affecting women. Of note, despite the striking differences in national contexts, studies engaging gender and the state within developing countries concur with scholars of Western states that women’s activism in social movements—albeit constrained by the path-dependent governance structures and historical political cultures already in place—are the primary vehicles for achieving more genderequitable states.
CONCLUSION
Existing studies sometimes suggest that developing state governments, by virtue of their relative institutional weakness, instability, and lack of resources, are not well positioned to shape development outcomes. Yet this review demonstrates how developing nations’
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relative institutional instability can also open new opportunities for state-led improvements in human capabilities. Women’s movements in stable democracies may often benefit from institutionalized state protection and broader social acceptance of feminist ideals, but they seldom achieve more than incremental gender changes when targeting state institutions— institutions that have been stable centers of political power across centuries. In contrast, women’s movements in newly emerging democracies have often successfully capitalized on moments of instability and transition to demand that women’s rights and needs be integrated into new state offices, policies, and procedures. Indeed, by some measures— particularly the measure of women’s political representation in national legislatures—many poor nations have surpassed their rich counterparts in promoting gender equity in state governance. We certainly do not aim to downplay the difficulties that women in developing nations suffer when their national governments provide inadequate and gender-biased legal, judicial, educational, or welfare systems. Rather, we draw attention to how, despite the gutting of state power with neoliberal policies, all states’ policies and practices continue to shape the different opportunities and identities available to men and women, making states valid sites for studying and supporting a gender-sensitive, capabilities-driven development. There is still much research needed on the relationship between gender, states, and development. First, scholars still struggle to identify what factors or outcomes would constitute a “woman friendly” or “gender equitable” state. For example, Western nations that adopt more “family friendly” policies successfully increase rates of women’s labor force participation, but these same family policies may simultaneously make it harder for women to achieve positions of power in the work place, effectively lowering and hardening the proverbial glass ceiling (Mandel and Semyonov 2005). In Cuba, authoritarian state crack down on some political and social freedoms—like the freedom to organize—but the same authoritarian state guarantees broad access to reproductive health services for women. Rwanda has progressive gender-sensitive laws, more girls than boys in primary school, and the world’s highest percentage of women in parliament. Yet most Rwandan women continue to have difficulty accessing their new rights given entrenched social norms about the necessity of marriage (Berry 2015). Given that advances in one arena may come with—or even generate—setbacks in another, and given the masculine bias of all national governments despite level of economic development, what might a gender-equitable state look like? Second, we need to improve our understandings of how states influence and are influenced by civil society, both at the national and the transnational levels. World-polity theorists argue that transnational networks of international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) are creating a new “global culture” that celebrates gender equality (Berkovitch 1999; Meyer et al. 1997)—a process underlying our above discussion of the diffusion of gender quotas and laws against gendered violence. Yet the theories and methods used by world-polity scholars often ignore other powerful agents of global governance—like transnational religious institutions— that are much more likely to retrench, rather than support, women’s political, economic,
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and social rights. The intensifying criminalization of abortion in Latin America (Viterna 2012, 2014a, 2014b) and same-sex relations in Africa (Currier 2012; Kaoma 2012) demonstrates how states may powerfully institutionalize gender discrimination just as easily as they might legislate gender equality in the present transnational world. Finally, although the presentation of the current literature on gendered theory of the state is presented according to geographical locations, this is not meant to indicate a homogenization of a region or a state. There are, of course, striking variations across countries within all of our categorizations. For example, Romania’s access to abortion differs greatly from most other East European nations (Benson, Anderson, and Samandari 2011). States’ genders are shaped by their path-dependent histories. Researchers may find it useful to group states by certain shared historical events, like colonialism, but more research investigating why even similarly situated states sometimes have different gender outcomes is needed. Furthermore, variation is found not just across states but also within states. The way in which state policies influence gender differs across individuals, often according to intersecting characteristics such as age, race, minority status, sexuality, religion, ability, and socioeconomic status. Although some states may appear more women friendly, benefits may accrue primarily to privileged women (Currier 2012; Hughes 2011).14 Individuals who fall outside the gender binary may face some of the greatest restrictions to state resources. Some scholars have begun to explore these variations (Cabral and Viturro 2006; Canaday 2009; Connell 2012; Smith 2008; Solymár and Takács 2007); however, more research is needed. Over the past decade, development practitioners have reached an overwhelming consensus that “empowering women” is a—and perhaps the —fundamental condition necessary for achieving any form of development.15 Meanwhile, politicians are increasingly and emphatically using gender—and states’ policing of gender roles—to demarcate battle lines in the global “war on terror” (Charrad 2011). Yet despite this clear real-world relevance, scholars of development have paid too little attention to the relationship between states and gender, especially as compared to the vast and varied theories of gendered states that have been developed by political scientists and political sociologists. As development scholars rethink the parameters of a “new” sociology of development— one that takes states seriously, that investigates issues of development in Western nations as well as indeveloping nations, and that is relevant to policy decisions (see Samuel Cohn and Gregory Hooks’s introduction to this volume)—they would be wise to investigate how gendered states affect development outcomes in the societies they study as well as how citizen mobilizations can sometimes powerfully shape those development outcomes by promoting gendered transformations in state policies, practices, and institutions.
N OT E S
1. Although we recognize that gender is not limited to a binary and that it incorporates a multitude of variations, for the purpose of this chapter, gender is used primarily in reference to cisgender women and cisgender men.
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2. El Salvador provides a relatively straightforward illustration that the gender of governance continues today. Like most of the world’s nations, El Salvador signed onto the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, or CEDAW, in 1981. To fulfill the expectations of CEDAW, and in response to pressure from local women’s movements after democratization, the Salvadoran state created a national-level “women’s office” in 1996 (Viterna and Fallon 2008), giving it a mandate to police all other state agencies for gender discriminatory practices. Nevertheless, since its founding, each Salvadoran president has appointed his wife, the First Lady, to head the women’s institute. This creates a highly visible gendered division of political power in El Salvador: men are presidents, and their wives run the “women’s institute,” regardless of whether they have any qualification for that position. The idea that a woman might ever be president, or that a male president could ever have a male spouse, is thus negated by the organizational structure of the very institution that was designed to promote gender equity in state governance. (The projects prioritized by the institute have, not surprisingly, varied in accordance with the political ideologies of the party in power. Nevertheless, the institutionalization of “president” as “heterosexual male” remains the same across any First Lady’s gender ideology.) 3. There was, however, a notable literature on women and state-building in developing nations that emerged in the latter part of the 1980s, especially in the Middle East and South Asia. See Valentine Moghadam’s chapter in this volume for details. 4. Excellent overviews of feminist state theory, focusing on the Western welfare state, include Brush 2003, Haney 2000, Borchorst 1999, and Orloff 1996. Lynne Haney (1996) further encourages scholars to conceptualize the state as a network of institutions and to study gender variation across those institutions within a single state. 5. Strong states in the Middle East and North Africa are notable exceptions. See Moghadam 2013. 6. Generally speaking, gender quotas are political policies that mandate a certain percentage of seats to be reserved for women in elected or appointed political positions. Many nations have implemented some sort of national or party-level gender quotas, but cross-national variations in quota type, reach, implementation, and effectiveness remain extensive. See Krook 2006 and Fallon, Swiss, and Viterna 2012 for overviews. 7. Some exceptions include communist countries (e.g., Vietnam, Cuba, and China), and authoritarian governments in the Middle East, like Tunisia (which instituted women-friendly laws under a staunchly secular regime) and Algeria (which prioritized some political guarantees of gender equity as an outgrowth of its revolutionary movement, even while maintaining an Islamic state). See Moghadam 2013. 8. Some scholarship did highlight positive outcomes. For example, in South Africa, the Women’s National Coalition worked to improve women’s representation within the constitution and formal political structures. Yet even in these more positive cases, scholars expressed strong concerns about the durability of feminist advances. Continuing with the South Africa example, the Women’s National Coalition was dismantled after the transition to democracy was completed. Similarly, scholars have noted a disconnect between relatively “feminist” laws passed with democratization in the more positive cases and the continuing patriarchal practices within those states’ legislative, executive, and judicial systems. Scholars also expressed concern about whether women who gained political power with democratization would con-
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tinue to work with and for women’s on-the-ground organizing. See, e.g., Britton 2002; Hassim 2006; Meer 2005; Seidman 2003. 9. Although the majority of this literature examines cases in Latin America (Friedman 2000), Jane Jaquette and Sharon Wolchik (1998) extend the comparison to Eastern Europe, Kathleen Sheldon (1994) and Catherine Scott (1994) find similar trends in Africa, and Valentine Moghadam (2013) explores the complexity of politics and women’s rights in the Middle East. Quantitative cross-sectional studies similarly found that levels of democracy had no statistical impact, or a significant but negative impact, on women’s legislative representation (Kenworthy and Malami 1999; Paxton 1997; Paxton and Kunovich 2003; Reynolds 1999). 10. Examples of activism that promoted traditional feminine images include motherhoodbased human rights groups, where women marched to condemn authoritarian governments for kidnapping and killing their family members (Fisher 1990; Stephen 1997), and movements for social welfare, where women organized as housewives to protest rising prices, shrinking social services, and their increasing difficulty in feeding and caring for their families (Jelin 1990; Neuhouser 1998). Opposition groups also used traditional narratives of “mother” to justify their increasing use of political violence (Viterna 2013). Though certainly strategic, the “mother” identity was also heartfelt (Bayard de Volo 2001); women strongly believed that their status as women made them particularly qualified to talk about suffering and human rights. 11. Although these movements did little to challenge the traditional patriarchal society, some scholars argue that “feminine” movements can and do overlap and develop into “feminist” ideologies (Molyneux 1985; Stephen 1997), but little is written about which movements evolve, which languish, and whether this broadening of movement goals results in gendered changes within the state apparatus. 12. Susan Franceschet (2003) provides an excellent overview of this literature and counters that Chile’s state agency for women, the Servicio Nacional de la Mujer, has actually strengthened women’s mobilizing. 13. Others have shown how neoliberalism may have generated women’s mobilization as well (e.g., Almeida and Delgado 2008; DiMarco 2011; Moghadam 2009). 14. Feminist literature on citizenship delves into these differences. See Dietz 2003 for an overview. 15. To illustrate: the U.N. Development Programme focuses “on gender equality and women’s empowerment not only as human rights, but also because they are a pathway to achieving the Millennium Development Goals and sustainable development” (http://www .undp.org/content/undp/en/home/ourwork/womenempowerment/overview.html). CARE, a large international nongovernmental organization, places a “special focus on working alongside poor women because, equipped with the proper resources, women have the power to help whole families and entire communities escape poverty” (http://www.care.org/about/index .asp). Oxfam International simply states, “Human development is driven by empowered women” (http://www.oxfam.org/en/about/how-oxfam-fights-poverty).
REFERENCES
Abramovitz, Mimi. 1988. Regulating the Lives of Women: Social Welfare Policy from Colonial Times to the Present. Boston: South End Press.
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. 2013. Women in War: The Micro-processes of Mobilization in El Salvador. New York: Oxford University Press. . 2014a. “Conceiving while Poor; Imprisoned for Murder.” NACLA Report on the Americas 47, no. 3: 34–37. . 2014b. “Radical or Righteous? Using Gender to Shape Public Perceptions of Political Violence.” In Dynamics of Political Violence: A Process-Oriented Perspective on Radicalization and the Escalation of Political Conflict, edited by Lorenzo Bosi, Chares Demetriou, and Stefan Malthaner, 189–216. Surrey, U.K.: Ashgate Publishing. Viterna, Jocelyn, and Kathleen Fallon. 2008. “Democratization, Women’s Movements, and Gender-Equitable States: A Framework for Comparison.” American Sociological Review 73, no. 4: 668-89. Walby, Sylvia. 1992. “Women and Nation.” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 32, nos. 1–2: 81–100. Watson, Peggy. 1993. “The Rise of Masculinism in Eastern Europe.” New Left Review 198: 71–82. Watson, Sophie. 1990. Playing the State: Australian Feminist Interventions. London: Verso. Waylen, Georgina. 1994. “Women and Democratization: Conceptualizing Gender Relations in Transition Politics.” World Politics 46, no. 3: 327–55. . 1996. Gender in Third World Politics. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Weldon, Laurel, and Mala Htun. 2012. “The Civic Origins of Progressive Policy Change: Combating Violence against Women in Global Perspective, 1975–2005.” American Political Science Review 106, no. 3: 548–69. Wernet, Christine A. 2008. “An Index of Pro-Woman Nation-States: A Comparative Analysis of 39 Countries.” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 45, no. 1: 60–80. Wolford, Wendy. 2010. “Participatory Democracy by Default: Land Reform, Social Movements, and the State in Brazil.” Journal of Peasant Studies 37, no. 1: 91–109. Yoo, Eunhye. 2011. “International Human Rights Regime, Neoliberalism, and Women’s Social Rights, 1984–2004.” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 52, no. 6: 503–28. Yoon, Mi Yung. 2011. “More Women in the Tanzanian Legislature: Do Numbers Matter?” Journal of Contemporary African Studies 29, no. 1: 83–98. Yuval-Davis, Nira. 1997. Gender and Nation. London: Sage Publications. Zakuan, Ummu Atiyah Ahmad. 2010. “Women in the Malaysian Parliament: Do They Matter?” Intellectual Discourse 18, no. 2: 283–322.
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18 WAR AND DEVELOPMENT Questions, Answers, and Prospects for the Twenty-first Century
Gregory Hooks
For much of the twentieth century, sociologists ignored war—or, more precisely, assumed that war was an aberration. Sociological research and theory focused on the “normal” peaceful periods. But human history has been marked by wars. Decisive shifts in economic, political, and social power can only be understood in the context of war; these shifts have been the direct result of dynamics unleashed by war. Restricting sociology’s focus to “peaceful” periods has been criticized forcefully and effectively (for a review, see Hooks and Rice 2005). Over the past quarter century, sociologists (and other social scientists) have integrated war into theorizing and research. The renewed interest in war and its aftermath has resulted in far-reaching reexamination of leading theories, and comparative-historical research and political sociology have been strongly affected. Because it is only beginning to come to terms with war and its aftermath, the sociology of development cannot fully evaluate and incorporate claims emerging from an interdisciplinary research tradition that has focused on war. Equally important, the insights and contributions of development sociology are having too little impact on debates (in the academy and in policy arenas) over war and development. This chapter examines war in the context of relationships among social actors and institutions in specific times and places (Emirbayer 1997; Tilly 1998). I have not attempted to establish a classification scheme that distinguishes among states and the types of war they wage; instead, I emphasize relationships among states and between states and societies, including the institutional practices and enduring (or transitory) structures that influence the way that war is waged and the legacy that wars leave. States
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are not external to society, they are embedded. As such, the approach to waging war and the legacy of war are molded by societal dynamics and institutions. In the sections below, I ask and answer four questions. First: Did waging war contribute to development (if only inadvertently so) in Europe over the past five centuries? In distinct but complementary ways, Michael Mann (1986, 1993, 2012, 2013) and Charles Tilly (1990) document the manner in which warmaking was integral to the rise and consolidation of European nation-states. European statemakers were often ruthless and militaristic; this bellicosity continued for most of the twentieth century. Only in the latter half of the twentieth century did European states de-emphasize militarism. In this context, European states became democratic and extended to citizens a range of political, social, civil, and economic rights. For the present purposes, the question is whether preparing for and waging war caused European states to undertake a broad and inclusive developmental agenda. My second question is similar but focuses on a different region and shorter time frame: Did war and the preparation for war motivate and guide the rapid economic growth of “developmental states” in the late twentieth century? In answering this question (and focusing on human capabilities when defining development), I arrive at an ironic conclusion. The term “developmental state” was coined in reference to Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. In the early postwar years, these nations were impoverished, lacked the infrastructure to compete internationally, and provided poor educational and social services to their citizens. With the state playing a direct and powerful role, these nations experienced rapid and sustained economic growth. By the late twentieth century, they had become world leaders. It is important to recognize that these countries were ruled by nondemocratic regimes and focused on geopolitical objectives; they displayed little interest in nurturing human capabilities. Each of these states operated in and benefited from being in the U.S. sphere of influence during the Cold War, and the core economic planning agencies were motivated by geopolitical and national security objectives. In fact, in Taiwan and South Korea, military leaders dominated nondemocratic regimes for several decades. These East Asian nations have long been considered the prototypical developmental states. Yet they can only be prototypical if “development” can be reduced to “economic growth”—and it cannot. As Amartya Sen (1999) and others insist, development must be more inclusive (in terms of decisionmaking and sharing the benefits of growth) and must respond to and build on human capabilities. Only in the wake of democratic transitions—and with these transitions a displacement of military leaders and priorities—did these East Asian states begin to pursue a developmental agenda. The third question considers an optimistic thesis: Have we entered a period in which violence, including war, is on the decline? This question is inspired by Steven Pinker’s (2011) assertion—and extensive evidence—that we are living in less violent times than our predecessors did. Nor is this decline modest: Pinker claims the decline has been sustained and spectacular. Pinker’s optimistic thesis raises the hope that the space for
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development (within states and across societies) will grow because less human capital and fewer scarce resources will be diverted to (and destroyed by) war and warmaking. Among the affluent nations of the Global North, domestic violence has declined significantly, as have the risks of major war. But these trends do not prevail among developing nations. In many countries, interpersonal violence has not declined (and in some it has increased). Moreover, war has not disappeared even if the most affluent nations are insulated from it. In fact, there is evidence that the “new Western way of war” (Shaw 2002, 2005) contributes to the concentration of wars in the developing world. That is, the world’s strongest military powers make use of unmatched technological prowess to reduce casualties among their own troops and protect their own homeland. In the first decades of the twenty-first century, many civil wars and regional conflicts in the Global South have had local causes. That said, the “new Western way of war” contributes to concentrating warfare and violence in the developing world and, in contrast to Pinker’s optimistic thesis, ensures that violence does not decline uniformly around the globe. Perversely, the places and peoples who could benefit the most from reduced violence are also the most likely to be exposed to it. The fourth and final question centers on the damage wrought by war: Is war development in reverse? This question is asked and answered by Paul Collier (2007); he provides abundant evidence that war impedes development. Worse still, the nations ravaged by civil war are at heightened risk of another round of fighting and the attendant disruption of development. Whereas nation-states experiencing peace and development enjoy a measure of insulation from violence and political instability, those nation-states with a recent experience of war are at great risk. The destruction and the continuing hardships caused by war undermines the legitimacy of the government. With fragile political institutions and sharp cleavages dividing society, the prospects of renewed fighting looms. Perversely, the states and peoples most in need of development are at risk of becoming mired in a conflict trap. In this chapter, I explore (and answer) each of these four questions in greater detail. Then, to conclude, I offers observations on the implications of this for the theory, research, and practice of development.
FOUR QUESTIONS
Development sociology has not fully engaged debates over war and conflict. This is unfortunate. The sociology of development has insisted on a richer and more emancipatory understanding of development. In this vein, development sociology has challenged accounts that reduce development to economic growth (or other narrowly economic metrics), and it has emphasized inclusivity and democratic participation in decisionmaking. The ensuing discussion is anchored by Sen’s (1999) emphasis on human capabilities as embraced in the sociology of development literature. Instead of focusing on growth as the central metric and goal, practitioners and scholars emphasizing human capabilities
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prioritize “certain of peoples’ beings and doings and their opportunities to realize those beings and doings (such as their genuine opportunities to be educated, their ability to move around or to enjoy supportive social relationships). This stands in contrast to other accounts of well-being, which focus exclusively on subjective categories (such as happiness) or on the material means to well-being (such as resources like income or wealth)” (Robeyns 2011). In the subsections below, I deploy this understanding of development to critique debates over war and militarism, including an overemphasis on economic growth and technological change. Insights gleaned from the sociology of development inform this critical review, and this underscores the importance of development sociologists coming to terms with and contributing to debates over war.
Q U E S T I O N 1: D I D WA G I N G WA R C O N T R I B U T E TO D E V E L O P M E N T I N E U R O P E ?
This question is inspired by the theoretical contributions of Mann (1986, 1993) and Tilly (1990). In Tilly’s words: “War made the state, and the state made war” (1975, 42). Clearly, European states were forged through warfare. Over the course of several centuries, prevailing (surviving) in the war required larger and better-equipped military forces. If development is reduced to economic metrics, the answer might be “yes.” That is, in order to compete militarily, states nurtured industrial expansion and technological innovation. Moreover, in pursuit of these goals, European states also promoted (if unevenly) expanded education for workers and soldiers. Over the long run and without a fully coordinated plan, France and England promoted economic and technological advancements in pursuit of geopolitical objectives. In the nineteenth century, late-developing states (with Germany and, to a lesser extent, Russia being important examples) subsidized, guided, and championed rapid industrial growth focused on heavy industries. This industrial base served as a foundation for a broad surge in industrial productivity and economic growth. Although this authoritarian and militaristic economic growth is a far cry from development focused on human capabilities, these top-down initiatives brought widespread economic change and modernization. For the major powers of Europe (as well as North America and Asia), the interplay of statemaking and warmaking persisted into the twentieth century. In the context of the twentieth century’s mass industrial wars (World Wars I and II), the size of military forces grew exponentially, as did the logistical demands placed on armed forces and society (van Creveld 1989, 1991). States felt compelled to build and improve the physical infrastructure (roads, ports, railroads, telegraph, telecommunications, and aviation), and they induced a sharp increase in industrial output (especially the metalworking and energy sectors). In turn, states gained organizational expertise (coordinating large military organizations, directing the flow of industrial finance, steering industrial development, and shaping scientific assets). Especially in the twentieth century, the state’s voracious consumption
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required more than quantitative growth in taxing and spending. Thus, states expanded their role in and assumed responsibility for monetary and fiscal coordination more generally, and they took an interest in human capital formation. For standing armies and during times of military mobilization, states focused on upgrading the skills of soldiers in arms (though these investments and concerns were prominent in peacetime as well). Even in narrowly economistic terms and focused on leading military powers, the pursuit of war and militarism yielded mixed results. States nursed technological innovation in their own shipyards, armories, and laboratories, or they induced contracting firms to develop baroque weaponry (Kaldor 1981; Markusen and Yudken 1992). States exerted extensive control over defense sectors of the economy reliant on highly trained scientific, engineering, and manufacturing concerns. In pursuit of military goals, states made large investments to produce and support baroque weapon systems, leaving relatively less physical and human capital to support economic growth more generally (Kaldor 1981; Markusen and Yudken 1992; Melman 1970). It is clear that these distortions impeded— and did not contribute to—developmental dynamics properly speaking (i.e., as understood by Sen [1999] and the sociology of development). A case can be made that warmaking in Europe did eventually contribute to development. Specifically, one notable legacy of major wars was an expanded social contract. Among the leading belligerent nations of World Wars I and II, the state consumed a significant share of all social resources and conscripted a large portion of the male population. In the wake of these wars, citizens demanded and (often) received an expanded set of rights. After World War I, the electoral franchise was extended to the working class and/or to women across many countries of North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. The years immediately following World War II became known as the “golden era” for the establishment of the welfare state (Huber and Stephens 2001a; Janoski 1998). These welfare states established a broad set of civil, social, and economic rights. It is important to bear in mind that Europe, when compared to other regions of the world, has a record of being exceptionally bellicose and militaristic (Mann 2012, 2013). European militarism is replete with horrific episodes of grisly battles, politicides, and genocides (Mann 2004). It is true that the horrors of these wars and the broad mobilization for them fueled calls for an expanded and more inclusive understanding of citizenship. With this expansion of enfranchisement and social citizenship, post–World War II Europe has adopted policies that are developmental (i.e., inclusive and participatory) (Huber and Stephens 2001a). But militarism and warfare did not guarantee the adoption of this developmental path. Rather, these policies were made possible by the displacement of militarism. In the post–World War II years, West European nations spent relatively less on defense, and civilian (not military) leaders controlled the state. Development—as understood by Sen (1999) and development sociology—only became institutionalized in Europe after militarism receded. Links between warmaking and statebuilding have also been examined beyond Europe. These studies cast doubt on the developmental dynamics (if inadvertent) flowing from
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militarism. Miguel Centeno (1997) undertook a detailed examination of Latin America in the 1800s. These states fought wars, but this warmaking “did not make states in Latin America” (Centeno 1997, 1598). Latin American militarism did not lead to expanded and legitimized taxing capacity, nor did it lead to enhanced administrative coherence of central state bureaucracies. Rather, the “best states could do was to survive wars” (Centeno 1997, 1598). In a similar vein, Jeffrey Herbst (1990) examined warmaking and statemaking in post-independence Africa. He provides little reason to believe that warmaking contributed to statemaking in Africa, let alone a larger developmental process. Herbst argued that African leaders might overestimate the benefits of war and underestimate the risks for their state and society: “If African leaders do indeed make this calculation, the suffering that Africa has seen in the last twenty-five years may only be a prelude to much more dangerous developments” (1990, 138–39). Unfortunately, the twenty-first century has given rise to warfare in Africa on a scale that Herbst feared—and with the damage to political and social institutions that he predicted (as discussed below, when addressing Question 4). It is important to bear in mind that Centeno and Herbst were focused on the institutionalization, fiscal capacity, and legitimacy of the state itself (not development efforts broadly speaking). Even on this specific question, research into Latin America and Africa casts doubt on the “advisability of using such an idiosyncratic experience as early modern Western European for the construction of universalistic paradigms” (Centeno 1997, 1598). Centeno’s skepticism is well founded. An authoritarian state pursuing militaristic goals might encourage economic growth and investment in the armed forces, but it is far from clear that this state would pursue a developmental agenda. Especially if the military is set apart from (as opposed to embedded in) social institutions, it is unlikely that such a state would pursue a broad developmental agenda. In fact, it is quite possible that a militaristic state would be predatory as opposed to developmental (Evans 1989). Even if the focus is restricted to economic growth and political institutionalization, the preceding paragraphs have highlighted the experience of the states that prevailed on the battlefield and survived. For many European nations and peoples, militarism and warmaking brought hardship, dislocation, and misery. The states that lost were conquered and forcibly annexed, stripped of territories and resources, and forced to accept onerous terms of surrender. Beyond Europe, the impact of war was even worse. Colonialism, imperialism, and slavery linked European militarism to underdevelopment and distorted development in other regions of the world (Mann 2012, 2013). For the sake of argument, let us assume that this chapter has been too harsh in its assessment of militarism in the European experience—that warmaking ultimately made a positive contribution to a broad, inclusive, and participatory development trajectory in Europe. Yet even if this is true, this linkage is neither innocent nor reproducible. The imperialism and colonialism attendant to the rise and consolidation of militarized states in early modern Europe was by no means an internal process. That is, a portion of the social surplus that made possible Europe’s relatively generous social contract was forcibly extracted from
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the nations and peoples of what would become the underdeveloped world in the twentieth century. The first question addressed in this chapter asks if warmaking and statebuilding contributed to development in Europe. Specific to Europe and over the course of centuries, it is true that warmaking contributed to the rise and consolidation of states and that these states promoted economic growth and technological innovation in pursuit of war. However, as the sociology of development literature makes clear, development cannot be reduced to aggregate economic metrics; development requires a participatory approach that is responsive to and nurtures the capabilities of citizens (Sen 1999). As such, my answer to this question is “no”: European warmaking contributed to economic growth but not to development per se. The developmental agenda pursued by European states after World War II were not “caused” by European militarism and warmaking; instead, these policies became possible only after militarism receded. Nor is there reason to believe that warmaking offers a benign path to development. Instead, as will be detailed below, there is abundant evidence that contemporary warmaking in the Global South delays, distorts, and impedes development.
Q U E S T I O N 2: D I D T H E P U R S U I T O F WA R M O T I VAT E A N D G U I D E T H E G R O W T H O F D E V E L O P M E N TA L S TAT E S ?
In answering this question, I arrive at a counterintuitive and ironic conclusion. Specifically, the “classic” developmental states of East Asia (Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan)— the cases that were the focus when the term was coined—do not qualify as developmental states. Or, more precisely, in the early post–World War II period these three states were not pursuing development as defined by the human capabilities framework (Sen 1999). Echoing the themes emphasized when examining the European experience (see the “Question 1” section above), these states certainly played a prominent (and successful) role in promoting economic growth and industrial modernization. In these efforts, war and the threat of war was a central motivation (with military leaders directly controlling the state’s highest offices). But their commitment to development was far more tenuous. It required decades of struggle and democratic reform before transparency and broad links to social institutions (embeddedness) were consolidated; only then did these three nation-states move in the direction of developmental states. That is, as in Europe, only after militarism receded did these states pursue a broad developmental agenda that promoted human capabilities. The “developmental state” is a term that Chalmers Johnson (1982) coined when studying postwar Japan. Instead of relying on the invisible hand of the market, the Japanese state actively intervened to spur and guide economic growth. It assumed a central role in industrial financing, steering investments to favored sectors and firms. It also managed imports and exports to protect “sunrise” industries, allowing Japanese firms to expand market shares and develop the size and expertise to compete in international markets.
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In broad brush strokes, a similar dynamic played out in South Korea and Taiwan, where the state—more specifically, the military in pursuit of geopolitical objectives—played a decisive and directive role in guiding industrial growth (Woo-Cumings 1999). For South Korea and Taiwan, the military-oriented statebuilding and subsequent shift to more democratic governance occurred after World War II. For Japan, the periodization and the process was different: its statebuilding preceded World War II, and democratization was imposed on it by the United States. The term developmental state has positive connotations and has been used to describe (and has been welcomed by) a number of states, including highly authoritarian regimes pursuing military objectives. In the following paragraphs, I will critique this line of thinking and argue that such a broad use of the term makes the concept of the developmental state analytically useless. When development is understood in terms of human capabilities (Sen 1999), developmental states are rare, the analytic value of the term is preserved, and militaristic (and authoritarian) regimes cannot be confused with developmental states. Ironically, when defining development in terms of human capabilities, it is far from clear that the “classic” developmental states—Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan—qualify. To be sure, the state played a decisive role as these Asian nation-states transitioned from extreme economic hardship (in the wake of intensely destructive wars) to sustained economic growth (Evans and Heller 2015). In postwar Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, a pattern unfolded that was reminiscent of the European experience in prior centuries: state-led economic growth and modernization were undertaken to achieve geopolitical goals. In Japan, the central planning agency of the immediate postwar era was quite literally staffed by the same personnel that coordinated industrial production for Imperial Japan during World War II (Hooks and Jussaume 1998; Johnson 1982, 2000). In a similar vein, “South Korea and Taiwan are largely ‘warfare states’ that have been molded, in part, by the near constant threat of external aggression” (Herbst 1990, 117). South Korea emerged from the Korean War in tatters, confronted a hostile neighbor to its north, and was closely integrated into the U.S. Cold War military presence in Asia. Industrial expansion allowed Korea to support the U.S. military in Asia and strengthened its hand should hostilities with North Korea flare up. With only fleeting respite, South Korea was governed by an authoritarian military regime until 1987, and the United States was actively involved in propping up this nondemocratic regime (Bedeski 1994; Johnson 2000). The heavy footprint of the military in Taiwan is unmistakable. In fact, it is something of a surprise that rapid economic growth occurred despite “the clear priority the military placed on defense over development and the clear dominance of the military within the state apparatus” (Amsden 1985, 99). The rapid and state-led industrialization pursued by the Taiwanese government was motivated by its fear that China would follow through on its threat to take control of Taiwan. Taiwan was fully absorbed into the U.S. Cold War military alliances and actively assisted the United States in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. In fact, supplying munitions to U.S. troops stationed in Asia provided a profitable outlet for Taiwanese producers (Amsden 1985).
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As critics have documented and emphasized, these statist regimes excluded much of the population from meaningful political participation, and they were marked by endemic corruption and cronyism (Amsden 1979, 1985; Bedeski 1994; Johnson 1982, 2000; Woo-Cumings 1999). This restricted the flow of benefits to the broader population, and the path of economic growth was distorted to benefit insiders. Forced savings and constrained consumption generated a flow of inexpensive investment capital (from workers and peasants to large export-oriented industrial concerns and to political insiders enriched by corruption). In different ways and at different times, each of these East Asian nations transitioned to more democratic and inclusive governance. But this was not inevitable. It is true that greater affluence lent momentum to these transitions, but it was only through political struggle that the social resources were redirected toward a broad array of developmental expenditures and activities, including education, social welfare, infrastructure, and healthcare. It is clear that this democratic transition occurred despite (and not because of ) the intentions of state elites. Despite the very real risk of imprisonment, torture, and death, pro-democracy activists and social movements insisted on a more transparent and accessible government—and a more equitable distribution of the nation’s wealth. Eventually, this growth was directed to serve developmental goals: reducing poverty, enhancing health care, increasing educational opportunities and attainment, and broadening political and social rights (Evans and Heller 2015). (For additional discussion of developmental states, highlighting contemporary debates and challenges, see the chapters by Hofung Hung and Samuel Cohn in this volume.) “Embedded autonomy” (Evans 1995) is a concept closely related to the developmental state. To promote effective and inclusive development strategies, a state must be deeply enmeshed in and tied to society (embedded) and yet have sufficient bureaucratic integrity to pursue a distinctive agenda (autonomy). “This state form is autonomous insofar as it has a rationalized bureaucracy that cannot be instrumentally manipulated by powerful rent-seeking groups outside of the state, but it is also embedded insofar as state elites are enmeshed in social networks and other relations that put them in close contact with dominant players in civil society” (Wright 1996, 177). While emphasizing the contribution that states can make to development, embedded autonomy brings attention to people and civil society. When writing Embedded Autonomy States and Industrial Transformation in 1995, Peter Evans not only considered South Korea a developmental state but also presented it as a strong case. However, in subsequent work, Evans (2011) has made clear that he supports Sen’s (1999) reframing and refocusing of development to emphasize human capabilities. The military-led and authoritarian South Korean government did pursue economic growth, but it did not promote an inclusive developmental project that nurtured human capabilities. In the Cold War era, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan pursued economic growth while deeply enmeshed in a broader geopolitical alliance structure. When democ-
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racy became institutionalized and militarism receded, these states pursued a broadly developmental agenda (Evans and Heller 2015). The developmental state must be reinterpreted in light of Sen’s (1999) influential contribution. It is not only the case that development cannot be reduced to economic growth, but top-down and authoritarian policymaking (whether or not economic growth results) is a far cry from development. Thus, in the human capabilities framework, a state that focuses on growth and national security while limiting democratic participation and ignoring social needs cannot be considered a developmental state. Rather, development is made possible by investments across society and broad participation in policymaking and implementation. Seen in this light, my answer to the second question is also “no.” Although South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan offer compelling examples of state-led economic growth spurred by (and often directly controlled by) the military, they only became developmental states when militarism receded. Understanding the developmental state in these terms is broadly similar to Evelyne Huber and John Stephens’s (2001b) emphasis on welfare state regimes. Instead of understanding welfare states and social policies as luxuries made possible by economic surplus, Huber and Stephens argue that welfare state policies are (and must be) woven into the institutions and policies that sustain and make possible economic growth. The first two questions centered on entrenched and ascendant nations of the Global North. In answering these questions, I have challenged claims that militarism and war contributed to development (properly speaking) in these affluent nations. The next two questions draw attention to dynamics at work in less affluent nations. The case will be made that, for societies in greatest need of development in the twenty-first century, warmaking impedes development, and the damage caused by war lingers for decades.
Q U E S T I O N 3: I S V I O L E N C E , I N C L U D I N G WA R , O N T H E D E C L I N E ?
The third question engages Pinker’s provocative and optimistic book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (2011). He examines trends across time and across societies to document that the risk of violence has fallen precipitously. There are fewer murders, assaults, and rapes internal to societies; the risks of warfare have declined as well. Pinker’s thesis runs counter to the widespread and pessimistic view that the threat of violence is escalating—a pessimism reinforced by reports of terrorist attacks and (in the United States) all too frequent mass shootings. Pinker also challenges the less pessimistic but still troubling belief that our propensity for violence has not changed—but our weapons have improved dramatically. From automatic weapons in the hands of teenagers to the wide array of weapons of mass destruction controlled by states and insurgents, a stable propensity for violence (among individuals and states) yields much more destruction. Pinker argues that both assumptions are mistaken and that the declining risks of violence is pronounced and unmistakable.
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Pinker reminds us of the extraordinarily high rates of violence in the past. From Paleolithic evidence to written accounts of earlier civilizations, Pinker focuses attention on the remarkably high levels of violence (interpersonal and intersocietal). He calls attention to a sharp reduction in violence to highlight our “better angels.” The human species is capable of unspeakable cruelty; however, when violence recedes and cooperation is nurtured, we are also capable of planful generosity and empathy for a wide circle of humanity. Humans harness reason to improve society and reduce exposure to violence. Furthermore, the decline in violence that humans have achieved provides a foundation for further declines in violence and still more progress in improving the human condition. For the sake of addressing this third question, Pinker’s central assertion is accepted: internal to and among societies, risks of violence are much lower than in prior decades and centuries. The first decades of the twenty-first century have witnessed violence in many forms: terrorism, street crime, global organized criminal networks, civil wars in Africa and Asia, and several ongoing wars among states. Still—accepting Pinker’s assertion—the risk of violence is lower now than in the twentieth century, and dramatically lower than in earlier centuries. Even if we agree that rates of violence have declined, the variability across states and regions remains striking. In the early decades of the twenty-first century, a number of nations have avoided war and have enjoyed low rates of internal violence. Other nations, by contrast, have been ravaged by domestic violence, civil wars, and highly disruptive interstate wars. Nor is the distribution of peaceful versus violence-prone states random. Rather, the affluent nations of the Global North are over-represented among the societies enjoying lower rates of violence. With few exceptions, the societies ravaged by war are in the Global South. Pinker recognizes that declining violence is uneven. Worse still, civilians are killed and injured at a much higher rate than soldiers (Rhodes 1988). Although Pinker is aware of these troubling trends in less affluent countries, his views on how our “better angels” are nurtured and how these trends might spread are reminiscent of modernization theory. Specifically, he makes the case that the patient but successful application of human reason accounts for the tamping down of violence and avoidance of war. While admitting the challenges involved, Pinker does not envisage an insurmountable barrier to other nations nurturing these traits. They must develop the institutions and follow the path of more peaceful and developed nations. If they do, these nations will also reap the rewards of declining violence. In a critical review, John Gray (2011) points out that a “sceptical reader might wonder whether the outbreak of peace in developed countries and endemic conflict in less fortunate lands might not be somehow connected.” Martin Shaw (2002, 2005) helps illuminate this connection. In recent decades, the world’s most affluent and powerful nations are engaged in “risk-transfer” militarism. A contrast between wars of the twentieth century and those of the twenty-first century highlights the difference between an absolute decline in violence at a global level versus systematically shifting the risk of violence to
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the peoples and nations of the Global South. Military organizations deployed by the world’s richest nations have dramatically enhanced abilities to wage war at a distance (van Creveld 1991, 2008). The major wars of the twentieth century (World Wars I and II) were fought to control the Eurasian landmass and strategically important access to the world’ oceans. Given the scale of the wars, the major belligerent expended its ability to wage continuous war over battlefields around the globe—but most of the leading belligerents experienced the horrors of war on their own soil. In the decades following these wars, the world’s leading military powers have continued to refine technologies for transport, logistics, and communications to support the deployment of significant military forces at great distances. In the twenty-first century, the world’s leading military powers can inflict devastating damage at a distance. Should leading military powers wage all-out war in the twenty-first century—assuming (unrealistically and optimistically) that only conventional explosives are used—the damage to urban infrastructure will be extensive and civilian deaths would be horrific. If weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical, or biological) are used, the consequences would be catastrophic for the belligerents and for the entire planet. These nightmare scenarios notwithstanding, it is exceedingly unlikely that twenty-firstcentury wars would include massed military formations and decisive land battles waged on the home terrain of leading military powers. In developing the concept of “risk-transfer militarism,” Shaw (2002, 2005) reviewed the NATO deployment in Kosovo, the first and second Gulf wars, and the invasion of Afghanistan. He identified striking similarities. In each case, Western military forces suffered remarkably few casualties from hostile fire. In fact, hostile fire accounted for fewer casualties than the military’s version of industrial accidents (such as overturned trucks, traffic accidents, and aircraft crashes). Because industrial facilities and related transportation infrastructure became strategic targets, the mass industrial wars of the twentieth century resulted in widespread and indiscriminate civilian casualties (Sidel, Levy, and Slutzman 2009). The emerging form of warfare has reversed this trend. Because of notable improvements in target selection and precision of bombing runs, civilian casualties have been reduced (in comparison to twentieth-century standards) while the armed forces of Serbia, Iraq, and Afghanistan were decimated. Shaw acknowledges that meaningful changes are under way, but he disputes claims that armed conflict is now conforming to “just war” dictates (2002; Walzer 1992). Shaw (2005) calls attention to the disproportionate military advantage enjoyed by U.S. and NATO troops and raises questions about enemy combatant deaths. For instance, toward the end of the first Gulf war, a large number of Iraqi troops were deliberately buried alive by long-distance bombing that caused bunkers to collapse. More typically, enemy combatants are being killed and injured by bombers and drones. These troops are fully armed and would no doubt be dangerous in armed conflict at close quarters. However, Western troops wage war beyond the range of their weapons. As such, enemy troops are being slaughtered in barracks, bunkers, and convoys—unable to detect, let alone neutralize or protect themselves from, weapons launched from a distance. In
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many cases, these troops are poorly trained; they became soldiers through conscription or economic inducements. Shaw also argues that, even if indiscriminate and widespread civilian casualties are reduced, they persist. He refers to these as “small massacres”: only a few civilians are injured or killed per incident, but there are many such incidents in the course of a war. Smart weapons and cautious target selection notwithstanding, mistakes occur. Wedding parties and embassies will be confused with enemy troops; the wrong coordinates will be entered; hardware and software malfunctions will take place. When glitches occur, civilians die. “The risk of massacres is . . . a completely predictable consequence of the other side of Western strategy and tactics, the protection of Western military personnel. Reliance on high-altitude and long-range bombardment keeps aircrew and soldiers safe; but it inevitably leads to errors of targeting and delivery that kill innocent non-combatants” (Shaw 2005, 86). My own work with Chad Smith (2011) has extended this reasoning to address environmental inequalities. Just as entire societies (noncombatants and armed forces alike) in the Global South are systematically exposed to injury and death during war, these same peoples and societies are confronting severe environmental trauma and risks during and after hostilities. But the most powerful and most affluent nations are insulated from these risks—just as they are insulated from death and injury as war is waged. In the contemporary period, much of the violence in the Global South is firmly rooted in tensions and dynamics internal to these societies. As Andreas Wimmer (2013) documents, nationalism has played and continues to play a prominent role in the spiral toward war (inter- and intrastate). The establishment of a state that rules in the name of one ethnic or religious group all but ensures heightened nationalist identity and resentment among excluded groups, making challenges to the state more likely. Developing stable political arrangements to accommodate multiple ethnic and religious groups has always presented daunting challenges. As colonial boundaries were drawn arbitrarily relative to ethnic groupings, the now independent states in the Global South are often home to a wide range of nations, ethnicities, and religions. These cleavages sustain internal fault lines that prove difficult to manage. These tensions become still more difficult to reconcile in the context of regional wars, especially if co-ethnics in neighboring nation-states become activated. Instead of nurturing development and inclusion, nationalism can give rise to profound and prolonged ethnic conflict and, under some circumstances, genocide (Mann 2004). The emphasis on risk aversion and risk transfer limits the willingness of affluent nations to become directly involved in hostilities; the imperative is to protect the homeland and to minimize casualties among its soldiers (Shaw 2005). This leads to callous disinterest in the suffering endured elsewhere. For example, the prolonged genocidal conflicts in Rwanda and the Darfur region of the Sudan offer vivid and chilling evidence of the limited willingness (or ability) of affluent nations to suppress or deter such violence. Where threats to the Global North are thought to be imminent, interventions have
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been justified in order to insulate it from the risk of violence. The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was justified on the grounds that the Taliban-dominated government actively supported terrorist cells that perpetrated the September 11, 2001, attacks—and that these terrorist cells were planning still more attacks. Although the Bush Administration’s claims were proven to be false and disingenuous, the United States justified its invasion of Iraq by claiming this would reduce the risk of violence in the homeland. Intervention to dampen the recent violence in Syria’s prolonged and bloody civil war was ruled out due to the strength of the Syrian military and the diplomatic ties to nations in the region and internationally. There has been a sustained bombing campaign in Syria, but this is focused on the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) strongholds in that country (Landler 2014). The United State is not alone in pursuing limited incursions in nationalist civil wars on the pretext that this would insulate the homeland from the risks of violence: the United Kingdom has reliably supported incursions by the United States; Russia has intervened (and continues to intervene) in neighboring countries; and France has engaged militarily in several African countries. Although proxy wars are less common, the legacy of past wars and the efforts taken by affluent nations to reduce violence in their homelands make a direct and powerful contribution to heightened violence in the Global South. In the early twenty-first century, Central America has been plagued by extremely violent and powerful criminal gangs— and the United States bears significant responsibility for these gangs and this violence. In the 1970s and the 1980s, the United States became directly involved in civil wars in the region, promoting and financing counterinsurgency efforts that resulted in numerous and extensive human rights abuses (Grandin 2006). These wars uprooted and displaced millions of people, many of whom migrated to the United States. In the 1990s, acting to reduce violence, as Pinker (2011) anticipated, the United States cracked down on gangs. To that end, especially in California, Central American–affiliated street gangs were deported. These deportations—specifically, the mass influx of organized criminal organizations—overwhelmed the criminal justice and institutional resources of nations still recovering from devastating civil wars (World Bank 2011). In 2014, Central American migrants—desperate to escape ruthless and violent gangs—created a humanitarian crisis along the southern border of the United States. The United States responded by making it still more difficult to cross the border (Johnson 2014). Over a number of decades there has been a direct and powerful link between declining violence in the United States and the concentration of violence in Central American nations. Central America offers a stark example, but this is not the only way in which affluent nations contribute to heightened violence in the Global South. For instance, consumption of illegal drugs in affluent nations enriches violent organized criminal networks. From routinized violence in the cultivation, processing, and transportation of drugs to full-scale armed conflict with rival gangs and police forces, drug cartels expose the peoples and governments of the Global South to dangerous levels of violence. In Latin America, the United States has pursued a militarized war on drugs—a war that amplifies and
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shifts the risk of violence to nations producing drugs. Through militarized interdiction efforts and eradication of coca and marijuana plants, the United States destabilizes villages, forces residents to migrate, and heightens the risk of violence throughout the region (Parenti 2011; Smith, Hooks, and Lengefeld 2014). Al Gedicks (2001, 2003, 2014) documents the extra-constitutional violence perpetrated by multinational corporations extracting resources in the Global South, and he documents the complicity of leading military powers in legitimating and perpetuating this violence. Ultimately, then, my answer to the third question must be “no.” War is not disappearing in the twenty-first century. Even if the most affluent and powerful nation-states have realistic hopes of declining violence and insulation from major wars, the nation-states and the peoples in greatest need are much more likely to face severe and devastating wars. That is, the poorest countries, the focus of international development efforts, are also at greatest risk of war. The fourth and final question addresses the impact of war on development in these nations.
Q U E S T I O N 4 : I S WA R D E V E L O P M E N T I N R E V E R S E ?
The first two questions raised the possibility that war might contribute to development, if only indirectly. The third question addressed the possibility that war may be declining. Unfortunately, at least for the people living in the world’s least developed nations, each of these optimistic theses must be rejected. This brings us to a fourth and far more pessimistic question: Is war development in reverse? Unfortunately, the answer is “yes.” Beyond the mayhem and bloodshed on the battlefield, wars destroy physical infrastructure, disrupt food production, toxify water, displace people, and undermine public health (Collier 2007; Hooks and Smith 2004, 2005, 2011). Typically, those suffering the most severe impacts of war (direct and indirect) are not the warriors (let alone those in command); the victims are disproportionately noncombatants, often women and children (Rhodes 1988; Sidel, Levy, and Slutzman 2009). Compounding these problems, wars destabilize and delegitimize the social institutions that are essential to healing in the post-conflict period. At present, many of the states caught up in civil war are characterized by fragile institutions and limited legitimacy. Moreover, they govern (or attempt to govern) societies that offer modest capital resources. In this context, warmaking can lead to a further erosion of the state’s institutional capacity and legitimacy. Worse still, in the pursuit of war, some states turn to predation to secure revenues and troops. In terms of economic growth and broader developmental objectives (e.g., the U.N. Millennium Development Goals), a number of nations report significant accomplishments over the past several decades. Quite literally, billions of people have escaped poverty, and scores of countries—though not affluent—are no longer wrestling with acute poverty and widespread starvation. There are, however, roughly one billion people (Paul Collier’s [2007] estimate) who are in precarious circumstances; they live in countries with ineffective (or worse) political institutions and stagnant economies. For these coun-
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table 18.1
1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s
Civil War Onset by Decade
Onset in a Country with No Previous Conflict (%)
Onset in a Country with Previous Conflict (%)
Number
57% 43 38 33 10
43% 57 62 67 90
35 44 39 81 39
source: Walter 2011, 2.
tries and these people, progress toward achieving Millennium Development Goals is a distant and elusive dream. With economic growth elusive during times of peace, these meager and fragile accomplishments are quickly reversed during times of war. Exacerbating these challenges, many of these nations are caught in a “conflict trap” (Collier 2007). Because war is development in reverse, political legitimacy is undermined, economic and social grievances are inflamed, the state loses the ability to eliminate rebellious challengers (whether driven by emancipatory commitments or by greed), and the effectiveness of governing institutions erodes. This sets the stage for another civil war—trapping the nations and peoples who can least afford it in an ongoing cycle of violence. Table 18.1 summarizes trends in civil wars by decade—and, in so doing, highlights the prominence of the conflict trap since 2000. During the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, two significant historical trends exerted a strong influence over civil wars: decolonization, and the Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. During these decades, a large share of civil wars (the majority in the 1960s) took place in countries with no prior history of civil war. By definition, a newly independent country would not have a prior history of civil war, and these nations account for a large share of civil wars in the 1960s and 1970s. Especially in Latin America and Asia, civil wars were prolonged and made more lethal by material support of the world’s “superpowers.” With each passing decade, the share of civil wars in countries with no prior war continued to shrink. By the 1990s, only one-third of civil war onsets occurred in countries without a prior war. The 1990s were also notable for a sharp increase in the total number of civil war onsets: eighty-one civil wars started during that decade. Much of this increase can be linked to the demise of the Soviet Union and the subsequent restructuring of states and geopolitical alliances. Table 18.1 provides a context for understanding civil wars in the twenty-first century. From 2000 to 2010, 90 percent of all civil war onsets occurred in nations with a prior conflict. The world’s poorest nations, especially those of sub-Saharan Africa, are increasingly at risk: “Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for only 13% of all the countries
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experiencing renewed civil war in the 1960s. That figure increases steadily so that by first decade of the twenty-first century, fully 35% of all recurring civil war occurs in SubSaharan Africa. This suggests that civil wars are increasingly being ghettoized in the world’s poorest and weakest states” (Walter 2011, 2). To a degree that is distinct from prior decades, the people and places in greatest need of development—the bottom billion (Collier 2007)—are likely to be in a war zone, recovering from a recent war, and/or on the verge of another round of war. In these circumstances, the challenge of development is intimately tied to bringing wars to an end and consolidating peace in the post-conflict period. Despite daunting challenges, social scientists have begun to systematically document the demographic and health impacts of civil wars (Guha-Sapir and D’Aoust 2011). It comes as no surprise that the findings are grim. Mortality is shaped by violence. Depending on who is targeted in the violence, this results in distorted sex ratios. For example, in Cambodia of the 1970s and Rwanda of the 1990s, men were more likely to be killed. The “missing males” affect family formation and social life for decades (Guha-Sapir and D’Aoust 2011, 4). With regard to fertility, conflict impedes a transition to smaller families. Countries experiencing civil wars “do not share the drop in fertility experienced in most countries in the last fifty years. . . . Plotting death rates against birth rates for all countries illustrates that conflict affected countries are outliers among all developing countries even by these crude indicators” (Guha-Sapir and D’Aoust 2011, 8). These adverse impacts are felt across all aspects of reproductive and child health. Mothers are more likely to die in childbirth; children are less likely to receive basic immunizations in war-torn countries. “The classic demographic cycle of the 18th century, where lack of health services led to high child mortality which in turn led to high birth rates, once again becomes the reality in conflict settings” (Guha-Sapir and D’Aoust 2011, 11). The urgency of addressing issues of war and peace can be highlighted by reviewing trends in meeting the U.N. Millennium Development Goals. “The eight Millennium Development Goals . . . form a blueprint agreed to by all the world’s countries and all the world’s leading development institutions. They have galvanized unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world’s poorest” (United Nations 2014). The eight goals are: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; achieve universal primary education; promote gender equality and empower women; reduce child mortality; improve maternal health; combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases; ensure environmental sustainability; and maintain a global partnership for development. These goals and the effort surrounding them are notable. The Millennium Development Goals move beyond a unidimensional understanding of development (e.g., economic growth); they move in the direction of focusing on human capabilities (Sen 1999) and of establishing tangible objectives to achieve them (United Nations 2014). The negative impacts of war are profound. Based on quantitative cross-national analyses, Scott Gates and his colleagues (2011, 24) provide clear evidence that conflict impedes progress on three of the Millennium Development Goals: ending poverty and
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hunger, achieving universal education, and ensuring environmental sustainability. They also provide suggestive (though mixed) evidence regarding the goal of gender parity. More troubling still is the magnitude of the damage: “[F]ive years of sustained conflict with only a moderate amount of direct fatalities, on average, push 3%–4% of the population into undernourishment. We also find that conflicts generate surplus infant mortality at the same level as the direct deaths—for every soldier killed in battle, one infant dies” (Gates et al. 2011, 25). The European experience has been at the center of political, sociological, and comparative historical research that has displayed a renewed interest in war and its aftermath. As Centeno (1997) and Herbst (1990) emphasized when studying Latin American and Africa, respectively, there is no guarantee that warmaking leads to statebuilding (see the discussion under “Question 1” above). This should serve as an admonition against other attempts to make (optimistic) generalizations from the European experience. One prominent generalization is the belief that military spending provides a macroeconomic stimulus. There is widespread agreement that World War II provided countercyclical stimulus that brought the Great Depression to an end. Moreover, prosecuting the war induced belligerent powers to finance and guide a vast mobilization and to upgrade the industrial infrastructure, including investments in education, training, housing, and healthcare for workers (see Hooks 1991 for details on the United States). In the latter decades of the twentieth century, there was reason to believe that countries making sustained investment in the military might provide economic stimulus and promote the modernization of education and infrastructure. Recent research casts doubt on this optimistic thesis. In both the Global North and the Global South, because military spending has become more capital intensive, national security outlays employ fewer people while depriving governments of resources to pursue development objectives. Although the negative effects of defense spending (growth of GDP per capita) are found among affluent nations, these negative effects are pronounced among the world’s less developed countries (Kentor and Kick 2008). Worse still, military expenditures do not provide a path of upward mobility, and they heighten inequality in less developed countries (Kentor, Jorgenson, and Kick 2012). A second optimistic generalization flowing from the European experience centers on the benefits of sweeping away the ancien régime. Throughout history and continuing into the twenty-first century, insurgent groups have pointed to the stagnation, arbitrariness, and corruption endemic in extant regimes and institutions. These claims found support in the works of prominent scholars. For example, Barrington Moore (1966) argues that a revolutionary transition made democracy possible in Western Europe and the United States. Theda Skocpol (1979) argues that sweeping social revolutions allowed effective state institutions to consolidate power and provide effective governance (at home and abroad). But recent efforts to extend this line of reasoning leads to far more pessimistic and nuanced conclusions. For example, when Jeffery Paige (1997) examined Latin America in the late twentieth century, he concluded that displacing large
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landowners and the regimes that protected them did make possible a shift toward democracy, but this shift came with the consolidation of neoliberal economic governance, and with neoliberalism came compromises to democracy and the exacerbation of inequality. Given his conclusion that war is “development in reverse,” it comes as no surprise that Collier (2007) provides a far less nuanced and generous account of contemporary insurgencies. He argues that the leaders are opportunists exploiting grievances to selfishly strengthen and enrich themselves (and close allies). Thus, for Collier, a naive generalization from the European experience not only is imprecise but can also be used to legitimize predatory military leaders contributing to the “conflict trap” in the world’s least developed countries. As already indicated, the answer to this pessimistic fourth question is “yes.” War is development in reverse. During the Cold War, the ethical dilemmas for the world’s most powerful nations centered on the justifications for starting, supporting, and prolonging bloody proxy wars in the developing world. In the contemporary period, the dilemma is to justify a passive response to civil wars and messy regional conflicts. The Rwandan genocide, Darfur’s genocidal war, and Syria’s prolonged civil war are visible instances in which the international community stood on the sidelines as devastating internal wars played out. However, as research into the “conflict trap” reveals, these well-documented cases are not the exception. Rather, they are heartbreaking examples of twenty-firstcentury warfare. Civil wars wreak enormous damage across society, and this damage creates daunting challenges for development in the post-conflict period. If these challenges are not met—as is often the case—the risk of another round of civil war is quite high. Thus, for the nations and peoples in greatest need of development, coming to terms with war and finding ways to promote healing, institution building, and development in the wake of war is a central challenge.
C O N C L U S I O N : P R O S P E C T S F O R T H E T W E N T Y- F I R S T C E N T U RY
In this chapter, I have asked and answered four questions. In different ways, the first three questions gave consideration to optimistic views on the relationship between war and development. Unfortunately, the answer to each of these questions was “no.” War and warmaking did not set European (Question 1) or East Asian (Question 2) nations on the path to inclusive development. It was only after authoritarian and militaristic regimes were pushed aside that development became possible. Although the affluent nations of the Global North have a realistic hope of a peaceful twenty-first century, many of the world’s poorest nations are at risk of or in the midst of devastating wars (Question 3). The fourth question asked if war is development in reverse. Unfortunately, the answer to this pessimistic question was “yes.” This review of war and development yields several lessons for twenty-first-century practitioners and scholars of development. First, to promote development, promote peace. The outbreak of conflict not only undermines fragile gains in development but
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also makes future wars more likely still. Second, development initiatives can (under some circumstances) be implicated in war and conflict. In the late twentieth century and the early decades of the twenty-first century, the majority of wars (especially those in the developing world) have been fought under the banner of nationalism and ethnic identities. Under these circumstances, a developmental initiative (even a seemingly benign initiative related to infrastructural improvements, education, and so forth) might be part of a larger nationalist/ethnic conflict. Some regimes will allow and promote development projects for favored ethnic groups and regions while denying basic services to others. There is no easy answer; the dynamics at work in a given conflict are unique, confusing, and messy. But it is important that scholars and practitioners of development recognize the very real risk that development projects pursued even with the best of intentions can become mired in and compromised by deep-seated conflicts. Finally, the practitioners and scholars of development have the potential to advance our understanding of policies and practices that can help to avoid war and to aid the healing process in the post-conflict period. To realize this potential, it will be necessary to recognize that development efforts are not insulated from war and conflict. On the contrary, in the twentyfirst century, the least developed places are likely recovering from a damaging war and are at risk of another round of violence.
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Shaw, Martin. 2002. “Risk-Transfer Militarism: Small Massacres and the Historic Legitimacy of War.” International Relations 16: 343–60. . 2005. The New Western Way of War: Risk-Transfer War and Its Crisis in Iraq. Cambridge, Engl.: Polity. Sidel, Victor, Barry Levy, and Jonathon Slutzman. 2009. “Prevention of War and Its Environmental Consequences.” Handbook of Environmental Chemistry 3 (part U): 22–39. Skocpol, Theda. 1979. States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China. New York: Cambridge University Press. Smith, Chad, Gregory Hooks, and Michael Lengefeld. 2014. “The War on Drugs in Colombia: The Environment, the Treadmill of Destruction and Risk-Transfer Militarism.” Journal of World-Systems Research 20: 185–206. Tilly, Charles. 1975. “Reflections on the History of European State-Making.” In The Formation of National States in Western Europe, edited by Charles Tilly, 3–83. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. . 1990. Coercion, Capital and European States, A.D. 990–1990. Oxford: Blackwell. . 1998. Durable Inequality. Berkeley: University of California Press. United Nations. 2014. The United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Accessed Feb. 1, 2014. http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/. van Creveld, Martin. 1989. Technology and War: From 2000 BC to the Present. New York: Free Press. . 1991. The Transformation of War. New York: Free Press. . 2008. The Changing Face of War: Combat from the Marne to Iraq. New York: Presido Press. Walter, Barbara. 2011. Conflict Relapse and the Sustainability of Post-Conflict Peace. World Development Report 2011, Background Paper. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. Accessed Feb. 10, 2014. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/9069. Walzer, Michael. 1992. Just and Unjust Wars. New York: Basic Books. Wimmer, Andreas. 2013. Waves of War: Nationalism, State Formation, and Ethnic Exclusion in the Modern World. Cambridge, Engl.: Cambridge University Press. Woo-Cumings, Meredith. 1999. Developmental State. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. World Bank. 2011. Conflict, Security and Development: World Development Report 2011. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. Accessed Nov. 12, 2014. http://siteresources.worldbank.org /INTWDRS/Resources/WDR2011_Full_Text.pdf. Wright, Erik. 1996. “Review of Peter Evans, Embedded Autonomy.” Contemporary Sociology 25: 176–79.
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19 NEOLIBERALISM, THE ORIGINS OF THE GLOBAL CRISIS, AND THE FUTURE OF STATES Richard Lachmann
Neoliberalism has become the master ideology of much of the globe since the 1980s. Despite its dubious success in generating economic growth, and despite deregulation’s role in producing a series of financial crises and recessions, governments around the world continue to adopt various neoliberal policies. This chapter traces the origins of neoliberalism, seeks to explain its variation within and between countries of the Global North and Global South, and examines the factors that will determine the strength of states in a future world that is likely to be characterized by the lack of a global hegemon and increasingly severe environmental crises.
NEOLIBERALISM AS IDEOLOGY AND PRACTICE W HAT IS N EOLIBER A LIS M ?
Beginning in the 1970s, corporations, governments, international organizations, think tanks, and academic economists offered an increasingly coherent and disciplined alternative to Keynesian policies that appeared to be delivering ever slower rates of growth along with rising inflation and declining corporate profits. Challenging practices adopted by wealthy and developing countries alike, advocates of this new perspective proposed that states abandon ownership of or subsidies for domestic industries, reduce social welfare spending, and replace a system of fixed exchange rates and controls over the flow of investment capital by floating currencies on international markets and allowing foreign capital free access to domestic markets. Neoliberalism is similar to nineteenth-century
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economic liberalism, although the floating exchange rates and the relative size and freedom of the financial sector are unprecedented. Underlying the range of neoliberal policy prescriptions that have been recommended or implemented since the 1970s is “a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedom and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade” (Harvey 2005, 2). This belief leads to a desire for “a state apparatus whose fundamental mission was to facilitate conditions for profitable capital accumulation on the part of both domestic and foreign capital,” which “is necessarily hostile to all forms of social solidarity that put restraints on capital accumulation” (Harvey 2005, 7, 75) and which expresses a “fundamental preference for the market over the state as a means of resolving problems and achieving human ends” (Crouch 2011, 7). Furthermore, “one of the main achievements of the neoliberal political project is to place more or less all institutions in society—universities, hospitals, charities, as well as governments—under an obligation to behave as though they were business corporations” (Crouch 2011, 167). As Michael Mann points out, “[N]eoliberalism is a utopian ideology, just like socialism. A self-regulating market could never rule a real society” (2013, 131). Yet neoliberal policies that strengthen markets and the corporations that dominate them at the expense of states have real world effects. “To give more power to markets increases the power of those who already possess more market resources (like property or scarce skills) and reduces the power of those with fewer market resources” (Mann 2013, 132). Neoliberalism gained sway and then dominance among policymakers and scholars in the 1970s. Milton Friedman, who became the leading economic theorist of neoliberalism, had asserted in 1965, “We are all Keynesians now.” President Richard Nixon, after taking the United States off the gold standard in 1971 and imposing wage and prices controls to stem inflation, said, “I am now a Keynesian in economics” (Silk 1971). However, at the same time, Nixon was joining in efforts by U.S. corporations to weaken labor unions and to undermine antitrust laws, efforts that continued under Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. These initial U.S. moves away from Keynesianism were joined in the late 1970s by states and ideologues elsewhere in the world and by international organizations that the United States controlled. U.S. and European corporations, which profited from neoliberalism, pushed their governments to foster those policies at home and in the Third World countries they dominated. In 1974 and 1976, respectively, Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman were awarded the Noble Prize for Economics in citations lauding their anti-Keynesian theories. The OECD switched from prescribing “Keynesian demand management . . . to advocate free markets . . . [and] encourage the privatization of publicly owned industries and services. . . . During the same period the World Bank turned from supporting government projects in developing countries to backing mainly private ones” (Crouch 2011, 16; Prashad 2012 traces international agencies’ moves toward neoliberalism and documents repeated unsuccessful efforts by polit-
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ical leaders and intellectuals of the Global South to create a coalition that could challenge neoliberal mandates). Countries were advised, or forced as a condition of U.S., IMF, or World Bank aid, to abandon efforts to foster domestic industrialization in favor of opening their markets to foreign firms and imports. (McMichael 2011 and Amsden 2007 offer the best overviews of the shift from developmentalism to neoliberalism in the Third World.) In some countries, local economists, many of whom had studied in the United States, themselves advised their governments to adopt neoliberal policies. (Sarah Babb’s [2004] study of Mexican economists is the finest examination of this intellectual and professional transformation.) Governments, beginning with Chile’s U.S.-supported military dictatorship in the mid1970s (which was advised by “the Chicago Boys,” economists from the University of Chicago) and then the Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan governments of the 1980s, made neoliberalism their explicit guiding ideologies. This was expressed most famously by Thatcher, who repeatedly said “There is no alternative” to market-based policies,1 although, as we will see below, international agencies and governments in the Global North and Global South have varied in when, and the extent to which, they actually adopted neoliberalism. But first, let us evaluate theories that attempt to explain why neoliberalism emerged as a mainstream ideology and policy in the 1970s.
WHY WERE THE 1970S A TURNING POINT TO WA R D N E O L I B E R A L I S M ?
The 1970s marked, at least in much of the Global North, though not East Asia, the end of three decades of rapid growth in productivity and profits in capitalist economies. The economic crises of that decade discredited Keynesian economics and created or widened deficits that became harder to finance as interest rates rose. Some politicians and economists, and more unions and activists, argued that intensified Keynesian policies could have overcome the crisis, but that possibility was precluded in the United States by the costs of the Vietnam War and in the United States and many other countries by a rightward shift in political power. Authors have posited varying causal pathways between economic crisis and neoliberalism. Colin Crouch (2011, 13–14) argues that Keynesian policies had the tendency to produce inflation in countries that lacked corporatist society-wide wage negotiations that could peg wages and profits to increases in productivity. This tendency was exacerbated by the oil shocks that fueled commodity and then wage and price inflation throughout the world, and was further magnified in the United States by inflationary pressures created by President Lyndon Johnson’s attempt to fight the Vietnam War without increasing taxes. His 1968 income tax surcharge, and efforts in the United States and other countries to pressure workers to moderate wage demands that matched or exceeded inflation by imposing public spending cuts or raising interest rates, were “usually ‘too little, too late’, as the political consequences of unemployment and cuts in public spending were
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unattractive” (Crouch 2011, 14). Mann (2013) adds that Keynesianism’s success in fostering a middle class increased the fraction of the population that was adversely affected by inflation and rising taxes and therefore would (however misguided they were about their actual interests) support neoliberal tax cuts and anti-inflation measures. Crouch’s analysis is incomplete: if governments in the 1970s found spending cuts politically unattractive, then what changed to allow such cuts to be imposed to a much greater extent in the 1980s? Crouch does not say, and he merely suggests without actually showing that inflation hit a level at the end of the 1970s that created an opening for right-wing politicians and policies to triumph. However, right-wing policies, as we will see below, were more intense in the United States and Britain, where the welfare state was less developed, than in the rest of Europe or Canada (Mann 2013). More problematic is that Crouch neither acknowledges nor explains the variation in neoliberal policies across rich countries, beyond asserting that neoliberalism was most severe in the least corporatist countries: the United States and Britain. Actors are largely missing from Crouch’s work: he does not identify who proposed, imposed, or resisted the actual policies that fit within the rubric of neoliberalism. Greta Krippner offers one answer to what changed: financialization, which she defines as “the growing importance of financial activities [instead of the production and trade of goods and services] as a source of profits in the economy” (2011, 27), although she dates the change to the 1980s, not the 1970s. Financialization resolved conflicts over distribution in an era of decline, “not because policymakers successfully transferred the tasks of disciplining unrestrained social wants to the market, but rather because the market failed to impose the discipline policymakers wanted” (Krippner 2011, 144). In other words, measures that liberalized banking had the unanticipated effect of attracting massive amounts of foreign money into the United States, which financed a borrowing binge that masked consumers’ declining incomes, thereby allowing the wealthiest to consolidate control over markets and resources without facing popular opposition or having to contend with competing interests in the political arena. Krippner, as we will see in the next section, shows that neoliberal financial policies in the United States were the result of ad hoc efforts by public officials to shield themselves from elite and popular anger rather than the realization of a holistic ideological or class agenda. In this, Krippner differs from Naomi Klein’s (2007) explanation for the varying successes of neoliberalism. Klein, who is a journalist and activist rather than an academic, directly challenges Milton Friedman and his acolytes’ equation of free markets and democracy, a link that has become an unthinking reflex among U.S. journalists and politicians who point to neoliberal deregulation as the leading indicator of “freedom” and “democracy” in other countries. Klein shows that elements of neoliberalism were first imposed in Indonesia, Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, and in its fullest and most extreme form in Chile, following the violent military coup in 1973 that crushed opposition and terrorized the rest of the population into submission as social benefits and wages were cut and living standards fell. She argues that various sorts of sudden “shocks” can induce populations to resign themselves
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to neoliberal policies they otherwise would oppose in the electoral arena or with strikes and demonstrations. For example, she sees the jingoistic fervor created by Britain’s victory in the Falklands War in 1982 as another sort of shock, which turned deep opposition to Thatcher and Thatcherism into a reelection victory that assured the implementation of privatization and other pro-corporate plans (although Klein does not explain why most Britons did not oppose Thatcher’s cuts after her reelection). Similarly, Klein argues that hyperinflation stunned Bolivians in the 1980s and Argentines in the 1990s into accepting “shock therapy,” the sudden implementation of the full battery of neoliberal policies. Boris Yeltsin’s 1991 coup and dissolution of the Russian Duma made it possible for him to impose by decree the end of price controls, severe cuts in social benefits, and the privatization (albeit through rigged sales to Russian insiders rather than to foreign investors) of most state firms. Klein contends that the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, allowed the Bush administration to push ahead with its plans to privatize both civilian and military governmental functions, though in fact much more privatization occurred under Bill Clinton than under George W. Bush. Natural disasters can also serve as shocks allowing privatization: the Indonesian tsunami in 2004 was followed by the sale or leasing of cleared beachfront land to insider and foreign investors. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the New Orleans school system and public hospital were privatized. Klein contends that neoliberal economists who advise governments, like those of Bolivia in the 1980s or Russia under Yeltsin, have found a way to create or intensify shocks by calling on international agencies and foreign governments to withhold loans until further shock-inducing policies (devaluations, government spending cuts, changes in labor laws) are enacted. Thus, neoliberalism becomes both the goal and the method for defeating political opposition to those policies. But she also asserts that neoliberalism can be blocked or reversed since “shock, by its very nature, is a temporary state” (Klein 2007, 446) and, once it wears off, the mass of people can come to realize that neoliberal policies will worsen rather than improve their economic condition. She points to the election of leftists in various countries in Latin America, and more locally based resistance elsewhere in the world, as signs that people have become aware of the strategies used to induce shock and have learned that neoliberalism does not produce economic gains for the mass of citizens. Yet Klein has no explanation for why this awareness is so much stronger in Latin America than elsewhere in the world. As a result, her work cannot be used to explain the wide variety of governmental responses and popular reactions to the 2008 economic crisis (which I will analyze below). More broadly, Klein’s approach, like Crouch’s, suffers from an inability to correlate the severity of crisis and the extent of neoliberalism. Some countries responded to inflation or recession with intensified state control of the economy, whereas others deregulated or sold off state firms in the absence of crisis. Similarly, countries suffered inflation and other crises before the 1970s without adopting neoliberalism. Klein is unable to explain why an ideology that has a long history became influential in the 1970s rather than earlier or later.
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Giovanni Arrighi (1994, 2007) and Immanuel Wallerstein (1974–2011, 2004) offer an explanation for variations in neoliberalism: they argue that governments’ responses to the capitalist crisis of accumulation (i.e. falling profits) that began in the 1970s vary depending on each country’s position in the world system. They show that capitalism was a global system since its beginning in the sixteenth century. What made and makes capitalism a system, rather than just a global market, is that it is divided into zones (which Wallerstein labeled core, semi-periphery, and periphery). Those zones are characterized by distinct systems of labor control (e.g. wage labor in the core and more coercive systems in the periphery) and by polities with different levels of capacity. The core regions have highcapacity states capable of dominating the rest of the world for their benefit. Wallerstein and Arrighi are concerned with explaining whether and how core countries were able to maneuver through the periodic and inevitable capitalist crises to preserve their advantages. Arrighi differentiates between the core and the single polity that he identifies as hegemonic—that is, so powerful as to be able to set the rules of the world system. The crisis of the 1970s was not unique. Arrighi draws parallels between the 1970s and the “long downturn” of 1873–96. (Arrighi has examined historic and contemporary crises in the world system far more systematically than has Wallerstein. For that reason, and because of space limitations, I examine just Arrighi here.) In both crises, the hegemon was able to use its military power and position at the center of global trade networks to engage in “financialization” (a concept first developed by Arrighi), restoring, for a time, profitability by making possible financial manipulations. Some of those strategies have long histories, antedating neoliberalism and even the eras of U.S. or British hegemony. Hegemons manipulate their currencies in an effort to protect domestic industries or to facilitate foreign investment by their capitalists. (Robert Brenner [2003] sees this as the main method the United States used to revive profits; Karl Marx [(1852) 1963] saw conflicting desires for a higher or lower currency as the main division between finance and industrial capitalists.) Arrighi builds on David Harvey’s (2003) notion of “accumulation by dispossession,” the process by which states and capitalists in core countries use military power and control over finance, trade networks, and international organizations to force governments in poorer countries (the semi-periphery and periphery of the world system) to sell state firms, utilities, natural resources, lands, and other assets to largely foreign private investors. Revenues from those purchases or from their rapid resale at more realistic prices become major sources of profit for capitalists in the hegemon and other core countries. Deregulation and “free trade” create further opportunities for capitalists to engage in manipulations that produce financial profits. Accumulation by dispossession is turned on workers and elements of the state in core countries as well, though Arrighi and Wallerstein hypothesize that the extent of deregulation and privatization will be milder and more selective in the core than in the periphery. Arrighi’s work is a major advance on other analyses of neoliberalism. He provides a structural explanation for its advent in the 1970s, tying it to the mechanics of the global
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economy rather than to the single happenstance of inflation, as Crouch does, or to the supposed sudden ability of ideologues to convince government officials to adopt new policies, as Klein asserts. Most important, Arrighi offers a framework to account for variations in the implementation of neoliberal policies across time and space. The world system is marked by uneven power relations, with core countries, and especially the hegemon, able to force peripheral regions to endure losses of sovereignty and declining living standards that workers and states in the core are able to resist. This insight is borne out in the research of Ha-Joon Chang (2002, 2011). Chang, like Arrighi, finds parallels between contemporary neoliberalism and earlier policies. He reminds us that neoliberalism is largely a rehash of nineteenth-century liberalism and of the unequal treaties that colonial powers began to impose back in the seventeenth century. Then and now, dominant powers pushed free trade for everyone else while practicing protectionism (often in indirect ways) themselves. The few countries, like Germany, the United States, and later Japan, that rose to become fully developed nations at the core of the world’s economy in the early twentieth century had highly interventionist states. Today the World Bank and the IMF uphold the double standard that demands monetary contraction for poor countries and offers Keynesianism for rich ones. Chang identifies the “Marshall Plan Era” from 1945 until the second oil shock of 1979, when rich countries offered aid and relaxed tariff barriers in ways that benefited less developed countries, as an anomaly in the history of capitalism. He argues that Cold War competition, which forced the United States and its rich allies to bid for Third World support, combined with guilt over colonialism (guilt, which, in light of continuing Western brutality in the Third World even as colonies gained formal independence, is much harder to identify in practice than Cold War realpolitik) led rich countries to play (relatively) fairly for a while. Once the Soviet Union had weakened (and the Unites States ran out of money), and after Europe responded to oil shocks and rising interest rates by turning away from building links to the Non-Aligned Movement and toward building a neoliberal single market through the European Union (Garavini 2012), the old liberal rules reemerged, dressed up in theories of globalization. The great virtue of Chang’s work is that he goes beyond describing historical oscillations in the structure of the world system to identify a mechanism (the post–Cold War shift in geopolitics) and the actors (rich states and the international agencies they control) that can account for the return of exploitative, beggar-thy-neighbor trade and financial relations. Despite globalization and the rising scale and power of multinational corporations, states remain crucial actors. The richest and most powerful countries structure global economic and geopolitical relations whereas a few other states (the East Asian “Tigers” and China most notably) have developed strategies to shield themselves from external manipulation and exploitation while they develop. However, though Chang does well at describing cross-national variations and explaining the timing of neoliberal policies, he is unable to explain why some states in the latter half of the nineteenth century,
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and then in the late twentieth century, were able to resist liberal and neoliberal demands while other similarly situated countries failed to adopt those successful strategies.
THE PRACTICE OF NEOLIBERALISM: WHEN, WHERE, AND HOW MUCH
Neoliberalism is an exercise of power. It has the effect of undermining state capacities, but it is implemented by states, though often at the behest of corporations. As Pierre Bourdieu aptly puts it: “Paradoxically, it is states that have initiated the economic measures (of deregulation) that have led to their economic disempowerment. And contrary to the claims of both the advocates and critics of the policy of ‘globalization,’ states continue to play a central role by endorsing the very policies that consign them to the sidelines” (2003, 14). States’ role in implementing neoliberalism, which I will analyze below, challenges William Robinson’s (2004) contention that states no longer constrain transnational capital. His claim is offered on a theoretical rather than empirical level, and, because he believes world capitalism has entered a new, globalized era, he does not engage in systematic comparisons across nations. However, I argue that, if we want to understand when and where, and in what spheres, neoliberalism is instituted, we need to look at existing structures of political power. Mann (2013) shows that neoliberalism in most wealthy countries has been confined largely to the financial sector. He argues that, once capital controls were weakened in Britain (initially under a Labour government in the 1970s), where London had never lost its dominance over manufacture and its leverage within the Treasury, the United States then followed suit to protect its banks’ interests. The United States also used its influence over oil sheiks to ensure that “petrodollars resulting from OPEC’s five price rises” in the 1970s and 1980s were channeled through private banks in New York and London rather than central banks (Mann 2013, 144). This gave other governments an incentive to “embrace deregulation [and] it became more difficult for others to resist the protests of their own bankers that there was unfair competition from foreign banks” (Mann 2013, 144). However, India, China, and many other Global South countries never deregulated their financial sectors. In other sectors, neoliberalism has been implemented much more unevenly. Monica Prasad (2006) shows that the U.S., British, French, and German governments differed in the neoliberal policies they were able to implement. Firms were privatized in France under Jacques Chirac and in Britain under Thatcher, as were the government-owned Council Houses where 30 percent of Britons lived, but there was virtually no privatization in Germany or the United States. The main neoliberal policy in the United States was tax cuts, of which there were some in Britain and almost none in Germany and France. Social benefits were cut for the poor in the United States under Reagan but not for the middle class, and social programs remained largely intact in the other three. Deregulation was confined mainly to the United States and to the financial sector in
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Britain. How does Prasad explain the incompleteness and particular foci of neoliberal policies in these four countries? Privatization happened only in those countries and for those firms whose managers and workers had not embedded themselves in political parties and government agencies. Germany’s state firms had allies in both main parties and, most crucially, in state governments. They were able to block any privatization. France’s state-owned firms also had tentacles deep in the main political parties and in government agencies, but those alliances were disrupted by a new wave of nationalizations under François Mitterrand’s socialist government in 1981. State firms became isolated from the right-wing parties and were denationalized after the socialists lost power. Thatcher’s denationalizations initially were motivated by a desire to plug budget deficits without raising taxes. Council Houses were sold to tenants, and British Telecom shares were sold directly to the public. Only after both sales were highly popular and lucrative did privatization become a centerpiece of British policy. Prasad (2006) and Krippner (2011) challenge the view that neoliberalism in the United States was inevitable or that its form was determined by America’s hegemonic position in the world system. Instead, they analyze “policy episodes” and find that, though inflation created a crisis, the solutions adopted were determined by contingent decisions and events that were propelled by the particular structure of U.S. politics. They see the United States as particularly decentralized, creating room for what Prasad calls “policy entrepreneurs” (politicians who are able to operate outside of party platforms and discipline), whereas Krippner focuses on executive agencies’ high degree of autonomy. Their work is good for plotting the trajectories of particular policy innovations and especially suited for identifying the actors who pushed those policies through to enactment and implementation. We need to combine analysis of intra-governmental policymaking with the study of classes and interest groups in civil society. We cannot understand what policies were implemented when and where without explaining why opposition to neoliberal policies weakened or became ineffective. Neoliberalism, after all, undermined programs and macroeconomic policies that benefited workers, farmers, and some groups of capitalists as well. Why were the affected groups unable to fight back? At least in the United States, it was not the result of a sudden shock. Rather, as G. William Domhoff (2013) shows, a unified national corporate elite was able to progressively weaken unions in the 1970s and subsequent decades, thereby creating a political opening for that elite to move to the right and enact a range of policies, now labeled neoliberal, that further undermined non-elite political influence and shifted income and authority to that elite. My own work (2014) shows how the weakening of antitrust enforcement (a factor Mann also emphasizes) allowed national firms and elites to exercise autarkic power previously counterbalanced by state and local level firms, allowing further deregulation and further national elite consolidation. Jeff Madrick (2011) identifies the wave of mergers made possible by the Reagan administration’s gutting of antitrust enforcement as the main source of profits for a new cohort of risk arbitrage financiers.
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If we try to measure the effects of neoliberalism in terms of income inequality and social programs, Mann (2013) finds distinct regional differences. Cuts in social programs were greatest in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. These countries also saw the sharpest declines in unionization and the biggest increases in income and wealth inequality, although the United States dramatically outpaced all other wealthy countries in the increases in inequality (Piketty and Saez 2007). Only the former Soviet bloc countries achieved similar levels of inequality (Bandelj and Mahutga 2010). Continental European countries maintained high rates of unionization or inclusion in national wage bargaining systems, and they enacted only marginal cuts in social welfare programs, with the Nordic countries having the least retreat from Keynesian and social democratic policies. Elsewhere in the world, as in the core countries, neoliberalism was implemented most powerfully against isolated social groups and in governmental agencies, programs, and enterprises that did not have or lost powerful backers. State firms were sold where managers and workers were isolated from parties and lacked links to local governments and elites, as with the Mexican telephone company, but were impossible where dense patronage chains embedded the firms in the state and unions, as with Pemex, the Mexican national oil monopoly. The widespread and rapid privatizations in Latin America during the 1980s and 1990s (Aguiar de Medeiros 2009) followed the end of military dictatorships that had embedded retired officers in state firms. The new civilian regimes were linked instead to rising financial capitalists who, in turn, had ties to European and U.S. investors. The U.S. government did not press for an end to military rule to open up investment opportunities; the military juntas were unnecessary with the weakening of popular movements and the end of the Cold War. However, the militaries’ loss of function certainly made it easier for the new governments and their backers in the United States and in international agencies to press for policies that undercut the economic interests of the military and of capitalists tied to them. East European and Soviet firms could be privatized only after the fall from power of communist parties, and the sales had to be lubricated politically by distributing shares to the public or allowing party insiders to buy firms at absurdly low prices. Of course, those shares rapidly were bought up, often through fraudulent means, by a few oligarchs, many of whom relied on foreign partners for capital. However, the combined power and desire of neoliberal officials, domestic capitalists, and foreign investors was not enough to dislodge those firms that retained broad and deep links to parties, localities, and workers. Countries with strong domestic capitalists and large, horizontally or vertically integrated firms have been better able to resist the demands of external powers to deregulate and to merge home firms with multinationals. Alice Amsden (2001, chap. 9) finds a clear and widening gap in the 1980s and 1990s between Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Turkey, on the one hand, and Korea, Taiwan, China, and India, on the other. In the former, local firms were bought out by or linked with foreign investors, reducing domestic investment in research and development by firms and in science and education by the
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state. The Asian states all found ways around the new WTO rules and continued to subsidize domestic firms and provide the capital those firms needed to avoid having to merge with foreign enterprises. Where consolidation was needed to achieve the scale necessary to compete internationally, those states fostered mergers among domestic firms. Ireland and Israel have combined neoliberal cutbacks in social benefits and unionization—and, in the case of Israel, a dramatic increase in inequality, second only to the United States among wealthy nations—with continued state efforts to foster industrialization through developmental policies that included government subsidies for research and development in selected industries (Ó Riain 2004). East Asia also did not abandon statist developmental policies. There, in capitalist and communist countries alike, political alliances remained stable, and firm managers, whether private or public, could not be dislodged from control of their enterprises or from access to state resources and regulatory favors. The crises of declining growth and inflation and the political shifts that undermined Keynesianism and opened the door for neoliberalism in the United States and Europe did not occur in Asia or the Middle East. The sort of Western-imposed neoliberalism that Klein sees as typical of the entire world was, in fact, imposed only where heavy debt loads made governments vulnerable to repayment demands by foreign bankers, and by the World Bank and the IMF, which provided loans that allowed those governments to avert bankruptcy. The timing of such demands had much more to do with OPEC decisions to raise oil prices and with the dramatic increases in interest rates in the United States in 1979, which then prompted U.S. and other banks to raise the interest rates on their loans to Third World countries. Thus, the crises were not created by neoliberal economists or by local juntas but by external geopolitical and macroeconomic policies. Chile, Klein’s prime example, was an outlier, and even in Chile neoliberalism had its limits. The copper industry, which socialist president Salvador Allende had nationalized, was never privatized because Allende, in an unsuccessful bid to curry favor with the military, had extended a guarantee that a tenth of copper revenue would go directly to the military budget. The military, which still retains a constitutional right to its 10 percent, has been the political anchor for maintaining the copper sector in state hands regardless of regime type or international forces. This review of neoliberalism’s implementation should make clear that it was not a response to economic stagnation, since it was imposed opportunistically against weak targets whereas stagnant economies in powerful states were able to reject much of neoliberalism. Nor was it successful in stimulating economic growth. The countries that were able to resist external pressures to impose neoliberalism had the most successful economies of the 1980s and 1990s. Manuel Montes and Vladimir Popov (2011), in a review of data on economic growth since the 1980s, build a convincing case that a Beijing Consensus that combines strong state institutions, gradual market reforms, an exportoriented industrial policy, and prudent macroeconomic policy along with a deliberately undervalued currency works better than the Washington Consensus ever did in fostering
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economic development. Indeed, Montes and Popov argue that no country that followed the prescriptions offered by Washington and the IMF managed to develop, whereas the few countries that have equaled rich Western countries all adopted the “Beijing” strategy. Mann, in his review of the data on policies and growth, concludes “that neoliberalism and lower growth were not just correlated—unalloyed neoliberalism caused low growth” (2013, 169). Governments have the capacity to learn from the failures and successes of their and other countries’ policies. Yet most governments are nationalistic in that they seek to further their own nation’s interests to the extent that they can exercise autonomy. Thus, the dismal economic results of neoliberalism led some governments, and to an extent international agencies as well, to turn away from many of that ideology’s precepts and prescriptions by the end of the twentieth century. Julian Yates and Karen Bakker (2014) offer a useful overview of the measures undertaken since 2000 by a growing number of Latin American countries that elected leftist governments. Yates and Bakker identify a range of practices that characterize “postneoliberalism”: government initiatives to offer new and/or expanded social benefits and services (most notably Brazil’s Bolsa Familia, a direct cash payment to poor families); reregulation of big businesses; reassertion of common property rights (especially to water and land [Brennan et al. 2005]); and increased protection for labor rights and for unions and other collective worker and farmer organizations. Such government programs are accompanied and facilitated by efforts to shield domestic economies and government budgets from market pressures and from the demands of the United States and international organizations. The shielding is accomplished by building up dollar reserves to prevent runs on the national currency and by creating and joining regional cooperative organizations, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization or Mercosur, the South American common market. The extent to which governments are able to act on their understandings of new postneoliberal possibilities are shaped, as was their earlier adoption of neoliberalism, by their capacity to achieve autonomy from richer and more powerful nations and from international agencies and markets, and by the political dynamics internal to their country which determined the ability of domestic forces that benefited and suffered from neoliberalism to determine their government’s policies. Yates and Bakker note, “[A]mbiguity exists within the reformist projects of [post-neoliberal] national regimes” (2014, 72). Governments such as Hugo Chávez’s in Venezuela or Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s in Brazil created localized instruments of participatory democracy which could undercut national social movements and unions as well as challenge private firms and market mechanisms. The extent and character of post-neoliberalism is likely to vary across and within nations and sectors, just as neoliberalism itself did, because, as Jamie Peck, Theodore Nik, and Neil Brenner argue, “[T]he project of market rule has been periodically rejuvenated and restructured through crises” (2010, 110). Thus, the 2008 crisis has revivified
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neoliberalism in some places, such as Greece and Portugal, where the IMF, European Central Bank, and European Commission have imposed drastic cuts in social benefits and mandated the privatization of government-owned firms. However, Peck, Nik, and Brenner note that this crisis was systematic and global and is “placing considerable pressure on the neoliberal operating system itself” (2010, 110). As of 2014, it appears that challenges to neoliberalism have been broader and more successful in the Global South than in the rich countries of the European Union or in the United States.
WHY NEOLIBERALISM CAN ENDURE
Despite neoliberalism’s failure to stimulate economic growth and the acknowledged human suffering its policies have inflicted, financialization, privatization, and austerity are likely to endure in much of the world. Neoliberalism’s institutional, political, and cultural bases will continue to give its policies resilience. Neoliberalism has the effect of weakening state capacity. As Crouch (2011) points out, the “markets” enabled by deregulation and globalization are in fact gigantic oligopolistic firms that rival states in the resources they are able to mobilize. Firms are able to flout or circumvent laws and regulations, often by forcing states to compete with one another for factories and offices that provide employment for their citizens. This leads states to suspend environmental, labor, and other regulations and to cut corporate tax levels to lure firms. State revenues then decline as the tax burden is shifted from corporations to individuals. Rising taxes on ordinary workers combine with cuts in services and declines in citizens’ safety and health, which in turn combine to undermine the state’s legitimacy, making it harder to mobilize political support for statist policies. Neoliberalism, by restructuring the global financial system, has exposed states to influxes and outflows of “hot money,” or capital that is invested in short-term bonds and speculative enterprises and that can quickly be withdrawn, sparking currency collapses, corporate bankruptcies, and sovereign debt crises that have the potential to end in defaults. Under those conditions, governments become vulnerable to neoliberal demands from the IMF, World Bank, and other international agencies, which require privatization, liberalized trade, and further cutbacks to social benefits in return for bailouts. Such crises once were confined to peripheral nations but, in recent decades, have afflicted better-off nations, most prominently Russia, Ireland, Iceland, and the southern members of the European Union. Thus, liberalized finance creates volatility that generates crises that allow further waves of neoliberalism, which then expose economies to later crises. In this way, neoliberalism is path dependent. Through the bailouts that followed all the financial crises from 1987 through 2008, “[G]overnments have given finance the instruments to continue its leveraging stampede” (Sassen 2011, 27), creating the conditions for subsequent bubbles and future collapses. Neoliberalism also restructures politics within countries. Where unions have been undermined (most severely in the United States), where local and small-scale firms have
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been bought out or bankrupted by oligopolistic and transnational firms, and where local and national governments are starved of resources and lose autonomy to international agencies and treaties, the bases to challenge powerful actors pressing for neoliberal policies are fatally weakened. Moreover, as firms become larger, they increase the resources they can mobilize to lobby public officials, spend on political campaigns, and manipulate journalists and other media outlets. The mix of actors and initiatives that have combined to undermine popular forces varies from country to country. In the United States, attacks on unions (Domhoff 2013; Mann 2013) combined with the undermining of antitrust (Lachmann 2014) to consolidate elites and allow them to institute neoliberal policies with little challenge. That political structure remains as unions continue to shrink and other sources of popular opposition atrophy, undermining efforts to expand governmental programs and regulation even in the wake of the 2008 crisis. The response to the crisis in the European Union also reflects the political restructuring that occurred in those countries in recent decades. Throughout the world, firms continue to merge, weakening the potential counterweight of smaller, local firms. Governments’ increasing inability to stem economic crises and to provide social services and public goods combine with those governments’ open and obvious decisions to prioritize the needs of foreign capital and of the domestic rich over the larger public to further delegitimize states. Under such conditions, neoliberal economists, journalists, and politicians’ critiques of states, and their celebration of markets as empowering consumer choice, resonate with voters. Even when publics become critical of private economic actors (whether conceived as capitalists, the rich, elites, or the market), they remain unlikely to see the state as a plausible and reliable alternative. This makes it difficult to mobilize mass pressure to enact statist social welfare and redistributionist policies. Just as a “legitimation crisis” in the 1970s provided an opening for economists and politicians to present neoliberal solutions (Krippner 2011), so too does the current “crisis of political legitimacy [allow] critics of state intervention . . . to delegitimize the intervention of the state on behalf of the public interest. . . . [B]ecause people do not trust their political representatives, governments have a relatively small margin for daring decisions” (Castells 2011, 194–95). Wolfgang Streeck argues that the ideology of privatization itself “radiated into core areas of government activity which, for whatever reason, could not be outsourced to the market. At a certain point, governments began to acknowledge the supposed inherent superiority of the private over the public sector by encouraging citizens to perceive themselves as customers” (2011, 39). Many public services, in contrast to private consumer goods and services, inherently “demand collective rather than individual action. . . . Results are thus only rarely optimal from an individual’s perspective, so that lack of fit with what one would have preferred must be compensated by civic satisfaction about their having been achieved through a legitimate democratic procedure” (Streeck 2011, 41).
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Neoliberalism, by shifting resources from the public to the private sector and by privatizing the public services that can most easily be recast as personal consumer choices (and often upgraded with private contributions) sharpens and deepens the contrast between the quality of public and private goods, making public programs and facilities seem ever more tawdry, unusable, and inherently inferior to comparable services provided by for-profit firms. At the same time, oligopolistic firms’ corruption of politics undermines public belief in the legitimacy of the democratic process and so calls into question the decisions reached about the allocation of public goods. Streeck points to the British Labour Party’s “Third Way” under Tony Blair and the German Social Democrats under Gerhard Schröder as European exemplars of neoliberal programs that (perhaps inadvertently) subverted the legitimacy of public provisions and democratic politics. As faith in the possibility of democratic decisionmaking that produces fair and competent public programs continues to decline, “[T]he middle classes and post-Fordist generations shift their expectations for the good life away from public toward private consumption [while] those who, for lack of purchasing power, remain dependent on public provision . . . [and] faced with a political system starved of both legitimacy and material resources . . . follow the lead of the younger generation and refrain in growing numbers from voting, refusing even symbolically to participate in what might in principle be their last recourse in pursuit of a better life” (Streeck 2011, 46–47). The public’s increasing depoliticization widens the terrain on which neoliberal policies can be institutionalized in wealthy as well as in impoverished countries.
C H A L L E N G E S TO N E O L I B E R A L I S M A N D T H E F U T U R E O F S TAT E S
And yet . . . democracy has not been totally defanged. Even the diminishing number of citizens who vote, and often vote on the basis of noneconomic issues, stand to lose from neoliberalism and therefore oppose those policies. “It is democracy, inadequate though it may be, and not the overall size of the state, that ensures that neoliberals will always have to make some compromises with a collective and public agenda” (Crouch 2011, 171). Certainly, democratic participation through electoral or nonelectoral means can suddenly widen, as the Arab Spring demonstrated in 2011. However, my goal in this concluding section is not to try to predict or explain such eruptions. Rather, I want to highlight three large and interacting social forces that seem likely, and indeed already have begun, to push against neoliberalism.
N AT I O N A L I S M
Nationalism, despite the endless evocations of globalization, remains a motivating force for government officials, if less so for citizens. Governments almost without exception seek to preserve the territorial unity of their nations and to achieve as much autonomy as they can.
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The efforts by many governments since the 1990s to build up sovereign wealth funds or foreign currency reserves as a way of avoiding the danger of having to give into demands—from, say, international agencies or the United States—to adopt neoliberal measures in return for loans (Clark, Dixon, and Monk 2013) is a contemporary equivalent of mercantilism. The ability of Latin American countries in the first decades of the twentyfirst century to strengthen social welfare programs (see the discussion of Yates and Bakker 2014 above) and to defy demands for privatization and for an end to governments’ developmental subsides of industries followed successes in building foreign currency reserves. Strategies to foster domestic industries, even when they require circumventing or flouting international trade agreements, never were abandoned by wealthy countries— most notoriously in the agricultural subsidies that the United States and European Union lavish on their farmers, which drive down world commodity prices and thereby impoverish farmers throughout the rest of the world (Chang 2002). Rich countries have always subsidized favored industries through their military budgets. In the United States, the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Defense Department was the key backer of the Internet and other information technology developments; the National Science Foundation and other federal research agencies and laboratories fund cutting-edge medical innovations (Block 2008). The European Union more directly subsidizes favored industries and firms: the main effect of European governments’ sales of state firms has been to shift profits into private hands while much of the investment and markets are still guaranteed with public funds. Among poorer countries, there is a sharp divide between those with the resources and state capacity to pursue nationalist policies and those so weak that they remain at the mercy of foreign governments and investors regardless of the nationalistic aspirations of their local elites and officials. Oil countries, beginning with Muammar al-Qaddafi’s Libya in the early 1970s, nationalized their petroleum industries and have kept control, limiting foreign oil companies to the role of contractors (Marcel 2006). However, not all oil countries have been able to follow that path: Nigeria and Angola, with weaker states, enjoy much less favorable terms in their dealings with oil companies. In contrast, Russia was able to recover state control of its oil industry. In the manufacturing and service sectors, Brazil has joined Asian countries in strengthening state control of the economy and deepening long-existing developmental policies in defiance of demands from the IMF, WTO, World Bank, and United States. Although neoliberalism did enjoy genuine ideological appeal in the councils of governments in the Global South as well as the Global North (Babb 2004), it always contended with, and was frequently subordinated to, nationalist desires that sustained state capacities and preserved governmental developmental programs (Chibber 2003; Evans 1995) that could be strengthened as neoliberalism’s economic failings and its consistent bias in favor of the United States and European Union became apparent.
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E N V I R O N M E N TA L D E G R A D AT I O N
Global warming, population increases, and resource shortages are beginning to spark a scramble among nations to control energy supplies, minerals, and agricultural lands beyond their borders. Countries that contain the headwaters of rivers in their territory are damming and diverting water that once flowed downstream to other countries. All these attempts to assert sovereignty over resources require action by governments that cannot be accomplished within neoliberal parameters. Some governments, most notably the United States, rely on private firms to secure resources abroad, but those firms ultimately depend on the intervention of their home government to protect those claims (militarily, diplomatically, and with economic pressure) and to ensure that the target countries are forced to open themselves to such investments. In that way, what appears to be neoliberalism in exploited countries is made possible by statism in the appropriating countries. Environmental crises are likely to spark massive waves of migration from countries that are running out of water, enduring droughts or flooding, or are no longer able to produce food as climate changes. Yemen, with a population of 24 million, is slated to become the first country on Earth to run out of water, as the result of a lack of rainfall and the pumping of their aquifers, within twenty years, or by 2034 (Lichtenthaeler 2014). Environmental catastrophe in that one country thus will more than double the number of refugees in the world. Coastal flooding will create tens of millions of refugees elsewhere in the world, most notably in Bangladesh, a country of 156 million that will lose up to 17 percent of its land mass to flooding by the end of this century as sea levels rise because of global warming, creating another 20–30 million refugees from that one country alone. Worldwide there could be 250 million refugees, a majority of them internal, because of global warming by 2050. Already there are backlashes against large-scale migration throughout the world. Yet the numbers of migrants due to environmental disasters will be on a scale never before seen and will therefore provoke much greater opposition than already exists toward refugees. Anti-immigrant movements are couched in nationalist terms, and thus environmental refugees will spur nationalism in receiving countries. Nationalist politicians will benefit from anti-immigrant passions. There will also be demand for governments to secure resources abroad, and to guard domestic resources, at the expense of foreigners. Thus, we can expect nationalism and nationalist politics to strengthen in the coming decades. This will provide openings for governments to reverse some of the neoliberal policies that diminished state capacities and for citizens to demand greater benefits as a way to differentiate themselves from immigrants. THE END OF HEGEMONY
Finally, we need to remember that neoliberalism was spurred forward largely at the behest of the United States and by international agencies that it dominated. As U.S. hegemony
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dissipates, weaker governments are able to challenge America’s neoliberal demands. We already see signs of that in: 1. Countries’ challenges to patents for drugs vital for treating AIDS and other diseases. 2. Successful protests against privatization in Latin America, Africa, and elsewhere. 3. Regional alliances, such as Mercosur and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, that provide for cross-subsides and regional financial links independent of the global neoliberal architecture created by the United States. 4. Efforts by governments to foster their own industries in sectors (such as aerospace and green energy) that the United States or European Union are losing the ability to dominate as their neoliberal-induced budget crises sap state investment. Governments justify and win domestic support for all four of these types of efforts to challenge the United States and its allies’ demands for neoliberalism with appeals to national interests. Some of the most successful anti-privatization mobilizations have focused on resources and industries most deeply affected by environmental change, above all water resources (Brennan et al. 2005). Similarly, some of the heaviest national investments are in industries that are vital to mitigating the effects of global warming, such as green energy and pharmaceuticals to treat diseases made more severe by environmental changes. Conversely, competition for resources and reactions against migrants from neighboring countries could tear apart regional alliances. China’s heavy-handed and self-serving efforts to monopolize rivers that flow into neighboring countries are already creating tensions with India and the nations of Southeast Asia. The European Union is not the only regional alliance that is fraying, though the European Union stands out as an entity being torn apart by neoliberalism, whereas other alliances will be threatened mainly by environmental pressures. However, even if all these alliances fragment, they will not be superseded by a revived U.S. hegemony, especially if American state capacity continues to be weakened by its domestic neoliberal policies. At least so far, no other country is emerging as a hegemon that can take over the U.S. role in pushing neoliberalism forward on a world scale. The only potential hegemon, China, is firmly committed, for domestic and geopolitical reasons, to strategies that reject neoliberalism for the most part. Most likely, the future world will be marked by fragmented power. Under those conditions, the domestic power relations within each country will determine the extent to which it continues to follow, or reverses, neoliberal policies. However, environmental degradation is the force most likely in this century to provoke mass (often nationalistic) movements that combine with state officials’ latent nationalism to disrupt power relations on a national and world scale and reverse the neoliberal momentum of recent decades.
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CONCLUSION
The main conclusion we can draw from this survey of the origins and implementation of neoliberalism is that neoliberalism was, above all, an exercise of power. It was not a response to economic stagnation, since it was imposed opportunistically against weak targets, and stagnant economies in powerful states were able to reject much of neoliberalism. Nor was it successful in stimulating economic growth. If we want to understand the timing, location, and specific neoliberal measures that were imposed, we need to study the structure of political alliances within states. Worldsystem theory is best suited for uncovering the mechanisms that generated crises and imposed pressures that fell mainly on poorer countries, but we need to look inside countries, at their domestic politics, to understand why some firms and state functions were privatized while others remained under governmental control. Similarly, the challenge to neoliberalism that gathered force at the beginning of this century in Latin America (which followed a path much of East Asia had remained on through the second half of the twentieth century) and has spread to some wealthy countries since the 2008 crisis has been specific to certain industries and policies and can be explained only in terms of the interplay of popular mobilization and domestic elite interests. Geopolitics, above all the decline of U.S. hegemony, and the temporary weakening of financial firms in 2008 provided an opening for challenges to neoliberal demands from the United States, European Union, and international agencies. But only in some countries were political coalitions able to generate the momentum to take advantage of changed transnational conditions and adopt post-neoliberal policies, which themselves varied across nations and sectors. Neoliberalism, like any other “developmental” strategy, is not merely or even mainly an intellectual creation. The coherence of neoliberalism as an idea never was matched by its implementation, which was partial, contradictory, and always the product of political conditions that varied over time and space. If we want to understand the real options that are open for challenging neoliberalism, we need to focus on the structural positions of its advocates. Only where neoliberal state officials and capitalists are isolated internally and internationally, and where popular forces can find allies within the state or abroad (the mirror of the conditions that allowed for the adoption of neoliberal policies), will it be possible to reassert a more egalitarian and environmentally sensitive developmental model. Successful political strategies can be found only through the close analysis of alliances and institutions within countries and across the world system.
N OT E
1. Links to speeches in which Thatcher used that phrase are accessible on the Margaret Thatcher Foundation website at http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/results.asp?ps = 500&w = %22There%20is%20no%20alternative%22.
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REFERENCES
Aguiar de Medeiros. 2009. “Asset-Stripping the State: Political Economy of Privatization in Latin America.” New Left Review 55: 109–32. Amsden, Alice. 2001. The Rise of “the Rest”: Challenges to the West from Late-Industrializing Economies. New York: Oxford University Press. . 2007. Escape from Empire: The Developing World’s Journey through Heaven and Hell. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Arrighi, Giovanni. 1994. The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times. London: Verso. . 2007. Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the Twenty-First Century. London: Verso. Babb, Sarah. 2004. Managing Mexico: Economists from Nationalism to Neoliberalism. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Bandelj, Nina, and Matthew C. Mahutga. 2010. “How Socio-Economic Change Shapes Income Inequality in Central and Eastern Europe.” Social Forces 88, no. 5: 2133–61. Block, Fred. 2008. “Swimming against the Current: The Rise of a Hidden Developmental State in the United States.” Politics and Society 36, no. 2: 169–206. Bourdieu, Pierre. 2003. Firing Back: Against the Tyranny of the Market 2. New York: New Press. Brennan, Brid, Olivier Hoedeman, Philipp Terhorst, Satoko Kishimoto, and Belén Balanyá, eds. 2005. Reclaiming Public Water: Achievements, Struggles, and Visions from around the World. Amsterdam: Transnational Institute and Corporate Europe Observatory. Brenner, Robert. 2003. The Boom and the Bubble: The US in the World Economy. London: Verso. Castells, Manuel. 2011. “The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Toward a New Economic Culture?” In Business as Usual: The Roots of the Global Financial Meltdown. Vol. 1 of Possible Futures, edited by Craig Calhoun and Gergi Derluguian, 185–209. New York: New York University Press. Chang, Ha-Joon. 2002. Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective. London: Anthem. . 2011. “The 2008 World Financial Crisis and the Future of World Development.” In Aftermath: A New Global Economic Order? Vol. 3 in Possible Futures, edited by Craig Calhoun and Gergi Derluguian, 39–63. New York: New York University Press. Chibber, Vivek. 2003. Locked in Place: State-Building and Late Industrialization in India. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Clark, Gordon L., Adam D. Dixon, and Ashby H. B. Monk. 2013. Sovereign Wealth Funds: Legitimacy, Governance, and Global Power. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Crouch, Colin. 2011. The Strange Non-Death of Neoliberalism. Cambridge, Engl.: Polity. Domhoff, G. William. 2013. The Myth of Liberal Ascendancy: Corporate Domination from the Great Depression to the Great Recession. Boulder, Colo.: Paradigm. Evans, Peter. 1995. Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Friedman, Milton. 1965. “We Are All Keynesians Now.” Time, Dec. 31. Garavini, Giuliano. 2012. After Empires: European Integration, Decolonization, and the Challenge from the Global South 1957–1986. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harvey, David. 2003. The New Imperialism. New York: Oxford University Press.
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. 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. New York: Oxford University Press. Klein, Naomi. 2007. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New York: Metropolitan. Krippner, Greta. 2011. Capitalizing on Crisis: The Political Origins of the Rise of Finance. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Lachmann, Richard. 2014. “From Consensus to Paralysis in the United States, 1960–2010.” Political Power and Social Theory 26: 195–233. Lichtenthaeler, Gerhard. 2014. “Water Conflict and Cooperation in Yemen.” Middle East Research and Information Project #254. www.merip.org/mer/mer254/water-conflictcooperation-yemen. Madrick, Jeff. 2011. Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present. New York: Knopf. Mann, Michael. 2013. The Sources of Social Power. Vol. 4, Globalizations, 1945–2011. Cambridge, Engl.: Cambridge University Press. Marcel, Valerie. 2006. Oil Titans. London: Chatham House. Marx, Karl. (1852) 1963. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Reprint. New York: International Publishers. McMichael, Philip. 2011. Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective. 5th ed. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications. Montes, Manuel, and Vladimir Popov. 2011. “Bridging the Gap: A New World Economic Order for Development?” In Aftermath: A New Global Economic Order? Vol. 3 of Possible Futures, edited by Craig Calhoun and Gergi Derluguian, 119–47. New York: New York University Press. Ó Riain, Sean. 2004. The Politics of High-Tech Growth: Developmental Network States in the Global Economy. Cambridge, Engl.: Cambridge University Press. Peck, Jamie, Theodore Nik, and Neil Brenner. 2010. “Postneoliberalism and Its Malcontents.” Antipode 41: 94–116. Piketty, Thomas, and Emmanuel Saez. 2007. “Income Inequality in the United States, 1913–2002.” In Top Incomes over the Twentieth Century: A Contrast Between European and English Speaking Countries, edited by Anthony B. Atkinson and Thomas Piketty, 141–225. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Tables and figures updated to 2010 at http://elsa .berkeley.edu/~saez/. Prasad, Monica. 2006. The Politics of Free Markets: The Rise of Neoliberal Economic Policies in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Prashad, Vijay. 2012. The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South. London: Verso. Robinson, William I. 2004. A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class, and State in a Transnational World. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press. Sassen, Saskia. 2011. “A Savage Sorting of Winners and Losers, and Beyond.” In Aftermath: A New Global Economic Order? Vol. 3 in Possible Futures, edited by Craig Calhoun and Gergi Derluguian, 21–38. New York: New York University Press. Silk, Leonard. 1971. “Nixon’s Program—‘I Am Now a Keynesian.’ ” The New York Times, Jan. 4. Streeck, Wolfgang. 2011. “Citizens as Customers: Considerations on the New Politics of Consumption.” New Left Review 76: 27–47.
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Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974–2011. The Modern World System. Vols. 1–4. Berkeley: University of California Press. . 2004. Alternatives: The United States Confronts the World. Boulder, Colo.: Paradigm. Yates, Julian S., and Karen Bakker. 2014. “Debating the ‘Post-Neoliberal Turn’ in Latin America.” Progress in Human Geography 38, no. 1: 62–90.
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20 CRISIS AND THE RISE OF CHINA Ho-fung Hung
In the aftermath of the Great Recession of 2008 that battered most Western economies, China seems to have weathered the storm and maintained its hyper economic growth in 2009–11, despite a temporary slowdown in early 2009. China’s rapid rebound drove up the demand for commodities and machines, which helped many natural resources exporters, such as Brazil and Australia, and capital goods exporters, such as Germany, escape the worst of the global crisis. Whereas many business elite look to China’s strong recovery as representing a vast, new frontier just when business profitability in wealthy countries is seeing little room for expansion, many leftist intellectuals see China as a mighty challenger to Western global capitalist domination. This celebratory sentiment about the rise of China originated in the early 2000s, when China’s stellar economic performance had started to be recognized worldwide. Within China, ironically, the excitement about the prospect of endless economic growth has long been offset by anxiety about a looming economic crisis even before the global financial crisis erupted in full force in 2008. In 2007, the Chinese Academy of Social Science warned that China was witnessing an unsustainable expansion of an asset bubble, reminiscent of what Japan experienced in the 1980s.1 At a press conference during the annual plenary session of the National People’s Congress in March 2007, Premier Wen Jiabao himself characterized the current path of development in China as “unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated, and unsustainable.”2 Although the Chinese government’s stimulus program of 2008–9 staved off the free fall of the economy that would have been caused by the collapse of the export engine and
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successfully fostered a rapid recovery, it also opened the floodgates of lax lending by state banks, aggravating overinvestment that had already been worsening before the crisis. The hyper-investment spree and liquidity creation in post-crisis China generated a substantial property bubble. Analysts within and outside of China have been worrying that the bursting of this bubble could well trigger a second-wave global financial crisis.3 Although many are right to point out that China’s exceptionally large foreign exchange reserve will prevent it from falling into particular kinds of financial crises unleashed by capital flight and drastic devaluation of its currency, like those experienced by Mexico and Thailand in 1994 and 1997, respectively, China’s gigantic foreign exchange reserve will be far from sufficient in preventing other types of crises related to heavy internal indebtedness and bad loans. It is noteworthy that the United States entered into the Great Depression in the 1930s and that Japan started its long economic malaise in the 1990s when they were both enjoying large current account surpluses and sitting on substantial reserves. In this chapter, I will revisit the sources and dynamics of Chinese capitalist development in the past three decades as well as how China distanced itself from the ongoing global financial crisis and fomented a successful recovery. I will then examine the contradictions of China’s mode of development and the unsustainability of the current recovery. I conclude by exploring the prospect that China could eventually shift to a more sustainable mode of development.
C H I N A’ S D E V E L O P M E N TA L M O D E L A N D I T S C O N T R A D I C T I O N S
The Chinese miracle was made possible by, first, the capacity of subnational states to promote local economic growth in a single-minded manner, and, second, the capacity of the national party-state to repress labor’s demands and the growth of civil society. This development model of China is an elevated version of the East Asian development model, which contributed to the high-speed economic growth of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan from the 1950s to the 1980s. The East Asian developmental state is characterized by centralized bureaucracy that “picks the winners” by strategically directing economic resources to certain industrial sectors, promoting their export-oriented growth (Amsden 1989; Wade 1990). China’s economic reform that started in the 1980s cut local governments off from subsidies from the central government and allowed them to engage in profiteering activities as well as to retain large amounts of the resulting profits. It turned many local governments into developmental states, promoting local development through such classical measures as making discriminatory rules and constructing appropriate infrastructure to facilitate the growth of select industrial sectors on which the local government relied for tax revenue (see Blecher and Shue 2001; Segal and Thun 2001; Wei 2002; Zhu 2004). The autonomy and competitive pressure among local states perpetually goaded them to increase their individual attractiveness, and hence China’s overall attractiveness, to
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global capital, offering cheap land, tax breaks, and many favorable policies to foreign investors. The authoritarian state, which consolidated in the aftermath of the 1989 crackdown on the democratic movement, managed to keep popular discontent at bay without requiring large-scale income redistribution through taxation and wage increases, in contrast to earlier East Asian developmental states that were pressed to pursue labor protections and welfare improvement reforms under the threat of communist insurgency at the height of the Cold War. The aggressive promotion of capital accumulation by local developmental states and the equally aggressive disciplining of labor, when unfolding on the vast geographic and demographic scale of China, made China the most dynamic center of capital accumulation in the world system. However, this same development model has also been cultivating a deteriorating imbalance between investment and consumption that poses a threat to the sustainability of the China miracle itself. The decentralization of economic governance accelerated overinvestment, and prolonged repression of social demand from the working classes fostered underconsumption. This imbalance between investment and consumption is particularly notable when China’s pattern of growth is compared with the other East Asian “Tigers” at comparable stages of development. The decentralized nature of the Chinese developmental state makes the problem of overinvestment more severe in China than in earlier East Asian Tigers. During the initial economic ascendancy of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, central governments played a key role in mobilizing and allocating precious financial and other resources to support the growth of strategic industrial sectors. This “pick the winner” process was crucial not only to success in the early stages of industrialization but also to the subsequent industrial upgrading of these economies (Evans 1995; Haggard 1990; Wade 1990). The decentralized economic growth in today’s China deviates from the model of a centralized developmental state (So 2003). Many local states in China act “developmentally” in that they proactively facilitate the growth of selected industrial sectors, and these developmental efforts are often well planned and executed at the local level. The totality of these efforts combined, however, create anarchic competition among localities, resulting in uncoordinated construction of redundant production capacity and infrastructure. Foreign investors, with the expectation that the domestic and world market for Chinese products will grow incessantly, also raced with one another to expand their existing industrial capacity in China. Although export-oriented foreign investments consistently yielded decent profits on the world market, and the U.S. market in particular, investments made by many state-owned, domestic-market-oriented enterprises became increasingly excessive and unprofitable. Idle capacity in such key sectors as steel, automobiles, cement, aluminum, and real estate has been soaring ever since the mid-1990s (Rawski 2002; Huang 2002). It was estimated in 2006 that more than 75 percent of China’s industries were plagued by overcapacity and that fixed asset investment in industries already experiencing overinvestment accounted for 40–50 percent of China’s GDP growth in 2005 (Rajan 2006; Xie 2006; Xinhuawang 2005). The buildup of excess capacity was exacerbated by the lack of
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geographical and intersectoral mobility of domestic enterprises, which increased their propensity to invest in already saturated localities and sectors. Many provincial or municipal governments erected protectionist barriers against investment from other provinces or cities. This created a “one country, thirty-two economies” malaise (Huang 2003, 140–48). One survey found that 85.8 percent of state-owned enterprises invested only in a single city and that 91.1 percent invested only in a single province (Keister and Lu 2001, 26). This was partly a result of the underdevelopment of financial markets, which made it difficult for enterprises to divert their savings to invest in other sectors or regions (Rajan 2006). To make matters worse, major state-owned banks, rather than disciplining enterprises and directing them away from excessive and low-return investments, encouraged these investments through lax lending practices. These banks, as the financial arms of the central and local governments, delivered easy credits to insolvent or profligate stateowned industrial enterprises, of which roughly 40 percent incurred losses in 2006, according to government figures (Bank for International Settlement 2007, 56). In contrast, private enterprises, even very successful ones, were at a disadvantage in obtaining financial support from major state banks. This set China apart from the developmental experiences of other East Asian developmental states (Shih 2004; Tsai 2002, 29–35). Most of these state bank loans were often made at the behest of local party bosses, who command overwhelming influence over local branches of state banks and are inclined to fuel local investment booms. Although local officials are most concerned about local economic growth in the short run under their watch, hence enthusiastic in promoting debt-financed infrastructural projects or investment in expanding industrial capacity, they are less interested in whether such projects, upon completion, will be unprofitable and drag down growth in the long run, since by that time the local officials will have been rotated out to other regions and posts. Excessive bank loans that financed sectors with overinvestment and falling profitability translated the sectoral overinvestment into a generalized risk to the economy through the accumulation of nonperforming loans (NPLs) in the financial system (Lardy 1998; Rawski 2002, 364–65; Economist 2005). As one report stated, “In China, the principal concern must be that misallocated capital will eventually manifest itself in falling profits, and that this will feed back on the bank system, the fiscal authorities and the prospects for growth more generally. After a long period of credit-fueled expansion, this would be the classic denouement. Indeed, this was very much the path followed [before the prolonged crisis in the 1990s] by Japan” (Bank for International Settlement 2006, 144). Beside the issue of overinvestment, the other problem that has plagued China’s developmental model is underconsumption. All East Asian Tigers at their initial stage of industrialization were governed by authoritarian regimes. But these regimes were disciplined by Cold War geopolitics. Just next door to Communist China, they were anxious to root out any plausible socialist influence among the lower classes. They achieved this goal through preemptive redistributive policies such as land reform and provision of free
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education as much as through repression of independent labor and peasant organizations. By letting the fruits of economic expansion trickle down to the lower classes, in particular the rural population, these authoritarian regimes became economically inclusive, even though they were highly exclusive politically (Deyo 1987; Haggard 1990, 223– 53). The reduction in income disparity and rising income among the lower classes helped create sizeable domestic markets in these newly industrializing economies, which buffered them against the vagaries of the world market in addition to providing infant industries with sufficient internal demand before they could compete internationally (Grabowski 1994). In contrast, China’s party-state in the 1990s single-mindedly pursued rapid economic growth without much success in alleviating the subsequent social polarization, which was aggravated by the government’s draconian suppression of dissenting voices from below. Class, urban-rural, and regional inequalities expanded hand in hand with the economic miracle. Poverty intensified in the rural inland areas, and the old bastions of state industry were besieged by extensive unemployment (Riskin, Zhao, and Li 2001; Wang and Hu 1999). Because jobs created by export-oriented global capital could not catch up with the jobs disappearing from battered state-owned factories, China appears to have experienced a net loss of manufacturing jobs after the mid-1990s, with the share of manufacturing in total employment never reaching the levels found at the peak of manufacturing employment in the smaller, newly industrializing economies (Evans and Staveteig 2008). The peasants-turned-workers in the coastal boom towns did not fare much better. Over the 1990s, the Chinese government ended the priority of supporting rural industries and agricultural development. It initiated a series of policies, such as reducing grain procurement prices, disinvesting agricultural infrastructure, and withdrawing subsidies to rural enterprises, that impeded development and employment growth in the countryside, urging increasing numbers of underemployed young laborers to seek employment in the coastal export sector. Owing to the colossal size of the pool of surplus labor and the “despotic factory regime” under the auspices of the party-state, manufacturing wage growth amid China’s economic miracle was dismal in comparison with the growth in other East Asian newly industrializing economies during their miraculous moments (Glyn 2005, 22; Hung 2008, 162; Lee 1998). Whereas the most explosive phase of takeoff, Taiwan’s Gini coefficient, declined from the range of 0.5–0.6 in the 1950s to the range of 0.3–0.4 in the 1970s, China’s Gini coefficient ascended from 0.33 in 1980 to more than 0.45 in 2007. The increasingly skewed distribution of income constrained expansion of the mass-consumption market. The share of wage income in China’s GDP declined from 53 percent in 1998 to 41.4 percent in 2005, leading one World Bank study to comment that “the declining role of wages and household income in the economy are the key driver behind the declining share of consumption in GDP” (He and Kuijs 2007). The growth of consumption in China was hardly stagnant, but it did not keep pace with the exuberant growth in investment (Hung 2008, 164).
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Although the earlier “East Asian developmental miracles” were known for their high investment and low consumption rates, they were dwarfed by China’s. China’s fixed asset investment rate, which has been above 40 percent of GDP and reached 45 percent in 2009, was far higher than Taiwan’s and South Korea’s rates at their peaks of industrial growth in the 1970s (which was about 25–35 percent). Its private consumption rate, however, which has been below 40 percent and dropping since 2004, was much lower than Taiwan’s and South Korea’s rates in the 1970s (about 60–70 percent for Korea and 50–60 percent for Taiwan). The problems of overinvestment and underconsumption in China are connected, reinforcing each other. China’s export sector could maintain its cost competitiveness in the world market by not turning much of its gains into improving the living standards— and, hence, consumption power—of the working classes. These Chinese enterprises could turn most of their increasing profits into corporate savings instead of wage increases for their employees. These enterprise savings constituted a large proportion of the aggregate national savings, which in turn helped to fuel the credit boom from the banks and aggravated overinvestment (National Development and Reform Council of China 2005). The increasing gap between investment and consumption in the Chinese economy made China increasingly reliant on the global market to export its excess capacity. This made China very vulnerable to any protracted global economic downturn. China’s ratio of gross fixed capital formation to final consumption expenditure exceeded the level that most other Asian economies reached on the eve of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997–98 (Hung 2008, 165). This escalation of the investment-to-consumption ratio is reminiscent of what the United States and Japan witnessed on the eve of the Great Depression in the 1930s and the “lost decade” of the 1990s, respectively, both of which were preceded by debt-financed expansion of excess industrial capacity, asset inflation, sluggish domestic demand, and falling profitability in the production sectors (Aglietta 1979; Bello 1998; Devine 1983; Erturk 2002: Murphy 2000; Palat 2003; Wade 2000). China’s continuous expansion of excess capacity and the declining consumption power to digest this capacity could have, theoretically speaking, precipitated an overproduction crisis that ultimately led to the collapse of profit and growth. But, in reality, this did not happen, and the Chinese economy roared ahead uninterrupted for more than two decades. This paradox needs to be understood in terms of China’s ability to export its excess capacity through booming exports. The accumulation of excess industrial capacity, gluts, and relatively sluggish consumption growth in the 1990s did lead to falling prices of finished products in key industrial sectors and falling profit margins in key industries over the 1990s (Fan and Felipe 2005; Hung 2008, 166; Islam, Erbiao, and Sakamoto 2006, 149–54; Shan 2006a, 2006b). The growing economic imbalance and concern about profitless growth led many to question the sustainability of the boom and to anticipate an economic crisis to come. This worry heightened in the aftermath of the Asian Financial Crisis (Fernald and Bab-
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son 1999; Lin 2000). The signs of fatigue of the Chinese miracle back then included soaring NPLs in state banks that started to threaten the stability of the financial system. It also included plummeting industrial profits, particularly among state enterprises, under a deflationary spiral. The reliance on state revenue to bail out the banks further impeded the growth of domestic consumption because it constrained the government’s capacity in lowering tax rates or investing in social programs. We should also note that the massive bailout of state banks in the late 1990s was far from complete. The Asset Management Companies (AMCs) that were created to serve as the “bad banks” to absorb most NPLs from the four biggest state banks in trouble in fact had never fully recapitalized the banks. The AMCs themselves were not as sufficiently capitalized by the government (and hence taxpayers’ money) as many supposed. While capitalization from the Ministry of Finance for the AMCs amounted to 40 billion Chinese yuan, the other 858 billion yuan of their capitalization came from ten-year maturity bonds that they issued to the big four rescued banks (Walter and Howie 2011, 55). The continuous exposure of the big banks to the NPLs in the forms of their holding of AMC bonds means that the bailout was little more than a creative accounting that postponed an NPL-induced financial crisis to the future (Hung 2015, 65–68, 157–63). The fear about a serious economic crisis caused by deteriorating overinvestment and underconsumption was soon allayed by a new round of robust economic expansion driven by foreign direct investment inflow and export growth after 2000. These upward trends were not unrelated to the heightened optimism about China’s export-driven economy at home and abroad, enlivened by China’s entry into the WTO, its successful bid for hosting the 2008 Olympics, and the real estate bubble and debt-financed consumption spree in the United States and Europe that sustained thriving markets for Chinese exports. The rising state revenue given by this export-led economic boom facilitated the state efforts to bail out the banks burdened by NPLs originating from overinvestment. Although the economic crisis seems to be delayed, China becomes ever more dependent on its booming export sector to neutralize the increasing peril posed by its excessive capacity in the domestic-market-oriented sector dominated by state enterprises. As Table 20.1 shows, the profit rate of large, state-owned industrial enterprises, despite all the policy favors, subsidies, and low-interest loans from state banks, stood far lower than the national average, whereas private industrial enterprises, many of which are foreignfunded and export-oriented, enjoyed profit rates much higher than the national average. Ballooning foreign reserves resulting from rapid export growth fueled a credit expansion in the banking sector, boosting debt-financed investment further and in turn exacerbating the buildup of excess production capacity to be countervailed by further export growth. A cycle of surging export and surging investment ensued (see Figure 20.1).4 In sum, China’s pattern of economic growth on the eve of the global crisis of 2007–8 remained highly dependent on export and debt-financed investment, on the one hand, and low domestic consumption, on the other.
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table 20.1
Average Profit Rate in Various Types of Industrial Enterprises, 2007 and 2009
Type
Profit Rate 2004 (%)*
All State-owned enterprises Private enterprises
Profit Rate 2009 (%)
5.43 2.44 6.67
7.00 2.87 10.61
* Profit rate = total annual profits/total assets source: Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, various years.
It has been doubtful whether China’s formidable export engine, so far the economy’s single most profitable component as well as the key component that neutralizes the risk of an economic crisis, could last indefinitely. The success of the export-led development strategy of the East Asian Tigers rested mainly on the fact of so few small developing economies pursuing the strategy. The exports of these economies were easily absorbed in the world market. But when many more developing countries adopted the strategy in the 1980s and 1990s, the world market, flooded with cheap manufactured exports, became ever more volatile. Given its economic size and export volume, China was exceptionally vulnerable (Mead 1999; Palley 2002). Worse, China’s exporting trade was highly concentrated in the U.S. consumer market, which absorbed more than 30 percent of China’s total exports (including re-exports via Hong Kong) (Roach 2006a, 2006b).
GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS AND CHINESE STIMULUS
China’s developmental model, driven by hyper growth in its export sector at the expense of the growth of its domestic consumption, was thus exceptionally vulnerable to any major contraction of consumption demand in the Global North. The compulsion of Chinese and other Asian governments to employ their foreign reserves to purchase U.S. debt was a result not just of the presumably stable and safe return of the U.S. Treasury bonds but also of a conscious effort among Asian central banks to finance the U.S. escalating current account deficit and to maintain the low value of their currency vis-à-vis the dollar, hence securing the continuous increase in U.S. demand for their own exports. Viewed from this perspective, the growth of China’s export engine, as well as the growth of its financial power in the form of the accumulation of U.S. debts, was closely linked to the consumption spree in the United States. The recent U.S. economic crisis, which badly affected China’s exports by setting off a free fall of the export growth rate from 20 percent in 2007 to -11 percent in 2009 (World Bank 2010), together with the imminent collapse of the dollar and Treasury bonds, seemed to be the worst nightmare coming true.
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State bank loans Decentralized developmental/ entrepreneurial states
Global surplus capital Authoritarian marginalization of workers/peasants
State companies/local gov’t
Fiscalization of nonperforming loans
Overinvestment Falling profit rate in domestic market
squeeze on private sector and wage Credit boom Expanding forex income under fixed exchange rate
Export boom
Underconsumption
Welfare breakdown Mega stimulus amidst global crisis
FIGURE 20.1 Dynamics of China’s Developmental Model.
Before the financial crisis struck, the Chinese government was experimenting with different ways to diversify and increase the return of its foreign reserve investment. It had tried investing in foreign equities and financing state-owned companies’ acquisition of transnational corporations, but most of these attempts turned out to be much less than meet the eye, if not outright failure. For example, Lenovo has been struggling for years after its acquisition of IBM PC, which only turned around recently (Steinfeld 2012, 105; Ahrens and Zhou 2013). As the Chinese official auditor reported recently, most acquisitions made by China’s sovereign wealth fund since 2007, such as the acquisition of a major stake in Blackstone, a private equity fund, had been inflicting embarrassing losses (Hung 2009, 17–18).5 These failures were more a result of the constraint posed by the exceptional size of China’s foreign reserve than bad investment decisions per se. Given the size of China’s foreign reserve, it is difficult for China to move in and out of certain financial assets freely without disrupting the global market for those assets. And no other market except the U.S. debt market has liquidity deep enough to absorb China’s gigantic reserves. Paul Krugman (2009) was not exaggerating when he claimed that China had been caught in a “dollar trap,” in which it had few choices other than to keep purchasing U.S. debts and other dollar asset to help perpetuate the hegemonic role of the dollar. The expansion of the U.S. consumer market hinged on an unsustainable, debtfinanced consumption spree and created a mega-current account deficit. As had been long anticipated, the United States was forced into a deep adjustment following the bursting of its real-estate bubble and collapse of its debt-financed consumerism in 2008. This readjustment of China’s main export outlet occurred alongside the escalating pressure for substantial appreciation of the Chinese yuan and the rise of protectionist meas-
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60
Official HSBC/Caixin
55
50
45
40
2006–12 2007–03 2007–06 2007–09 2007–12 2008–03 2008–06 2008–09 2008–12 2009–03 2009–06 2009–09 2009–12 2010–03 2010–06 2010–09 2010–12 2011–03 2011–06 2011–09 2011–12 2012–03 2012–06 2012–09 2012–12 2013–03 2013–06 2013–09 2013–12 2014–03 2014–06 2014–09 2014–12 2015–03 2015–06
35
FIGURE 20.2 Purchasing Manager Index of China (Official and HSBC indices), 2006–15. source: Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, various years.
ures in the U.S. and other economies. This conjuncture of events has put great pressure on the profitability of China’s export sector. When the global financial crisis struck, China’s export engine stalled and its exportdependent manufacturing sector contracted sharply across the board in late 2008 and early 2009 (Figure 20.2). In response, the central government immediately (in November 2008) attempted to arrest a free fall of the economy by rolling out a fiscal stimulus package amounting to US$570 billion (including both government spending and targeted loans from state-owned banks) to revive growth. Many initially celebrated this massive stimulus as a significant opportunity to accelerate the rebalancing of the Chinese economy into a more domestic consumption-driven mode, and they expected that the stimulus would be constituted mainly by social spending, such as financing of medical insurance and social security accounts, that could further raise the disposable income and hence purchasing power of the working classes. To the disappointment of many advocates of the structural rebalancing of the Chinese economy, the stimulus package carried no more than 20 percent of social spending; the major amount went into investment in capital assets such as high speed rail and expansion of sectors already plagued by overcapacity, such as steel and cement.6 Since the stimulus package did not bring much benefit to social welfare institutions and small and
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0.5 0.45 0.4 0.35 0.3 0.25 0.2 0.15
09
07
20
05
20
03
20
20
01 20
99
97
19
95
19
19
93 19
91
89
19
87
19
85
19
19
83 19
19
81
0.1
FIGURE 20.3 Increase in National Income Generated by One Unit of Fixed Asset Investment, 1981–2009. source: Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, various years.
medium labor-intensive enterprises, it was not able to generate much increase in disposable income and employment. Worse, seemingly horrified by the sudden collapse of the export sector, the central government retreated from the rebalancing efforts and restarted a number of export promotion measures, such as cutting back value-added taxes and halting yuan appreciation. Vested interests in the export sector even made use of the crisis to call for a suspension of the New Labor Contract Law for the sake of the survival of export manufacturers.7 The massive fiscal stimulus, despite its impressive size, would do little to rebalance the Chinese economy via promoting domestic consumption and hence reducing China’s export dependence.8 The massive spending actually did keep the economy roaring, with a state-led investment spurt in the short run, while waiting for the export market to turn around. By the summer of 2009, the fiscal stimulus had successfully stalled the free fall of the Chinese economy and fostered a decent rebound of the economy (as was shown in Figure 20.2). Nevertheless, more than 90 percent of GDP growth in all of 2009 was solely driven by fixed asset investments fueled by loan explosion and government spending under the stimulus program.9 Figures for 2010 indicate that this investment-driven growth became even more entrenched as fixed investment growth exceeded 23 percent, whereas overall GDP grew
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60
%
50
40
30
20 export share of GDP Househould consumption share of GDP fixed asset investment share of GDP
10
08 20
06 20
04 20
02 20
00 20
98 19
96 19
94 19
92 19
90 19
86
84
19
19
82 19
19
80
0
FIGURE 20.4 Share of Export, Consumption, and Investment in China’s GDP, 1980–2008. source: Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, various years.
only 10.3 percent. Most of these investments were of low quality and repetitive, with dubious profitability (Pettis 2009). In the words of a top Chinese economist, this huge stimulus program was like “drinking poison to quench the thirst.”10 As Figure 20.3 shows, new income generated by each unit of fixed asset investment has been falling when the investment spree financed by lax lending fostered increasingly inefficient investment. Table 20.1 above also showed that profit rates across the economy, particularly the investment-driven state sector, dropped significantly under the stimulus-fueled rebound of the economy. Fixed asset investment had picked up the slack left by the sluggish recovery of export in driving the Chinese economy after the crisis of 2008. Private consumption, however,
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despite all the publicized efforts of the central leadership in stimulating domestic consumption, had not shown any significant growth (see Figure 20.4). Yet it is still very possible that the fiscal deficit, NPLs, and exacerbation of overcapacity created by the stimulus will generate a deeper downturn in the medium and long run. And to gain the financial resources necessary for bailing out the banks and state-owned enterprises, the government may be forced to resort to heavier tax levies, which will further curtail the growth of private consumption. This scenario is increasingly likely given the sluggish recovery of the United States and the deepening crisis in the Eurozone. These problems will be on top of the NPLs originating in the late 1990s that had not yet been totally resolved, as discussed earlier. If the current course of response to the global crisis continues, China is likely to miss opportunities to use the stimulus to boost social consumption and hence rebalance the economy. In such a case, China will not be spared from a significant economic slowdown in the near to medium term when the current orgy of low-efficiency and nonprofitable investment inevitably loses steam. If not handled carefully, such a slowdown could easily trigger a new round of global economic turbulence, dragging down the so-far-unscathed economies, mostly commodities and capital goods exporters for China. Only a shift to more balanced growth based on greater domestic consumption and less urban bias can turn China into a genuinely autonomous economic powerhouse.
P R O S P E C T F O R S U S TA I N A B L E G R O W T H
The key to reducing China’s dependence on export is to boost the consumption power of the working classes through measures that redistribute larger portions of income from enterprises to employees. The Chinese Communist Party elite know this very well. As an impetus to rebalance China’s development, the central government has tried since about 2005 to fuel a takeoff of China’s domestic consumption by boosting the disposable income of the peasants and urban workers, even at the expense of China’s export competitiveness. The first wave of such initiatives included the abolition of agricultural taxes, an increase in the government procurement price of agricultural products, and an increase in rural infrastructure investment. Although this redirection of attention to raising rural living standards was no more than a small step in the right direction, its effect was instantaneous. The slightly improved economic conditions and employment opportunities in the ruralagricultural sector slowed the flow of rural-to-urban migration, as shown by the rising rural local income (both farm and nonfarm) in comparison with migrant labor remittances in average household income (see Figure 20.5). A sudden labor shortage and wage hike in the coastal export-processing zones ensued, inducing many economists to declare that the “Lewis turning point”—that is, the point at which rural surplus labor was exhausted—had finally arrived in the Chinese economy (Cai and Du 2009). This sudden tightening of the labor market was reflected in the steep increase in Chinese manufacturing wage as a share
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80
Local nonfarm income Local farm income Migrant labor remittances
Percentage share of total household income
70
60
50
40
30
20
19 86 19 87 19 88 19 89 19 90 19 91 19 92 19 93 19 94 19 95 19 96 19 97 19 98 19 99 20 00 20 01 20 02 20 03 20 04 20 05 20 06 20 07 20 08 20 09
10
Year
FIGURE 20.5 Composition (%) of Average Rural Household Income, 1986–2009. source: Fixed Point Rural Household Survey, Ministry of Agriculture 2001, 2010.
of the U.S. manufacturing wage after 2005. The livelihoods of workers were further protected by the introduction of the New Labor Contract Law in 2008, which, even if not implemented effectively by local governments, became a new weapon workers could wield in their fight for concessions from employers (Ho 2008). The effect of such measures was immediate. Concomitant to the rising peasant income and industrial wage was an unprecedented growth in retail sales on the eve of the current global crisis (Hung 2009, fig. 9). But when the government took the first step away from excessive export dependence and toward a domestic consumption-driven growth, vested interest in the export-oriented growth—including officials in coastal provinces depending on the export sectors and the Ministry of Commerce, which had been tied closely to the export sector—complained aloud about the grim prospect that the new policy initiatives brought to them. They asked for compensation policies to safeguard their competitiveness, and they attempted to sabotage further initiatives of the central government to elevate the living standards of the working classes as a way to boost social consumption. Although the entrenched vested interests are standing in the way of policies that could facilitate rebalancing the Chinese economy, the increasingly restless working class seems to be a significant force that countervails such vested interests and an impetus for the
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government’s rebalancing policies. In 2010, a wave of labor unrest and resistance, including strikes and collective suicides, swept through China’s industrial sunbelt in the south, affecting some of the largest employers in the region, including Honda and Foxconn. These instances of unrest were widely reported in China and the foreign media and seemed successful in forcing significant concessions in improving workers’ remuneration and reducing the length and intensity of work on the shop floor. In the spring of 2011, the National People’s Congress of China, seemingly out of concern over the economy’s imbalance and the rising tide of labor unrest, approved a new Five Year Plan that pledged more proactive policies to raise workers’ wage share in the GDP and to enhance social and workplace protections. The real, long-term impact of these developments on China’s developmental path in the years to come remain to be seen, but we have to be cautious: such compromises and rebalancing initiatives are nothing new, and their precedents repeatedly turned out to be less than meet the eye. Labor organizations already found signs that the compromises made by foreign investors to the contentious workers since 2008 were on paper only; many of those investors sought to shift their production to inland areas with harsher labor practices and exact new deductions from workers’ nominally raised salaries to compensate for the losses incurred by the compromises. And regarding the National People Congress’s latest Five Year Plan, skepticism abounds. For example, Nouriel Roubini, who rightly predicted the Great Recession of 2008 and recently paid close attention to the Chinese political economy, remarked that “[d]espite the rhetoric of the new FiveYear Plan—which, like the previous one, aims to increase the share of consumption in GDP—the path of least resistance is the status quo. The new plan’s details reveal continued reliance on investment” (2011).
CONCLUSION
Over the past thirty years, China’s economic boom has been driven by export-oriented industrialization and debt-financed, state-driven investment, coupled with a repression of wage and domestic private consumption. Although overinvestment and underconsumption generated NPLs and fiscal pressure on the state, this tendency has not yet precipitated a full-blown crisis within China because it was countervailed by the booming export sectors, the profits of which partly turned into saving deposits that shored up the banks and partly became the state’s tax income, enabling the latter’s continuous support of otherwise troubled banks and state enterprises. This export boom was grounded on the debt-financed consumption spree in the United States and other wealthy countries as main markets of Chinese exports. The consumption spree was in turn supported by China’s, as well as other surplus countries’, investment of its trade surplus into U.S. Treasury bonds. China therefore has never amounted to the autonomous economic powerhouse representing an alternative force to the U.S.-led world economic order that so many have perceived it to be. On the contrary, China has been a constitutive part of the mega
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financial bubble in the United States that led to the latest global crisis. The initial U.S. response to the crisis, based on the bailout of major financial institutions “too big to fail” and the escalation of debt-financed public spending, was tantamount to tackling the bubble’s burst by creating an even larger bubble. Likewise, the response by the Chinese government has been, in the words of Martin Hart-Landsberg (2010, 14), to “maintain the status quo” of the world economy. The state elite is betting on the full recovery of the export sector for a solid recovery of the economy in the medium and long run. Because the full recovery of the export sector depends on the revival of consumption growth in the United States, it is not an accident that China’s central bank did not hesitate to increase its purchase of U.S. Treasury bonds amid the crisis, despite all the anxiety that China expressed about the risk of U.S. Treasury bonds as an investment vehicle.11 The origins of China’s economic imbalance, which contributes largely to the global economic imbalance, lie in Chinese manufacturing’s low-wage regime, which is in turn attributable to the urban-biased policy that impedes local employment growth in the countryside. Rebalancing the Chinese and world economy will require a political solution that could bring improvement of the working classes’ share of economic growth and reduction in urban-rural imbalances. Such a political solution will not transpire automatically, though recent trends of escalating labor unrest and the seeming readiness of the current leaders to yield to such unrest, as well as the recent spate of policies that support rural-agricultural development, do give us reason to be optimistic (Silver and Zhang 2009; Solinger 2009). However, before completing its shift to a more sustainable mode of development, China is far from a savior of global capitalism. Worse, the ticking time bomb built into its developmental model could easily worsen the current global economic crisis before it abates.
N OT E S
1. People’s Daily, Jan. 13, 2007. 2. “Premier: China Confident in Maintaining Economic Growth,” Xinhua news, Mar. 16, 2007. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-03/16/content_5856569.htm. 3. In a Bloomberg survey of 1,000 investors, analysts, and traders in January 2011, 45 percent of respondents expected a major financial crisis in China in the next five years, and another 40 percent believed there would be a crisis after 2016. See “China Will Face Crisis Within 5 Years, 45% of Investors in Global Poll Say,” Bloomberg News, Jan. 26, 2011. 4. Washington Post, Jan. 17, 2006. 5. “Chinese Fund CIC under Fire over Overseas Losses,” Financial Times, June 18, 2014. 6. “Siwanyi neiwai” (Inside and Outside of the Four Thousand Billion), Caijing, Mar. 16, 2009. 7. See “Jiuye xingshi yanjun laodong hetong fa chujing ganga” (Severe Unemployment Jeopardizes Labor Contract Law), Caijing, Jan. 4, 2009. 8. “Zhongguo GDP zengzhang jin 90% you touzi ladong” (Nearly 90% of China’s GDP Growth Was Driven by Investment), Caijing, July 16, 2009.
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9. “Investment Contributes over 90% to China’s GDP Growth: NBS,” Xinhua News, Feb. 2, 2012. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/business/2010–02/02/c_13160274 .htm. 10. The comment is from Xu Xiaonian at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai. See “China Stimulus Plan Comes Under Attack at ‘Summer Davos,’ ” China Post, Sept. 13, 2009. 11. Chinese holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds jumped from US$618 billion in September 2008 to US$1,160 billion in December 2010 (U.S. Treasury n.d.).
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Fan, Emma X., and Jesus Felipe. 2005. “The Diverging Patterns of Profitability, Investment, and Growth of China and India, 1980–2003.” Working Paper, Center for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Australian National University, Canberra. Fernald, John G., and Oliver D. Babson. 1999. “Why Has China Survived the Asian Crisis So Well? What Risks Remain?” International Finance Discussion Paper No. 333. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Washington, D.C. Fixed Point Rural Household Survey, Ministry of Agriculture (Nongyebu quanguo nongcun guding guanchadian bangongshi). 2001. Quanguo nongcun shehui jing ji dianxing diaocha shuju huibian, 1986–1999 (National Rural Social-Economic Survey Data Collection, 1986– 1999). Beijing: Zhongguo nongye chubanshe. . 2010. Quanguo nongcun guding guanchadian diaocha shuju huibian, 2000–2009 (National Village Fixed Observation Point Survey Data Collection 2000–2009). Beijing: Zhongguo nongye chubanshe. Glyn, Andrew. 2005. “Imbalances of the Global Economy.” New Left Review 2, no. 34: 5–37. Grabowski, Richard. 1994. “The Successful Developmental State: Where Does It Come From?” World Development 22, no. 3: 413–22. Haggard, Stephen. 1990. Pathways from the Periphery: The Politics of Growth in the Newly Industrializing Countries. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Hart-Landsberg, Martin. 2010. “The US Economy and China: Capitalism, Class, and Crisis.” Monthly Review 61, no. 9 (Feb.): 14–31. He, Jianwu, and Louis Kuijs. 2007. “Rebalancing China’s Economy—Modeling a Policy Package.” China Research Paper No. 7, World Bank. Accessed Nov. 15, 2008. www.worldbank .org.cn/English/Content/253l63888224.shtml. Ho, Virginia Emily. 2008. “From Contracts to Compliance? An Early Look at Implementation of China’s New Labor Legislation.” Unpublished manuscript. Law School, Indiana University, Bloomington. Huang, Yasheng. 2002. “Between Two Coordination Failures: Automotive Industrial Policy in China with a Comparison to Korea.” Review of International Political Economy 9, no. 3: 538–73. . 2003. Selling China: Foreign Direct Investment during the Reform Era. Cambridge, Engl.: Cambridge University Press. Hung, Ho-fung. 2008. “Rise of China and the Global Overaccumulation Crisis.” Review of International Political Economy 15, no. 2: 149–79. . 2009. “America’s Head Servant? PRC’s Dilemma in the Global Crisis.” New Left Review, Nov./Dec. . 2015. The China Boom: Why China Will Not Rule the World. New York: Columbia University Press. Islam, Nazrul, Dai Erbiao, and Hiroshi Sakamoto. 2006. “Role of TFP in China’s Growth.” Asian Economic Journal 20, no. 2: 127–59. Keister, Lisa A., and Jin Lu. 2001. “The Transformation Continues: The Status of Chinese State-Owned Enterprises at the Start of the Millennium.” NBR Analysis 12, no. 3: 5–31. Krugman, Paul. 2009. “China’s Dollar Trap.” New York Times, Apr. 2. Lardy, Nicholas. 1998. China’s Unfinished Economic Revolution. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.
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Lee, Ching-kwan. 1998. Gender and the South China Miracle. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lin, Justin Y. 2000. “The Current Deflation in China: Causes and Policy Options.” Asian Pacific Journal of Economics and Business 4, no. 2: 4–21. Mead, Walter Russell. 1999. “Needed: A New Growth Strategy for the Developing World.” Development Outreach, World Bank, Summer. Accessed Nov. 15, 2008. http://www1 .worldbank.org/devoutreach/summer99/article.asp?id = 6. Murphy, Taggard R. 2000. “Japan’s Economic Crisis.” New Left Review, Jan./Feb.: 25–52. National Development and Reform Council of China. 2005. Zhongguo jumin shouru fenpei niandu baogao (Annual Report of Chinese Resident’s Income Distribution). Beijing. Palat, Ravi A. 2003. “ ‘Eyes Wide Shut’: Reconceptualizing the Asian Crisis.” Review of International Political Economy 10, no. 2: 169–95. Palley, Thomas I. 2002. “A New Development Paradigm: Domestic Demand-Led Growth.” Foreign Policy in Focus, Sept. Pettis, Michael. 2009. “More Public Worrying about the Chinese Stimulus.” Blog entry at China Financial Markets, July 24. mpettis.com/2009/07/more-public-worrying-about-thechinese-stimulus. Rajan, Raghuram G. 2006. “Financial System Reform and Global Current Account Imbalances.” Presentation at the American Economic Association Meeting, Jan. 6, Boston, Mass. Accessed Nov. 15, 2008. www.imf.org/external/np/speeches/2006/010806.htm. Rawski, Thomas G. 2002. “Will Investment Behavior Constrain China’s Growth?” China Economic Review 13: 361–72. Riskin, Carl, Renwei Zhao, and Shi Li, eds. 2001. China’s Retreat from Equality: Income Distribution and Economic Transition. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe. Roach, Stephen. 2006a. “China’s Rebalancing Imperatives: A Giant Step for Globalization.” Morgan Stanley Research Global, Dec. 1. . 2006b. “The Fallacy of Global Decoupling.” Global Economic Forum, Morgan Stanley. morganstanley.com/GEFdata/digests/20061030-mon.htm. Roubini, Nouriel. 2011. “China’s Bad Growth Bet.” Project Syndicate, Apr. 14. http://www .project-syndicate.org/commentary/roubini37/English. Segal, Adam, and Eric Thun. 2001.”Thinking Globally, Acting Locally: Local Governments, Industrial Sectors, and Development in China.” Politics and Society 29, no. 4: 557–88. Shan, Weijian. 2006a. “China’s Low-Profit Growth Model.” Far Eastern Economic Review 169, no. 11: 23–28. . 2006b. “The World Bank’s China Delusions.” Far Eastern Economic Review 169, no. 7: 29–32. Shih, Victor. 2004. “Dealing with Non-Performing Loans: Political Constraints and Financial Policies in China.” China Quarterly 180: 922–44. Silver, Beverly, and Lu Zhang. 2009. “China as an Emerging Epicenter of Labor Unrest.” In China and the Transformation of Global Capitalism, edited by Ho-fung Hung, 174–87. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press. So, Alvin Y. 2003. “Rethinking the Chinese Developmental Miracle.” In China’s Developmental Miracle: Origins, Transformations, and Challenges, edited by Alvin Y. So, 3–28. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe.
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Solinger, Dorothy. 2009. States’ Gains, Labor’s Losses: China, France, and Mexico Choose Global Liaisons, 1980–2000. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Steinfield, Edward. 2012. Playing Our Game: Why China’s Rise Doesn’t Threaten the West. New York: Oxford University Press. Tsai, Kelli S. 2002. Back-Alley Banking: Private Entrepreneurs in China. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. U.S. Treasury. n.d. “Major Foreign Holders of US Treasury Securities.” http://ticdata.treasury .gov/Publish/mfhhis01.txt. Wade, Robert. 1990. Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian Industrialization. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. . 2000. “Wheels within Wheels: Rethinking the Asian Crisis and the Asian Model.” American Review of Political Science 3: 85–115. Walter, Carl E., and Fraser J. T. Howie. 2011. Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundation of China’s Extraordinary Rise. New York: Wiley. Wang, Shaogang, and Hu Angang. 1999. The Political Economy of Uneven Development: The Case of China. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe. Wei, Yehua Dennis. 2002. “Beyond the Sunnan Model: Trajectory and Underlying Factors of Development in Kunshan, China.” Environment and Planning A 34: 1725–47. World Bank. 2010. “China Quarterly Update.” Mar. Beijing: World Bank Beijing Office. Xie, Andy. 2006. “China: What Next?” Global Economic Forum, Morgan Stanley, Feb. 3. www .morganstanley.com/GEFdata/digests/20060203-fri.html. Xinhua news. 2005. “Fagaiwei guanyuan: shiyi wu qiche channeng guosheng jiang geng yanzhong” (Development and Reform Council Official: Overcapacity in Automobile Industry Will Exacerbate during the Eleventh Five-Year Plan). Nov. 14. Accessed Dec. 7, 2007. http://big5.xinhuanet.com/gate/big5/news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2005–11/14 /content_3777394.htm. Zhu, Jieming. 2004. “Local Developmental State and Order in China’s Urban Development during Transition.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 28, no. 2: 424–47.
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21 CONFLICT AND DEVELOPMENT IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA Zoë Marriage
In this chapter, I review the Cold War and post–Cold War eras of development and the conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) with which they were associated. I present the changes that took place through and at the end of the Cold War and explore two perspectives on the violence that has occurred on the continent since. The first perspective focuses on national and subnational dynamics of conflicts, often examined as intrastate or civil wars. The second perspective incorporates a shift of fault line from east-west to northsouth into the analysis and investigates the conflicts in SSA with reference to the global political economy of violence. I then present the liberal peace that gained prominence through the 1990s with the end of the Cold War and assess the contemporary interaction of conflict and development within it. I have taken the Democratic Republic of Congo, situated in Central Africa, as my case study. Congo has immense mineral wealth and has experienced exceptionally violent conflict throughout its history, including two wars in recent years. The peace agreement in 2002–3 paved the way for military, political, and economic transitions from war, but violence has continued in the east of the country. Furthermore, the forms of development promoted in the technically post-conflict era have inflicted costs and have excluded, in large part, the majority of the population from political and economic activities or returns. The chapter then turns to a discussion of the successes and costs of Congo’s story, assessing how representative they were of processes taking place elsewhere on the continent and drawing conclusions about the contemporary situation in SSA. Since the turn
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of the twenty-first century, there has been a decrease in the number of wars taking place on the continent, but many millions of people continue to be threatened by destitution and marginalization (Reno 2003). The perpetuation or aggravation of these threats when alternative outcomes are possible indicates that there are divergent interests in the formulation or implementation of development policy. I conclude the chapter with the argument that the marginalization of populations from economic and political mechanisms is not a side effect of nascent processes of development but is an integral and purposeful part of the contemporary forms of development and conflict that take place.
T H E C O L D WA R A N D A F T E R
The promulgation of development as a project or program (rather than simply a process) dates from the end of World War II, originating with the U.S. colossal rebuilding of Europe through the Marshall Plan. Headed by an emergent superpower, this project of development and its legacy definitions that have derived priorities from dominant political structures, currently that of neoliberalism, differ from the definition used by Gregory Hooks, which draws on the work of Amartya Sen (see Hooks’s chapter in this volume). Sen (1999), building on his previous work on famine prevention, argues that development relies on including people in decisionmaking and in the returns on progress. In the aftermath of World War II, the United States used development policy to promote its strategic concerns through material and political reconstruction. The United States invested heavily in Europe to promote a capitalist paradigm in the face of the communist threat from the USSR. Unlike Europe, the United States was untainted by years of colonization and violent extraction. President Harry Truman, in his 1949 inaugural speech, asserted that “[t]he old imperialism—exploitation for foreign profit—has no place in our plans. What we envisage is a program of development based on the concepts of democratic fair-dealing” (Truman 1949). The program of development extended beyond Europe to areas that were in the process of gaining independence from colonial rule.
SUPERPOWERS AND THE THIRD WORLD
The United States and the USSR vied for influence across Latin America, Asia, and Africa, with the independence of client states being a potent moment for galvanizing allegiances to the competing logics of capitalism and communism (James and Imai 1996). In the early 1960s, the USSR established diplomatic relations with the newly independent states of Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, Guinea, Libya, Mali, and Morocco, but, by 1975, many had shifted their international alliance from East to West. In the 1970s, Soviet influence on the African continent was limited to Ethiopia, Benin, Mozambique, and Angola, and it centered chiefly on commercial returns to the USSR. By the 1980s, Soviet aid had dried up (Somerville 1984, 83).
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The United States and its European allies attached particular geostrategic significance to states that bordered the Soviet-aligned countries, and they overlooked infractions to democratic principles in return for political favors (Dunning 2004). Rivalry between the superpowers was manifest in Angola, where pro-government militias were supported militarily by 25,000 Cuban troops in 1975 against the U.S.-backed Unita forces, led by Jonas Savimbi and reinforced by Congo (then known as Zaire) and South Africa. Cuba sent troops again in the late 1980s, which continued operating in Angola after the end of the Cold War (Minter 1994). The development aid offered by the United States and Europe was characterized by official loans, military spending, and infrastructural support. Bilateral aid was accompanied by sizeable private loans from banks. The oil crisis of 1973 led to shock inflation, precipitating high investment in Western banks and consequently to enthusiastic lending; the crisis also made it harder for borrowing nations to service these loans. The assumption of Western banks was that sovereign states would not default. External debt increased steeply from 1970 in what was then referred to as the “Third World,” a term that indicated (even if not describing literally) some political distance from the capitalist (First World) and communist (Second World) models. Many countries had accrued “odious debt,” meaning that funds had been borrowed by regimes that had not served the interests of the country.
STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT PROGRAMS
By the 1980s, it became clear that the countries to which loans had been made were not experiencing robust development and were not able to repay the money they had borrowed. The quantities owed by those on the brink of defaulting were large enough to pose credible threats to the stability of international banking, and the debt crisis was dealt with through development policy in the form of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), which were implemented across Asia, Latin America, and Africa. SAPs focused on the privatization of national industries and the cutting back of the civil service and social provision (Stein and Nafziger 1991). The programs reflected the neoliberal ideology that gained prominence during the era in which Ronald Reagan was president of the United States and Margaret Thatcher was prime minister of Britain. Slashes in the public sector precipitated a “lost decade” for populations in the countries affected. SSA’s debt rose from US$84 billion in 1980 to US$223.3 billion in 1995 (Iyoha 1999, 10). SAPs did not enhance development in the countries in which they were implemented; instead, they exacerbated horizontal and vertical inequality, aggravating the threat of violent conflict (Berman 2010, 20). A number of studies linked SAPs to rising subnational tensions, such as in Rwanda (Uvin 1998; Storey 2001), Tanzania (Paris 2004), and Sierra Leone (Zack-Williams 1999, 145; Keen 2005). At the end of the Cold War, a third of intrastate conflicts were taking place in Africa (Marshall 2005, 26), and U.N. Human Development Index data showed SSA to be trailing all other regions of the world (UNDP 1990–95).
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Despite decades of Western aid, millions of people in SSA were living in extreme hardship without access to the most basic resources, such as clean water and primary healthcare. Many lived in chronic and debilitating poverty under autocratic and violent regimes (Bayart 1993; Duffield 2001, 150). Regarding the priorities of the donor governments in powerful nations, however, international banking had been rescued from the distress caused by defaulters in developing countries, and the Cold War buffer states had served their strategic purposes.
C H A N G E I N T H E S E C U R I T Y PA R A D I G M
For the duration of the Cold War, the threat of nuclear annihilation had focused the attention of security theorists and policymakers on the rivalry between the United States and the USSR. The unlimited nature of the nuclear threat rendered other conflicts insignificant by comparison, and hostilities around the world were represented in Westerndominated discourse as “proxy wars” and were situated within the narrative of Cold War tensions. The end of the Cold War, marked by the collapse of the USSR in 1991, opened policy and analytical space to consider the role of African states within global politics and the nature of the violent conflicts that persisted on the continent.
NEW WORLD ORDER/DISORDER
Two influential perspectives emerged from American commentators that grappled with the phenomenon of post–Cold War conflict in Africa. Francis Fukuyama (1992) argued that the end of history had been achieved: liberal democracy had won out as the ultimate form of political order, and states under other political configurations would catch up. The optimism was short-lived: Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola, and Sudan were all embroiled in wars and resistant to intervention or resolution. Robert Kaplan (1994) formulated an alternative position: his article “The Coming Anarchy” postulated that the violence in West Africa was not a remnant of Cold War tensions but the emergence of a new disorder that threatened to engulf not just the region but the whole world. Kaplan and Fukuyama were writing in a moment when the global supremacy of the United States appeared unchallenged. The ideology of the “liberal peace,” the political victory of the Cold War, rendered violence apparently unnecessary and illegitimate as a political tool. Some explanation was needed about the causes of ongoing violent instrastate conflicts, the majority of which were taking place in SSA: if the end of bipolarity signaled the dawn of a post-ideological era, what were these conflicts about? Theorists of civil wars produced a heated literature that unpacked the mechanisms of conflict at national and subnational levels and highlighted the diverse functions of the use of violence within a political economy. This literature headed off journalistic claims that chaotic, mindless, or tribal wars were taking place in SSA.
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C I V I L WA R S
Theories were developed around the instrumental logics of ethnicity (Ignatieff 1998; Keen 1999; Turton 1997), economic gain (Duffield 1994a, 1994b), and politics and psychology (Keen 1994a; Richards 1996; Ellis 1999) to explain how violence redistributed or reconfigured power. By examining how power operated, theorists of civil wars in SSA included in their analyses various forms of coercion and constraint beyond that of military technology. Famine and displacement, for example, were investigated as means of pursuing strategic ends (Keen 1994b; de Waal 1997), as was the use of generalized violence and disorder to gain power or promote political agendas (Chabal and Daloz 1999; Reno 1998; Bayart, Ellis, and Hibou 1999). The broadening of the category of violence within the academic debate was reflected in the policy debate over human security, which was spearheaded by the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) in 1994. The UNDP identified seven interconnected components of human security: personal security, economic security, health security, political security, community security, food security, and environmental security. The theorization of human security informed two significant shifts in thinking: one from a focus on territorial security to people’s security, and the second from security through arms to security through sustainable development (UNDP 1994). By outlining a range of threats to populations beyond that of military invasion, the UNDP sparked broad policy and academic discussions (Paris 2001; King and Murray 2001–2; Human Security Centre and Mack 2005; STAIR 2005). The debates on the differing forms of violence and the diverse nature of human security were complementary in incorporating a range of threats and placing the safety of populations within the context of the processes of development, state formation, responsibility, and sovereignty in Africa. The attention to intrastate war and the analysis of its functionality combined to place a premium on the economic and political interests driving violent conflict and to locate these at a national or subnational level. This was helpful in building a political perspective on the causes and protagonists in particular wars. Patterns were emerging, though, in terms of how and where violence was taking place, and the focus within national boundaries did not explain the concentration of violent conflict on the African continent and the continuities from the Cold War era. Given the diminution of mass political conflict in the twenty-first century, an explanation is also needed as to why these wars have, to a large extent, come to a close: have their agendas been fulfilled, have the wars been transformed, or has something else overwhelmed those particular manifestations of conflict?
N O RT H - S O U T H FA U LT L I N E
The focus on civil and intrastate wars interfaced with (and at times obscured) another perspective that provided a broader context for the violence manifested at the intrastate
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level. In his exploration of the changes in international security since the end of the Cold War, Roland Dannreuther (2007, 3) argues that the fault line shifted from east-west to north-south. The identification of the north-south fault line is helpful in capturing crucial differences in historical and contemporary experience: of colonizer and colonized, and of developed and developing. In doing so, it provides a clear angle on how power and interests may differ across the fault line and why they may conflict. Although Fukuyama’s “end of history” argument appears oppositional to Kaplan’s “coming anarchy,” they are similar in that both problematize the Global South and portray the inclination of the Global North as politically uncontentious. According to both theories, it was countries in the Global South that bucked the trend toward global order and would either catch up (according to Fukuyama 1992) or bring others down (according to Kaplan 1994). Building on these ideas, theoretical and policy work on security and development came together in the 1990s (Duffield 2001). This produced a positive formulation: that development and security were mutually reinforcing, and its negative corollary: that underdevelopment in the Global South would lead to instability, crime, and disease that could pose threats to the Global North. The assumption that the inclination of the Global North was uncontentious relied on the dominance of Northern voices in development analysis and policymaking. The French philosopher Michel Foucault (1980) provides a foundation for exploring the functions and implications of such a bias in his work on knowledge and power. His central argument is that the ability to control discourses exerts a form of power as it defines what information and knowledge is created. This argument has been used by critical authors to clarify aspects of power exerted through the liberal peace and the processes of development and security that it gives rise to in SSA (Duffield 2007, 5–6; Evans 2010). Power is exerted through the identification of a variety of threats and the need for radical protection that they prompt. By controlling the discourse on the merit and demands of the liberal peace, Northern donors are able to define failings in the Global South and claim interventionist roles for themselves in the governance of other countries (Marriage 2006, 175–86). Moving away from the assumption that the political inclination of the Global North is uncontentious, and acknowledging the power vested in the roles that Northern donors claim for themselves, Mark Duffield (2001, 261) argues that there is a contradiction at the heart of the liberal agenda: Southern countries are expected to adhere voluntarily to the demands of the liberal agenda. If they do not, Northern countries are committed to forcing the agenda or, if they cannot muster support for that, to find accommodation with some Southern governments and adapt to their policy failures. Duffield’s book was published before the liberal wars were unleashed on Afghanistan and Iraq, and it has provided valuable insights into the nature and function of those interventions. In finding this accommodation, a third outcome of the contradiction in the liberal agenda has surfaced in the form of a functional compromise that privileges priorities that render apparent failure more politically expedient than success. The functionality of this
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compromise challenges the binary of policy success and failure because it has the potential to bring returns to the Global North that exceed those that would be achieved through genuine democracy, strong leadership, and a national program of distribution through taxation in SSA.
MILLENNIUM: NEW PRIORITIES
The 1990s was an era of reworking development aid in the new global dispensation after the Cold War. Policy was amended in the light of Unicef’s report “Adjustment with a Human Face,” which roundly critiqued the SAPs, arguing that understandings of and policies for development needed to go beyond economic factors (Cornia, Jolly, and Stewart 1987). Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers were introduced in 1999 and designed to be country-driven, results-oriented, comprehensive in their approach to poverty, partnership oriented, and based on a long-term perspective. The merging of Northern security and development agendas framed poverty and underdevelopment as being not only dangerous or destabilizing themselves but also potential sources of national or regional instability, or broader threats through transnational crime, unregulated trade, or migration.
P A RT N E R S H I P
The new millennium offered a moment of reflection on the global situation of development and conflict. The Millennium Development Goals, agreed on at the U.N. Millennium Summit in 2000, identified eight priorities: eradicating extreme poverty and hunger; achieving universal primary education; promoting gender equality and empowering women; reducing child mortality; improving maternal health; combating HIV/ AIDS, malaria, and other diseases; ensuring environmental sustainability; and developing a global partnership for development. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, forty years after the first African states had gained independence, SSA was the region in the world that continued to lag behind others in the areas identified by these goals (Hulme 2009). Other policies and practices were also established around the turn of the century, many of which echoed the terminology of partnership. This signaled a change in approach that had been made explicit by the U.K. government in 1997, when the Overseas Development Administration, a name suggesting that development was something administered by some to others, was switched to the Department for International Development, which suggested a shared agenda. The New Partnership for African Development was launched in 2001, with priority areas of poverty eradication, peace and security, democracy, and regional and global integration. The Organization for African Unity became the African Union at the beginning of the new millennium. The reinvigoration of that organization signaled a new era of regional politics, harnessing aspirations for
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continental collaboration, with economic integration, development, and peace being among its priorities.
ESTRANGEMENT
Meanwhile, events were taking place outside SSA that were altering the shape of conflict on the continent. Concerns that poverty and underdevelopment posed a threat to the Global North were intensified by the attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001. Although SSA was not involved in international terrorism, the attacks highlighted two frailties in the liberal peace. The political victory was not as inclusive as its ideology had claimed, and among those who were excluded from the benefits of neoliberalism were some who posed tough threats to the United States. Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (known as BRICS) were also wielding increased strategic power in the global economy. These regional powerhouses posed a further challenge to the liberal order ordained by its authors: they demonstrated that the economic strength of the United States was not unassailable. Moreover, the growth of BRICS had not been achieved through liberal means, and this exposed the liberal ideology to further scrutiny (Nolan and Xiaoqiang 1999; Nayyar 2008). China, in particular, offered an alternative economic and political paradigm for development. In 2009, China overtook the United States as Africa’s biggest trading partner, with some 800 Chinese companies working on the continent, particularly in infrastructure, energy, and agriculture (Tull 2006).
PEACE AGREEMENTS
The attacks on September 11, 2001, and the rise of BRICS affected the conflicts that were ongoing in SSA. Peace agreements were signed, under Northern sponsorship, across the African continent. Agreements signed in Sierra Leone (2001), Angola (2002), Liberia (2003), Congo (2002–3), Burundi (2005), and Sudan (2005) were flawed but were more significant than those that had been signed during the 1990s. Sierra Leone, Liberia, Burundi, and Angola saw no widespread political violence following the agreements, despite the fact that many of the factors that observers argued had caused the wars were still in place: competition over mineral resources, cronyism, poverty, and inequality. Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005 was a marker in the country’s contemporary history, paving the way for the independence of the state of South Sudan six years later, though widespread violence followed. Congo’s peace agreement was also uneven, as will be discussed below. In that the peace agreements signed at the turn of the century brought an end to largescale warfare, they signaled a change in the management of the North-South fault line. Northern powers had been inconsistent in their response to African wars in the 1990s. In some of those wars, governments were supported; in other wars, insurgent groups
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were given aid. Some wars had been left to run their course, and, in Somalia and Rwanda, there had been high-profile but deeply troubled interventions. The new century, by contrast, saw stabilization becoming paramount in the Global North’s governance aspirations and policies in SSA. By 2005, the Human Security Report heralded the beginning of an era and identified the intervention of the United Nations as contributing to the new dawn of peace (Human Security Centre and Mack 2005). Experiences on the African continent were more equivocal. The book No Peace, No War, published the same year as the Human Security Report, explored how nominally “post-conflict” areas remained violent and insecure in the aftermath of war (Richards 2005). In many countries in SSA, there was state aggression toward, and neglect of, populations through military predation and the nonprovision of security and services. Poor transport links and access to markets further curtailed people’s prospects of survival and development. Many governments were not accountable to their populations, and forms of abuse and neglect perpetuated widespread destitution, stultified oppositions, and disorientated civil society (Aust and Jaspers 2006; Ismi 2004; Reno 2003). Analyses that frame the political situation of African countries within national borders, perceiving civil wars and problems of domestic governance, lend credence to the development directives of the Northern donors and the need for intervention and stewardship. They also tend to make the new generation of African leaders appear irrational in pursuing activities that endanger their populations, stoke discontent at home, and jeopardize their political legitimacy within the new forms of democratic dispensation that are applied through development policy to post-conflict contexts (Englebert and Tull 2008). Viewed with reference to the fault line between North and South, and the conflict of interests and difference of power that it marks, the apparently maverick governance behavior makes more sense. African leaders, particularly those heading countries that were endowed with land or mineral resources and coming out of war, have handsome incentives to comply with some of the demands of the dominant development paradigm and the expansive mechanisms of the liberal market with which it is entwined. Yet many of the details of how Southern states implement development policy go under the radar of Northern donors, meaning that African leaders can simultaneously practice selective noncompliance with strategic effect. The perspective of the international political economy places the behavior of African leaders within the framework of opportunities offered by uneven integration into the global economy. The 2007–8 food price hike, for example, increased the premium on agricultural land, and vast tracts of land in many countries on the continent were sold to multinational companies for large-scale agricultural projects for biofuels and food production. The opportunity to sell land to foreign companies risks pitting the interests of political leaders (who can gain from land sales) against those of the population (who are likely to lose from land sales). The strategic significance of the distribution of agricultural land or other resources has a direct impact on the African populations, and it
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superimposes on their geographical space the struggles for dominance between more powerful nations.
D E M O C R AT I C R E P U B L I C O F C O N G O
The country on the continent experiencing the most violent conflict over the past twenty years has been the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire). Congo’s experience of violence extends at least as far back as the European involvement in the country: a vicious Belgian regime of enslavement and exploitation, and then colonization wreaked havoc on the country and its population. The extraction of copper, the mainstay of the economy, reinforced the privileges of white populations while imposing poverty and punishing working conditions on black miners (Dibwe dia Mwembu 2001).
THE ERA OF MOBUTU
Severe forms of violent conflict persisted after independence in 1960, and, after a coup in 1965, President Mobutu Sese Seko, bank-rolled by Western patrons, disrupted and destroyed industries, manufacturing, and agriculture and siphoned political and economic power to an elite group of supporters (Hochschild 1999; Nzongola-Ntalaja 2002; Wrong 2001). At the end of the Cold War in 1991, Mobutu’s patrons in the United States and Europe cut off bilateral and multilateral engagement, starving the skeletal social services of their only source of funding. Mobutu’s network of patrimonial support was threatened by the sudden loss of aid money, and his predation on the population intensified. A long-standing opposition movement for democracy mobilized popular support against Mobutu. General strikes and mass political protests were held in major cities and were met with military and police violence (Palermo 1997). The security forces themselves were largely neglected by Mobutu, and, frustrated by poor pay, the army led pillages in practically all the country’s major towns in the early 1990s. The civilian population joined in, looting shops, factories, and large residential properties. The rioting destroyed what was left of an already dilapidated manufacturing and industrial base. In the straitened conditions of unemployment and lack of investment, Mobutu was able to play groups or regions off against each other in competition for jobs and resources. Tens of thousands of people were killed in provincial fighting through the 1990s as the use of lethal violence became currency for political interactions (Mantuba-Ngoma 2006). The First War in Congo was launched in Goma, a city in the east of the country on the border with Rwanda, in late 1996. The Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (known by its French acronym, AFDL) was headed by Laurent Kabila, a national with a history as a political agitator, who had spent many years in Tanzania. The AFDL married the widespread popular domestic desire to remove Mobutu with the regional powers’ interests in extending their influence over the country. Rwanda and Uganda gave
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crucial support to the movement, including the provision of military supplies and thousands of young recruits, and a quick victory led to the establishment of Kabila as president of Congo in May 1997.
I N VA S I O N A N D O C C U PAT I O N
Despite the military victory, political tensions between the regional players remained, and the Second War broke out just over a year later, in August 1998. It saw the invasion of Congo by Rwanda and Uganda, accompanied by their sponsored militia forces, the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) and the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), respectively. The Second War was an exceptionally violent episode, particularly in the occupied eastern and northern parts of the country. The International Rescue Committee conducted a series of surveys aimed to gauge the “excess deaths” resulting from the war. It found that around a million people were dying each year, which was in excess of the figure that would be expected for a country at Congo’s level of development (IRC 2001, 2003). The two invading armies of Rwanda and Uganda set up administrative networks in the territories they occupied, and they operated by inflicting massive violence on the population and stealing from them, controlling trade, tax, and transport networks, and plundering natural resources (Jackson 2002; U.N. Security Council 2002). The government in Kinshasa, unable to deal with the threat on its eastern border, retrenched its activity, effectively surrendering huge swathes of the country to the invaders. Laurent Kabila was killed in his office in January 2001, and his son, Joseph Kabila, assumed the presidency a few days later.
TRANSITION
A series of negotiations sponsored principally by donors in Europe and America led to the Global and All-Inclusive Agreement on the Transition of the Democratic Republic of Congo being signed by the warring parties at the end of 2002; it was finalized the following April. This official process led to the withdrawal of Rwandan and Ugandan troops and the establishment of the Transitional Government, which comprised Joseph Kabila as president and four vice-presidential posts filled by elite cadres of the opposing factions in the war, including the RCD and MLC and the nominally civilian opposition (of whom one was formerly RCD and the other belonged to tKabila’s party, the PPRD). The signing of the peace agreement was a moment for the Northern donors to resume development aid to Congo. Northern donors had been out of the country since they had cut funding to Mobutu in the early 1990s; some emergency-oriented NGOs had maintained programs in the interim but had operated without large grants. From the turn of the century, key official donors were the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, and France alongside the World Bank and European Union. The United Nations
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was operational principally through the UNDP, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and its military arm, which became the most expensive U.N. single-country mission (MONUSCO 2006). Through the four-year period of the transition, a bifurcation was made in aid delivery. “Development” projects, which included capacity building, infrastructural support, and institution building, were implemented in Kinshasa in the west of the country. These were given large budgets and supported by donor presence. Meanwhile, NGOs were left in charge of humanitarian and emergency work in the east. Even after the peace agreement had been signed, access to areas outside of towns in eastern Congo was severely limited by the political and practical constraints of continuing fighting and poor road networks (Autesserre 2006; Marriage 2010a). The restoration of development aid and the spike in humanitarian funding was accompanied by a raft of other interventions, in line with the combined priorities of development and security policies. Rapid liberalization of the economy and mining trade, numerous programs to demobilize fighters in the east of the country, and the hosting of presidential elections made Congo a textbook case for Northern interventions inspired by the liberal peace, with military, economic, and political elements to the transition. The rapid liberalization displayed donors’ optimism that the extensive natural and mineral resources would be a driving force for the country’s development (DFID 2012). More than ten years into the U.N. mission and the signing of the peace agreement in Congo, the eastern part of the country continued to be wracked by fighting (ARB 2013). Mining has been liberalized, but returns from the sales have not been ploughed into infrastructural development or service provisions, and the majority of the population has been excluded from ownership of capital resources (Kodi 2008; Stearns 2011). Meanwhile, the democratization had not facilitated political debate or sparked the formation of a viable opposition. Explaining why Congo has not fulfilled its development “potential” and why it remains violent requires reference back to theories on civil wars and functional violence as well as to the North-South fault line and the systemic inequality and conflict that it maintains.
N AT I O N A L DY N A M I C S O F T H E C O N F L I C T
The peace agreement in 2002–3 brought the major belligerents together into an elite bargain. It was brokered at a high political level and addressed the direct forms of violence in eastern Congo. Its formulation framed the conflict as a civil war (rather than an invasion by Rwanda and Uganda) and granted elite belligerents political legitimacy by according them vice-presidential posts. The clinching mechanism was a set of incentives to satisfy their economic interests: exclusive power over the management of the country’s resources, including incoming development aid. The conceptualization of a civil war over resources was largely confirmed by the geography of the fighting. Virtually all hostilities took place within Congo’s borders; control
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of the mining trade brought immense economic returns; and violence was most intense in mineral-rich areas as competing militias vied for control of mines and trading. Within this geographically defined area, however, there were two major forms of violence that complicated the story of insurgent factions challenging the state for power. One was the violence of sections of the population against others, which was fought through militia rivalry, predation by armed groups on civilians, and the widespread use of sexual violence and rape (Human Rights Watch 2009). The second form of violence was a continuation of the conflict between the leadership and the population that dated from before independence and was pursued through coercion by state agents, the systematic deprivation of salaries and services, and, on the population’s part, participation in informal activities and tax avoidance. The conflicts between sections of the population and between the leadership and the population preceded the wars, and when Laurent Kabila led his troops through the Kivus, the area was already a battleground. Both forms of conflict, though, were intensified through the mechanisms of the wars, particularly by the militarization and radicalization of the country. The First War saw the recruitment of thousands of Congolese fighters who were united in their resentment of Mobutu and their commitment to overthrow him. The spread of weapons went hand-in-hand with a discourse on ethnic difference that inflamed tensions already existing between groups. “Tutsi” and “Hutu” were labels that were rarely used in Congo before the influx of Rwandans in the mid-1990s but came to define differences between Congolese groups, their politics and interests. The Second War saw mass mobilization at the local level, much of it defined by ethnic narratives, which fueled splinter wars that transferred the competition for resources and trade routes to village-level violence and reprisals. The conflict between the leadership and the population arguably saw a short reprieve during the time that Laurent Kabila was in power. He was a populist leader and had led a rebellion of discontents during the First War. When in power, he disappointed many of his followers with his dictatorial governance, but in any case his rule was short lived, and Joseph Kabila never gained widespread popular support. The long-standing conflict between the political military elite and the rest of the population continued under Joseph Kabila as the army and militias (variously aligned) pillaged and massacred the population (Human Rights Watch 2006, 2009). The transition that followed the signing of the peace agreement included a process of democratization, but it lacked credibility because it granted political positions to people with no democratic mandate and provided them with opportunities to entrench their advantage. The conflict between the leadership and the population persisted, and the protagonists remained in their posts (Marriage 2013, 143–46). The national dynamics of Congo’s Second War demonstrate how functional logics of economic rationality and strategic alliance interact with more abstract or emotional logics, such as ethnic or political affiliation, desperation, and hope. They provide a rich seam for analysis of the power and interests at play and their influence over the course and
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nature of the war. Nevertheless, the interpretation of a civil war leaves elements that cannot be explained at the national or regional levels—such as the rise of Joseph Kabila from political obscurity to obdurate power, the dynamism of mineral sales, and the moment that the peace agreement was signed, which did not correspond to the military progress but came at a random moment for the fighting forces.
I N T E R N AT I O N A L DY N A M I C S O F T H E C O N F L I C T
Despite the geographic confines of the fighting, nearly all the nine countries surrounding Congo took part in the Second War. The vastness and diversity of Congo’s mineral wealth provided lucrative incentive to enter a country that was scarcely policed (Clark 2002). Trading of gold, diamonds, and coltan (used in electronic goods), controlled predominantly by Rwanda and Uganda, dominated the exports from Congo and buoyed economic indicators across the region (APPG 2002; Matti 2010). The involvement of neighboring countries linked political, economic, and military activity in Congo to an international political economy of violence through mineral trading, arms supplies, armed personnel, and the provision of funds in the form of development aid. There were three ways in which Northern donors facilitated Laurent Kabila’s march on Congo in 1996 and sustained the Rwandan and Ugandan occupation in the subsequent years. The first was the financial backing that Kabila received from the United States, which was acknowledged retrospectively by the U.S. Information Agency (Mantuba-Ngoma 2002, 13–15). The second was the indirect support that donors gave through uncritical aid to, and trade with, Rwanda and Uganda. The third was a lack of regard for the state and the oversight of insurgent activity that this inspired: no Northern government moved to defend Mobutu or Kabila, and the occupation by Rwanda and Uganda that started in 1998 was not met with robust international censure. All three dynamics depended on the superior political and economic power of the Global North and the difference in interests between Northern powers and Congo, and all three dynamics contribute to an explanation of how the wars took place at the time and in the way that they did. For the U.S. and European governments, Mobutu was an embarrassing relic from the Cold War era. Northern donors held the African state in low regard in the early 1990s on account of chronic poor performance and diminished strategic significance at the end of the Cold War. A widely held trust in the mechanisms of the market led not only to a lack of support for the state but also to tolerance of territorial violation. The same enthusiasm in the market prompted donor support to Uganda and Rwanda as countries that were engaging with international trade, particularly of Congo’s minerals. The interests of Northern powers changed at the turn of the century for two reasons. First, the attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001, lent weight to the suspicion that underdevelopment was dangerous. Congo’s war involved the entire central African region, a part of the world that was characterized by extreme poverty and underdevelop-
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ment, and the violence was far out of the control of Northern powers. Second, China was increasingly influential on the African continent and threatened the privileged access that Europe and North America had enjoyed to Congo’s mineral wealth. A sudden and comprehensive reengagement with Congo was necessary to impose parameters on the country’s political and economic institutions and to face up to the Chinese influence. The timing and nature of the wars and the peace agreement are consistent with the vacillations of international interests and power, including the rival interaction between the United States and China. The kind of peace that was brokered and the forms of violence that continued to accompany it are similarly situated within the context of international political dynamics (Marriage 2010b). For millions of people living in Congo, and particularly those who were not directly affected by the fighting, the conditions of life remained the same after the peace accord was signed. The withdrawal of Rwandan and Ugandan troops reduced the fighting in the east of the country, but the International Rescue Committee’s surveys found that excess mortality rates were not much affected by the formal cessation of hostilities because the very large majority of deaths during the war had been the result of exposure and a lack of access to healthcare and food supplies (IRC 2008). The mortality surveys were high-profile and cited widely, not least because of the paucity of other sources of data on Congo. The Human Security Report 2009/10 dedicated a chapter to critiquing the methodology and findings of the surveys, stoking the debate on the number of casualties (HSRP 2010, 36–48). In some ways, however, the debates reinforced the IRC reports’ implicit findings: that the population of Congo was politically and economically irrelevant to the interests and power bases of the conflict and the forms of development that were taking place. The fact that there were margins of error in the millions, and that no account drew political, economic, or military implications from the decimation of the population, spoke louder than the contested figures. Whether these people were dead or alive made no difference to the development of Congo or the course of the war. What did change with the signing of the peace agreement was foreign access to mineral resources. This achievement depended on the interplay between the Northern donors, who provided funds and steered the course of liberalization, and the Congolese leadership, which determined how policies were received and interpreted in-country. The process was secured by granting the elite belligerents the opportunity to retain the gains that they had made through fighting. This was sweetened further by the injection of large amounts of aid to organize and support the presidential elections, which were plundered by members of the transitional government (Ngoma-Binda, Yahisule, and Mombo 2010, 119). The squander of aid was a price the Northern donors were ready to pay in order to push through the elections and liberalization at a pace that suited their interests (Englebert and Tull 2008; Autesserre 2010). The entry of China into the contest over the political and economic resources of Congo is game-changing. Instead of a wrangling between the powerful Global North and
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the relatively powerless Congolese state to chase development targets, the Global North and China have now engaged with each other in vying for dominance in the region and control of Congo’s resources. The North-South fault line, in defining differences in interest and power, is made more politically complex as China establishes its relationships with parties on both sides of that line.
SUCCESSES CRITIQUE DEVELOPMENT
Since the return of official aid to Congo, GDP has grown, two presidential elections have been held, and there has been no return to full-scale war. The interventions have recorded achievements within the terms and calibrations of Northern development policy, but the distance between the successes claimed and the continuation of conflict and insecurity in Congo frames a critique of the development that is being pursued. It is not simply that the outcomes are not structurally connected to the population of Congo; the opportunities that the development aid and economic growth have provided have also enabled political and military elites to increase their advantage over the population, foreclosing the formation of contractual mechanisms associated with security and the provision of services. The development driven by donor priorities has enabled the Global North to “foster life or disallow it to the point of death” (Duffield 2007, 5, drawing on Foucault). American and European donors have sponsored intertwined economic and political processes: for example, both elections were won by the incumbent president (with decreasing levels of convincingness) (Agyeman-Togobo 2011; ICG 2011), and vast mineral concessions have been sold to foreign companies. Reporting on subsequent iterations of privatization, the BBC recorded the FAO’s findings that practically half of the country’s agricultural land had been sold by the beginning of 2012 (BBC 2012). Foreign investors benefit from unregulated concessions sales at well below their market price, but the Congolese people are alienated from the resources of the country. The positive economic indicators of success collide with the interests of people in Congo. The sale of assets notwithstanding, none of the Millennium Development Goals are likely to be achieved in Congo (DFID 2012, 3), and the development that has taken place has exacerbated the disenfranchisement of the population from the economic and political resources of the country. Conflict in Congo has been transformed: incompatible interests persist, but the means to pursue them have been overhauled by changes in Northern development and security priorities. Internationally, Kabila is gatekeeper of the country’s resources, and the return that he makes on his partial collaboration with the interests of the Global North relieves him of domestic responsibilities; meanwhile, the population is disoriented and debilitated. Congo is beset by smaller-scale violence, including violence by national state agents, militia activity, and destitution (Human Rights Watch 2015), but this is violence that does not generally threaten international access to mining.
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DEVELOPMENT AND THE VIOLENCE OF DESTITUTION
The “New Deal for Engagement with Fragile States” was struck at the Third Global Meeting of the International Dialogue in 2011. The meeting was attended by heads of states of more than thirty countries and partners in the private sector and civil society, and it was convened to discuss the implementation of peace-building and state-building. Development policy presents underdevelopment and conflict as problems of and in the Global South—and particularly SSA—that are obstacles to peace and development. The neoliberal ideology that informs development policy pushes the South to accept stabilization, to open markets, and to move toward multiparty democracy. Incorporating the difference of experience and interests between the North and the South into the analysis has granted a perspective on how the interests of the North have been pursued through management of the conflicts taking place in less powerful areas of the world. Since the end of the Cold War, and particularly since the turn of the twenty-first century, the number of wars has decreased appreciably across SSA. There is no consensus on what has caused this decrease in military activity, and continent-wide data provide little in the way of predictive capacity with regard to the patterns or trends identified (Marshall 2005). Many of the elements identified in the literature as causes of conflict remain, although Northern support for insurgent and cross-border violence in SSA has waned. The decline in the number of conflicts contrasts with the continuities in people’s life chances, which, in many countries on the continent, are curtailed by destitution, state neglect, abuse by armed groups, and displacement. This chapter has focused on Congo to tease out the details of how wars and peace agreements are situated within the patterns of Northern development policy. It has investigated the interests and power of different parties, rather than assuming the neutrality of the development process and the chaos of conflict that such a position implies. Although Congo’s resources and experiences of violence are extreme, mechanisms identified with regard to power and control over political and economic institutions provide three interrelated observations of broader relevance to the contemporary situation of conflict and development in SSA. The first of these observations is that facilitating foreign access to the mineral markets and agricultural land of Africa without regulation or taxation reinforces the national and international political economy to the detriment of the majority of the country’s population. The population of Congo has been effectively barred from ownership or control of the country’s political institutions and has been unable to demand economic returns on concession sales. The second observation is that conflicts in SSA can be stabilized by the intervention of external powers, but this stabilization compromises sovereignty in diverse ways. In Congo, sovereignty was undermined after the peace accord was signed both by intrusive political and economic policies and by the suboptimal sale of mineral concessions and agricultural land. The third observation of continent-wide relevance is that, despite the damage inflicted by conflicts, the most catastrophic threats stem from the
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systemic conflicts that perpetuate the destitution of millions of people. Even after the formal end of hostilities, life has been circumscribed by political exclusion and aggressive destitution. Rather than being surprising, these observations are understood within the development literature and practice. The SAPs were disastrous for the continent in the 1980s but are relevantly similar to the privatization and liberalization that are currently taking place (Keen 2005). The need for infant-industries and regulatory bodies has been discussed within development studies and economics and is borne out by the experience of countries that have industrialized in recent years, particularly in Asia (Khan and Jomo 2000). The issue of sovereignty and the need for political contracts between the state and the population has a long liberal tradition going back to Thomas Hobbes. The violence of destitution has been elaborated in policy and academic debate on the symbiosis of development and security and on the meanings and priorities of human security, and it is acknowledged in the Millennium Development Goals. Given that these observations are not surprising, some explanation is needed as to why the blueprint of liberal interventions was followed in Congo and was implemented at such speed and with such high aid spending. A rational explanation for donor behavior returns to the notion of functional violence that dominates the civil wars’ literature and applies it to the international political economy of violence. This leads to the conclusion that the disordered outcomes have strategic functions for those in positions of power. The failures of development in Congo have not challenged the security or economic interests of Northern donor countries—indeed, the failures have promoted those interests in that they have reinforced the international political economy and met the challenge posed by China. The implication follows that the marginalization of populations from economic and political mechanisms is not a side effect of nascent processes of development or a remnant of historic conflicts. Instead, it is an integral part of the forms of development that are currently being prioritized by Northern donors operating in SSA.
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. 1994b. “The Functions of Famine in Southwestern Sudan: Implications for Relief.” In War and Hunger: Rethinking International Response to Complex Emergencies, edited by Joanna Macrae and Anthony Zwi, 111–24. London: Zed Books. . 1999. “ ‘Who’s It between?’ ‘Ethnic War’ and Rational Violence.” In The Media of Conflict: Conflict Reporting and Representations of Ethnic Violence, edited by T. Allen and J. Seaton, 81–101. London: Zed Books. . 2005. “Liberalization and Conflict.” International Political Science Review 26, no. 1: 73–89. Khan, Mushtaq, and Jomo Kwame Sundaram. 2000. Rents, Rent-Seeking and Economic Development: Theory and Evidence in Asia. Cambridge, Engl.: Cambridge University Press. King, Gary, and Charles Murray. 2001–2. “Rethinking Human Security.” Political Science Quarterly 116, no. 4: 585–610. Kodi, Muzong. 2008. “Corruption and Governance in the DRC during the Transition Period.” Pretoria: Institute of Security Studies. Mantuba-Ngoma, Pamphile Mabiala. 2002. “La guerre d’agression de la République Démocratique du Congo (1996–2002): Evolution, perceptions et perspectives.” In La prévention des crises et l’instauration d’une paix durable en R.D.C., edited by Bernard Labama Lokwa, 9–38. Kinshasa: Publications de l’Institut pour la Démocratie et le Leadership Politiques. . 2006. “La longue transition politique en RDC (1990–2006): Aspects positifs et vicissitudes.” In La République Démocratique du Congo: Une démocratisation au bout du fusil, edited by P. M. Mantuba-Ngoma, T. Hanf, and B. Schlee, 31–51. Kinshasa: Publications de la Fondation Konrad Adenauer. Marriage, Zoë. 2006. Not Breaking the Rules, Not Playing the Game: International Assistance to Countries at War. London: Hurst and Co. . 2010a. “Congo Co.: Aid and Security.” Journal of Conflict, Security and Development 10, no. 3: 353–77. . 2010b. “Many Conflicts, One Peace: Congo’s Economy and Global Security.” In The Political Economy of Africa, edited by Vishnu Padayachee, 301–16. London: Routledge. . 2013. Formal Peace and Informal War: Security and Development in Congo. London: Routledge. Marshall, Monty G. 2005. Conflict Trends in Africa, 1946–2004: A Macro-Comparative Perspective. London: Africa Conflict Prevention Pool. Matti, Stephanie. 2010. “Resources and Rent Seeking in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.” Third World Quarterly 31, no. 3: 401–13. Minter, William. 1994. Apartheid’s Contras: An Inquiry into the Roots of War in Angola and Mozambique. London: Zed Books. MONUSCO. 2006. “RD Congo: Le Role et la mission des institutions politiques postélectorals.” MONUSCO (United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the DR Congo) 4, no. 33: 20. Nayyar, Deepak. 2008. “China, India, Brazil and South Africa in the World Economy: Engines of Growth.” UNU-WIDER Discussion Paper 2008/05. Helsinki: United Nations University–World Institute for Development Economics Research. Ngoma-Binda, Phambu, Otemikongo Madefu Yahisule, and Leslie Moswa Mombo. 2010. République Démocratique du Congo. Démocratie et participation à la vie politique: une
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évaluation des premiers pas dans la IIIème République. Johannesburg: L’Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa. Nolan, Peter, and Wang Xiaoqiang. 1999. “Beyond Privatization: Institutional Innovation and Growth in China’s Large State-Owned Enterprises.” World Development 27, no. 1: 169–200. Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges. 2002. The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People’s History. London: Zed Books. Palermo, Savino. 1997. Pour l’amour de mon peuple. Cent ans d’évangélisation au Haut-Zaïre 1897–1997. 2 vols. Rome: Edizioni Dehoniane Roma. Paris, Roland. 2001. “Human Security: Paradigm Shift or Hot Air?” International Security 26, no. 2: 87–102. . 2004. At War’s End: Building Peace after Civil Conflict. Cambridge, Engl.: Cambridge University Press. Reno, William. 1998. Warlord Politics and African States. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers. . 2003. “Collapsing States and Non-Revolutionary Insurgencies.” In State Failure, Collapse and Reconstruction, edited by Jenny Milliken, 83–104. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell. Richards, Paul. 1996. Fighting for the Rain Forest: War, Youth and Resources in Sierra Leone. Oxford: James Currey. , ed. 2005. No Peace, No War: An Anthropology of Contemporary Armed Conflicts. Oxford: James Currey. Sen, Amartya. 1999. Development as Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press. Somerville, Keith. 1984. “The U.S.S.R. and Southern Africa since 1976.” Journal of Modern African Studies 22, no. 1: 73–108. STAIR. 2005. “Human Security.” St. Antony’s International Review 1, no. 2 (special edition). Stearns, Jason. 2011. Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa. New York: Public Affairs. Stein, Howard, and E. Wayne Nafziger. 1991. “Structural Adjustment, Human Needs, and the World Bank Agenda.” Journal of Modern African Studies 29: 173–89. Storey, Andy. 2001. “Structural Adjustment, State Power and Genocide: The World Bank and Rwanda.” Review of African Political Economy 28, no. 89: 365–85. Truman, Harry, 1949. “Inaugural Address, January 20, 1949.” Independence, Mo.: Harry S Truman Library and Museum. https://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/50yr_archive /inagural20jan1949.htm. Tull, Denis M. 2006. “China’s Engagement in Africa: Scope, Significance and Consequences.” Journal of Modern African Studies 44, no. 3: 459–79. Turton, David. 1997. “War and Ethnicity: Global Connections and Local Violence in North East Africa and Former Yugoslavia.” Oxford Development Studies 25, no. 1: 77–94. UNDP. 1990–95. Human Development Index. Geneva: United Nations Development Programme. Accessed Apr. 9, 2014. http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-index-hdi. . 1994. “New Dimensions of Human Security.” In Human Development Report 1994, 22–46. Geneva: U.N. Development Programme. U.N. Security Council. 2002. “Final Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.” S/2002/1146. New York: United Nations Security Council.
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Uvin, Peter. 1998. Aiding Violence: The Development Enterprise in Rwanda. West Hartford, Conn.: Kumarian Press. Wrong, Michaela. 2001. In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu’s Congo. New York: Harper Collins. Zack-Williams, Alfred B. 1999. “Sierra Leone: The Political Economy of Civil War, 1991–98.” Third World Quarterly 20, no. 1: 143–62.
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22 SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Paul Almeida
In this chapter, I examine major epochs of economic development in the Global South in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and the dominant forms of oppositional collective action they produce. The economic development regimes include, in sequential and historical order: agro-export of a few basic agricultural/resource commodities; state-led development; and neoliberalism. Although these broad forms of development stretching across the globe are well-known as distinctive strategies for capitalist accumulation, we can also classify and document social movement activity associated with the prevailing type of economic development within a historical and comparative framework. Each development strategy generates conflicts in specific economic sectors between particular groups. Under monoculture production, peasant cultivators and rural wage earners confront agro-industrialists, landlords, state agents, and transnational agricultural companies. During the period of the expansion of the developmental state, urban workers battled industrial capitalists and the state while rural sectors demanded that modernizing governments implement agrarian reform. In the current era dominated by neoliberal development strategies, NGOs, new social movements, and sectors surviving from state-led development enter into conflicts with the shrinking welfare state and with transnational capital. This chapter surveys this rich literature and classifies types of opposition for each development period.
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Dominant Economic Development Strategies and Forms of Collective Action
Economic Development Strategy
Core Economic Activities
Agro-Export, Monoculture, and Raw Material Exports (1900–1940s)
Export agricultural commodities and mineral resources to Global North
State-led Development (1940s–1980s)
Core Oppositional Actors in Movement Activities
Forms of Collective Resistance
Peasants and rural wage Everyday forms of resistance; rural strikes; earners (sometimes insurrections aligned with urban craft and artisanal labor) Rural cooperatives; urban Urban and rural strikes; labor unions in state urban street and manufacturing mobilizations sectors; educational sectors
Diversify agricultural activities; initiate manufacturing on a larger scale; massive expansion of the state social and economic infrastructure Neoliberal Development Diversify agricultural Public sector unions; National-level campaigns (1980s–2010s) sector into nontraditional NGOs; new social against neoliberal export crops; privatize movements; oppositional policies; demonstrations; state-run manufacturing political parties (often in road blocks on major and public infrastructure; broad multi-sectoral highways; civic strikes open to greater foreign coalitions) investment and free trade
C O M P A R I N G E C O N O M I C D E V E L O P M E N T S T R AT E G I E S AND FORMS OF COLLECTIVE ACTION
Table 22.1 summarizes the core types of economic development and the corresponding forms of social movement–type activity discussed in this chapter. Previous scholarship has examined in broad terms the association between long-term waves of economic growth and contraction (e.g. Kondratiev cycles) and fluctuations in social movement–type activity (Frank and Fuentes 1994; Wallerstein 2014). The present approach provides a more concrete and sensitizing framework based on historical studies of economic development and collective forms of resistance. The table directs attention to the broad economic activities of a particular era of development and the sectors most frequently engaging in collective action given the structural constraints and types of grievances associated with the corresponding development strategies. The framework does not incorporate all collective struggles against authority (Snow and Soule 2009). It is limited in scope to describing the association between forms of economic development and the
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sectors and groups most likely capable of mobilizing to address reforming the prevailing economic arrangements or dismantling them. As indicated in the table, nations and colonized territories of the Global South in the first half of the twentieth century were characterized by agro-export production and mineral extraction. Some of the largest revolts that took place occurred in these sectors, especially when laboring groups were threatened by subsistence survival in the form of mass unemployment, wage cuts, and new forms of taxation. In the aftermath of World War II and de-colonization in Africa and Asia, governments in the developing world engaged in a variety of state modernization and industrialization projects. From the 1950s to the 1980s, urbanization, industrialization, and state infrastructural expansion accelerated at an impressive pace. The process produced a greater variety of groups and civil society actors with a number of demands (Almeida 2015). Organized groups viewed the growing state and economy as an opportunity to expand existing benefits and gain new advantages by legalizing their labor associations, extending welfare and social security benefits, and securing new urban services and resources such as education, basic healthcare, land titles, electricity, and potable water. Urban labor unions, students, educators, and other professional associations often served as the vanguard in these struggles as the rural sector organized in cooperatives and peasant organizations demanded that the modernizing state enact agrarian reform. Governments in the neoliberal era of the 1980s to the present scaled back on state intervention in the economy and opened nation-states to greater foreign investment and integration into new global markets (Robinson 2014; Spalding 2014). The foreign debt crisis inaugurated the period and provided sustained external pressure to enact economic liberalization and privatization. Such practices were viewed by the working and middle classes as a direct threat to the economic and social gains achieved in the previous period of state-led economic development (Walton and Seddon 1994; Silva 2009). In response, a greater variety of groups and the popular classes launched campaigns of defensive mobilization (Almeida 2007, 2015). These threat-induced campaigns against free trade, price increases, labor flexibility, and privatization often benefited from democratic transitions where subaltern groups had more space to coordinate opposition and temporarily appropriate the organizational capital of oppositional political parties and NGOs. Most campaigns are generally nonviolent, but often assertive and disruptive, given the relatively more democratic context in which the struggles are waged (Schock 2015). Nonetheless, just as in the previous two periods of economic development (agro-export and stateled development), state repression against organized challenges may push protest campaigns onto a more violent trajectory, such as in the Arab Spring nations of Libya and Syria (Kurzman 2012). In the next section, social movements and collective action theory in relation to economic development are defined, followed by detailed accounts of social movement activity during the three major periods of capitalist economic development between 1900 and the 2010s.
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DEFINING SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: CLASSICAL A N D C O N T E M P O R A RY A C C O U N T S
Social movement–type activity is defined as the sustained collective mobilization of groups excluded from political and economic power that employ noninstitutional strategies and tactics to exercise influence with economic and political elites (Tarrow 2011; Snow and Soule 2009). Scholarship focusing on advanced capitalist industrialized democracies often takes for granted variations in economic development and their role in collective mobilization (McAdam et al. 2010).1 Forms and levels of economic development shape the scale of collective action as well as the diversity of participants and the likely strategies social movements employ. Classical sociological thinkers offered preliminary insights into our understanding of large-scale economic transformations and collective action. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels ([1848] 1978) viewed the spread of industrial forms of capitalism as creating an unprecedented demographic shift in worker density for the laboring classes to launch collective forms of resistance against exploitation and the distribution of the social surplus. Émile Durkheim (1984) observed the increasing institutional differentiation of an incipient industrial society as creating the need for the kinds of associations that would not only serve social integration purposes but also contribute to internal solidarity of occupational groups such as labor unions (Emirbayer 1996). Durkheim also highlighted mutual awareness and the generation of emotional energy in face-to-face encounters that could sustain collective action (Collins 2004). Max Weber (1978) provided valuable insights on the types of rationales and the binding social ties that motivate joint social action as well as the advantages of structuring collective mobilization along bureaucratic lines (Gamson 1990). These classical statements provide general guidelines to consider how economic development influences the form and the groups engaging in social movement mobilization in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in a variety of contexts in the Global South. The level of collective action is always constrained by the social ties, organizational capacity, common interests, and mutual awareness of the potential pool of social movement participants (Gould 1995). Forms of economic development greatly condition these building blocks of social movement activity. Development strategies also shape the broader political and economic environment, providing the catalyzing threats and opportunities for collective action (Almeida 2003; Meyer 2004). New systems of taxation or heightened forms of labor exploitation may trigger negative incentives or threats stimulating mass mobilization. Periods of rapid economic growth and redistribution create positive incentives or opportunities to gain new advantages and benefits (Goldstone and Tilly 2001; Tarrow 2011). Following in the traditions of Arthur Stinchcombe (1961), Jeffrey Paige (1975), Timothy Wickham-Crowley (1992), and Philip McMichael (2016) on the relationship between economic arrangements and the consequences for political mobilization, this chapter
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analyzes the forms of collective action and the challenging groups that emerge under three global strategies of economic development over the past one hundred years, in sequential order: mono-cropping and resource extraction; state-led development; and neoliberalism. Each dominant form of economic development has produced new social cleavages eventuating in distinctive forms of social struggle calling for reform or overthrow of the prevailing economic arrangements (see Table 22.1). In the following sections, I highlight each of these dominant forms of economic development in relation to the forms of collective opposition they produce. Illustrative examples are drawn from several world regions in the Global South.
A G R O - E X P O RT, M O N O C U LT U R E , A N D M I N E R A L E X T R A C T I O N , 1 9 0 0 –1 9 5 0
In the early twentieth century, most of the regimes in the Global South dedicated economic activities to a few export agricultural crops and/or mineral extraction as the main source of revenue and foreign exchange (Paige 1975). Even as late as 1961, 75 percent of exports from Africa, Asia, and Latin America were agricultural commodities, with 90 percent of these exports destined to markets in the Global North (Paige 1975, 1). Hence, through the mid-twentieth century, developing countries’ chief commercial economic activities were catered to meet the demands of the advanced industrialized capitalist nations (Baran 1957; Frank 1967), including resource and ecological needs (Jorgenson, Austin, and Dick 2009). Western powers in the Global North erected a variety of political structures in attempting to consolidate and stabilize these advantageous economic relations via direct colonialism, neocolonialism/intervention, and transnational corporate influence in the domestic politics of peripheral states (Chase-Dunn 1998; Lachman 2010; Go 2011). Agriculture export economies and mining activities placed large numbers of laborers in similar circumstances in the early to mid-twentieth century. Extremely exploitive labor relations provided the baseline grievances of the rural laboring classes and workers in the mineral extraction sectors. However, in most places, widespread collective resistance never surfaced given the repressive forms of labor control. Where mass mobilization did emerge, preestablished social ties, organizations, and collective identities were in place. These trends can be observed in multiple regions throughout the developing world. In Latin America between the 1900s and the early 1950s, many of the most prominent strikes, revolts, and insurrections took place in agricultural regions dominated by export agriculture and monoculture. Between 1930 and 1936, a wave of rural mobilizations occurred in northern Mexico in the Laguna Comarca region. Foreign cotton companies and large plantation owners became the target of newly organized agricultural workers demanding higher wages and better working conditions. The movement culminated in a general strike in August 1936 with the support of the Mexican Communist Party and the newly formed Confederation of Mexican Workers (Craig 1990). President
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Lázaro Cárdenas intervened to end the strike and implemented a major land reform, breaking down the plantation holdings and redistributing them to some 38,000 workers as ejido (communal land) cooperatives (Stavenhagen 1981). In 1933, Cuba experienced a mass strike and occupations of thirty-six sugar mills and sugarcane plantations, hastening the fall of the Machado regime (Carr 1998). The strike occurred in the context of the Great Depression and the fall of international sugar prices. The cane cutters and mill workers’ movement was led by Afro-Cubans with the strong support of the National Sugar Workers Labor Union and the Cuban Communist Party (Carr 1996). One of the largest social movements in early twentieth century Colombia took place in the late 1920s on United Fruit–controlled banana plantations on the northern Caribbean coast. In 1928, the Colombian army squashed a month-long strike by banana workers, resulting in dozens, if not hundreds, of deaths of laborers (Bucheli 2005). By the 1920s, Marc Becker finds Ecuador experiencing “the classic contradictions of a monoculture export economy” (2008, 19). Crops such as cacao and coffee accounted for 90 percent of the country’s exports. In this agro-export context, Ecuador witnessed some of its most violent and largest rural strikes in the 1920s and 1930s organized by indigenous communities with the support of the newly formed Communist and Socialist parties (Becker 2008). In Argentina, a major strike of sugarcane cultivators erupted in the late 1920s in the Tucumán region, where monoculture production was largely for domestic consumption. The mobilizations acted as the largest acts of collective action in the regional history of northwestern Argentina (Greenberg 1987). In Central America in this era, agrarian elites concentrated economic activity in coffee and banana cultivation for external markets. The agro-export regions were largely enclaves with roads, railroad lines, ports, and other infrastructure connected directly with the plantations and haciendas, with few backward linkages to the rest of the domestic economy. When large-scale collective action emerged between the 1930s and the 1950s, it was precisely in these agro-export zones in El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Honduras.2 In El Salvador in January 1932, one of the largest mass uprisings in Latin America in the wake of the great Depression occurred in the western coffee-growing districts. Thousands of coffee farm workers and indigenous peasants seized several towns and military installations until they were crushed with extraordinary levels of state repression. In the years immediately before the revolt, coffee workers, farm managers, and labor unionists had been in social interaction with one another in the western region of the country (Gould and Lauria Santiago 2008). These groups experienced the same conditions of labor organizing followed by economic decline (with the crash of international coffee prices) and a wave of state persecution in 1930 and 1931, eventuating in the radicalization of the rural labor movement’s identity and the 1932 popular insurrection. The coffee economy accounted for 90 percent of export earnings by the late 1920s (Almeida 2007; Ching 2014). In 1934, a major banana strike broke out on the Atlantic coast of Costa Rica in the province of Limón. The major grievances of the banana workers included a right to a union, medical assistance, and payment in cash instead of banana
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company tokens (Seligson 1981). In 1954, a general strike erupted in northern Honduras in the banana plantation enclave districts, and it eventually spread to cities (Posas Amador 1976). In Asia, several major rebellions occurred in the early 1930s in the monoculture crops of Southeast Asia. In particular, rice-producing cultivators experienced a rapid decline in their livelihoods with the onset of the Depression and precipitous fall of the global price of this basic food staple. In the midst of the global economic crisis, landlords and tax collectors continued aggressively to extract surplus from the rice-producing peasants in multiple provinces of British-controlled Burma and French-controlled Vietnam. This resulted in several outbreaks of nonviolent and violent resistance by rural communities (Scott 1976). In Malaysia in the late 1940s, the local Communist Party built up its core base of support among rubber plantation workers in their collective campaigns to expel British colonial rule (Goodwin 2001). In southern India, as the number of plantation workers accelerated in the early twentieth century, between the 1930s and 1950s Socialist and Communist parties and peasant unions penetrated tea and rubber plantations for mass organizing with particular effectiveness (Gough 1969; Raman 2010). Regarding Africa, Walter Rodney reports similar patterns of economic development under colonial rule in the early twentieth century with a focus on the export of basic commodities and extraction of raw materials: Means of communication were not constructed in the colonial period so that Africans could visit their friends. More important still, they were not laid down to facilitate internal trade in African commodities. There were no roads connecting different colonies and different parts of the same colony in a manner that made sense with regard to Africa’s needs and development. All roads and railways led down to the sea. They were built to extract gold or manganese or coffee or cotton. They were built to make business possible for the timber companies, trading companies, and agricultural concession firms, and for white settlers. Any catering to African interests was purely coincidental. (1981, 209)
Because of direct, harsh colonial rule in sub-Saharan Africa in the early to mid-twentieth century, much rural resistance to the foreign imposition of cultivating agricultural commodities took the shape of everyday forms of resistance (Scott 1985), where peasants engaged in largely hidden types of collective defiance. These are contexts whereby open and sustained social movement mobilizations (as in our Latin American and Asian examples above) are too high risk, and subaltern groups must resort to less obtrusive and public forms of dissent. Allen Isaacman defines such situations of resistance in the African context as peasant attempts “to block or undercut the claims of the state or appropriating class” (1993, 237). These daily forms of resistance often remain undocumented in official records. Such rebellious and clandestine acts included boiling cotton seeds before planting in South Africa, Malawi, Tanganyika, and Zaire; robbing tax collectors in Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe; sabotaging farm equipment in South Africa and
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Kenya; sharecroppers withholding part of their rice output in the Gambia; planting cash crops late and in insufficient quantities (while intercropping subsistence foods) in Cameroon, Chad, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda; and fleeing en masse in a variety of locations when indigenous African communities came under threat of forced labor and/or taxation (Isaacman 1993, 237–41). In short, in the first half of the twentieth century, several of the largest and most sustained strikes, revolts, and insurrections (along with everyday forms of resistance) took place in the monoculture zones of the Global South—the dominant form of economic development of the time. The movements were largely motivated by the negative conditions of falling commodity prices and/or excessive taxation. Hence, economic threats stimulated many of the protest campaigns of the period. Where a modicum of political space was allowed by colonial and neocolonial regimes and newly established states, movements largely remained nonviolent and reformist (such as in the 1934 banana strike in Costa Rica and the 1935 cotton workers’ strike in Mexico). Where movements faced excessive levels of government repression, the movements were crushed, used everyday forms of resistance (as in Africa), or escalated to revolutionary levels as in El Salvador and Vietnam in the early 1930s and in Malaysia in the late 1940s. Several of the campaigns of popular resistance in cane fields, on cotton, banana, tea, and rubber plantations, and on coffee estates were supported or coordinated by leftist and nationalist political parties. These parties often provided the social ties and organizations to sustain collective resistance. In the post–World War II era, the Global South began to diversify economic activities, changing the nature of collective action and the key protagonists.
S TAT E - L E D D E V E L O P M E N T, 1 9 40 s –1 9 80 s
By the 1940s and 1950s, governments in the developing world began to diversify their economic activities beyond a few agricultural crops and mineral commodities, with notable consequences for the prominent forms of social movement activity that would emerge in this period of heavy state-building. In larger states, such as Mexico, Brazil, India, Turkey, South Korea, Argentina, and South Africa, governments moved into largescale manufacturing under the economic development strategy of import substitution industrialization (Sandoval 1993). These economic expansion and modernization strategies often involved joint ventures and foreign investment from transnational corporations and capital based in the Global North (Bornschier and Chase-Dunn 1985)—resulting in a dependent form of industrialization (Cardoso 1973; Evans 1979). Even smaller agricultural societies began to engage in light manufacturing, such as snack foods, bottling, tobacco products, cement, and detergents, and the industrial processing of agricultural commodities (Anglade and Fortin 1985). Emerging domestic capitalists also converted craft-based industries, such as footwear, bakeries, and textiles, into more assembly-line and Fordist-type production techniques. In addition, the agricultural sector diversified
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into a greater variety of crops and activities (e.g., cattle and poultry), moving past the strictly monoculture concentration of the previous decades. Beyond these private sector strategies, states in the Global South also invested at unprecedented rates in economic and social infrastructure. Telecommunications, aqueduct and electrical power systems, pavement of roads and highways, and ports were all greatly expanded, centralized, and often nationalized in this period. In addition, public health and education systems extended deep into the interior of developing countries with the rapid construction of hospitals, clinics, and schools and the enactment of social security programs for salaried workers in the formal sector (Mesa-Lago 2008; Almeida 2015). Finally, in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, millions migrated to the cities (especially the national capital mega-cities) as agriculture became more mechanized and new employment opportunities arose in urban regions via the state modernization process. These epochal changes commandeered by the developmental state created new sites of struggle. The diversification of large-scale agriculture increasingly placed pressure on the land and displaced more subsistence producers. Agrarian movements emerged in the new crops such as sugarcane and cotton in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua (Paige 1983, 1985; Arias 1985; Bulmer-Thomas 1987). Hence, agricultural export production continued on a large scale in addition to expanded manufacturing in cities—a process that neo-Marxist development scholars characterize as “uneven and combined development” (O’Connor 1989; Chilcote 2009). Such development strategies combine older forms of development, such as the production of agricultural and mineral commodities for export, with newer industrial and manufacturing activities. With industrial expansion and urbanization, workers increasingly became concentrated in cities and labored in larger establishments and factories. Governments began to legally recognize labor unions and enact labor codes regulating work-place rules and laws. State workers and public employees in a wide variety of expanding government institutions also formed labor and professional associations. Major outbreaks of urban unrest between the 1940s and 1980s included labor unions such as in the Cordobazo uprising in Argentina, where a general strike and street protests by automobile workers and students in 1969 in the interior city of Córdoba briefly brought the military government to its knees (Brennan 1998). Similar mobilizations of labor unions in Brazil culminated in the formation of the Workers’ Party in 1980 after a series of strikes in the late 1970s headed by industrial unions (Keck 1992; Seidman 1994). In East Asia, in the decades immediately following World War II, the “Tiger” countries of Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea experienced rapid economic growth with a strategy of export-oriented industrial development. However, because of tight state control of the labor movement and a virulent anticommunist ideology, labor strikes and mass union activities were rare (Chang 2015). Korean workers, in particular, overcame these obstacles in the neoliberal period to lead many social movement struggles against globalization (Koo 2001).
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In sub-Saharan Africa, some of the larger movements organizing colonial resistance in the 1940s and 1950s included railway workers, miners, and urban labor unions. Nigeria witnessed its first general labor strike in 1945, which strengthened the union movement for the remainder of the decade (Dwyer and Zeilig 2012). In the late 1940s, railroad workers in Senegal and in what would become Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia) played vanguard roles in resistance to colonial rule, while copper miners in Northern Rhodesia helped organize nationalist movements (Dwyer and Zeilig 2012). In South Africa, the industrialization process reached sufficient levels for mass strike waves in the mid-1940s and early 1970s by manufacturing, commercial, and mine workers against the apartheid state (Murray 1987; Seidman 1994; Wood 2000). In North Africa, Egypt’s manufacturing working class was concentrated in the textile sector. The overwhelming majority of reported labor strikes in Egypt occurred in the textile sector in the late 1940s and 1950s where the largest factories were located (Beinin 1988). University enrollments grew markedly from the 1940s to the 1980s, as modernizing states emulated models of development in the Global North (Schofer and Meyer 2005). Not only did public universities in capital cities grow, but governments throughout the developing world also built regional campuses reaching more distant populations in provincial towns and cities. The expansion of higher education also created large student and teacher movements in the cities of the developing world—with the massive university movement against government repression in Mexico City in 1968 serving as one vivid example (Monsiváis 2008). University students in Brazil were one of the first sectors to collectively mobilize against the military government in the late 1960s (Moreira Alves 1985). Primary and secondary education also took off in the period of state-led development (Silver 2003). States in the global periphery and semi-periphery built elementary schools in nearly every municipality and built high schools in most provincial capitals and larger cities. Given this tremendous growth, by the 1960s public educators had formed professional associations and mobilized in the streets in several Latin American countries demanding legal recognition, retirement benefits, and a salary scale based on seniority. Similar to the process of public education, the health and medical sectors also expanded in the period of state-led development with the construction of hospitals and medical clinics throughout the territories of nation states. Combined, healthcare employees and public educators would become the largest organized labor associations in dozens of developing countries, playing an especially vital role in social movements in nations in the global periphery that lack large-scale manufacturing and massive private sector labor unions (Almeida 2015). The geographical distribution of these public sector institutions and employee associations across national territories also created spatial inequalities in the capacity of localities to mobilize to expand benefits and rights in the state-led development era (see Linda Labao’s chapter in this volume). The rapid pace of economic development in the mid-twentieth century also created new urban slums and precarious housing settlements as employment and infrastructural
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expansion could not keep pace with rural-to-urban migration (Castells 1984; Davis 2007). Lively scholarly debates over marginality and the role of “surplus populations” in political struggles took place (Kay 1989). In the real world of organizing, mass movements of squatter settlements and shanty-towns arose, demanding more access to urban services and utilities as well as legal title to occupied urban spaces (Castells 1984; Schneider 1995). In summary, the period of state-led development (1940s–1980s) was characterized by many more forms of collective action and a greater diversity of participating groups with the increased differentiation of economic activities than had existed previously. The rapid development of a modernizing state and economic infrastructure provided additional resources beyond solely political parties in mobilizing social movements in this period, such as schools, trade unions, and employee associations in the expanded public sector. In contrast to threat-induced collective protest in the previous era of agro-export production, political opportunities of potential new advantages (Goldstone and Tilly 2001; Tarrow 2011) drove much of the social movement activity with the expansion of the developmental state. Labor movements and public employees mobilized for the right to strike, labor codes and legalized unions, modern salary systems, and social security programs. Students and educators organized protest campaigns for expanded educational budgets. Rural workers joined in campaigns to press for agrarian reform and more equitable land distribution. The urban poor pressured the state for more services, such as water and sanitation, electricity, and access to healthcare and education. Threats largely entered the political environment when governments decided to repress these struggles for new advantages and benefits or displaced the rural sectors via expanded capitalist agriculture (Wickham-Crowley 2014). In extreme cases of rapidly urbanizing societies, government coercion and crackdowns against popular mobilization resulted in the creation of revolutionary movements, such as in Guatemala, El Salvador, Iran, and Nicaragua (Parsa 2000; Goodwin 2001; Brockett 2005). In other outlying cases where colonial powers or settlers attempted to impede economic and state modernization through continued minority rule and military repression (e.g., several southern African states), collective mobilization took the form of national liberation movements.
N E O L I B E R A L D E V E L O P M E N T, 1 9 8 0s –2 0 1 0 s
By the early 1980s, the developmental state entered into stagnation with the onset of the Third World debt crisis. Unprecedented levels of borrowing from banks in the Global North in the 1970s rapidly deteriorated the terms of trade with the rise in interest rates and the decline in Third World commodity prices (Walton and Seddon 1994). Between 1980 and 1982, Third World commodity prices dropped by one third, to their lowest levels in thirty years (Schaeffer 2009, 87), making debt payments even more difficult. Romania, Poland, Mexico, and Costa Rica defaulted on their loans early in the decade, and, with the threat of dozens of other countries also defaulting, the World Bank and IMF stepped in to manage the crisis. These international financial institutions (IFIs) re-
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negotiated the schedule of the original foreign loans and provided new lines of credit in exchange for the economic liberalization of Third World governments. These conditionality agreements became known as structural adjustment loans (Vreeland 2007). Between 1982 and 1986, thirty-seven structural adjustment agreements were signed between the IFIs and states in the Global South (Walton and Seddon 1994). The result was a slow dismantling of already feeble welfare states in the developing world. The erosion of the developmental state occurred in two sequential phases. Between the early 1980s and 1990s, governments reached multiple structural adjustment agreements with the IMF and World Bank. In this first phase, nations in the Global South implemented a variety of austerity policies, including currency devaluation, wage freezes, mass layoffs in the public sector, labor flexibility laws, privatization of state-run enterprises and factories, and subsidy cuts to dozens of areas including food, housing, transportation, education, healthcare, agricultural credit, and inputs. Structural adjustment agreements often explicitly stipulated a series of such conditions or policy changes. By the 1990s, a second phase of neoliberal policymaking occurred. These policies included privatization of the state infrastructure and free trade. The privatization programs of the late 1990s and early 2000s were fundamentally different than the selling off of government-run factories in the 1980s. The more recent round of privatization centered on the basic economic and social infrastructure of electrical power production and distribution, telecommunications, ports, mail, pensions, healthcare, education, and even water and sewage. Such processes were already accelerating in Africa in the 1980s. Ralph Young (1991, 51) reports that, in 1985, only fourteen African states had a privatization policy on the public agenda, but, by 1990, forty African nations (90 percent of countries on the continent) were preparing a major program of privatization. A second related strategy to dismantling the import substitution industrialization model of development focused on the signing of regional free trade agreements. This neoliberal pathway broke down earlier protectionist policies that characterized state-led development to shield domestic industries from international competition. In the western hemisphere, free trade commenced with NAFTA, which was first implemented in Canada, the United States, and Mexico in 1994. In 1996, the WTO was established after several rounds of GATT negotiations in order to liberalize trade on a global scale. In the 2000s, the United States negotiated several free trade agreements with Central America (CAFTA), Panama, Peru, Colombia, Chile, and South Korea (Spalding 2014). The Bush administration in the United States faced stiff social movement opposition in attempting a Latin America–wide free trade agreement (Von Bulow 2011) and a treaty with Ecuador in 2006 (Colloredo-Mansfeld 2009) that ultimately ended in defeat (Silva 2013). These free trade agreements occurred in the context of a new international division of labor taking shape in the late twentieth century (Nash and Fernandez-Kelly 1984). Transnational corporations in the Global North took advantage of the new communications and transportation (e.g., containerization) technologies to expand and accelerate manufacturing operations in the Global South (Gereffi 1994; Bonacich and Wilson
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2008). Export processing zones of textile and light industrial manufacturing in the Caribbean and Latin America represented the prototype of this new mode of economic development (Dicken 2011). Such manufacturing enterprises have surpassed the production value of agricultural exports in many traditional agrarian economies (Robinson 2008; Anner 2011). Export processing zones usually avoid labor organizing and unions, but the largely female labor forces in these industries have successfully mobilized on occasion (Armbruster-Sandoval 2004; Bickham Mendez 2005; Mckay 2006) and, at times, escalated to full-scale strike waves (Anner and Liu 2016). The new international division of labor has evolved in the twenty-first century into a global production process via a series of commodity chains linking resource extraction and raw material processing to manufacturing, retailing, and research and development (Bair 2009; see also the chapter by Jennifer Bair and Matthew Mahutga in this volume). Given the strict limits of organizing in the newer export processing industries, some of the most prominent social movement activity over the past three decades has occurred over the implementation of government austerity and privatization policies (Almeida 2010a). First occurring through coercive isomorphism (DiMaggio and Powell 1983) associated with debt dependency, these neoliberal policies became legitimated by executive branches of governments around the world (Markoff and Montecinos 1993; Babb 2013). In Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, privatization conflicts arose exceedingly in the late 1990s and 2000s. In China, hundreds of thousands of workers participated in strikes and petitions against the closure and privatization of thousands of stateowned firms between the 1990s and the 2010s (Cai 2010; Chen 2011). Massive strikes took place by public employees in India in the late 1990s and 2000s (Uba 2008). Similar mass actions throughout the developing world demonstrate that the transition to a neoliberal economic development strategy is not an uncontested one. Since neoliberal reforms act as a direct reversal of the state-led development policies of the previous five decades, the sectors driving the opposition to privatization, austerity, and free trade often derive from the institutions that were established or expanded rapidly under state-led development (Almeida 2012, 2015). These sectors include universities, public schools, public hospitals and the energy and telecommunication sectors. In larger newly industrializing countries characterized by mixed economies, such as Brazil, India, Mexico, South Africa, and South Korea, opposition also comes from workers and labor unions in state-run factories and banks (Sandoval 2001). Not only have organized opponents used strikes, road blockades, and street actions in an attempt to redirect the neoliberal state in a different direction, but oppositional groups have also turned to electoral mobilization. Indeed, the “pink tide” governments of the left and center-left in Latin America have largely triumphed in electoral contests via grievances over neoliberal development strategies (Silva 2009; Levitsky and Roberts 2011). Between 1998 and the 2010s, this pathway included elections in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela. John Foran (2005) even states that we may now be viewing an innovative route to revolution through
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the ballot box, if the newly installed governments enact the same far-reaching structural changes as an insurrectionary movement that attains power via extra-constitutional means. Although neoliberal development strategies benefit particular domestic class fractions, such as transnational elites in the financial sector, new middle classes in the service sector, export sector capitalists, and agribusiness in nontraditional export crops (Walton and Seddon 1994; Cordero Ulate 2005; Robinson 2008; Spalding 2014), the variety of economic policies and structural adjustment austerity measures creates the potential to drive collective action in multiple sectors of civil society (Almeida and Cordero 2015). For example, labor flexibility laws that eroded collective bargaining rights secured in the previous period of state-led development spurred some of the most intensive protests by labor unions in South Korea (Koo 2001) and Panama in the 1990s (Almeida 2014). Privatization policies that affect multiple social sectors such as healthcare, water, and electricity distribution have encouraged broad coalitions of multiple groups organizing antiprivatization protest campaigns (Silva 2009). These multi-sectoral coalitions may include public sector labor unions, opposition political parties, women’s groups, indigenous people, students, NGOs, and environmental associations (Almeida 2014). Earlier state-led development histories often determine the particular composition of the oppositional coalition. For example, states with a strong corporatist history of integrating popular sectors into state structures and state-sponsored associations often maintain relatively strong labor unions into the neoliberal period (Anner and Liu 2016). Hence, in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, India, Mexico, and Panama, labor unions are well-represented in oppositional coalitions against privatization. In nations with an extremely repressive past, excluded social sectors had to form their own civil society associations to meet everyday needs and agitate for social change. This legacy continues in the present with grassroots NGOs participating with high frequency in anti-neoliberal campaigns in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua (Almeida 2014). NGOs in the Global South are also increasingly connecting to transnational social movements (Silva 2013; Smith and Wiest 2012). Because the neoliberal period of development has coincided with the democratization of substantial portions of the Global South, we also observe the participation of political parties in anti-neoliberal protest episodes. Opposition political parties can use unpopular economic liberalization measures to mobilize new constituencies in future electoral rounds while using their membership base to actively participate in street demonstrations (Almeida 2010b). Democratization also allows more political space for emerging new social movements and NGOs to coordinate activities without facing the extreme forms of suppression that less democratic regimes employ (Almeida and Johnston 2006; Tilly and Wood 2012). This particular combination of democratization and orthodox free market reforms has provided both the political opportunities and economic threats driving massive waves of anti-neoliberal protest in the late 1990s and 2000s in Argentina, Bolivia, and Ecuador (Silva 2009) as well as several record-breaking protest campaigns
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in Central America over free trade, privatization, and neoliberal restructuring (Almeida 2014). Similar campaigns over water privatization have occurred in Indonesia and Uruguay, and Bulgaria exploded in nation-wide protests in 2013 over electricity price hikes connected to privatization by European energy companies in the preceding years. The organizers of these campaigns often are most concerned with the loss of access to state-subsidized services and resources such as electricity, health, education, sanitation, basic foods, and public transportation that were made more readily available under state-led development (Walton and Seddon 1994; Auyero 2002; Eckstein and WickhamCrowley 2003; Shefner, Pasdirtz, and Blad 2006). We would expect more sustained resistance in nations where past economic liberalization policies failed to lower costs and increase access to vital services and resources (Spronk and Terhorst 2012). In sum, much of the organizational basis of the opposition in the neoliberal period of development has been rooted in the state sectors that were built up in the previous state-led development period. Social movements draw on their identities of social citizenship rights to mobilize campaigns against austerity and the weakening of the welfare state.
CONCLUSION
The study of social movements has developed largely in relation to political contexts. We know much less about the ways large economic and macro-structures shape the orientation of collective action (Walder 2009). By classifying the dominant forms of economic development in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, broad forms of corresponding social movement–type activity can be linked to each development epoch. Much more work needs to be carried out in terms of identifying more precisely the forms of struggle in each period. Why do we find more agitation in some agro-export enclaves than in others? Is the presence of preexisting organizations of labor unions and radical political parties a key component of this explanation? It is also interesting to note that several of the largest rebellions of the agro-export era occurred during the worldwide Depression of the early 1930s and the fall of global commodity prices for basic crops and raw materials. A similar but less drastic decline in commodity prices occurred with the onset of the Third World debt crisis in the early 1980s and the subsequent first wave of austerity protests (Walton and Seddon 1994). These global economic crises, which created similar conditions of structural equivalence across vast portions of the developing world, should be given greater analytical attention. The rapid growth and expansion of national economies and infrastructure in the state-led development era also deserves further study in relation to collective action. Most scholarship analyzes this period in terms of growth rates, industrial strategies in terms of the level and character of foreign investment, state involvement, and export-led versus inward-oriented economic development. Just as important, however, is how this period of accelerated economic development and state infrastructural expansion raised the “mobilization potential” (Klandermans 1997) for a much greater proportion of the popu-
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lation. Building schools, hospitals, and large industrial establishments and encouraging rural-to-urban migration provided a variety of new means for people to associate and form civic-type organizations in which they could collectively mobilize for a range of purposes. These structures not only mobilized millions of people at the height of the developmental state but continued to survive and shape struggles in the neoliberal era. These changes also created an identity of social citizenship and expectations about the kinds of public goods and services the state should deliver (Eckstein and WickhamCrowley 2003; Oxhorn 2011). Moreover, many of the most contentious struggles in the neoliberal period have been collective action campaigns to preserve the structures and benefits of the state-led development era, such as affordable access to public health, utilities, water, and education (Spronk and Terhorst 2012). The neoliberal epoch has also been characterized by a wide variety of austerity policies and grievances. Much more work still needs to be undertaken on the particular neoliberal measures that tend to create the highest levels of mobilization and the social groups that are most likely to participate in the resistance movements. Finally, we now may be entering a new period or a new phase within neoliberalism whereby the axis of conflict is moving away from the battle over welfare state institutions to environmental and ecological battles (see the chapter by Jennifer Givens, Brett Clark, and Andrew Jorgenson in this volume). In Central America, for example, in the past five years environmental conflicts have begun to surpass the level of mobilization of the earlier neoliberal period over public sector privatization, austerity, and free trade. Most of the battles are local, but they are occurring with greater frequency over mining, hydroelectric projects, deforestation, pesticide poisoning, and biofuel plantations. A new global round of intensive resource extraction (Bunker and Ciccantell 2005; Bebbington and Bury 2013) may be the economic development strategy that drives the newer forms of collective action throughout the global periphery (Arce 2014). Many of these resource conflicts are merging with peasant movements in rural Africa, Asia, and Latin America that have struggled against cheap foreign agricultural imports and the adoption of new agribusiness models threatening their livelihoods (McMichael 2008). These new collective struggles over natural resources, climate change, and sustainable environments may become the dominant form of social movement activity in the Global South before the mid-twenty first century.
N OT E S
1. Notable exceptions include Doug McAdam’s (1999) work on agriculture changes and African American migration patterns in the Deep South with the rise of the civil rights movement; Marshall Ganz’s (2009) research on shifts in California agriculture and waves of farm worker mobilization; Richard Edwards’s (1979) analysis of changes in industrial organization and the forms of worker resistance; and Beverly Silver’s (2003) study of global labor mobilization in the twentieth century.
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2. Even earlier uprisings in Nicaragua in the early 1910s, led by Benjamín Zeledón, centered on loss of national sovereignty with the arrival of foreign fruit companies and plantation agriculture, whereas Augusto César Sandino’s rebellion in the late 1920s and early 1930s often targeted foreign mining operations.
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. 2001. “The Crisis of the Brazilian Labor Movement and the Emergence of Alternative Forms of Working-Class Contention in the 1990s.” Revista Psicología Política 1, no. 1: 173–95. Schaeffer, Robert. 2009. Understanding Globalization: The Social Consequences of Political, Economic, and Environmental Change. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield. Schneider, Cathy Lisa. 1995. Shantytown Protest in Pinochet’s Chile. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Schock, Kurt. 2015. Civil Resistance Today. Cambridge, Engl.: Polity Press. Schofer, Evan, and John W. Meyer. 2005. “The World-Wide Expansion of Higher Education in the Twentieth Century.” American Sociological Review 70, no. 6: 898–920. Scott, James. 1976. The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. . 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. Seidman, Gay. 1994. Manufacturing Militance: Workers’ Movements in Brazil and South Africa, 1970–1985. Berkeley: University of California Press. Seligson, Mitchell A. 1981. Peasants of Costa Rica and the Development of Agrarian Capitalism. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Shefner, Jon, George Pasdirtz, and Cory Blad. 2006. “Austerity Protests and Immiserating Growth in Mexico and Argentina.” In Latin American Social Movements: Globalization, Democratization, and Transnational Networks, edited by Hank Johnston and Paul Almeida, 19–42. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield. Silva, Eduardo. 2009. Challenges to Neoliberalism in Latin America. Cambridge, Engl.: Cambridge University Press. , ed. 2013. Transnational Activism and National Movements in Latin America: Bridging the Divide. New York: Routledge. Silver, Beverly. 2003. Forces of Labor: Workers’ Movements and Globalization since 1870. Cambridge, Engl.: Cambridge University Press. Smith, Jackie, and Dawn Wiest. 2012. Social Movements in the World System: The Politics of Crisis and Transformation. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Snow, David, and Sarah Soule. 2009. A Primer on Social Movements. New York: W. W. Norton. Spalding, Rose. 2014. Contesting Trade in Central America: Market Reform and Resistance. Austin: University of Texas Press. Spronk, Susan, and Philipp Terhorst. 2012. “Social Movement Struggles for Public Services.” In Alternatives to Privatization in the Global South, edited by David McDonald and Greg Ruiters, 133–56. New York: Routledge. Stavenhagen, Rodolfo. 1981. Between Underdevelopment and Revolution: A Latin American Perspective. New Delhi: South Asian Books. Stinchcombe, Arthur. 1961. “Agricultural Enterprise and Rural Class Relations.” American Journal of Sociology 67, no. 2: 165–76. Tarrow, Sidney. 2011. Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. 3rd ed. Cambridge, Engl.: Cambridge University Press. Tilly, Charles, and Lesley Wood. 2012. Social Movements, 1768–2012. Boulder, Colo.: Paradigm.
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PART V
GLOBAL COMPLEXITIES AND LOCAL CONTEXTS New Paradigms for Explaining Development
23 GLOBALIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT Nina Bandelj and Elizabeth Sowers
A search in the Sociological Abstracts database at the end of 2014 yielded almost ten thousand peer-reviewed journal articles and books that included “globalization” among their keywords. The first appeared in the 1970s, but fewer than a dozen were published in the 1980s. Rather, globalization become a buzzword in the 1990s: the total number of articles with globalization among their keywords increased to more than a thousand entries during that decade. The first ten years of the new millennium continued the exponential growth in scholarly discussion on this subject, with more than seven thousand peer-reviewed journal articles or books in 2000–2010. Perhaps surprisingly, among the nearly ten thousand articles on globalization published between 1970 and 2014, fewer than one third also included “development” among their keywords. This may suggest that the connection between globalization and development has not received significant attention. In our view, these statistical counts by keywords understate the discussion of the globalization/development nexus because sociologists tend to think about both “globalization” and “development” in a variety of ways. Whereas economists have focused mostly on economic aspects of national development as captured by industrialization and GDP growth, sociologists have considered a wider notion of development, including social inequality, education, human rights, child wellbeing, and civic participation, which they have linked to globalization in multiple ways. In this chapter, we begin by reviewing sociological perspectives on globalization to distinguish two broad strands: political-economic and institutional-cultural. We then provide a brief account of how globalization has been integrated—or not—into classical
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theories of development. In the third section, we review specific empirical studies that tell us how various aspects of globalization, such as trade, foreign direct investment (FDI), migration, global finance, and transnational governance, affect different measures of development, such as economic growth, income inequality, educational attainment, environmental sustainability, human rights, and civic participation. Based on our reading, this research does not allow us to come to a single conclusion about the impact of globalization on various development outcomes. In our view, this is because both “globalization” and “development” are multifaceted processes that encompass economic, social, political, and cultural dimensions, which do not always work in tandem. Conceptualizing what national development means—be it economic growth, social equality, environmental sustainability, health, or human rights—is a result of domestic political choices structured by the world culture and the unequal world system.
D E F I N I T I O N S A N D T H E O R I E S O F G L O B A L I Z AT I O N WHAT IS G LOBA LIZ ATION ?
Globalization is a historical process of cross-border exchange with economic, cultural, political, legal, and technological dimensions. We acknowledge the long-term history of interstate economic and cultural relations, but we focus largely on the time period from the late 1980s forward, given that most recent empirical research on the link between globalization and development analyzes this period. We call this period neoliberal globalization (Bandelj, Shorette, and Sowers 2011; Campbell and Pedersen 2001; Prasad 2006) and define it as a process characterized by intensified economic exchange of goods, services, capital, labor, and new technologies across national borders, in particular foreign direct and portfolio investment, and increased fragmentation of production and power shifts in the organization of industries across the globe. Key to neoliberal globalization is financialization, or the process whereby financial services come to dominate over productive activities as sources of profits. Neoliberal globalization is also characterized by the growing influence of international organizations on state and firm-level activities and the creation of transnational civil society through associational memberships. Thus, neoliberal globalization has economic, financial, political, and cultural dimensions, which have various impacts on developmental outcomes. Moreover, we find that the connection between development and globalization has a particular meaning in the neoliberal era, when economic development of nation states, especially in the developing world, has been largely perceived as inextricably linked to the neoliberal project codified in the Washington Consensus. Given that discourse on globalization has grown exponentially in the past few decades, it is unsurprising that multiple perspectives have emerged on what globalization is and what its consequences are. Mauro Guillén (2001) provides the first sociological review on the subject published in the Annual Review of Sociology, suggesting that some view globalization as destructive, some as civilizing, and yet others as a feeble process. Much
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additional research has been published since 2000, including discussions of the role of global finance in the economic crisis of 2008 and onward, and an invigorated focus on domestic and global inequality. In an attempt to provide broad characterizations of the literature, we find it useful to distinguish between the political-economic and the institutional-cultural perspectives on globalization, which focus on different aspects of globalization but also pay attention to different national developmental outcomes. On the one hand, the political-economic perspectives are mostly concerned with the uneven economic exchange between countries and its influence on economic growth, income inequality, and environmental degradation as domestic developmental outcomes. On the other hand, the institutional-cultural perspectives focus less on inequality but more on how global cultural diffusion influences human rights, education expansion, and civic participation as well as how leveraging institutional complementaries or cultural wealth of nations affects domestic economic growth.
P O L I T I C A L - E C O N O M I C P E R S P E C T I V E S O N G L O B A L I Z AT I O N
The political-economic perspectives build on historical analyses of globalization, understood as integration across countries through economic linkages, which go back as far as the fourth millennium BCE, with a center in China and encompassing Asia, Europe, and Africa (Frank and Gills 1993). Other sociologists working in this tradition have found evidence of different starting points for global integration and linkages. Whereas Janet Abu-Lughod (1989) traces a vast trading network to the thirteenth century, when the Mongol Empire connected the Chinese, Indian, Muslim, and European regions, Immanuel Wallerstein (1974a) argues that cross-regional integrated production networks existed as far back as the “long 16th century,” or the period between the discovery of the Americas in 1450 and the English Revolution of 1640. For Wallerstein, this period also marks the origin of today’s world system. Giovanni Arrighi (1994), in his longue durée approach to the world economy, focuses on financial power as a key element structuring the organization of the global economy, originating in the Italian city-states in the sixteenth century, followed by the rise of hegemony of the Netherlands in the seventeenth century, to nineteenth-century Britain, and then to the United States after 1945. Contemporary strands of this research include a continued focus on the world system and its repercussions for inequality as well as work on migration and development by investigating the developmental consequence of remittance flows (see Babones and Chase-Dunn 2012 for a recent compilation of work in the world-systems tradition).
I N S T I T U T I O N A L - C U LT U R A L P E R S P E C T I V E S O N G L O B A L I Z AT I O N
The institutional-cultural perspectives emphasize the institutional and symbolic foundations of global processes. World-society theory (Boli and Thomas 1997; Meyer et al. 1997; Schofer et al. 2011) focuses on how, over the past century, a single world polity has
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developed with a corresponding world culture. This is apparent in surprisingly similar national organizational structures, such as school curriculum, development strategies, and state bureaucracies, despite huge differences in location, national history, and resources across countries. World-society scholars explain variation on a wide range of indicators in terms of different levels of integration into world culture. They highlight international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) as carriers of world culture that promote universalism, individualism, voluntaristic authority, rational progress, and world citizenship (Boli and Thomas 1997). This perspective has generally focused more on human rights, political development, and civil society than on economic development. More directly related to economic outcomes, scholars from the comparative institutionalist and comparative capitalisms perspectives (Orru, Hamilton, and Biggart 1997; Biggart and Guillen 1999; Jackson and Deeg 2008) have begun to discuss how varieties of institutional conditions in countries offer opportunities or challenges to individual states in their efforts to use integration into global economy as a means of economic development. Focusing on symbolic capital, cultural economic sociologists have also suggested that exploiting the cultural wealth of nations can serve as a developmental strategy in a globalized world (Bandelj and Wherry 2011).
C O N C E P T U A L I Z I N G G L O B A L I Z AT I O N I N DEVELOPMENT THEORIES
Classical approaches to development have incorporated a focus on globalization to a greater and a lesser extent. We briefly review these theories and emphasize how they have—or have not—paid attention to forces of globalization. In the second part of this section, we present a theoretical perspective on development that has most extensively integrated a focus on globalization, proposing that neoliberal globalization is itself a strategy of national development.
C L A S S I C A L A N D C O N T E M P O R A RY T H E O R I E S O N D E V E L O P M E N T
Classical doctrines of laissez-faire economics were historically introduced by Adam Smith and others (see Perelman 2000) but saw a resurgence in the 1980s in a wave of neoliberal economic policies (see below on the Washington Consensus). Here, development comes through the unimpeded functioning of the free market at both the national and international levels. Building on Smith’s emphasis on economic liberalization and David Ricardo’s ([1817] 1996) classical trade theory of “comparative advantage,” laissez-faire adherents explicitly highlight unrestricted participation in trade and economic transactions on a liberalized, privatized, and deregulated world market as the best prescription for national economic growth. After World War II, development captivated scholarly and policy-oriented discussions out of a desire to build up the economies of war-torn countries and newly independent
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ex-colonial states alike. In spite of this international context, the pioneering theory of this type—modernization theory—nonetheless depicts development as a strictly national process, omitting any role for globalization as an input or explanation for development. Instead, development is a “one size fits all” process for every country along the same historical pathway as Western states, utilizing essential ingredients from within each state—like local values, technological advances, and domestic institutions. In direct reaction, dependency theorists discussed variations in development among countries stemming directly from globalization, and specifically from complex, unequal interrelationships between developed and underdeveloped countries (see Larrain 1989). Here, globalization is exploitative, “working” for developed countries at the expense of developing ones, through mechanisms such as long-term historical relationships, like colonialism (Frank 1967), and more contemporary forms of global interaction, like international trade (Bruton 1998; Furtado 1970; Prebisch 1950) and the activities of multinational corporations (Haggard 1990). While underdeveloped countries experience the long-term, and continuing, accumulation of disadvantage, developed countries profit at their expense. Similarly, the world-systems perspective explains development (and underdevelopment) through the lens of globalization. The focus is not within the context of any one state but instead on the structural position that states occupy—and the relationships between different positions—in the world system (Chase-Dunn and Rubinson 1977; Wallerstein 1974b, 2004). High levels of development among core states are explained by their integration into the global economy, whereas incomplete integration in the world capitalist system correspondingly explains underdevelopment in the periphery (Wallerstein 1974b). The specific variables implicated as producing and reproducing worldsystem positions and the consequent developmental variations are the global division of labor and resulting unequal exchange among countries (Chase-Dunn and Rubinson 1977). Although the world-systems and “late industrialization” perspectives have much in common, they view the role of the state differently. “Late industrialization” suggests that development is best achieved by predicating a country’s entry into the global economy on a strong and successful domestic economy. Essentially, late industrializing states, often called developmental states, should play an active role in building domestic industry as means of careful conditioning for later global economic success. This perspective became quite popular in the analysis of postwar economic development in East Asia, where states strategically engaged in protectionism, provided industrial subsidies and programs tied to performance, and created close ties between financial capital, industrial capital, and the state prior to entering the global market (Amsden 1989; Appelbaum and Henderson 1992; Evans 1995; Haggard 1990; Johnson 1982; Wade 1990; Woo-Cumings 1999). An important qualification to what makes developmental states work comes from Vivek Chibber (2006), who compared India and South Korea. These two states adopted developmental models that relied on different incorporations of global markets, namely
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import-substituting industrialization in India and export-led industrialization in South Korea. However, where they differed most was in states’ relations to domestic capitalist class and the state capacity to discipline the big business to follow its developmental goals, with success in South Korea more so than in India. Emphasizing a multitude of pathways to development rather than a single policy prescription, the comparative institutional approach positions development as something achieved by states that harness their particular advantages to find a unique and successful niche in the global economy (Bendix 1956; Dore 1973; Geertz 1963; Kohli 2004; Zeitlin 1984). In other words, the context of globalization offers opportunities for economic development when states effectively match domestic logics of social organization with the opportunities presented by the global economy (Biggart and Guillen 1999; Orru, Hamilton, and Biggart 1997). A variant of the comparative institutional approach focuses on comparative capitalisms (Jackson and Deeg 2008), arguing that the distinct institutional configurations of national economies, stabilized through path dependency, can become a comparative institutional advantage for them in the global economy.
WA S H I N G TO N C O N S E N S U S A N D “ G L O B A L I Z AT I O N AS DEVELOPMENT”
Most, but not all, theories of development offer a role for globalization in fostering (or constraining) national development. However, some sociologists more specifically attend to how particular political/ideological frameworks of globalization support or overlap with discussions of development. In this regard, scholars focus on the Washington Consensus and globalization as development. This research considers the rise in market deregulation and economic liberalization since the 1980s as a result of a political project—neoliberalism—promoted by international organizations and domestic political forces, such as the Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher governments, in favor of reducing the role of the state in the economy and unleashing the unrestrained functioning of markets (Campbell and Pedersen 2001; see also Richard Lachmann’s chapter in this volume). In fact, neoliberalism has been described as “an ideological system that holds the ‘market’ sacred” (Mudge 2008, 706). Coming out of this tradition, and writing directly about the globalization-development nexus, Philip McMichael (2000) argues that, since the late 1980s, economic development in developing countries has become inextricably linked to neoliberal globalization. Whereas the post–World War II “development project” emphasized “statist” and “inwardlooking” strategies of national development, the “globalization project” instead promoted capital-friendly and outward-looking strategies via the Bretton Woods system of monetary management from the 1980s on. From this resurgence, neoliberal policies quickly spread to the developing world, and globalization became specifically about development. As Sarah Babb (2009) contends, the U.S. congressional debates over the funding for the World Bank and the IMF influenced these agencies to adopt U.S.-style reform poli-
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cies in order to obtain funding. According to Babb, Washington exerts a kind of “shareholder” pressure over these institutions, which causes them to act in ways that please the United States. This suggests that Washington politics influenced the spread of neoliberalism both through direct policy prescriptions and through more indirect shareholdertype pressures on the international financial institutions. This codification of the neoliberal agenda explicitly aimed at developing countries came to be known as the “Washington Consensus” (Williamson 1990), advocating the liberalization of trade and foreign direct investment regimes as well as the privatization of state enterprises as vehicles to prosperity. Summarized in brief by political scientist Dani Rodrik, the essential tenets of the Washington Consensus as they were communicated to developing countries were: “Get your macro balances in order, take the state out of business, give markets free rein” (2006, 973). Further, the Washington Consensus involved a move from stateled to market-led policies, a shift in the way in which development policies were justified (Gore 2000, 789), and ultimately came to constitute “the common core of wisdom embraced by all serious economists” (Williamson 1993, 1334). The Washington Consensus prescriptions emerged most succinctly in the early 1990s in debates over economic reforms following the Latin American debt crises, but also in sub-Saharan Africa and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union after the collapse of state socialism. These countries saw state-led development efforts of import-substitution industrialization in Latin America and state socialism in the former Soviet world end in giant foreign debt and economic crises, and thus it is not surprising that newly embraced development policies emphasized deregulation and cuts to social services as well as the expansion of private economic action through privatization and the introduction of competitive markets through liberalization policies. Charles Gore (2000) discusses the Washington Consensus as more than just a shift in the particular developmental instruments being recommended to countries in need: it was also a transformation in the framing of development issues and in the explanations used to justify policy implementation, which was brought about by the “partial globalization” of development policy analysis and “ahistorical” nature of performance assessment. On the one hand, the Washington Consensus advocated a liberalized international economic order (LIEO) as a normative goal; on the other hand, it suggested that factors internal to a country were the most important in preparing them to participate in the LIEO. Furthermore, development performance assessment became less concerned with long-term, historical experiences and sequences of change in developing countries and more interested in short-term growth assessments, which supported the Washington Consensus paradigm over other developmental perspectives. However, what is the future of the Washington Consensus? Gore (2000) suggests there is a paradigm shift coming that will stem from the discrepancy between the expectations and the reality of the Washington Consensus; similarly, McMichael (2000) notes that, since the late 1990s, the “globalization project” has been in a crisis of legitimacy, but what may
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come next remains to be seen. Nevertheless, some scholars insist on the “strange nondeath of neoliberalism” (Crouch 2011), focusing on neoliberalism’s resilience even in the face of recent global economic crises that seemingly challenge it. (See Lachmann’s chapter in this volume for a thorough discussion of the persistence of neoliberalism.)
P O L I T I C A L - E C O N O M I C G L O B A L I Z AT I O N ’ S I N F L U E N C E O N D E V E L O P M E N TA L O U T C O M E S THE EF F ECTS OF F D I A ND T RA D E ON N AT I O N A L DEVELOPM ENT
FDI and trade are two key, well-researched economic indicators of globalization that are thought to affect developmental outcomes. The economic study of FDI and multinational corporations (MNCs) started in the 1950s with a focus on the benefits of U.S. investment for host economies (Dunning 1958). These first studies of MNCs were all grounded in neoclassical economic theory, analyzing corporate strategies as examples of rational profit-maximization and transnational investment as beneficial to global welfare (Kindleberger 1970), but dependency and world-systems theorists quickly argued that both MNCs and FDI harmed Third World countries. In their analyses, MNCs impair the ability of Third World countries to build domestic, locally controlled industries (Cardoso and Faletto 1979). Likewise, foreign investment constrains the development of poor countries on the periphery through reliance on low-wage unskilled labor and low technological sophistication (Bornschier and Chase-Dunn 1985). Furthermore, heavy dependence on foreign capital promotes an uneven distribution of capital intensity across sectors and geographical regions in the receiver economy, increasing overall income inequality (Frank 1967); it limits the development of human capital, like bureaucratic skills necessary for a highly functioning business sector (Evans and Timberlake 1980); and it tends to produce a race to the bottom where developing nations compromise labor and environmental standards to attract FDI (McMichael 1996). Among more recent studies, Jeffrey Kentor (2001) estimates the effects of foreign capital dependence on economic growth and inequality between 1980 and 1997 to find that foreign capital dependence increases income inequality while retarding economic development. Similar findings are also reported by Volker Bornschier, Christopher Chase-Dunn, and Richard Rubinson (1978), Volker Bornschier and Thanh-Huyen Ballmer-Cao (1979), Peter Evans and Michael Timberlake (1980), Jeffrey Kentor (1998), and Arthur Alderson and François Nielsen (1999), but not by Indra de Soysa and John Oneal (1999). In fact, studies document southern import penetration and foreign investment position as predictors of income inequality among sixteen OECD nations (Alderson and Nielsen 2002), and inflows of FDI have been found to significantly increase income inequality in the first decade of post-socialism in Central and Eastern Europe (Bandelj and Mahutga 2010). In terms of the relationship between FDI and growth, the effect on growth is inconclusive. Some studies point to a positive relationship (Cipollina et al. 2012); others qual-
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ify this in terms of short-term and long-term effects (Kentor and Jorgenson 2010) or regional variations (Jordaan and Rodriguez-Oreggia 2012; Pereira, Jalles, and Andresen 2012). Some also report a negative relationship between FDI and growth (Curwin and Mahutga 2014; Herzer 2012; Yalta 2013). Still another group of studies examines the impact of FDI on a different set developmental indicators aside from economic growth and inequality. Gaston Gohou and Issouf Soumaré (2012) find a generally positive link between FDI and human development index in Africa. Eric Neumayer and Indra de Soysa (2011) find that trade and FDI linkages produce women’s rights spillovers in some countries. In contrast, Andrew Jorgenson (2009) finds that FDI increases with water pollution among manufacturing sectors in less developed countries. Where trade is concerned, its relationship with economic development is generally thought to be positive (see Kentor 2001 and Shabaz 2012 on Pakistan, but see Bieler and Morton 2014 on free trade as a mechanism of unequal exchange perpetuating uneven development), though empirical results also point to the relative size of effects and how type of integration into trade matters. Shah Tarzi and Aristotle Emami (2014) find that trade liberalization, and primarily an expanded export sector, has beneficial growth effects on developing countries but not developed ones. Yunus Kaya (2010) examines the effect of trade on manufacturing employment in developing countries using a comprehensive dataset of sixty-four developing countries from 1980 through 2003. Although size of exports and low-technology exports have a significant positive effect on manufacturing employment in developing countries, trade is not the most significant factor shaping the size of manufacturing employment in these countries. Rob Clark (2008) shows that “dependent” integration into trade networks produces underdevelopment. He and Matthew Mahutga (2013) show that a positive link between trade and growth holds only to a certain point, and Maria de Boyrie and Roger Johns (2013) find that the number and type of trade agreements are more consequential for development than simple measures of openness or linkages. As far as analyses of the impact of trade on inequality, education, human rights, and demographic outcomes are concerned, the results generally point to negative effects. Even for the developed world, researchers link rising inequalities to increased trade openness and immigration from least developed countries (Cline 1997; Wood 1995). Trade openness and linkages have been shown to negatively influence both infant mortality (Moore, Teixeira, and Shiell 2006) and child rights (Boyle and Kim 2009) across a range of countries in the late twentieth century. Similar negative effects have been found for trade and the presence of international financial institutions as they relate to government spending in the 1980s–90s (see Noy 2011, but also note that international financial institutions increase health spending in Latin America and the Caribbean). For eightytwo developing countries between 1980 and 2000, Clark (2008) demonstrates that integration into trade and INGO membership leads to the expansion of tertiary education systems. However, some report contradictory findings based on the analysis of data from
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a wider time period: from the 1970s forward, Salvatore Babones and Dorian Vonada (2009) find no relationship between trade and income inequality, and, for education, Babones (2010) finds a differential effect for developed and developing countries, with a positive effect of trade on education in developed countries and a negative effect in developing ones.
D E V E L O P M E N TA L C O N S E Q U E N C E S O F G L O B A L F I N A N C I A L I Z AT I O N
Beside significant increases in trade and FDI, neoliberal globalization is also defined by financialization, or the process whereby the global economy has become increasingly dependent on financial flows and services rather than production. Lachmann provides a more detailed treatment in his chapter; our goal here is to review research that shows how this indicator of globalization has affected developmental outcomes, in particular economic crises and inequality. Although the financialization of the global economy is not a new phenomenon (Arrighi 1994), distinctive aspects of its current form have garnered academic attention. The global nature of contemporary financialization poses particular challenges for individual countries as well as the overall world system. The more that global financial flows dominate a domestic economy, the more such an economy depends on them. This means that crisis or trouble anywhere within the global financial system could have vast consequences on the overall health of domestic economies or that financial trouble in one location could have a contagious effect. This is exemplified in the global economic crisis that began in 2008, with the failure of many large financial institutions based in the United States that spread to other firms, governments, and stock markets around the world. Given the recent nature of these events, scholars have only begun to examine the consequences of financialization for developmental outcomes, but early reports link financialization to both the emergence of the crisis and the repertoires of response among countries. Specifically, crises have been proposed to result from different indicators of financialization, including financial dominance in economic transactions (Carruthers and Kim 2011; Deutschman 2011), from specific pressures for liquidity among portfolio investors (Pitluck 2012), and from changing investment logics where financial innovation and investment come to exist out of bricolage and are consequently detached from elites (O’Riain 2012; Engelen et al. 2012). All of these studies suggest that a major consequence of financialization is a disembedding of the economy from its social context, where the short-term financial gain of a few is prioritized over the broader outcome of national development. With regard to how crises are handled, Manuela Moschella (2011) discusses how variations in national models of financial capitalism produced distinct methods of handling the economic crisis, with contrasts being particularly stark between the United Kingdom
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and Italy (see also Correa 2014 on Latin America). New research on the aftermath of crises suggests the importance of making the political choice to subject economies, and particularly financial institutions, to democratic governance in order to increase oversight and the ability to achieve developmental outcomes (Block 2014; Cavero Gomez 2013). Aside from economic crises, financialization has been linked to various social inequalities (Dore 2008). Basak Kus (2012) finds that it is a strong predictor of income inequality among OECD nations from the 1990s until the outbreak of the recent financial crisis, a finding that has also been substantiated inside the United States since the late 1960s (Lin and Tomaskovic-Devey 2013; Van Arnum and Naples 2013). Speaking to the distribution of power more broadly, Hans-Jurgen Bieling (2012) notes that financialization has increased the economic advantage of the transnational elite at the expense of weaker social classes and groups (see also Baud and Durand 2012 for a discussion of financialization, profits, and power among retailers). In local contexts, Phillip Arestis, Aurelie Charles, and Giuseppe Fontana (2013) find that the financialization of the U.S. economy has resulted in labor market stratification by race and gender, and Jaime Palomera (2014) shows that financialization eroded the “homeownership culture” in Spain, contributing to urban poverty.
G L O B A L M I G R AT I O N , R E M I T TA N C E S F L O W S , AND DEVELOPMENT
Another component of intensified global interactions are migrant flows, which also have consequences for national development. Based on World Bank data, the number of international migrants doubled to 215 million between 1985 and 2010 (Martin 2011). These developments helped shift the focus in migration studies from the assimilation experience of immigrants and their impact on the receiving country (Park and Burgess [1921] 1969) to greater attention on migrants’ origins, including how economic development influences migratory activities (de Hass 2010; Massey et al. 1993), and on the substantial growth in the worldwide amount of international remittances, or income earned by international migrants that is returned to their home countries. Remittances to developing countries more than quadrupled between 1985 and 2010 to over US$300 billion (Martin 2011). Indeed, the 2008–9 global recession did not result in the widespread return of migrants and declining remittances to developing countries (Ratha and Silwal 2012). Remittance flows are increasingly seen as a way for developing nations to become linked to the global economy, thereby gaining access to economic resources (Hernandez and Coutin 2006), and recently some scholars turned their attention to “social remittances,” or beneficial things outside of money that migrants bring back to their homelands (see Motefrio, Ortega, and Josol 2014 on technological knowledge and the development of the palm oil industry in Malaysia). However, the majority of empirical studies point to the contingent and differentiated effect of traditional, monetary remittances on receiving
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countries (but see Abdelali-Martini and Hamza 2014 on the beneficial impact of remittances in rural Syria). Scholars find the effects of remittances to be strongly conditioned by social forces, like international labor markets, domestic gender role expectations, class positions, and norms of reciprocity (Akesson 2009; Mahmud 2014; Rubinov 2014), and to vary in their impacts for certain groups and over time (Lu and Treiman 2011). Other researchers conduct aggregate analyses to examine the link between international migration and development. This research offers mixed results: some find that international migration slightly increases GDP per capita (Sanderson 2012), but others find the reverse (Di Maria and Lazarova 2012), and still others document a negative influence of international migration on other developmental outcomes aside from growth (see Sanderson 2010 on a negative but small effect on the U.N. Human Development Index). As to how financial development is influenced by international migration, and in particular remittance flows, the results of recent research again demonstrate contradictory findings, with some finding that remittances increase domestic deposits and credits (Aggarwal, Demirgüç-Kunt, and Pería 2011) and others finding that remittances deter formal banking endeavors in receiving countries (Brown, Carmignani, and Fayad 2013).
I N S T I T U T I O N A L - C U LT U R A L G L O B A L I Z AT I O N ’ S I N F L U E N C E O N D E V E L O P M E N TA L O U T C O M E S
We now turn to institutional and cultural processes that constitute globalization, including a focus on the transnational governance in the world polity, and the cultural wealth of nations, to review how researchers have found them to affect various national development outcomes.
T R A N S N AT I O N A L G O V E R N A N C E , W O R L D P O L I T Y, A N D N AT I O N A L D E V E L O P M E N T
An important aspect of contemporary globalization is the increase in transnational governance, including a focus on international organizations, such as the World Bank, IMF, and WTO. Studies of the WTO are inconclusive on whether its membership actually promotes trade, with some finding that it does (Mansfield, Milner, and Rosendorff 2000) and others that it does not (Rose 2004). In addition, scholars focus on regional trade institutions (Duina 2005) and different kinds of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) that promote trade by removing tariffs, capital controls, and various quotas as well as other restrictions on foreign goods in domestic markets (Fligstein 2005; however, see also Kwon 2012). Moreover, some research finds that even noneconomic IGOs, such as social and cultural ones, help increase international trade (Ingram, Robinson, and Busch 2005), whereas others see the effect of IGOs on trade waning over time (Zhou 2010). Conflicting results may stem from differential regional effects given Hatice Geldi’s (2012)
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findings that the European Union and NAFTA facilitate more intraregional trade but their Latin American and Asian counterparts do not. Beside the focus on international and regional organization, a vast literature on world society (Meyer et al. 1997) claims that, over a century, the world has constituted a single world polity with a corresponding world culture, carried by INGOs promoting universalism, individualism, rational progress, and world citizenship (Boli and Thomas 1997). The majority of research in the world-society perspective examines environmental (Frank, Hironaka, and Schofer 2000; Longhofer and Schofer 2010; Schofer and Hironaka 2005; Shorette 2012), educational (Frank and Gabler 2006; Ramirez and Wotipka 2001), and political (Hafner-Burton and Tsutsui 2005; Taniguchi and Babb 2009; Zhou 2013) consequences of integration into the network of INGOs, finding overall positive impacts stemming from INGO membership for nations, though again these findings are sometimes tempered by regional or time-dependent variations. This body of research demonstrates that INGOs tend to slow overurbanization while spurring positive educational outcomes (Bradshaw and Schafer 2000), to increase state spending on education (Kim and Boyle 2012), and to reduce carbon monoxide emissions, water pollution, and deforestation (Shandra et al. 2004; Shandra, Shor, and London 2009; Shandra 2007). A handful of studies in the world-society perspective showcase the promise of this type of inquiry for understanding economic development. For example, Witold Henisz, Bennet Zelner, and Mauro Guillén (2005) examine how world-society theory can help us understand why countries differ in the extent to which they adopt market-oriented reforms, and they find that international pressures of coercion, normative emulation, and competitive mimicry strongly influence domestic economic policy. Simone Polillo and Mauro Guillén (2005) investigate how integration into the world society through exposure to the global economy influences the development of independent financial institutions, specifically central banks. Martin Koch (2010) applies world-society theory to issues of economic inequality, studying international organizations as active agents shaping the conceptions and understandings of inequality in the global arena that can shape future action. More recently, Alwyn Lim and Kiyoteru Tsutsui (2012) also found that ties to world culture strongly predicted whether corporations adopt social responsibility initiatives, but differently for developed countries, which often pursue ceremonial commitment, and developed countries, which engage in substantive commitment to these policies. These studies are unified in their efforts to use world-society theory to speak to issues of the economy, be they market policies, economic institutions, understandings of inequality, or corporate policies, all of which affect developmental outcomes within countries.
T H E C U LT U R A L W E A LT H O F N AT I O N S A S A D E V E L O P M E N T S T R AT E G Y I N T H E G L O B A L I Z E D W O R L D
With a different take on the role of culture for development, Nina Bandelj and Frederick Wherry (2011) propose an inquiry into the “cultural wealth of nations” that exposes how
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firms located in particular places find themselves at an advantage relative to firms in other places by virtue of the symbolic resources they have at their disposal. These symbolic resources include collective narratives, reputations, status, and ideas. A variety of state and private actors are involved in creating narratives, staging social performances, and managing a country’s reputation in a global market so as to, for instance, market the symbolic value of their products, attract world tourists, or vie for greenfield foreign investment. All of these are means to leverage cultural wealth for gains in national economic development. Given the spectacular increase in international tourism, with the U.N. World Tourist Organization estimating that receipts from international tourism amounted to US$1.3 trillion in 2011 and that international arrivals will reach one billion in 2012, doubling since 1995, this is an important aspect of globalization that deserves more sociological attention. In several developing countries today, international tourism receipts account for the largest or second-largest generator of foreign exchange (Bandelj and Wherry 2011). Many of these reflect visits to UNESCO’s World Heritage sites, which countries have been instructed to preserve, following international standards that help them identify and market their cultural wealth (Kowalski 2011; Reyes 2014). Some countries, as Lauren Rivera (2011) shows for the case of Croatia, use impression management strategies to refashion their reputations and rid themselves of stigma (after civil wars, for instance) to be able to attract (again) visitors. Alternatively, some countries join forces in forging regional tourism sites, such as the Mundo Maya across several Central American countries (Bair 2011), but this is not a politically undisputed process. Countries have also diversified their exports and added value by emphasizing the symbolic qualities of their products—qualities emanating, in part, from the cultural heritage of the people engaged in production. For instance, Stefano Ponte and Benoit Daviron (2011) present a case study of South African wine, which has been able to climb the reputation charts in the past decades. In this sense, South Africa has been able to generate economic capital from cultural wealth, but its experience may not be immediately transportable to other developing countries. In the case of South African wine, the orchestration of industry associations, financial investors, and regulatory support needed to be fairly sophisticated to yield the desired outcome in the long run. Apparently, the conversion of cultural capital to economic capital at the level of countries is not a seamless process; one size does not fit all, and chances of failure exist. Hence, there are still dramatic inequalities in cultural wealth distributions across the world, reflecting the divide between the core and the periphery (Centeno, Bandelj, and Wherry 2011; Clancy 1998). Despite these challenges and persistent hierarchies, creating and deploying cultural wealth—not only industrial progress—should be recognized as a viable strategy to economic prosperity for developing countries in a globalized world, and further research is needed to specify the conditions under which cultural wealth strategies work more or less effectively.
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CONCLUDING REMARKS
Research on global economic processes is variegated and yields many inconclusive results regarding the consequences of globalization for different developmental outcomes. World-systems research points to the persistence of unequal exchange and negative effects of FDI on income inequality. Economic studies often focus on positive effects of FDI and trade on growth. The world-society perspective shows how INGO integration positively affects various indicators of human rights, environmentalism, and civic participation. Cultural wealth of nation studies showcase that global trade and tourism can help countries leverage symbolic qualities and reputations for national development. Therefore, we cannot end with a single conclusion about the impact of globalization on development. In fact, as we have tried to show, both “globalization” and “development” are multifaceted processes that encompass economic, social, political, and cultural dimensions that do not always work in tandem. Defining what national development entails— be it economic growth, social equality, environmental sustainability, population health, or human rights—is a result of domestic political choices. Globalization research tells us, however, that such decision-making is significantly structured by the world culture and that it occurs within a world system of (persistent) inequality between developed and developing countries. We have also traced a division in the literature that emphasizes globalization’s political-economic or its institutional-cultural dimensions. In our closing comments we would like to suggest, however, that there is potential in more effectively integrating these theoretical perspectives, as some have done already. For instance, Jorgenson (2009) finds that FDI increases organic water pollution in the manufacturing sectors of less developed countries, as the political-economic approach would predict, but also that a strong presence of environmental INGOs and ministries, as part of world polity governance structures, tend to attenuate the consequences of this pollution. Similarly, Clark’s (2008) study pays attention to a combination of political-economic and institutional-cultural factors on development by examining the effect of INGO membership, together with trade, on economic growth, for a wide group of countries from 1980 to 2000. He finds that the developmental effects differ among countries by type of integration into trade and into INGOs; dependent integration produces underdevelopment, principally for less developed countries, while network integration produces growth, mostly for advanced countries. Proposing an integrated theory of global environmentalism, Kristen Shorette (2012) finds that, though integration into the world polity does lead to lower rates of environmentally dangerous chemical fertilizer and chemicals, the effect of world-polity membership varies significantly according to a state’s world-systems position. Along these lines, in a project that examines the proliferation of bilateral investment treaties signed to promote and protect FDI between 1959 and 2009, Bandelj and Mahutga (2013) find that connections forged reflect long-standing Global North/Global South
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inequalities but that they are also influenced by a global diffusion of policy scripts, especially since the 1980s. These studies fruitfully integrate how political, cultural, and material processes operate at the global level and interact in shaping various developmental outcomes. Advancing this integrated approach, we conclude, the study of the role of globalization for national development would be well served to consider the simultaneity of cultural and material processes as well as the interplay between transnational and more local/regional trends. Such analyses might uncover that significant universalistic processes operate in the world polity but that they are likely conditioned by the unequal balance of power between countries. Such studies might also uncover the idiosyncratic behavior of some regions vis-à-vis others and scrutinize the relationship between globalization and regionalization in their influence on national development.
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Noy, Shiri. 2011. “New Contexts, Different Patterns? A Comparative Analysis of Social Spending and Government Health Expenditure in Latin America and the OECD.” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 52, no. 3: 215–44. O’Riain, Sean. 2012. “The Crisis of Financialization in Ireland.” Economic and Social Review 43, no. 4: 497–533. Orru, Marco, Gary Hamilton, and Nicole Biggart. 1997. The Economic Organization of East Asian Capitalism. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage. Palomera, Jaime. 2014. “How Did Finance Capital Infiltrate the World of the Urban Poor? Homeownership and Social Fragmentation in a Spanish Neighborhood.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 38, no. 1: 218–35. Park, Robert Ezra, and Ernest Watson Burgess. (1921) 1969. Introduction to the Science of Sociology. Reprint. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pereira, Alvaro Santos, Joao Tovar Jalles, and Martin A. Andresen. 2012. “Structural Change and Foreign Direct Investment: Globalization and Regional Economic Integration.” Portuguese Economic Journal 11, no. 1: 35–82. Perelman, Michael. 2000. The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. Pitluck, Aaron Z. 2012. “The Silence of Finance and Its Critics: Portfolio Investors in the World-System.” In Routledge Handbook of World-Systems Analysis, edited by Salvatore J. Babones and Christopher Chase-Dunn, 206–14. London: Routledge. Polillo, Simone, and Mauro F. Guillén. 2005. “Globalization, Pressures and the State: The Worldwide Spread of Central Bank Independence.” American Journal of Sociology 110, no. 6: 1764–1802. Ponte, Stefano, and Benoit Daviron. 2011. “Creating and Controlling Symbolic Value: The Case of South African Wine.” In The Cultural Wealth of Nations, edited by Nina Bandelj and Frederick Wherry, 197–221. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Prasad, Monica. 2006. The Politics of Free Markets: The Rise of Neoliberal Economic Policies in Britain, France, Germany and the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Prebisch, Raul. 1950. The Economic Development of Latin America and Its Principal Problems. New York: United Nations. Ramirez, Francisco O., and Christine Min Wotipka. 2001. “Slowly but Surely? The Global Expansion of Women’s Participation in Science and Engineering Fields of Study.” In Science in the Modern World Polity: Institutionalization and Globalization, edited by Gili S. Drori, John W. Meyer, Francisco O. Ramirez, and Evan Schofer, 174–95. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Ratha, Dilip, and Ani Silwal. 2012. “Remittance Flows in 2011—An Update.” World Bank Migration and Development Brief 18. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. Accessed Jan. 6, 2015. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPROSPECTS/Resources/334934–1110315015165 /MigrationandDevelopmentBrief18.pdf. Reyes, Victoria. 2014. “The Production of Cultural and National Wealth: An Examination of World Heritage Sites.” Poetics 44: 42–63. Ricardo, David. (1817) 1996. Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. Reprint. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
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24 TRANSITIONS TO CAPITALISMS Past and Present
Rebecca Jean Emigh
Theories of transitions to capitalism are the foundation of the social sciences because they were central to Karl Marx, Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, and Adam Smith. Their application to the historical rise of capitalism and recent market transitions in postsocialist countries continues to be debated. Although economists often deploy a single theory to explain capitalism as a unitary phenomenon, other social scientists are generally more skeptical that any single theory can explain transitions to capitalism, a complex set of events that inevitably depends on temporal and regional factors (see, e.g., Emigh 2009, 5; Hung 2008a, 583). For example, the development of agrarian capitalism in Europe and Asia between the fifteenth and the twentieth centuries did not follow a single path but depended on the type of landownership and tenancy and the degree and nature of state involvement in agriculture (see the review in Akram-Lodhi and Kay 2010, 259–62). Another example is that both agrarian transitions and post-socialist transitions to capitalism can follow two paths: one from below, generated by non-elites in a relatively uncoordinated way; the other from above, generated and coordinated by state actors or other elites (Akram-Lodhi and Kay 2010, 259–62; King and Szelényi 2005, 206). Moreover, these different trajectories may lead to different outcomes: Peter Hall and David Soskice (2001, 2–6) argued that capitalism is not a single entity but has different features in different contexts. Even theories of the “capitalist world system,” which insist that capitalism is a single entity, claim that different outcomes await different countries (Burawoy 2001, 1116; Wallerstein 1974, 349). At the other end of the spectrum, Kenneth Pomeranz (2000, 16) and Jack Goldstone (2000, 175) rejected overarching theoretical explanations and
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suggested that the development of capitalism in England (instead of in Asia) was largely accidental. Yet, even an insistence on the uniqueness of transitions points to interesting convergences. Just as historical transitions to capitalism were slow and uneven, post-socialist transitions were rarely accomplished as their designers expected (DuPlessis 1997, 5; Róna-Tas 1997, 9; Ruef 2014, 3; Verdery 1996, 15–16, 229–30). Thus, do past and present transitions to capitalism, despite their heterogeneity, follow any theoretical pattern?
T H E O R I E S O F T R A N S I T I O N S T O C A P I TA L I S M
These theories are fourfold: economic explanations based on efficiency and rationality; organizational explanations based on the structure and logic of institutions; cultural explanations based on actors’ orientation toward economic action; and social explanations based on the power relations between social actors.
ECONOMIC THEORIES
Economic theories assume that micro-level incentives for individuals to act in their own self-interest correspond to capitalism’s aggregate efficiency. Thus, for capitalism to emerge, states must simply set minimal preconditions by establishing and enforcing property rights that create incentives for individuals to channel their economic effort into activities that link private gain to economic growth (North and Thomas 1973, 1, 7).
O R G A N I Z AT I O N A L T H E O R I E S
Sociologists, in contrast, argue that markets are complex social and cultural as well as economic institutions. Thus, markets rarely arise spontaneously with the establishment of private property rights. Organizational theories, like economic theories, consider institutional arrangements, but they generally consider organizations as constitutive of economic life, not just as preconditions. These theories stem generally from Weber’s ([1927] 1981) late work, but it was incomplete and subject to multiple interpretations. Nevertheless, Weber clearly emphasized institutional transformations, including the development of a bureaucratic nation-state and social, commercial, and religious organizations that allow for the emergence of capitalism because they make rational decisionmaking and, in turn, profit-seeking in markets possible (cf. Collins 1997, 845; Schluchter 1996, 179–243; see also the review in Emigh 2009, 21–22). Like economic theories, the organizational perspective emphasizes the state. However, the economic view considers rational action to be an innate human quality that operates best under certain institutional arrangements; in contrast, the organizational perspective sees rational action as a historical and social construction that is constituted within certain institutional arrangements. Thus, this perspective emphasizes the active role of organizations and the state.
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C U LT U R A L T H E O R I E S
Cultural theories suggest that a set of patterned meanings, manifest either within individuals’ thought patterns or within institutional social structures, make possible (or prevent, as per Platteau 2009, 670) an orientation toward the persistent pursuit of profit in markets, which is Weber’s ([1905] 1958, 17) definition of capitalism. In contrast to economic models, which generally assume that humans’ natural inclinations toward self-interest motivates the accumulation of wealth, a cultural perspective suggests that a profit orientation is a social construction. Many theories draw inspiration from Weber’s ([1905] 1958, 170–72) Protestant Ethic, which suggested that capitalism developed where the religious doctrine of predestination provided incentives for the consistent pursuit of wealth and the rational reinvestment of this wealth instead of conspicuous consumption. Despite the enormous influence of Weber’s thesis in particular, as well as his more general point about conceptualizing capitalism as a cultural, political, and economic system (see, e.g., Appleby 2010, 22; Emigh 2009, 10), few studies find direct evidence supporting the Protestant Ethic either within or across countries (Delacroix and Nielsen 2001, 513–15, 543; Lachmann 2000, 204–27). Thus, reconstructions of a Weberian theory of transitions to capitalism incorporate his later work (see, e.g., Collins 1997, 845–46; Schluchter 1996, 179–243). Network explanations can be organizational or cultural theories, focusing either on the structural pattern of actors’ ties or on actors’ shared cultural understandings. As most of the recent work on transitions to capitalism has focused on the latter rather than on the former, I group them here with cultural theories. Weber’s micro-theory of social action as shared intersubjectivity underlies, though often implicitly, these theories.
SOCIAL THEORIES
These theories attend to the social relationships and, in particular, the power relations among groups of actors: between classes (i.e., owners and producers), among elites (e.g., political, cultural, economic, or religious elites), and among sectors of economic activities (e.g., producers and consumers or producers of different goods). They consider which groups have the power to act in their own interests to establish capitalist institutions. Class theory stems from Marx, though he never fully developed a theory of transitions to capitalism. Nevertheless, his work suggested that, through conflict, one class secured property rights, allowing them to extract surplus from another class. Capitalism then emerged through cycles of resource or capital accumulation: the class of surplus extractors used this surplus to gain control over additional resources that allowed them to extract additional surplus (Marx [1867] 1977, 914, 929–30). Thus, Marx’s theory points to the social relationships between the owners of property and the producers of goods. Historically, capitalism developed from the contradictions of feudalism: the conflicts among the crown, feudal lords, and peasants and between feudal rural regions and commercial towns (Marx [1867] 1977, 875, 878, 915–16). For Robert Brenner (1985), a relative
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balance of power between landlords and agricultural producers, forcing both to become market dependent, was key to agrarian capitalism (a precondition for industrial capitalism). In contrast, if either was powerful enough to survive through nonmarket mechanisms or rent seeking (producers by self-provisioning; landlords through arbitrary confiscation of labor services or agricultural surplus), then neither depended on markets. Elite theory, inspired by Gaetano Mosca, Vilfredo Pareto, C. Wright Mills, and Weber, instead posits that the conflict among elites, not classes, determines the rise of capitalism (Lachmann 2000, 9; Szelényi 2008, 171; see the review in Lachmann 1990, 398–401). Weber’s attention to the multiple bases of social stratification in class, status, and power creates room for conflict among different elites (in addition to the between-class conflict noted by Marx), and he additionally pointed to the organizational basis of legal-rational authority in bureaucracy (Eyal, Szelényi, and Townsley 1998, 20–23, 230–31; Lachmann 1990, 400). Elites have the capacity to appropriate resources from non-elites, and they inhabit a distinct organizational apparatus (Lachmann 2000, 9). Thus, as a general theory of the transition to capitalism, Richard Lachmann (2000, 11, 228–30) argued that, first, elites must have the capacity vis-à-vis other elites to exploit direct producers, and, second, they must create capitalist relations, and he applied this theory to explain the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Iván Szelényi and his colleagues never stated their theory this generally, but they argued that elite alliances shaped post-socialist economies (King and Szelényi 2005, 208–9). Elite theory downplays, but does not dismiss, historical changes through class conflict (Lachmann 2000, 12; Szelényi 2008, 173). In both elite and class theories, power relations allow certain actors to realize their own interests to create capitalist institutions. In successful transitions to capitalism, capitalist actors then become dependent on these institutions, not just on the underlying power relations. Both theories, like economic ones, rely on the premise that capitalism is efficient and will spread once capitalist relations have been established, because they share the emphasis on property rights that facilitate the rational reinvestment of surplus. Social theories additionally posit that an account of social actors following their self-interest explains relatively little unless their relative power to pursue this self-interest is also explained. However, these theories clarify little about how markets are actually created or how they spread once preconditions are established. Elite theory cannot explain why some unified elites introduce capitalist relations while others do not. Class theory provides a somewhat fuller answer than elite theory, because it links capitalist actors’ market dependence to the spread of capitalism. In other words, these theories pay little attention to how the interaction between sectors, composed of different economic activities, can create capitalist development. Sectoral theories stem from Marxist and neoclassical economic theories (see the review in Emigh 2009, 48–52). As Adam Smith noted, the social division of labor creates individuals who produce goods that they do not consume and who consume goods that they do not produce. Thus, the exchange of these goods between individuals must be socially organized through institutions. In capitalist economies, markets are the primary mechanism for this exchange or, using Karl Polanyi’s (1957, 250) term, economic integration, and redistribu-
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tion (by states) and reciprocity (within societies) are secondary mechanisms that support markets. Sectoral analyses of transitions to capitalism, then, look at institutional arrangements that facilitate markets that coordinate the exchange of goods produced by different individuals and groups or, more generally, by different economic activities. Marx ([1885] 1981, 568–97) developed an early two-sector model by analyzing the relationship between two departments producing the means of production and consumption (Trigg 2006, 1). Like Marx’s model, many formal sectoral theories started out as simple dual-sector models, but they instead considered the transfer of resources from the rural to the urban sector (see, e.g., Lewis 1954). During industrialization, investments increased agricultural productivity and resources shifted from agriculture to manufacturing, allowing a smaller agricultural sector to feed a larger manufacturing sector and creating a domestic market for manufactured goods (see the review in Emigh 2009, 46–52). Initially, sectoral theories advocated a straightforward path to capitalist—or socialist—industrialization through strongly prescriptive policies, such as taxation, that intentionally transferred resources from agriculture to manufacturing (Lewis 1954, 168– 76; Preobrazhensky [1926] 1965, 84–85). However, recent versions instead consider how social, cultural, and economic institutions support dense markets consisting of backward and forward linkages that coordinate multiple sectors to promote overall economic growth (see the review in Emigh 2009, 46–57, 200–203). Sectoral theories are well represented in the development literature. Agricultural and capitalist development remain strongly linked because many developing countries export and import large quantities of foodstuffs globally, and the relationship between the export sector and the domestic market shapes internal capital accumulation (AkramLodhi and Kay 2010, 276–78; Mueller 2011, 28–31). Similarly, inputs of raw materials and energy set limits on manufacturing. Periods of capital accumulation are supported by inexpensive inputs of food, energy, and raw materials (Moore 2010, 392). Where these inputs form an export sector, the relationship between the export sector and the domestic market crucially shape overall capitalist development. Because of their common focus on inputs, sectoral theories are closely related to arguments about geography and natural resources, especially energy and raw materials. For example, Goldstone (2000, 175) argued that access to coal allowed England to develop the first industrial capitalist economy (cf. Sandemose 2012, 491). Although geographical advantages can be viewed as accidental, and thus not theoretically or systematically related to transitions to capitalism (see, e.g., Goldstone 2000, 187; Pomeranz 2000, 16–17), sectoral theories instead consider how social relationships allow the deployment of these advantages toward capitalist development. Similarly, demographic arguments consider how individuals’ practices can limit population growth that consumes any surplus or natural resources that might be used for capital accumulation and, therefore, support a transition to capitalism (see the review in Goody 2010, 32–40). Like class theories, and unlike elite theories, sectoral theories highlight the importance of a relative balance of power that creates widespread economic growth and an
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extensive domestic market. Class, elite, and sectoral theories have micro- and macrodimensions. Interactions between individuals engaged in different economic activities can be examined; in addition, the interaction between groups of actors participating in these economic activities can be examined. In contrast, world-systems theory dramatically shifts the unit of analysis by suggesting that only global power relations, not features of individual states, explain why the transition to capitalism looks completely different in various parts of the world because regions serve different purposes in the reproduction of capitalism (Chase-Dunn 2012, 9; see the review in Goldfrank 2000, 152). The world-capitalist system arose in the sixteenth century as a result of the formation of strong states and classes in Europe, their attempts to dominate each other, their geographical expansion, and their development and deployment of various methods of labor control throughout the world (Wallerstein 1974, 38, 351–56). Thus, Immanuel Wallerstein returned to Marx’s emphasis on the imbalance of power that allows capitalism to develop. Although Wallerstein did not conceptualize his contribution in this way, he combined organizational, elite, class, and sectoral theories by emphasizing a strong state, elite and class conflict, and regional sectoral differences. Giovanni Arrighi (1994, 6), extending Wallerstein, pointed to four world-scale patterns of historical capitalism (in Genoa, the Netherlands, England, and the United States), all characterized by capital accumulation that started with increased production of commodities and ended with financialization. Like Wallerstein’s theory, Arrighi’s (1994, 12) also points to how global capital accumulation must be supported by local power concentrations of state and business actors at different levels. These perspectives may constitute alternative explanations of transitions to capitalism, but they also can be combined. Thus, I review the recent empirical work not by theoretical perspective but by regions where they have been applied. I cannot, in any strict sense, assess empirically the theories, as I am not assembling balanced evidence across comparable units of analysis. Nevertheless, a theory or combination of theories may emerge as particularly powerful across multiple cases, past and present. I focus here only on the most recent, theory-driven work (for reviews of older material, see Emigh 2005; Heller 2011; King and Szelényi 2005). Finally, I also focus on the Northern Hemisphere. Transition debates mostly neglect the Southern Hemisphere because theories of dependency, colonialism, and world systems suggest that its domination by the Global North precluded the development of classic capitalist structures (see the chapters by Jeffrey Jackson et al. and by Nina Bandelj and Elizabeth Sowers in this volume).
R E G I O N A L A P P L I C AT I O N S O F T H E O R I E S O F T R A N S I T I O N S TO C A P I TA L I S M WESTERN EUROPE
Deploying economic theory, Douglass North and Robert Paul Thomas (1973, 1, 13–18) argued that West European states’ enforcement of property rights explained the transition
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to capitalism there. North and Thomas focused on the state; although Avner Greif (2006, 388) and Rosemary Hopcroft (1999, 238) also drew on economic theory to explain the transition to capitalism in Western Europe, they instead showed how local institutions enforced property rights. Greif (2006, 5, 24–27) argued that corporate institutions enforced property rights and contracts. Hopcroft (1999, 11, 237) argued that capitalist agriculture developed where there were secure local property rights in land, created by enclosed or private property and few feudal lords, combined with market access and legal support for property rights. Many economic historians also hold, though undogmatically, to this economic view. For example, Robert DuPlessis (1997, 304) argued that capitalist structures in Western Europe arose through market expansion that stimulated agricultural production and industrial specialization, as long as states or other institutions did not divert investments to unproductive ventures. Like other economic historians, he argued that proto-industrialization (small-scale rural enterprises producing for cities) promoted capitalist structures (DuPlessis 1997, 304; Kriedte, Medick,and Schlumbohm 1981, 8). As the protoindustrialization perspective links agriculture to manufacturing, it also invokes sectoral theory. The best-developed Marxist theory for Western Europe stresses class conflict that created a relative balance of power between landlords and other rural inhabitants (Brenner 1985, 30). In England, though landlords were more powerful than tenants, they were not as powerful as in Eastern Europe, where they reimposed serfdom on them (Brenner 1985, 35, 44–45). Moreover, rural inhabitants in England had some land rights but fewer than in France, where peasants prevented land consolidation and commercialization (Brenner 1985, 58–59). Thus, in England, landlords and other rural inhabitants depended on the market for survival instead of extra-economic coercion or subsistence production (Brenner 1985, 48–51, 61–62). Elite theory also emphasizes landlords’ transformation of production but argues that it stemmed from elite, not class, conflict. In England, the gentry gained tactical advantage over the crown and clergy (Lachmann 2000, 230). They then accumulated capital and an unprecedented agricultural surplus, created a proletarian labor force, and constructed a state capable of protecting the domestic economy and conquering foreign markets (Lachmann 2000, 203). Thus, capitalist elites triumphed over other elites, and they established capitalist relations. Elsewhere in Europe, a single elite gained control but failed to transform production (Lachmann 2000, 228–31). Since most theories were developed with English evidence, they all fit reasonably well there (even when they contradict each other!). Marxists have been little affected by arguments that smallholders led the transition to capitalism in England (see, e.g., Hopcroft 1999, 236). Most reasserted Brenner’s argument (see, e.g., Comninel 2000, 1; Wood 2002, 99–102; Zmolek 2004, 281). Though not entirely rejecting Brenner’s emphasis on agrarian transformations, Robert Albritton (2004, 307–8, 310, 312), by insisting that the commodification of labor-power is the key to understanding capitalism, argued
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contra Zmolek that capital accumulation, and thus capitalism, first arose in proto-industry, not in agriculture. Nevertheless, all of these Marxists insist that capitalism was a singular English event stemming from specific and systematic social changes in the medieval period (see, e.g., Comninel 2000, 43). Class, elite, and economic theories thus concur that private property rights are essential for the development of capitalism (see, e.g., Comninel 2000, 46; Hopcroft 1999, 230), but they disagree about whether large landlords or peasant producers were responsible for the transition (Comninel 2000, 44; Hopcroft 1999, 239). Elite theory further insists that the balance of power between landlords and tenants was important only after landlords consolidated their power vis-à-vis other elites. It is difficult to adjudicate the debates empirically. Most authors do not address all the theories, and the data are generally aggregated regionally, so it is usually difficult to determine which actors are directly responsible for capitalist transformations. Furthermore, Marxist debates often revolve around evaluations of the correct use of Marxist theory and methods, not empirical evidence (see, e.g., Albritton 2004, 311; cf. the review in Emigh 2005, 359–60). Similarly, sectoral theories work well for England (see the review in Emigh 2009, 47–48, 206). Increased agricultural productivity allowed a smaller agricultural labor force to feed a larger industrial one. Agriculture may have contributed to the domestic market. A unique set of personal and structural intersectoral relationships supported these changes. Merchants had close ties to the gentry through politics, kinship, trade, and finance. Because of impartible inheritance, younger brothers often became businessmen who, if financially successful, bought rural estates. The alliance between agrarian capitalists and entrepreneurial merchants helped create a unified nation-state capable of protecting private property. These political developments entrenched landlords’ interests in the government that subsequently favored farm producers over consumers. English intellectual culture also supported this merchant-state alliance. Classical political economists actively promoted ideas that turned peasants into proletarians, contrary to their purported adherence to laissez-faire values (Perelman 2000, 12). Thus, in England, there were dense ties and a balance of power between the commercial and agricultural sectors as well as alliances between commerce, agriculture, and the state. These patterns do not contradict class or elite theory; instead, they explain how sectoral economic activities fit together with the actions of classes and elites. Another strategy to develop theories employs negative cases, where theories suggest that the transition to capitalism should have occurred but did not (Emigh 2009, 15). For example, in Genoa, a feudal elite transformed itself into a mercantile ruling class by controlling the polity through novel commercial institutions (Van Doosselaere 2009, 4). However, this sustained accumulation of capital, stimulated initially by war, did not lead to a Weberian cultural shift; these merchants were oriented toward social relationships, not the pursuit of profit (Van Doosselaere 2009, 4–5, 212–13). Quentin Van Doosselaere’s (2009, 4) work implicitly supports elite theory, showing how a single elite gained control of resources but did not fully create capitalist relations.
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Similarly, Tuscany’s proto-capitalist late medieval economy subsequently entered a long period of relative economic decline. Economic theory suggests that concentrated urban power can produce institutional arrangements that stifle trade and markets. For example, Stephan Epstein (1991, 32–33, 43–44) argued that powerful Florentines adopted market restrictions that prevented agricultural innovation and investment, limiting the domestic market, preventing specialization, and reinforcing peasant subsistence agriculture. Lachmann (2000, 89–92), combining elite theory with Weber’s distinction between politically and economically oriented capitalism, argued that once a single elite gained control of Florence, it failed to create capitalist relations, drawing instead on its political power to maintain economic advantage. Florentines’ “favorite investment,” land, was leased in share-terms, an unproductive, exploitative tenurial form (Lachmann 2000, 86). In contrast, I showed that Florentines controlled Tuscany through market mechanisms, not restrictions, and that their investments were primarily driven by economic incentives (Emigh 2009, 197–210). Furthermore, this Florentine elite did transform agriculture. When this elite consolidated, sharecropping was a capitalist tenurial form that increased agricultural productivity (Emigh 2009, 128–29, 168–95). A sectoral analysis shows instead how the urban, capitalist penetration of rural land markets paradoxically erased market institutions (Emigh 2009, 196–203). In rural regions unaffected by Florentine capital, economies were based primarily on subsistence production. However, welldeveloped local markets coordinated smallholders’ exchanges of land, labor, and commodities and were tightly linked to cultural practices of property devolution and numeracy. When Florentines entered rural markets, these institutional features allowed them to buy smallholders’ land. Then, however, because smallholders were much poorer than Florentines, they could no longer participate in markets, the overall prevalence of markets decreased, and, with them, the institutional support for capitalism disappeared (Emigh 2009, 196–203). The Tuscan commercial sector, in contrast to the English one, was much more powerful than the agricultural sector, and there were few ties between them. In the long run, the agricultural sector failed to provide an adequate food supply, and no domestic market appeared because rural producers became detached from markets. Elite and sectoral theories are not necessarily contradictory. Sectoral theory confirms elites’ importance, but it additionally explains why landlords’ capitalist transformation of agriculture paradoxically undermined capitalism. Thus, unlike Van Doosselaere’s analysis of Genoa, which suggested that elites were insufficiently capitalist, my analysis of Tuscany showed that a capitalist dynamic created economic decline. The Dutch trajectory is perhaps even more paradoxical than these Italian ones, because the height of its economic development was the early modern period (Brandon 2011, 106–7). As in Tuscany, Dutch commerce transformed productive relations instead of preserving feudal ones, and it depended on an urban-agrarian symbiosis involving national and international trade (Brandon 2011, 140–41). Thus, a combination of Marxist and sectoral theories explains this plethora of capitalist structures. Nevertheless, industrial capitalism did not develop there, because the Dutch republic was unable to break
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through the financialization associated with merchant capitalism, persistent economic localism, and political fragmentation (Brandon 2011, 139). Nevertheless, the Amsterdam capital market and its elites helped finance the British government debt and private investment (Brandon 2011, 139). Pepijn Brandon (2011, 139, 142) thus reconfirmed Marx’s argument that the transition to capitalism had an international character: the stalled fragments of capitalist development in one country (the Netherlands) spurred its further development in the next (Britain). Brandon (2011, 109, 133–34) also agreed with Wallerstein that the rise of the Netherlands coincided with the creation of the world system in the sixteenth century, though he disagreed with Wallerstein’s characterization of the Netherlands as fully capitalist or industrial. Both Brandon (2011, 126–28) and Lachmann (2000, 165) argued that Dutch urban elites, mostly concentrated in Amsterdam, focused urban and rural resources on military and colonial projects of interest to themselves and that these developments largely explained the rise of the Dutch empire. Lachmann (2000, 166) also explained the failure of the Dutch republic to industrialize with elite theory: Amsterdam elites did not win the support of other Dutch elites, who then failed to provide fiscal and military resources necessary to defend its trade routes and colonies. Instead, Brandon explains both the rise and fall of the Netherlands through its international position.
ASIA
Classic analyses rarely treated Asia as a paradoxical negative case but instead pointed to long-standing historical conditions that explained why capitalism first appeared in Europe. For example, Weber ([1905] 1958, 27) argued that Asian culture was not conducive to capitalism because it lacked the Protestant Ethic. However, Randall Collins (1997, 846, 848) showed that Catholicism and Buddhism could also support an economic ethic of disciplined work and calculated profit. To explain the rise of Japanese capitalism, he combined this cultural argument with an organizational one (Collins 1997, 843). Monasteries combined the factors of production and allocated them efficiently through rationalized administration (Collins 1997, 855). Furthermore, medieval Japanese Buddhism stressed self-discipline and ascetic restraint on consumption that reinforced accumulation and investment (Collins 1997, 856). In contrast, in medieval China, these organizations and culture faded during the neo-Confucian revival and the government’s suppression of the market (Collins 1997, 850). Yet Europe may have had few long-standing advantages, suggesting that the transition to capitalism was accidental or affected by differences temporally close to the transition, such as European global expansion or English coal (Pomeranz 2000, 16–17) or may have arisen from a Eurasian dynamic (Goody 2010, 2). Thus, these Eurasia comparisons contradict theories that the English transition to capitalism was rooted in long-standing historical conditions. Nevertheless, Eurasian differences may be systematically related to capitalism. Ho-fung Hung (2008a, 573), arguing that Kenneth Pomeranz exaggerated the
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positive effects of Europe’s access to overseas markets, combined class, elite, sectoral, and state theories. The states in nineteenth-century Japan and eighteenth-century England supported a class of entrepreneurial elites who funneled agricultural surplus toward industrial innovation (Hung 2008a, 575, 582). In contrast, in eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury China and eighteenth-century Japan, there was no entrepreneurial elite and, therefore, no capitalism (Hung 2008a, 575, 582). This emphasis on a strong bureaucratic state in alliance with merchants, evident in the theories comparing countries within Western Europe, is highlighted by Eric Mielants (2007, 155), who argued that European political structures, in comparison to Asian ones, were uniquely suited to capitalism, but he located the difference earlier in history, in the late medieval/early Renaissance European city-states. The geopolitically competitive West European state system, in contrast to the empires and despotic structures elsewhere, meshed with mercantilist policies of increasing taxable territory, assets, and population (see the review in O’Brien 2008, 62–70). A relatively recent Eurasian historical divergence suggests that the past fifty years of Asian economic growth stems from a longer pattern in which Asia, and China in particular, not Europe, was dominant (Frank 1998, 5). World-systems theory provides another long-term perspective by suggesting that the so-called socialist countries were largely incorporated—despite their best efforts to disengage—into the capitalist world system and thus were strongly shaped by capitalist dynamics (Boswell and Chase-Dunn 2000, 9–12; cf. Lane 2011, 201–7). Despite these long-term explanations, short-run ones abound for the transition to capitalism in post-socialist China. The Chinese state is hardly a neoliberal paradigm of establishing unfettered markets, but, where it established private property rights, economic growth has been spectacular, as economic theory predicts (see the review in Fligstein and Zhang 2011, 40). Like Hopcroft and Greif, Victor Nee and Sonja Opper (2012, 259–62) drew on economic theory but added sociological insights. Consistent with economic theory, they argued that China’s transition to capitalism started “from below” by entrepreneurs responding to economic opportunities arising from the state’s decision to relax market restrictions. As successful entrepreneurs overcame market uncertainties through the enforcement of social norms locally (e.g., social approval, sanctions), they were imitated by others (cf. Tsai 2007, 59, 66). Nee and Opper (2012, 3–8) argued against a state-centered view of the transition to capitalism, because most state reforms followed rather than preceded economic changes. Similarly, Kellee Tsai (2007, 207–19) showed how Chinese entrepreneurs used informal practices to circumvent laws and rules that would have hindered their capitalist activity; eventually these adaptive informal institutions elicited formal reforms. Neo-Weberian network theories reinforced this view “from below.” They highlighted how the Confucian ethic creates trustworthiness, discipline, and innovation and fosters kin and family networks that support capitalism (see the reviews in Keister 2009, 731, and Meagher 2012, 263–65). Nee and Opper’s argument that the Chinese transition started “from below” is broadly supported by research across theoretical perspectives showing how the transition began
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with agrarian and financial reforms, the dissolution of collectives, and the reestablishment of family enterprises in the 1980s (Huang 2008, xiv–xvii; Saith 2008, 735; Szelényi 2008, 167). Class theory suggests that a relative balance of power forced the state to give concessions to the lower classes (peasants, workers, and small producers). However, considerable evidence—casting doubt on Nee and Opper’s assertion that the state was relatively unimportant—suggests that the nature of the transition shifted substantially over time. More recent economic and political changes are “from above” and support elite theory because they depended on state-owned enterprises and multinational capital, as power shifted toward an institutional alliance of political (communist), capitalist, and urban elites (Dickson 2007, 828; Huang 2008, xiv–xvii; Szelényi 2008, 171). Although a class theorist might counter that the power of elites depended on a prior change in class power, an elite theorist could respond that a single elite, the communists, always controlled the transition, despite subtle shifts in their power and a more recent alliance with the capitalists. State-centered theories go even further, arguing that state actors have actively engineered the transition to capitalism (Lin 2011, 64; see also the reviews in Fligstein and Zhang 2011, 40, and Keister 2009, 724–28). Explanations based on social ties (or networks, guanxi) between businesses and governments often coexist with state-centered theories, because this elaborate system of favors allows actors to exploit economic opportunities, especially during the uncertainty of rapidly changing conditions (Fligstein and Zhang 2011, 43; Keister 2009, 731–32; Lin 2011, 64). Sectoral theories help explain the strengths and weaknesses of the Chinese economy. The export sector dominates the economy, which is consequently strongly and negatively affected by global decreases in demand (Hung 2008b, 149). However, most exports are manufactured goods, not raw materials, that create intersectoral ties. Nevertheless, exchanges remain somewhat limited, geographical sectoral concentration high, and intersectoral mobility low (Hung 2008b, 159; Lee 2007, 876). Rural regions have always been poor but not entirely neglected. In the pre-reform era, rural collectives raised agricultural productivity and income, created rural infrastructure, integrated agriculture and industry through backward and forward linkages, and promoted rural development and education (Hung 2008b, 154; Saith 2008, 732, 736). Market reforms strengthened agriculture, but low rural incomes, widening inequality between rural and urban regions, and a high savings rate limited the domestic market and increased the economy’s dependence on exports (Hung 2008b, 157; Saith 2008, 749–50; Yeung 2008, 518). Much of the future of Chinese capitalism depends on whether the export sector generates a widespread, rural and urban, domestic market.
EASTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE
Following the economic logic that secure property rights create efficient markets, in the 1990s the so-called Washington Consensus argued that “shock therapy,” the rapid privatization of property in post-socialist states, would create markets and a rapid transition
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to capitalism (Lipton and Sachs 1990, 75; see also the reviews in Hamm, King, and Stuckler 2012, 295–98, and Myant and Drahokoupil 2011, 84–90). Economists point to the relative quickness of the Baltic and Central European countries to implement privatization as an explanation of the faster transition to capitalism there (see, e.g., Åslund 2013, 3; Havrylyshyn 2006, 265). In contrast, Russia and other post-Soviet successor states implemented privatization more slowly and unevenly, and the transitions have been slower (see, e.g., Åslund 2013, 3, 5–6; Havrylyshyn 2006, 265). Consistent with this economic logic, limited state intervention and low levels of public expenditures are also viewed as essential to a successful transition (Åslund 2013, 305–7). Establishing private property rights, however, was rarely straightforward, and they took hybrid or “recombinant” organizational forms depending on the countries’ history and social conditions as well as owners’ and managers’ networks (Stark and Bruszt 1998, 4–8). These new organizational forms emerged out of recombinations of networks of skills and relations, and more generally they can be understood as transformations of political, economic, and social networks (Padgett and Powell 2012, 267). In addition to organizational theory, the “varieties of capitalism” perspective can explain these diverse trajectories (see, e.g., Bandelj 2008, 206–10; Martin 2013, 298; see also the review in Bluhm 2010, 201). While rejecting the view that remnants of socialist culture prevent market development (or Stefan Hedlund’s [2011, 5] more extreme position that Russian history and culture are inherently “market-contrary”), a cultural perspective notes that these trajectories depend on how actors deploy categories and symbols from both socialism and capitalism (Burawoy and Verdery 1999, 1–3; Kennedy 2002, 280–81). For example, Jeffrey Hass (2011, 209–17) showed how dynamics of power, culture, and material interests of Russian managers’ firms shaped whether and how they engaged with or distanced themselves from newly emerging markets. Post-socialist trajectories were also shaped by which elite group gained power after state socialism collapsed (King and Sznajder 2006, 794; Szelényi 2008, 169). Where ex-communist elites took power, they only marginally introduced capitalism because it was in their interest to preserve their socialist powers. In contrast, reformers, such as intellectuals and technocrats, introduced capitalist relations more thoroughly (King and Sznajder 2006, 760; Szelényi 2008, 171–73). Thus, post-socialist Poland and Hungary, where the intelligentsia and technocrats gained ascendency, marketized more quickly and thoroughly than Russia, where the former communist elite retained power. These elite theorists, like Lachmann (2000, 11–12), suggest that when elites compromise to attain power, they cannot reach all their goals. Where the ex-communists compromised with the technocrats, the ex-communists retained control over resources and the state remained riddled with patron-client relations, preventing the development of a strong, bureaucratic and developmental state (King and Sznajder 2006, 760–61). In contrast, an alliance between the technocrats and intellectuals eliminated more patronclient relations, and the state was stronger and implemented more capitalist reforms
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(King and Sznajder 2006, 760–61). Contra economic theory, rapid and mass privatization often undermined state capacity, delaying the market transition (Hamm, King, and Stuckler 2012, 316). Although economic theory and state-centered theories are contradictory, elite theory is not necessarily inconsistent with economic theory. Elite theory simply notes that, where capitalist elites are powerful, they establish capitalist relations; economic theory, however, advocates this establishment as a policy. And, not surprisingly, elite and state-centered theories are compatible. As Lachmann’s use of elite theory and Weber’s theory of political capitalism suggest, a single elite can deploy political and economic structures to maintain power (cf. Ganev 2009, 649, for post-socialist transitions). Elite theories treat class relations as secondarily important. As in China, Szelényi (2008, 171–72) argued that class relations shaped early market reforms in Eastern Europe during the 1970s and 1980s, when peasants and workers received concessions. In Poland, a strong working class and protests kept elites accountable for creating genuine reforms (King and Sznajder 2006, 791). Thus, a relative balance of class power supported the transition. However, like Lachmann (2000, 11–13), these elite theorists argued that elite conflict first established how class relations subsequently shaped capitalism. Class theorists reverse this emphasis. Thus, Jan Drahokouopil (2008, 361–62) and David Lane (2011, 9–10) argued that political and economic structures conditioned elites’ compositions, strategic preferences, opportunities, constraints, and power relations. In Russia, as in China, the export sector predominates, but in Russia oil and natural gas are the most important exports. This sector created enormous but highly concentrated wealth without widespread development because there were few intersectoral ties and because the high wealth concentration inhibited the growth of a domestic market (Kim 2003, 36–37, 141). Even though agriculture formed a relatively large economic component in the Soviet Union, there was little investment in agriculture until the 1960s; it increased but remained limited in the 1970s and 1980s (Ioffe, Nefedova, and Zaslavsky 2006, 23–27; Lerman, Csáki, and Feder 2004, 17–18, 20–21). Soviet agriculture was highly collectivized, and private land ownership was illegal (Lerman, Csáki, and Feder 2004, 25, 62). During the market transition, land privatization was slower in Russia than in Central Europe (Lerman, Csáki, and Feder 2004, 69–73). After 1992, investment plummeted and remained a small fraction of what would be spent in Western countries (Ioffe, Nefedova, and Zaslavsky 2006, 28–30). In the 1990s, GDP, gross agricultural output, agricultural employment, and agricultural labor productivity declined (Lerman, Csáki, and Feder 2004, 183, 209, 210, 211, 212). Nevertheless, despite all the obstacles, Stephen Wegren (2005, 24–25) argued—against a cultural theory of peasants’ moral economy or socialist mentalities—that rural inhabitants capitalized on opportunities presented by political reform whenever possible to engage in market-based agriculture. Soviet agriculture expanded onto remote, unfertile land with inadequate infrastructure. Much of this land is now being abandoned, leaving dispersed and unconnected agricultural pockets (Ioffe, Nefedova, and Zaslavsky 2006, 221–27). Because of inadequate infrastructure, only land close to cities is productive. Although some agribusiness has
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developed, most farming is by households. Even the middle class self-provisions through rural dachas, illustrating the weak links between the rural and urban sectors (Clarke 2002, 174; Southworth 2006, 452). Overall, Russian agriculture is weak, unproductive, and not well linked to other sectors (Ioffe, Nefedova, and Zaslavsky 2006, 221–27). Thus, in comparison to the Chinese economy, the Russian economy is less balanced, depends on a narrower array of industries, has fewer intersectoral ties, and has a weaker agricultural sector. These sectoral differences may explain China’s more advanced transition to capitalism. As in China, the Russian future may depend on more balanced growth. Sectoral theories overlap with economic and elite theories. Economic theorists might highlight how inadequate privatization in the agricultural and energy sectors contributed to their respective under- and overdevelopment. Elite theorists might note that the energy sector has been dominated by post-communist elites who failed to introduce market reforms.
CONCLUSIONS
In sum, these theories can be both complementary and contradictory. Sometimes they can be combined explicitly (see, e.g., Hung 2008a, 583). Elite theories focus on the power of a single elite to gain control of the economy and then to transform capitalist relations. Thus, elite theory is not inconsistent with economic theories that private property is a precondition for capitalism. Class theory and economic theory differ primarily in timing: elite theory argues that elite struggles precede class ones; class theory, the reverse. Class and elite theory also differ in the analysis of power relations. Elite theory focuses on the power of a single elite to create capitalism; class theory would argue, in contrast, that such an elite might be too powerful and rely on this power instead of the market. During the first transition to capitalism, of course, actors had little sense of how they were transforming social relationships since full-scale capitalism did not exist. This creates obvious differences between the past and present because contemporary elites self-consciously use other countries as models, but it does not alter the fundamental premise of elite theory that only unified elites have the power to transform economic relations. Sectoral theory, in contrast, explains how market exchange comes to predominate. Elite theories and economic theories, in particular, are relatively silent about this issue. Although these patterns do not suggest a single path to capitalism, they do show how all of these theories have been used to explain past and present transitions to capitalism. It is possible that elite and sectoral theories provide the most robust explanations across past and present cases: they work well by themselves and in tandem with other theories. Economic theories and state-centered theories do well in tests by their proponents yet are widely criticized by other social scientists. This conclusion, however, may stem from the fact that class theory and cultural theories are currently out of style and that most work does not explicitly compare all the theories. Furthermore, though the current emphasis on negative cases and combining theories has rightly rebalanced the focus
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away from England and mono-causal explanations, it may be necessary to compare multiple positive cases to eliminate redundancies in explanations of transitions to capitalism (see, e.g., John Stuart Mill’s [1950, 214] Method of Agreement).
N OT E
I thank Richard Lachmann, Ho-fung Hung, and Marion Fourcade for their comments and Corey O’Malley for her research assistance. Previous versions of this chapter were presented in 2009 at the Comparative Historical Miniconference, “Past and Present,” at Berkeley and the Social Science History Association Annual Meetings at Long Beach, where the discussants and participants provided useful comments.
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Pomeranz, Kenneth. 2000. The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Preobrazhensky, Evgeni. (1926) 1965. The New Economics. Translated by Brian Pearce. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Róna-Tas, Ákos. 1997. The Great Surprise of the Small Transformation: The Demise of Communism and the Rise of the Private Sector in Hungary. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Ruef, Martin. 2014. Between Slavery and Capitalism: The Legacy of Emancipation in the American South. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Saith, Ashwani. 2008. “China and India: The Institutional Roots of Differential Performance.” Development and Change 39, no. 5: 723–57. Sandemose, Jørgen. 2012. “Manufacture and the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism.” Science and Society 76, no. 4: 463–94. Schluchter, Wolfgang. 1996. Paradoxes of Modernity: Culture and Conduct in the Theory of Max Weber. Translated by Neil Solomon. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Southworth, Caleb. 2006. “The Dacha Debate: Household Agriculture and Labor Markets in Post-Socialist Russia.” Rural Sociology 71, no. 3: 451–78. Stark, David, and László Bruszt. 1998. Postsocialist Pathways: Transforming Politics and Property in East Central Europe. Cambridge, Engl.: Cambridge University Press. Szelényi, Iván. 2008. “A Theory of Transitions.” Modern China 34, no. 1: 165–75. Trigg, Andrew B. 2006. Marxian Reproduction Schema: Money and Aggregate Demand in a Capitalist Economy. New York: Routledge. Tsai, Kellee S. 2007. Capitalism without Democracy: The Private Sector in Contemporary China. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Van Doosselaere, Quentin. 2009. Commercial Agreements and Social Dynamics in Medieval Genoa. Cambridge, Engl.: Cambridge University Press. Verdery, Katherine. 1996. What Was Socialism, and What Comes Next? Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974. The Modern World-System I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. San Diego, Calif.: Academic Press. Weber, Max. (1905) 1958. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Translated by Talcott Parsons. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. . (1927) 1981. General Economic History. Translated by Frank H. Knight. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books. Wegren, Stephen K. 2005. The Moral Economy Reconsidered: Russia’s Search for Agrarian Capitalism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Wood, Ellen Meiksins. 2002. The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View. London: Verso. Yeung, Henry Wai-chung. 2008. “Observations on China’s Dynamic Industrial Sector.” Eurasian Geography and Economics 49, no. 5: 509–22. Zmolek, Mike. 2004. “Debating Agrarian Capitalism: A Rejoinder to Albritton.” Journal of Peasant Studies 31, no. 2: 276–305.
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25 QUANTITATIVE GROWTH AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT THROUGH HISTORY Rosemary L. Hopcroft
In this chapter, I outline the course of economic growth and development over the long arc of history through a review of recent scholarly literature on the issue. The focus is on studies of change in the economic output of a society published in the past ten to fifteen years and on quantifiable measures of this, such as GDP per capita or the best available similar measure. Given that the products of any economy must meet the subsistence needs of the population of that society, I also give a corresponding outline of demographic change in history. Whether and how economies manage to meet and surpass the subsistence needs of the population is a cornerstone of Malthusian theory, an early prominent theory of the relationship between population and economy that continues to fuel controversy in economic history to this day. This literature review is organized following the chronological course of economic and demographic growth as far as we know it. Such a review is, of course, limited by the existing historical and demographic studies, which are themselves limited by the differential survival of records for different places at different times. Some parts of the world and periods of history have many surviving records and have been well studied (though these two things do not necessarily go together). Studies have disproportionately focused on the Western experience, particularly that of Great Britain, which has traditionally been considered to have an important place in the economic history of the world. In addition, largely because it has not seen a war on its soil since the Norman conquest of 1066, Great Britain has more existing records than most other places, including much of the rest of Europe and Asia. Many scholars have objected to the traditional focus on the Western
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experience, and more studies of non-Western regions (written in English) have recently been forthcoming. This chapter reflects the disproportionate focus on the Western experience and Great Britain, in particular, as seen in the literature, although I acknowledge that this is less than ideal. Nevertheless, I argue here that the Western experience is important—and Great Britain’s is notably so. It was in Great Britain that a high-wage, modern economy is first documented and that the process known as industrialization was first observed. Being first, the industrialization of Great Britain has unavoidably influenced all subsequent periods of industrialization around the world. Within the literature on economic growth, the broad contours of growth over history are largely agreed upon. Economic output increased markedly at certain times in history, notably during antiquity in Greece and Rome, then later in parts of the Middle East, East Asia, and northern Italy, followed by northwestern Europe, and finally the breakthrough to a high-wage economy in Great Britain in the nineteenth century. Although there is agreement on the broad contours of this growth, questions continue about its nature and regional distribution: Exactly how much growth in past societies was there, and why did the West draw away from the rest of the world? Smaller-scale debates also focus on the European case and the nature of preindustrial economic growth: Can this growth be described as intensive, “Smithian,” or “Schumpeterian”? Is there something that may truly be called an “Industrial Revolution” and, if so, what caused it? Further, what are the nature and causes of more recent economic growth? In what follows I review the debates surrounding these questions. Similarly, the broad contours of demographic change through history are agreed on:population was stable in most parts of the world until about the seventeenth century, and then a rapid increase in population occurred in both Europe and Asia until the demographic transitions of the nineteenth century in Europe and the twentieth century in much of Asia. However, there are a number of debates about the timing and causes of demographic change, and I also review these below.
PREINDUSTRIAL ECONOMIC GROWTH EUROPE
Economic growth in Europe can be dated back to Greek and Roman times, as both the Greek and later Roman empires presided over the growth of trade and improvements in public infrastructure, both of which helped improve the lives of ordinary people. Ancient Athens has recently been called the “first modern economy” (Halkos and Kyriazis 2010), where more people worked in maritime trade and associated services and industry rather than in agriculture. Ian Morris (2004) notes that rising per capita levels of consumption along with rapid population growth can be found in Greece from 800 to 300 BCE, on Crete between 2000 and 1500 BCE, and in all the Greek regions of the eastern Mediterranean between AD 300 and 550.
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There is also evidence of prosperity in Ancient Rome, which, like Ancient Greece, owed its economic rise to the growth of trade (in foodstuffs, wine, and pottery) within its empire. Elio Lo Cascio and Paolo Malanima (2009a) claim that Roman per capita GDP was similar to those of late medieval Italy and Flanders, early modern Holland, and eighteenth-century England. The diets of ordinary people were good, and the average height of people in the eastern Mediterranean reached levels between about 200 BCE and AD 120 that were not achieved again until after AD 1500 (Angel 1984). The fall of the Roman Empire ushered in a decline in per capita incomes across the Italian peninsula (Lo Cascio and Malanima 2009b; Foldvari and van Leeuwen 2012).
ECONOMIC FLUORESCENCE IN THE MIDDLE A N D FA R E A S T
At the same time as Europe’s economies fell into the autarky of the early and late Middle Ages, other parts of the world saw the rise and sometimes fall of prosperous civilizations in India, China, Byzantium, and the Middle East. Timur Kuran (2011) discusses the economic development of the Middle East during the medieval period and why it did not endure. During the Middle Ages, Arabs and other Muslim traders participated in trade networks stretching from Spain to China and from Russia to East Africa, where they introduced innovations such as arithmetic and metal coins. According to Kuran, Islamic legal institutions initially may have helped this early economic development, but they eventually served to stifle further development across the Middle East. Many authors have discussed the economic superiority of East Asia over Europe during this period (Frank 1998; Goldstone 2002, 2008; Jones 1988, 1994; Mielants 2007; Morris 2010, 2013; Pomeranz 2000; Wong 1998). Morris (2010) has constructed an index using the number of calories the typical individual consumes per day, the size of the largest city, the quality and quantity of weapons systems, and how easily people can communicate. He defines the East as consisting of China, Japan, and Indochina; the West includes Europe and the Middle East. By this index, the East jumped ahead of the West by about AD 541. By AD 1100, the East’s score was about 40 percent higher than the West’s. Angus Maddison’s (2007) estimates of GDP per capita also put China and India ahead of Europe in the early and late Middle Ages (from about the fifth to the fifteenth centuries).
T H E E M E R G E N C E O F A H I G H -WA G E E C O N O M Y I N E U R O P E
High per capita incomes were once again in evidence in northern Italy in the late medieval and Renaissance periods, also based on agriculture and trade (Emigh 2003; Malanima 2011). By the Renaissance, a variety of areas in northwestern Europe saw rising incomes as well, notably in Flanders and later in Holland and England. This prosperity was based on increasing agricultural productivity and trade, particularly in linen and woolen cloth.
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FIGURE 25.1 Laborers’ Wages around the World, 1375–1825. Source: adapted from Allen 2011, 360.
According to Maddison’s (2007, 70) estimates, levels of GDP per capita in western Europe were the highest in the world by 1500. Robert Allen (2011) finds estimates of laborers’ wages around the world beginning in the fourteenth century (shown in Figure 25.1) and income relative to the cost of a subsistence basket of goods for the same period (shown in Figure 25.2). His data suggest that both wages and standards of living were much higher in Amsterdam, London, Florence, and Vienna than they were in Delhi as early as the sixteenth century and in Beijing by the eighteenth century. Allen’s figures are for laborers’ wages, which may not reflect national income (Maddison 2007, 316–19; Hatcher 2011; van Zanden and van Leeuwen 2012). Allen’s measures of wages may not even reflect household income or standard of living. John Hatcher (2011) notes that, for much of the landholding population, daily wages were not the source of all income, people did not obtain all their subsistence from the market, and household incomes are more indicative of living standards than the wages of any single
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FIGURE 25.2 Subsistence Ratio for Laborers: Income Relative to the Cost of Subsistence Basket, 1375–1875. source: adapted from Allen 2011, 360.
individual in the household. Unfortunately, comprehensive data on household incomes are rarely available before modern times. Nevertheless, there is much evidence that, at least by the eighteenth century, northwestern Europe was home to a higher wage economy than Asia (Allen et al. 2011; Broadberry and Gupta 2006; Li and van Zanden 2012).
THE WEST AND THE REST
By the nineteenth century, the economic development of Europe was well ahead of that in the East. It is when and why the divergence between the West and the rest in terms of indicators such as wages and GDP per capita occurred that is most subject to debate. There are two schools of thought on this. The first, or “California school,” argues that European economic development—including the development of trade, manufacturing, and urbanization—before 1500 was far behind that of the major Asian civilizations (Frank 1998; Goldstone 2002, 2008; Jones 1988, 1994; Mielants 2007; Morris 2010, 2013; Pomeranz 2000; Wong 1998). Kenneth Pomeranz (2000) maintains that there were few
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differences between Asia and Europe before 1800 and that the divergence since then has been largely the result of unequal interactions between East and West. The second school of thought argues that the divergence between Asia and Europe occurred well before 1800 (Ferguson 2011). David Landes (1999, 2006) claims that income per capita and standards of living were ahead in Europe as early as the late medieval period (fourteenth and fifteenth centuries). Maddison’s (2007) estimates show higher levels of GDP per capita in Asia than in Europe around AD 1000, but this had reversed by the beginning of the sixteenth century. Part of the problem in resolving this debate is the data: most of the available series of quantitative measures are from Europe, and most of the quantitative historiography has focused on the European case (Jones 1994). Proponents of the California school are the intellectual heirs to the ideas of Immanuel Wallerstein as expressed in his seminal book, The Modern World-System ([1974] 2011a), which argues that the West grew rich largely through colonial exploitation and trade domination of the rest of the world; this could be accomplished because of the West’s dominant economic and military position after the sixteenth century. Wallerstein’s original analysis of how Europe first attained that dominant position is largely historical, because his theoretical focus was on the dynamics of the world system once it had been formed. In this world economic system, the dominant players (the countries of Europe and their former colonies) are able to dictate the terms of world trade to their own benefit, by military force if necessary. Other societies are unable to develop because of their initial economically and politically disadvantaged situation, or because they become trapped supplying raw materials to First World industries. Wallerstein thus claims that factors external to the West itself are most responsible for the West’s economic rise, in particular its initial dominant position in the emerging world economy. Eric Mielants (2007) fits within the California school, and his work stresses the role of trade and the rise of military technology in bringing about the economic ascendance of the West. He draws attention to the decline in nomadic raids into western Europe after the twelfth century, the subsequent rise of city-states dominated by a merchant elite, and, later, the rise of nation-states dominated by a similar trade-oriented elite. The West also developed armies and navies that were often used to defend and promote trade. According to Mielants, Asian rulers paid little attention to overseas trade and the development of a military for the defense of trade and were thus easily dominated by the trading nations of the West when they finally came into contact with them. Other scholars focus more on factors internal to western Europe itself to explain its eventual economic dominance. Eric Jones (1988, 1994) has pointed out that periods of economic growth leading to increases in per capita income and rises in living standards have occurred all over the world in many different times and places. He argues that such growth was only stopped by increases in rent-seeking by elites and the state. Europe was fortunate to have competing states, which limited the amount of rent-seeking possible
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because entrepreneurs and their capital, if finding conditions inhospitable in one state, would be welcomed by another. In Asia, entrepreneurs and their capital had no place to seek shelter from the predations of the state. Thus, Jones attributes the economic rise of the West to the politically fragmented structure of preindustrial Europe. Other scholars also focus on the rise of trade within Europe, although they note that this was accompanied by a rise in military technology that was later used against the rest of the world. Jared Diamond (1997), in a widely read book on the subject, attributes the rise of Europe to its fortuitous geographic position on an east-west axis that more easily allowed for the dissemination of agricultural innovation. This in turn promoted agricultural and economic development, which led to advances in military technology. Morris (2010, 2013) argues that geography and the “Scientific Revolution” allowed the West to eventually overtake the East. Following Diamond (1997), Morris suggests that farming first arose in temperate latitudes (20° and 35° north in the Old World and between 15° south and 20° north in the Americas) because those areas were home to a variety of largegrained wild grasses and large mammals suitable for domestication. Although domesticable plants and animals existed outside these latitudes, they were less common. Farming was better able to support large groups of people, and their more lethal germs and better organization meant they dominated simpler groups of non-farming peoples. Within these farming regions, economic dominance moved around. At first, the western end of Eurasia (Greece and Rome) were economically dominant, then the eastern end of Eurasia (China and Japan), and finally, around 1700, economic dominance switched back to the western Europe. The establishment of the Atlantic trading zone created great incentives for entrepreneurs in western Europe, notably Britain, and promoted the Scientific Revolution, which in turn allowed Britain and then Europe to dominate the globe. Erik Ringmar (2005) suggests that the West grew rich more because of the internal features of Western societies than because of the effects of Western dominance on other societies, as stressed by Wallerstein and others. Ringmar argues that the East never developed as the West did because key processes of reflection, entrepreneurship, and pluralism were not institutionalized in the East to the extent they were in the West. In the East, there were few academic societies, parliaments, and universities where ideas were debated or rulers were criticized. Although moveable type was invented in China, it was not used to produce newspapers and books where ideas were debated in the public sphere. Ringmar argues that there was, in fact, no “public sphere” in most Asian societies. Niall Ferguson (2011) also focuses on factors internal to the West to explain its rise. He draws particular attention to the role played by what he calls the West’s “killer applications”: competition within Europe; the rise of science and the scientific method and associated improvements in Western medicine; the institutionalization of secure property rights; the work ethic; and the rise of a consumer society. These, more than colonialism and dominance of trade, led to the ascendancy of Western economies and their maintenance of that position.
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These theories and debates on when and why the West and the East diverged in economic development are echoed in the debates over why the Industrial Revolution occurred in England, and they have implications for contemporary economic development. Both of these latter points will be discussed in greater detail below.
P R E I N D U S T R I A L P O P U L AT I O N T R E N D S
With the economic takeoff of western Europe after 1650, the population of the world also took off (see Figure 25.3). At first, this population increase was associated with poor living conditions and high rates of fertility, particularly among the lower classes. Thomas Malthus (1775–1834) captured this state of affairs in his writings, which pessimistically predicted that population growth would always outgrow the food supply. Malthus thought the only things that prevented this from happening were two types of “checks”: “preventive checks,” such as moral restraint (abstinence, delayed marriage, prudent financial behavior) that lowered the birth rate; and “positive checks,” such as epidemics, famine, and war that drastically reduced the size of the population (McNicoll 1998). However, contrary to Malthus’s predictions, economic conditions began to improve for the lower classes, first in Europe. Stephen Broadberry and his colleagues (2015) note that there is evidence of rising living standards for ordinary people in England as early as the sixteenth century, including better diets, better housing, more consumer goods, the elimination of famines, increasing literacy, the rise of publicly funded welfare programs, continued urbanization, and the increased diversity of occupations. For the rest of Europe, improvements in the availability and distribution of foodstuffs meant that subsistence crises ended after about 1700 (Brady, Oberman, and Tracy 1994). The dramatic rise of population in eighteenth-century England has been subject to debate. Thomas McKeown (1976) argued that mortality decline was the most important factor in population increase in England, and this was primarily because of declines in infectious and parasitic diseases as the result of improved living standards and better nutrition. Edward Anthony Wrigley and Roger Schofield (1981) argue that earlier marriage and increased fertility were most responsible for rising populations in the latter half of the eighteenth century in England. Others argue that mortality decline caused by public health changes were more important, especially the draining of marshes and the improvements in sewerage and water supply systems (Razzell 1994). Peter Razzell (2011) has also argued that the spread of the use of inoculations for diseases like smallpox were important, as were the replacement of dirt floors with wood and brick, the use of cotton clothing, and the increased use of soap (Razzell 1994). Others cite the spread of better practices such as hand-washing (Mokyr 1993). Whatever the ultimate cause(s), mortality fell in western Europe, later to be followed in the nineteenth century by a fall of fertility in the typical pattern of the demographic transition. Eastern Europe followed at a somewhat later date. In the Americas, both Argentina and the United States began the fertility decline associated with the last stage
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FIGURE 25.3 World Population Growth through History. Source: McFalls 2007.
of the demographic transition by the nineteenth century. Other parts of the world—the Middle East, East Asia, southern Asia, South America, and Africa—lagged behind. By the beginning of the twentieth century, these regions continued to have both high rates of mortality and high rates of fertility in the typical preindustrial pattern. By 1900, world population was likely about 1.6 billion, with China and India as the world’s two most populous countries, with populations of about 400 and 285 million, respectively (Maddison 2003, 232, 160).
T H E I N D U S T R I A L R E V O L U T I O N A N D OT H E R D E B AT E S
There is a huge literature on the economic history of Europe, with a particular focus (particularly in the English-language literature) on England. As noted above, this is because England witnessed the world’s first Industrial Revolution—the substitution of capital equipment for labor and the accompanying rise of industrial productivity, wages, and living standards. Recent debates focus on whether this change was really a “revolution” in the sense of being a rapid break with the past, whether there was an “industrious revolution” before the Industrial Revolution, whether the changes attributed to the
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Industrial Revolution were sudden or not, and why the changes leading to industrialization occurred in England first. I review those debates below.
WA S T H E R E R E A L LY A N I N D U S T R I A L “ R E V O L U T I O N ” ?
Europe and the rest of the world had clearly diverged by the nineteenth century. There has been a long tradition of attributing this in part to the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Recent scholarly debates have questioned whether or not such a “revolution” really happened, and it is now widely accepted that the Industrial Revolution did not occur as a sudden radical break with the past as implied by the term “revolution” (Crafts and Harley 1992; Mokyr 1990; Jones 1994). Instead, it is best seen as a more gradual change that occurred in England and in other parts of northwestern Europe, notably the Netherlands (van Zanden and van Leeuwen 2012). Although the more gradual nature of the “Industrial Revolution” is now well accepted, debate persists about whether economic growth was confined to northwestern Europe or was a pan-European experience. Some put the divergence between northwestern Europe and the rest of Europe at an earlier date, some at a later date. For example, Şevket Pamuk (2007) argues that a wage gap began to emerge between northwestern Europe and the rest of the continent after 1450. Allen (2001) argues that, between 1500 and 1750, “a great divergence” occurred in the level of wages in Europe, with northwestern Europe outstripping the rest of the continent (see also Allen 2011). Others argue that the divergence did not occur quite so early. Paolo Malanima (2013) suggests that Italian real wages were higher than those in England during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and about the same in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. There is another debate on when the English economy outstripped other economies within northwestern Europe. Jan de Vries and Ad van der Woude (1997) argue that the Netherlands was home to the first modern economy and went through a cycle of modern economic growth between 1500 and 1815. Jan van Zanden and Bas van Leeuwen (2012) note that the Dutch economy managed a growth rate of 0.19 percent GDP per capita per annum from 1347 to 1807, a rate that the English economy only managed after 1650. Allen (2011), in contrast, puts the divergence in wage rates earlier in the seventeenth century. Oded Galor’s (2005, 2011) “unified growth theory” posits an inevitability to the historical Industrial Revolution and sees the Industrial Revolution as simply a continuation of trends rather than a large break with the past. The theory thus downplays the importance of Britain and northwestern Europe in the change (Galor 2005). This theory links selectionist ideas from evolutionary biology with the history of technological progress and the demographic transition. According to this theory, during the Malthusian preindustrial period, selectionist pressures led to improvements in human intelligence, health, and the quality of human capital. This in turn promoted technological progress and the demand for human capital development or the education of children, which
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encouraged limiting fertility and hence the demographic transition; this further stimulated the development of human capital and technological progress, which paved the way for sustained economic growth. This same process is likely to occur everywhere, not just in northwestern Europe, so the timing of economic takeoff for a society is influenced mostly by where it is in the stages of the demographic transition. (I will discuss this further under the section “Theories of Contemporary Economic Development” below.)
WA S T H E R E A N “ I N D U S T R I O U S ” R E V O L U T I O N B E F O R E T H E “ I N D U S T R I A L” R E V O L U T I O N ?
Another concern in the literature on economic history is whether or not the changes associated with the Industrial Revolution were preceded by an “industrious” revolution. In addition, what were the roles of Smithian and Schumpeterian growth before and during the period of industrialization? “Smithian” growth refers to an increase in economic productivity through specialization of production and trade. “Schumpeterian” growth refers to an increase in economic productivity primarily through the applications of innovation (e.g., new machinery, new methods) to production processes. De Vries (1994, 2008) has suggested that there was an industrious revolution (meaning more days worked per year) before the Industrial Revolution. The industrious revolution involved an intensification of labor at the household level, the rise of proto-industry, specialization and intensification of labor in agriculture, and the increase in female and child labor. The industrious revolution as conceptualized encompasses both extensive growth (increased labor in response to population growth), Smithian growth, and a “consumer revolution” where households had surplus money to spend on consumer goods like tea, sugar, clocks, and books. According to de Vries, this type of growth antedated the Schumpeterian growth of the Industrial Revolution where innovation fueled productivity growth. Some scholars support the concept of the industrious revolution (Clark 2010; Muldrew 2012; Dribe and van de Putte 2012), whereas others argue against it (van Zanden and van Leeuwen 2012; Allen and Weisdorf 2011). Robert Allen and J. L. Weisdorf (2011) find two increases in the work year for English farm workers—one between 1540 and 1616, and another between 1750 and 1818—but no sign of any “consumer revolution.” Van Zanden and van Leeuwen (2012) find growth in Holland from 1347 to 1807 “concentrated in a few regions,” “episodic, unstable, dependent on world markets, driven by a mixture of Smithian and Schumpeterian forces, but resilient,” and able to rebound from each crisis. They conclude that, though this is not economic stagnation, it does not suggest that both an “industrious revolution” and a “consumer revolution” were in progress. The Schumpterian view is that the Industrial Revolution was more of a discontinuous technological change that affected the whole economy: innovators reaped large returns on investment, and they then reinvested these windfall profits in further innovations (Mokyr 1999; Madsen, Ang, and Banerjee 2010). Other scholars suggest that a more limited role for Shumpeterian processes and a more equilibrium approach where the expansion of
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markets were more important for British economic growth (Desmet and Parente 2012) and technological change diffused quickly, and high profits for innovators in Britain did not last long (Harley 2012). World-system theorists and similar thinkers suggest that the opening of new markets for British and European goods by colonial conquest of much of the world did more to sponsor economic growth than innovation in the home countries.
N O S T E A DY U P WA R D P R O G R E S S : M A LT H U S R E V I S I T E D ?
Going against the tide of scholarly opinion supporting the gradualist nature of economic development in northwestern Europe, Gregory Clark, in his book A Farewell to Alms (2007), argues that the situation in Europe prior to 1800 was essentially a continuation of the Malthusian past, a throwback to the earlier arguments of Wilhelm Abel (1978), Michael Postan (1973), and Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie (1987). Clark also suggests that poor institutions do not explain the absence of economic growth; instead, he blames the lack of growth in the preindustrial world on an inappropriate culture. This culture valued leisure over hard work and thrift. According to this argument, the Industrial Revolution happened in England because the middle-class virtues of hard work and thrift spread down the scale, mostly because richer men with genetic traits promoting these values had more children than poorer men. This also occurred in other advanced agrarian societies in East Asia and India, but, according to Clark (2007, 262), though these societies were also on the path to the Industrial Revolution, they had not progressed as far as England by the late nineteenth century. India was particularly far behind. Clark argues that England industrialized before Japan and China because Malthusian constraints operated more tightly in England than in those countries, likely because of better hygienic practices in East Asia and because income-based differences in fertility were not as great as in England. Thus, selection pressures for the traits of the financially successful—perseverance, hard work, and thrift—were not as strong as in England (Clark 2007, 267–68). Clark also argues that workers rather than capitalists or landowners were the main beneficiaries of the rising wages of the Industrial Revolution. By this argument, the Industrial Revolution did not spread quickly around the world because workers (particularly those in Africa and Latin America) lacked middle-class values and work ethic. All these points have been vigorously contested by other scholars (see, e.g., Pomeranz 2008; Allen 2008; Persson 2008; Maddison 2007). One point of contention is Clark’s reliance on English data and his estimates of national income using estimates of real day wages rather than GDP (Maddison 2007, 316–319; van Zanden and van Leeuwen 2012). Clark finds wages in the late Middle Ages no higher than wages around 1800, albeit with a decline in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Clark 2010, 2013). Broadberry and his colleagues (2015) note that there is good reason to be skeptical of Clark’s claims of little economic growth in Britain before 1800. They argue that Clark’s conclusion is contradicted by evidence of rising living standards, the elimination of famines, increasing literacy, the rise of publicly funded welfare programs, continued urbanization, and
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the increased diversity of occupations. Allen (2008) also finds against Clark’s claim that England before about 1800 was in a Malthusian condition by saying that there is little evidence of Malthusian “preventative checks” in preindustrial England and that changes in fertility and mortality were not tied to subsistence or wage rates and were instead mostly due to exogenous shocks such as disease.
EXPLAINING THE INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLAND
Scholars continue to debate the most important factors behind the emergence of sustained economic growth in England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There are several points at issue. For example, there is an ongoing debate on the role of English culture in promoting the Industrial Revolution. Clark’s ideas on the importance of middle-class values like thriftiness and hard work in bringing about the Industrial Revolution in England hark back to Max Weber’s (2002) famous essay on the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, where he argues that certain strains of Protestantism promoted values and lifestyles that facilitated the rise of capitalism. Joel Mokyr (2009a) is another author who argues that there are cultural reasons why the Industrial Revolution was British. He has argued, in particular, that it was the English enlightenment, notably the rise of scientific culture and its percolation into all levels of British society, that facilitated the takeoff of sustained growth in England. He has further maintained that the patent system spurred inventors by leading them to believe they could become rich from their inventions, a belief that in practice often met with disappointment (Mokyr 2009b). Jack Goldstone (2002, 2008) has concurred, arguing that the use of energy with engines was facilitated by an unusual cultural development within Britain. He contends that science was “elevated by the Anglican church into a Newtonian cosmology of divine order, and hence integrated into popular artisanal, middleclass, and entrepreneurial culture” (2002, 373). From there it promoted the application of engineering science to problems of agriculture, industry, manufacturing, and the military. Allen (2009, 2011) argues against these ideas of the important role of culture. He discounts the role of inventors and the scientific enlightenment, saying that inventors and scientific culture were found all over Europe but that innovations did not necessarily get adopted by manufacturing. Instead, he argues, the Industrial Revolution occurred in England because of high wage rates combined with comparatively cheap prices of energy. Energy was cheap because coal was abundant (Wrigley 1988) and was essentially free for many of the coal mines, which were the first to use the new steam engines. This made the substitution of machine labor for wage labor profitable in England, when it was not on the continent, and culture had very little to do with it. Allen’s argument is that the market just followed its course within England: capital was substituted for labor when capital was cheaper than labor, and not before. Another ongoing debate is the importance of institutions for the Industrial Revolution. Theories such as unified growth theory essentially make institutions a minor factor in economic change, at most accounting for the timing of change. Clark (2007) suggests
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that English institutions were not important because the same institutions had been in place in England since the Middle Ages and yet the Industrial Revolution did not take place until the beginning of the nineteenth century. However, many authors place institutions center stage when explaining why economic growth first took off in England, beginning with Douglass North and Robert Paul Thomas’s (1973) seminal book on the rise of the West. They argue that institutions (both formal and informal) that provided support for property rights and the rule of law helped lower uncertainty and transaction costs for producers, traders, and consumers, and hence they fostered economic growth in northwestern Europe. North and Thomas note that these institutions were not fully in place in England until after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Other institutionalists focus on specific institutional innovations that the West developed, such as the business corporation, a banking system, and contract law, that enabled the mobilization of productive resources on a huge scale and that did not arise in other parts of the globe (Kuran 2011). Debates on the importance of the market, institutions, culture, and values in the Industrial Revolution are echoed in debates about how best to promote development in the contemporary world, as I discuss further below.
ECONOMIC GROWTH SINCE 1820
Maddison (2007) distinguishes four distinct phases in global economic development since 1870. He identifies the old liberal order (1870–1913), when growth was slightly slower than 1.5 percent per year; the period of 1913–1950, when two major wars severely interrupted economic growth; the most prosperous period between 1950 and 1973, when per capita income grew nearly 3 percent a year; and the period since 1973, when growth has continued but only at about 1.5 percent per year. It is in this later period, after 1973, that notable political changes influencing the world economy have occurred, such as the fall of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and market liberalization under the communist government in China. Since reform, China has been home to the world’s fastest growing economy (Lue 2012) and is now the world’s second largest economy. In Eastern Europe after the fall of communism, economic growth outcomes have been more uneven. For example, Lithuania and Russia started off at similar levels of GDP in the early 1990s, but since then Lithuania’s GDP has increased more rapidly than Russia’s (Grigoriev et al. 2010). Scholarly debates initially centered on the nature and effects of privatization of formerly state-owned industries (Gerber and Hout 1998). One concern has been the dramatic rise in mortality in Russia and some other East European countries since the demise of state socialism. Such change in mortality has not always accompanied rapid economic reform. Some countries, such as Lithuania, Poland, and the Czech Republic, have seen the implementation of rapid economic reforms but managed to avoid an increase in mortality (Brainerd 1998; Grigoriev et al. 2010). There has been scholarly interest in comparing economic change in China with that in Eastern Europe and other parts of the world. For example, Stefania Fabrizio, Daniel
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50 45 40
Percentage
35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Latin America
East Europe 1995
2003
East Asia 2007
FIGURE 25.4 GDP per Capita as a Percentage Share of U.S. GDP, Major Emerging Market Regions, 1995–2007. source: adapted from Fabrizio, Leigh, and Mody 2009.
Leigh, and Ashoka Mody (2009) argue that, while East European and East Asian growth performances were about on par from the mid-1990s, both regions far surpassed Latin American growth (see Figure 25.4). They suggest, however, that the mechanisms of growth in Eastern Europe and East Asia were very different. Eastern Europe embraced financial integration with the rest of the world along with structural change to compensate for appreciating real exchange rates (indicating that the foreign price of a bundle of goods has risen relative to the domestic price—or the domestic currency has lost value). In contrast, East Asian policies slowed financial integration with international finance and maintained steady or depreciating real exchange rates (indicating that the foreign price in dollars of a bundle of goods has fallen relative to the domestic price—or the domestic currency has gained value). This appears to have been the more successful strategy.
T H E O R I E S O F C O N T E M P O R A RY E C O N O M I C D E V E L O P M E N T
World-systems theorists see the recent changes in the world economy as changes in the locations of power within the world economy. In particular, they see the recent global economic crisis as a crisis of capitalism that is bringing about fundamental changes in the structure of the world economy (Rona-Tas and Hiss 2010; Beunza and Stark 2012;
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Calhoun and Derluguian 2011a, 2011b, 2011c). Wallerstein (2011b) argues that the financial speculation that led to the financial crisis is a typical symptom of a hegemonic economic power entering a terminal decline. Craig Calhoun (2011) argues that the end of the Bretton Woods monetary system in the 1970s was the key turning point in the events leading to the crisis. The demise of fixed exchange rates promoted international financial speculation. At the same time, capitalists tried to shore up profits by weakening labor unions and government regulations. Financial speculation also promoted takeovers, corporate restructuring, and further financial manipulations that brought on the crisis. Giovanni Arrighi (2007) also argues that China is likely to become the hegemon in a new world system. He traces the Chinese rise in part to the Chinese diaspora after 1949, which helped the Chinese establish global connections after the reforms of 1979. He also argues that economic growth in China was facilitated by the communist state’s focus on primary education and public health that helped create a highly skilled labor force. He contends that China is likely to continue to prosper in the future because its industry is based more on the use of this skilled labor than on inputs of capital and machinery. Others also argue that the West will decline as the world’s economic leader (Morris 2010, 2013). Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson (2012) argue that institutions are key to economic development, and the reason why the whole world is not developed is that leaders of countries find it more personally lucrative to establish and maintain institutions that do not encourage economic development for the country as a whole, but instead serve to enrich themselves and their friends and relatives. Acemoglu and Robinson’s view is that only “inclusive” political institutions can stop this process, whereas what they refer to as “extractive” political institutions can continue the process for an indefinite period. They broadly define inclusive political institutions as those that include a variety of individuals, groups, and interests in the political process, whereas extractive political institutions effectively exclude all but a narrow elite from the decisionmaking process. This often means that laws are not followed, property rights are not enforced, contracts are not honored, and so on, if doing so hurts the economic or political interests of a small elite, and this promotes corruption by those seeking to influence the powers that be. Such practices inhibit economic growth. Acemoglu and Robinson go so far as to predict that China’s phenomenal economic growth will falter if it cannot expand political rights beyond the Communist Party elite who currently run China. Unified growth theory (Galor 2005, 2011) suggests that the timing of any economic takeoff is influenced by the size of the population as well as its composition (e.g., education, entrepreneurial spirit, intellectual spirit) and their effects on both technological progress and the demand for human capital. Cultural, institutional, demographic, and policy factors determine the intensity of each of these effects and hence the timing of the takeoff in individual countries or regions, but, according to the theory, the takeoff is inevitable. Klaus Desmet and Stephen Parente (2012) put forward a similar “unified theory of growth.” They argue that an economy begins in a Malthusian state, with most people employed in an agricultural sector that delivers low productivity. Only a few
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10 9 India
8
Billions
7
China
6 5
Africa
4 3 Other less developed countries
2 1 0 1950
More developed countries 1970
1990
2010
2030
2050
FIGURE 25.5 Africa and Other Developing Regions Make Up an Increasing Share of World Population, 1950–2050. source: United Nations 2007.
industries exist, creating a small number of goods. Firms are small and, as a result, find the cost of innovation prohibitive, so by and large they do not engage in it. Gradual increases in agricultural productivity lead to an increase in population, and this tends to increase the size of firms. At some point, firms find innovation profitable, and the Industrial Revolution soon ensues. These unified growth theories are largely optimistic about the possibility of the entire world becoming developed, although of course this begs the question of why it has not happened yet.
RECENT DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE
Demographic change in the past century has been about the slowing of population growth in the developed world and the continuing rapid population growth in the less developed world, notably Asia and Africa (Maddison 2003, 257). The result is an aging developed world and a comparatively young less-developed world. Much of Asia began the demographic transition in the period since 1945 with rapid falls in mortality. Tremendous improvement in medical technology, drugs, and practices in the twentieth century, including the development and widespread use of immunization, has helped further decrease mortality and accelerate world population growth (Riley 2001). Recently, the AIDS epidemic has been a major setback, especially in Africa. AIDS mortality has caused life expectancy at birth to fall in several sub-Saharan African countries, reversing the gains in infant and childhood health achieved before the epidemic. By 2013, the world population had reached seven billion. China and India remain the two most populous countries (see Figure 25.5). Yet the decline of fertility associated with
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the last stage of the demographic transition is now in evidence in almost all countries of the world, with the exception of parts of Africa. Demographers predict that all countries in the world will undergo this change by about 2050, although this is predicted to happen earlier in Asia and Latin America than in Africa (Bongaarts 2009). By extrapolating from recent trends to create such projections, demographers seem optimistic about the continuing socioeconomic development that accompanies demographic change.
CONCLUSION
Throughout economic history, there have been “efflorescences” of economic growth, as Goldstone (2002) refers to them. In this chapter, I have traced those efflorescenses as revealed in the recent literature in Ancient Greece and Rome, in East Asia, in the Middle East, in northern Italy, and in the Netherlands and Britain. Debates concern how much growth occurred in past societies and why the West drew away from the rest of the world. Two primary schools of thought address these issues: that the West grew rich primarily because of factors internal to Western society (e.g., competing states, institutions, culture), or that the West grew rich primarily through unequal relationships with the rest of the world (e.g., unequal trading relations, military dominance by the West). Smaller-scale debates have focused on the European case of preindustrial economic growth. This literature suggests that, though most growth in west European history has involved both Smithian (specialization and market expansion) and Schumpeterian (innovation) elements, it is only in the past few hundred years that growth has become more reliant on technological innovation and hence more Schumpeterian in nature. This was central to the process of industrialization, which was slower and more gradual than the term “Industrial Revolution” implies. There are ongoing debates about the role of the market, institutions, culture, and values in the Industrial Revolution, and many of these debates continue today with regard to the economic development of poorer regions of the world. As the West industrialized, the population of the world rose dramatically, and it will continue to expand as the world’s population becomes even more concentrated in the developing world. Demographers, however, do expect that all countries will eventually pass through the demographic transition—that is, the transition to low-mortality, low-fertility societies. In terms of the future of economic development, there are again two primary theoretical camps: institutionalists (primarily in economics), and world-system theorists (in other disciplines, including sociology). Institutionalist economists and other economists are more optimistic about the effects of market forces if social institutions are appropriately designed, whereas world-system theorists are much more pessimistic about the effects of the market. Both see barriers to continuing economic development in the poorest parts of the world: the institutionalists in the nature of institutions in poor countries and the continued concentration of power in a narrow elite; the world-system theorists in the nature of the world system that reflects contemporaneous power relations and contains obstacles to the development of poorer nations.
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26 THE GREAT DIVERGENCE Why Did Industrial Capitalism Emerge in Europe, Not China?
Dingxin Zhao
By the time of Song dynasty (960–1279), China had already led the world in agriculture, industry, commerce, finance, urbanization, science, and technology. After the fourteenth century, though China’s technological and other developments slowed, it still “led” the world most of time in commercialization, urbanization, and standard of living up until the nineteenth century. Yet industrial capitalism began in Europe rather than in China. Why? This is the question I will address in this chapter. Rebecca Jean Emigh, in her chapter in this volume, has provided a very informative overview of the theories on the transition to industrial capitalism. I will focus on the structured historical processes that set apart the European and Chinese historical development during the early modern period. Before moving on, it must be stressed that I do not regard industrial capitalism as something good or bad, and I do not hold a notion that China in the eighteenth or nineteenth century was more backward (or advanced) than western Europe. The analysis below is intended primarily to argue that western Europe and China were so different that they were developing according to their distinctive temporalities (on the issues that concern this chapter) before the rise and spread of industrial capitalism.
T H E Q U E S T I O N O F G R E AT D I V E R G E N C E
In the fields of history and historical sociology, the “Great Divergence,” or China’s “failure” to experience an indigenous breakthrough to industrialization and modernity in contrast
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to the West’s achievement of just such a breakthrough in the nineteenth century, has been a topic of continuous speculation. In the past, scholars see the Great Divergence as rooted in China’s and Europe’s distinctive structures and cultures, which had taken shape long before the eighteenth century. Most scholars who fall into this category also view the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries as crucial in China’s developmental trajectory (Elvin 1973; Jones 1981; Landes 2006; McNeill 1982; Reischauer and Fairbank 1960; Skinner 1977), after which the Chinese economy gradually fell into “a high-level equilibrium trap” (Elvin 1973), its technological development slowed (Landes 1998; Mokyr 1990, chap. 9), and its political system, land ownership, class relations (Deng 2003, 496), and culture became increasingly incapable of accommodating a highly commercialized economy and an expanding population. As China stagnated, an initially more primitive Europe recovered during the High Middle Ages and Renaissance, caught up to China from the sixteenth century onward, first in military and state structures, then in the achievements of religions, secular ideology, and sciences, then in technology and economy, and finally achieved the nineteenth-century breakthrough. The traditional arguments, however, are criticized by another group of scholars known as the “California school” (see, e.g., Abu-Lughod 1989; Blaut 1993; Frank 1998, 2001; Goldstone 2008; Goody 1996, 2004; Hobson 2004; Pomeranz 2000; Wong 1997).1 These scholars’ explanations of the Great Divergence differ greatly and are therefore hard to summarize, but they more or less share the following convictions.2 First, it was China and the Middle East, not Europe, that dominated the world both economically and technologically throughout most of the second millennium. Second, Eurasian civilizations had been closely interlinked, and all major Eurasian civilizations developed at a similar pace before the rise of the West. Third, external conditions and historical contingencies as well as economic and demographic mechanisms were figured more than macro-structural conditions and human agencies in the rise of the West. Fourth, industrial capitalism was a historical contingency that bestowed upon the West at a critical historical juncture. For example, James Blaut (1993, chap. 4) states that no major institutional or cultural differences divided Europe from Asia and that capitalism slowly emerged prior to 1492 in many parts of the world. Europe took the lead only because it was geographically much closer than the other continents to the New World. Janet Abu-Lughod (1989) and Andre Frank (1998) attempted to show that the Industrial Revolution started in the West only because the economy of the East was in temporary disarray at the wrong moment. Jack Goldstone (2000, 2008) claims that the major Eurasian civilizations developed at a similar pace before the mid-seventeenth century, after which development gave way to conservatism in all of Eurasia. Only England (again according to Goldstone) forged ahead of the rest of the states, East and West, because, earlier than all the rest, it developed a pluralistic political system and a Newtonian culture essential for the rise of industrial capitalism. The most highly acclaimed recent study within the California school, which is also most closely related to the topic of this chapter, is Kennth Pomeranz’s book The Great
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Divergence (2000), which asks why the Industrial Revolution happened in England rather than in Jiangnan (in the Yangzi Delta, China’s most developed region) in the nineteenth century. According to Pomeranz, England and Jiangnan were on the same path of development, as reflected in their striking similarities up to the mid-eighteenth century, ranging from standard of living (e.g., consumption of calories, household goods and textiles, and the ability to store and distribute grain for famine relief ) to level of commercialization and division of labor in agriculture and in the handicraft industry, and to their populations’ longevity. Both regions also faced similar serious constraints in the forms of rising population and limited resources, and therefore neither was necessarily on the cusp of the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution happened in England only because it was favored by two external contingencies: England’s coal deposits were fortunately located near potential industrial users, and England was able to extract a large amount of resources from its overseas colonies, which China did not have.
CRITICS OF THE CALIFORNIA SCHOOL
The California school arguments have been criticized in different ways. For instance, Tonio Andrade (2011) shows that, although military technologies of both Europe and China were developing in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they developed at a slower pace on China’s side, which, according to Andrade, could have contributed to the Great Divergence. Christopher Isett (2007) argues that the Manchu state’s interests had reconfigured regional economy in a way that limited development of economy and trade in Qing China and ruled out the possibility for China to have an indigenous breakthrough to industrial capitalism. Peer Vries (2001) demonstrates that, compared with China, early modern European agriculture was less labor intensive and depended more on technology. Ricardo Duchesne (2004) argues that, beginning in the seventeenth century, most European states were on a trajectory away from the Malthusian limitations as a result of sustained improvements in both land and labor productivity. Both Vries and Duchesne also argue that coal and colonies were not essential for the European breakthrough. On China’s side, Philip Huang (2002, 2003) asserts that late imperial China’s high population had sustained a labor-intensive economy and retarded its technological development. Even Li Bozhong (2002, chap. 1), a Chinese adherent of the California school, shows in his study that between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries the major advance of Jiangnan economy was in agriculture and consumer goods productivity, and during the same period England experienced huge advances in both technology and productivity of iron, construction materials, and machine tools. England’s Industrial Revolution was led by the invention and refinement of the steam engine and many other machine-tool technologies, the exact sphere in which China lagged behind. Although I endorse most of the criticisms of these arguments, it should be stressed that the critics are often debating with California school scholars at a wrong level. The nature of the debate has left us with an impression that demographic, economic, or
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technological conditions and related mechanisms are the most important conditions behind the Great Divergence. But they are not. For instance, Huang (2002, 2003) saw late imperial China’s high population as a major arresting factor for economic development, but Pomeranz (2002, 2003) rejected this view. Population figures for Jiangnan and China varied greatly during the Ming and Qing dynasties. While arguing for his theory of the “high-level equilibrium trap,” Mark Elvin (1973, 311) did not forget to mention that the Chinese population may have dropped 35–40 percent during the Ming-Qing dynastic transition. For example, the population of Zhejiang, where a large part of Jiangnan is located, was at 11 million in 1393 but reached 23.6 million in 1630 (Cao 2002a, 240–41, 452). Some years later, the Manchus invaded Jiangnan, where they met serious resistance. In response, they staged massacres in many cities (Struve 1984). The killings and the ensuing epidemics lowered Zhejiang’s population down to 7 million in 1661, according to one estimate (Zhao and Xie 1988, 452). Zhejiang’s population rose to 22.4 million more than a century later, in 1776 (Cao 2002b, 113). Such a drastic reduction of population in Zhejiang and the rest of China, however, did not trigger any major changes in the mode of production as it did in western Europe after the Black Death in the fourteenth century (Anderson 1974; Brenner 1977), nor did it stimulate any development of labor-saving technologies.3 In short, demography might be an important force behind the rise of the West, but it was not even a factor for China with regard to the question of the “Great Divergence” because the impact of population on the economy was also conditioned by other sociopolitical forces. Many critics of the California school have defended the traditional structural/cultural account of the rise of the West (see, e.g., Bryant 2006; Duchesne 2006, 2011; Ringmar 2009). Joseph Bryant (2006, 406) has also listed a total of eleven conditions crucial to the European breakthrough to industrial capitalism, some of which are entirely Western in origin. A common characteristic of California school scholars, and in fact of most economic historians, is their negligence of the higher-order structural conditions and patterned roles of elite actors—such as the nature of the state and roles of state actors, the nature of religion and roles of religious actors, and the nature of the economy and roles of economic actors—in the rise of the industrial capitalism. Here, by “higher-order conditions,” I mean that the existence or absence of these conditions will significantly alter the effect or even the relevance of some lower-order factors (with regard to the research questions we pose). Let me illustrate this point by a brief criticism of Pomeranz’s work. My main purpose, however, is to explain China’s eighteenth-century economic prosperity. By comparing a Chinese region (Jiangnan) with a European state (England) and focusing on the question of the Great Divergence, Pomeranz (2000) is suggesting that those factors I consider to be of a higher order (such as the nature and patterned behavior of the state or the dominant religion and power of religious actors) played no role in the economic process, which is against almost every contemporary theory of economic development.4 For example, an implicit though crucial assumption of Pomeranz’s book is that,
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if Jiangnan could have been relieved of ecological pressures by colonization to some kind of “new world,” then Jiangnan’s chances of Industrial Revolution would have greatly increased. However, Jiangnan was controlled by several administrative units, which were run by civilian officials, appointed by the Qing court, with only limited power. They could not make state-level policies and did not command an army allowing them to venture into foreign territories, had they been motivated to do so. In fact, Jiangnan was the most carefully controlled region in late imperial China because of its vital importance to state revenue (Feng 2002). How could Jiangnan’s administrative units have acted like the British government, venturing into some kind of new world? Although in the eighteenth century Jiangnan and England had similar levels of economic development and quality of life, the conditions and institutions that generated them were very different.5 England’s Industrial Revolution occurred in the context of a world-dominant navy and a bourgeoisie enjoying great political and ideological autonomy as well as highly institutionalized property rights. In England at the turn of the nineteenth century, both theoretical-formal logic and privately oriented instrumental rationalism (i.e., instrumental behavior for the benefit of individuals or private goods– oriented organizations such as private companies rather than a collective entity such as the state, tribe, or community) were becoming dominant modes of thinking among the elite population.6 Furthermore, the sciences and technological inventions were valued and fostered in universities and in society at large. None of this obtained in China. China’s repeated economic prosperities resulted from the power of successive empires that mostly adopted a pragmatic attitude toward business activities and, moreover, were able to control a large population and huge territory and to sustain prolonged middynasty prosperity. Together, they propelled the Chinese economy to realize its great potential—again and again, starting from the Song dynasty—under an imperial framework that nevertheless afforded no chance of breakthrough to industrial capitalism in the nineteenth century or at any other time in Chinese history. Although both Confucianism and Legalism were averse to business activities, and although Chinese merchants lacked the political, ideological, and military autonomy that their European counterparts had acquired quite early (e.g., control of the armies of city-states and private armies of overseas companies and colonies),7 the eradication of handicrafts and trade was not the intention of the imperial state, nor did the state have the infrastructural capacity to eradicate them even had it desired to do so. Moreover, since the Song dynasty commercial taxes had become a significant part of state revenue (Masatoshi 1984, 79), practical-minded members of the gentry increasingly participated in profit-making activities (Brook 1993), and the state even started to observe a certain degree of uninstitutionalized property rights in some areas and to protect commercial activities under general state control (Deng 2003; Johnson 1993; Wong 1999, 226). The Chinese state and culture made allowances for market activity, but it was repeated mid-dynasty political stabilities beginning with the Song that allowed market relations
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to expand greatly within an otherwise prejudicial cultural and political environment. Most of the major Chinese dynasties lasted for more than two centuries and encompassed a relatively stable mid–dynasty period of more than a century. During such a period, the empire suffered fewer banditry activities and fewer attempts at rebellion; it greatly expanded its territory and sphere of influence; administration was routinized but not yet overly hidebound and corrupted; and the population had recovered from the death, famine, and epidemics brought about by inter-dynastic wars but was not yet so large as to prevent the economy from experiencing a phase of Smithian growth.8 Such mid-dynasty halcyon times had again and again produced highly prosperous and commercialized societies, such as during the Northern Song (960–1127), Southern Song (1127–1279), Yuan (1271–1368), Ming (1368–1644), and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties. Had there been a chance for an indigenous development of industrial capitalism in China, it would more likely have come to pass during the Song rather than the Ming or Qing dynasties, in which state politics became more repressive, culture became more conservative (Chow 1994; von Glahn 2003), and technological development slowed down (Elman 2005; Mokyr 1990). Thus, I see no good reason why China’s eighteenth-century prosperity should have ended differently from the earlier prosperities. Pomeranz perceives in China’s eighteenth-century prosperity a pattern of development similar to England’s, but I see it only as a recurrence of the typical mid-dynasty prosperity, or the so-called prosperity of the Kangxi-Qianlong reigns.9 Further confirming my perception is the fact that, by the end of the eighteenth century (i.e., in the final years of the Qianlong reign, or about half a century before the outbreak of the Opium War, which marked the arrival of Western imperialism), the Qing dynasty was already in decline, as indicated by the outbreak of the large-scale White Lotus Rebellion in 1794 and other disorders typically associated with dynastic decline (Rowe 2009). Although the Taiping Rebellion (1850–64) adopted quasi-Christian teaching as its ideology, it was in essence one of the many peasant rebellions that spelled the further decline of the Qing dynasty. In summary, even without the arrival of the West, China’s eighteenth-century prosperity was not followed by a breakthrough to industrial capitalism but rather by a dynastic decline marked by endemic wars, famine, and epidemics during which much of the eighteenth century’s economic gains were destroyed.10
E X P L A I N I N G T H E G R E AT D I V E R G E N C E
Let us turn to the question of why, in China, an indigenous breakthrough to industrial capitalism was impossible before the nineteenth century. I will attempt an answer in two steps: by summarizing the key historical processes enabling the rise of industrial capitalism in the West, and by using the European development as a comparative to China, which had maintained a sophisticated market economy ever since the Song dynasty but still was unable to create industrial capitalism.
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THE KEY TO THE RISE OF THE WEST
Crucial to my explanation of the rise of the West is the understanding of two concepts: market economy, and industrial capitalism. In a market economy, a significant amount of goods is produced in anticipation of profits through exchange—an anticipation that is, with the concomitant hope of a better life, inherited in human nature. Therefore a market economy will emerge wherever and whenever a society is able to yield a significant amount of surplus for exchange and the state lacks either the will or the capacity, or both, to limit commercial activities. When the productivity of a society increases, trade and profit-oriented production become important, thus leading to the rise of market economy.11 From the Northern Song dynasty onward, the Chinese economy remained highly commercialized, with only temporary disruptions by wars during dynastic transitions and by the early Ming dynasty’s anti-market state policies.12 Industrial capitalism differs from market economy: it refers to production rather than to exchange, and specifically to profit-making manufacturing by private enterprises using labor-saving machines as the dominant mode of production.13 To make industrial capitalism possible, economic actors must cease to be insignificant in the society and acquire the political, military, and ideological means to defend their interests; the state actors must have a great interest in making alliances with the economic actors for money and colonial expansion; and the society must envisage the significance of profit-motivated inventions, so that technologies crucial to the Industrial Revolution, such as the steam engine, coke smelter, spinning jenny, and like innovations will find inventors and adopters. Industrial capitalism thus understood represents a major turning point in human history. The rise of the West can also be explained as a concatenation of five overlapping historical processes: 1. A strong drive toward rationalization and cumulative development, propelled by incessant warfare and economic competition. (Mechanisms: these two kinds of competition have clearer winning-losing criteria, which facilitate the development of instrumental rationalism. Moreover, in order to win, each competing party must try to outperform their opponents in producing more and better weapons and products, which unintentionally brought cumulative development to a society in technology, productivity, and organizational capacity.) 2. The collapse of the Catholic ecumene and the emergence of competing religious and secular ideologies in the wake of increasing state power. 3. The extension of bourgeois influence into the political, military, and ideological spheres. 4. A new political framework within which the state became stronger but at the same time was seriously constrained in its actions by the nonpolitical elite, especially the rising middle class.
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5. The expansion of a state-merchant alliance, in which the state relied on merchants for money and colony management and the merchants depended on the state for protection and market expansion. Central to this explanation are the natures of, and relationships among, the competing European elites. In other civilizations, the elites competed for dominance, but the competition seldom disrupted the institutionalized elite relationships within society. In Europe, however, the relationships among a very complex and diverse set of elites—governing political actors, the aristocracies, the bishops, and the bourgeoisie (who entered this exalted circle after the High Middle Ages)—had never been well institutionalized since the collapse of the western Roman Empire (Finer 1997, 1473–75). Industrial capitalism (and the nation-state) stumbled into our path not as “historical progresses” but as unintended consequences of Europe’s never well institutionalized elite competition and conflicts (Lachmann 2000), which again and again altered the power alignment of Europe’s elites and yielded room for the emergence of new elements conducive to the rise of industrial capitalism and nation-states. For brevity’s sake, as well as for the purpose of analogizing with events in China, the following account will center on only two of the five “historical processes” mentioned above and their consequences: the rise of the bourgeoisie, and the collapse of the Catholic ecumene. Humans have a strong “capitalistic” instinct in the sense that they have an inclination to seek gains through exchange of their economic products. However, three ideal–typical characteristics of economic power have prevented humans from fully acting on their “capitalist” spirit in traditional societies. First, economic power is decentralized. It forms into multiple power centers, which fosters people’s spatial movement in the society. The state in traditional society wants to control economic activities because the decentralized nature of economic power undermines the state’s capacity to control business activities and the people involved in those activities. The decentralized nature of economic power also makes it harder for successful businesses to create a strong, centralized, and coercive apparatus to defend their common interests. Second, the aim of ideal–typical economic actors is profit, in which privately oriented instrumental calculations figure largely. But privately oriented instrumental calculation (or rationality) was deemed selfish by all traditional religions and ideologies, and it was hardly able to overcome morally based challenges. Third, economic power is also a developmental power. All types of power have a tendency to expand, but economic power in particular undermines, viruslike, the foundations of any maintenance-oriented traditional state. Therefore, few traditional rulers have any use for the merchant class, notwithstanding their own need for a well-stocked treasury.14 Theoretically, the above three impediments could be overcome if economic actors turned functionally multifarious—that is, became active and powerful in political, military, and ideological spheres. The three impediments made this very difficult to achieve in traditional societies, but it was somehow realized in Europe through a series of more or
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less related developments leading to the formation of a competitive multistate system (Mann 1986, chaps. 12–14; Tilly 1992), the emergence of chartered towns and independent or semi-independent cities (Bartlett 1993, chap. 7; Blockmans 1997; Mielants 2007; Tilly and Blockmans 1994; Weber 1981), the Reformation and Renaissance, and the genesis of philosophies and new religions that legitimized or even promoted individualism and privately oriented instrumental rationalism. The multistate system, together with the power of the Catholic Church, not only engendered a weak state tradition (Hall 1986) but also precipitated incessant warfare. Unlike economic competition, the claimed purpose of military competition is always for some kind of “public goods” rather than private goods. Therefore, warfare not only facilitates the cumulative development but also stimulates the rise of public goods–oriented instrumental rationalism, which encourage the development of the state and its bureaucratic apparatus (Ertman 1997; Tilly 1992). The rise of chartered towns and independent or semi-independent commercial cities under a weak state background encouraged economic competition and allowed city-dwellers, or burgesses, to govern and militarily defend their own cities. Economic competition also encouraged privately oriented instrumental rationalism and cumulative development in society, while the existence of independent or semi-independent towns and cities endowed economic actors with significant political clout and military means. A strong bourgeoisie was thus ensured in the emerging nation states. This is why modernity has two mutually constitutive legs: the rise of nation states, and the emergence of industrial capitalism. These were the products of competing political and economic actors who also had much interest in cooperation. The Reformation cracked the Catholic ecumene, leaving a weakened Catholic Church and a divided Protestantism, thereby allowing the European states increasing dominance over religious affairs in their own domains.15 Together with the Renaissance, the Reformation added momentum to the surge of rational thinking in Europe. Theoretical-formal rationality, which itself was deeply embedded in the Greco-Christian tradition, revived. This revival was important for two reasons. First, theoretical-formal rationality allowed bourgeois intellectuals in the freer environment of the cities to develop theories justifying profit-making motives as positive values, such as liberalism or individualism, natural law, Protestant ethics, or the idea of the “invisible hand.”16 Gradually, instrumental business activity came no longer to be despised as selfish; it had turned into a positive value, the moral equal of any value-based activity. Increasingly, self-centered actions of individuals in the market were seen as a supreme moral force leading to freedom and to prosperity. The whole process, here referred to as the valuation of privately oriented instrumental rationalism, legitimized profit-making activities, provided the ideological foundation for industrial capitalism, and constituted the very essence of modernity. As the valuation intensified, capitalism became increasingly inevitable. Second, the advent of theoretical-formal rationalism together with instrumental rationalism stimulated the progress of the sciences. Although the early phase of scientific development had no immediate impact on technological inventions, it nurtured a rational way of thinking and
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provided elements of knowledge essential to technological invention. As the sciences progressed and commercially motivated inventions proliferated, the relationship between the sciences and technologies also grew closer.17 All the above developments, from the perpetuation of a multistate system to the emergence of independent and semi-independent cities, the collapse of the Catholic ecumene, and the valuation of privately oriented instrumental rationality, were most crucial to the rise of industrial capitalism because these are factors of a higher order. Without them, the economic, demographic and technological mechanisms that the California school scholars stress are simply irrelevant. But, though these higher-order conditions were absolutely necessary for the rise of industrial capitalism, they were not sufficient, because the Industrial Revolution was not going to occur under these conditions alone. Now some of the arguments made by the California school scholars start to make sense. Fortuitously, many of the technologies crucial for capitalist development had already come from China, India, and the Islamic world (Abu-Lughod 1989; Hobson 2004; Huff 1993; Landes 1998; McNeill 1982). The existence of overseas colonies, to which excess population might migrate and from which resources could be extracted, and the location of coal deposits could also be important for the rise of industrial capitalism (Frank 1998; Goody 1996; Pomeranz 2000), once these “conditions of a higher order” were in place in England and the West. Finally, if there had been no major technological breakthrough, the diminishing returns of traditional technologies could aggravate England and Europe’s problem of population explosion, leading to wars, epidemics, and historical reversal.18 Newtonian physics and the invention of the steam engine were indeed crucial to the Industrial Revolution (Goldstone 2000). But all of these constituents of the Industrial Revolution—technological development in the early modern West, and economic and demographic conditions in England and the West, notably requisite as they were—were ancillary to the European historical dynamism in which Europe’s never-institutionalized elite competition had played a decisive role.
I N D U S T R I A L C A P I TA L I S M : A N I M P O S S I B I L I T Y IN PREMODERN CHINA
The economic, demographic, and technological factors that the California school scholars consider crucial to the Great Divergence were unquestionably instrumental in the rise of England and the West, but also unquestionably they had little to do with China. On examining China’s technological development carefully, a very different pattern immediately becomes apparent.19 China’s technological development was facilitated by at least two clusters of rather different conditions from those that fostered European technological development.20 Many of China’s dynasties were long-lasting, and its overall historical continuity was indubitably greater than Europe. The strong imperial government of China also frequently initiated large-scale projects. These were all conducive to innovation and knowledge accumulation.21 Moreover, most pre-nineteenth-century inventions
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were of empirical type (Francis Bacon’s phrase), meaning that they could have been made at any time in history (Mokyr 1990, 167). The Chinese mentality, pragmatic and eclectic, was very conducive to these kinds of invention. Other conditions, however, had prevented the highly developed Chinese technologies from culminating in a European-style “breakthrough.” The Chinese aptitude for holistic and historical thinking slowed the development of theoretical-formal rationalism and modern empiricism (Zhao 2015),22 whereas in Europe crucial technological development after the seventeenth century relied increasingly on scientific knowledge and the scientific way of thinking.23 Most importantly, in late imperial China, no matter whether the inventors were gentry or hands-on artisans,24 the nature of the Confucian state determined that neither inventions nor scientific discoveries would yield wealth, prestige, or authority.25 Therefore, though China had retained its technological supremacy during most of the second millennium, the consensus is that China’s technological advance slowed greatly after the Song dynasty (Elman 2005; Goldstone 2008; Mokyr 1990). In analyzing the rise of the West, this chapter focuses on two historical processes entwined and crucial to Europe’s breakthrough to industrial capitalism: the collapse of the Catholic ecumene, and the expansion of the bourgeoisie power. Analogously, I am going to focus on unorthodox neo-Confucian intellectual movements and on the power of the Chinese merchant community during the late Ming and the Qing dynasties. The points are two-fold: first, to show why late Ming unorthodox intellectual Confucianism did not fracture the neo-Confucian ecumene as the Reformation had fractured the Catholic ecumene, and, second, to show why the market economy of late imperial China could not endow China’s bourgeoisie with sufficient political, military, and ideological strength to undercut the neo-Confucian political framework. The following narrative omits several historical phenomena of late imperial China, such as Zheng He’s seven voyages in the beginning of the fifteenth century, the influx of American silver into China, and the brief existence of a multistate system following the Manchu conquest. However, some scholars have used these historical phenomena to construct counterfactuals in order to demonstrate that China had ample opportunities to develop differently, or might even have been able to break through to industrial capitalism if these historical phenomena had evolved differently. But Zheng He’s voyages were a government project. Although historians are still debating the exactly reasons for these voyages, the consensus is that they were not undertaken for conquest or trade. Zheng He’s fleet, almost a hundred times the size of Columbus’s fleet, was financially unsustainable.26 Moreover, it is impossible to see how Zheng’s voyages could have led to the weakening of the neo-Confucian ecumene and the emergence of a strong and functionally multifarious bourgeoisie. The influx of American silver did change China’s economic structure in the coastal regions, and it also changed China’s monetary and tax systems (Atwell 2008; Quan 1987). Arguably, it even contributed to the fall of the Ming dynasty by ceasing (along with silver from Japan) to enter China in large quantity in the early part of the seventeenth century (Atwell 1997; Wakeman 1985). But the inflow (or lack thereof )
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of American silver neither undermined the neo-Confucian ecumene in any fundamental manner nor changed the nature of Chinese merchants in the Confucian state. Finally, some scholars wonder whether China might have developed somewhat like Europe if a multistate system had been sustained after the Manchu conquest. To this question, my reply is also no. Briefly put, the multistate system had existed in China in the Age of Disunion (220–581) and again during the Tang-Song transition (907–979), and at both times the many competing states had all gradually converged into the Confucian state political framework. This seventeenth-century outcome was unlikely to be different. Moreover, the multistate system was only one of the five higher-order historical conditions that I identified above as crucial to the rise of industrial capitalism. Alone, it would only lead to warfare that strengthens the state power at the expense of the power of the bourgeoisie (Zhao 2015).
A FA I L E D “ C H I N E S E R E F O R M AT I O N ”
During the late Ming and the Ming-Qing transition, there emerged waves of unorthodox neo-Confucian thinking, analogous to Lutheranism and Calvinism in Europe. Had they taken hold, they would have undermined the neo-Confucian ecumene in the way that Protestantism fractured the Catholic ecumene. But the unorthodox thinking did not destabilize the neo-Confucian ecumene to any long-term, consequential extent. The inconsequential outcome of this surge of unorthodox neo-Confucian thinking especially deserves to be told because it reveals the resilience of the Confucian political system and the impossibility of an indigenous rise of industrial capitalism in China before the arrival of the West. Unorthodox Confucianism emerged during the late Ming, facilitated by scholar-gentry discontent with rigid neo-Confucian orthodoxy and the increasingly competitive civilservice examinations, and it happened in the context of the growing importance of the market economy in southern China. It gained momentum under the influence of Wang Yangming (1472–1529), a neo-Confucian scholar, high official, and successful civilian military commander. Wang opposed Zhu Xi (1130–1200), the most renowned neo-Confucian scholar.27 A central premise of Zhu Xi’s philosophy is that principle (li) is real and can be objectively understood by the “observation and investigation of things.” Wang, however, argues that “in the mind lies the principle” (i.e., the ability to discriminate between good and evil is innate in everyone) and that perfect virtue is achieved less through study and self-cultivation, as Zhu Xi had advocated, than through “realizing” (i.e., “identifying and acting upon one’s own innate goodness”). Only from that point could one “unite knowing and action.” Wang’s idealistic theory, however, bore consequences that he had not intended: his dictum “in the mind lies the principle” opened doors to interpretations ranging from conservative understandings that did not differ much from Zhu Xi’s neo-Confucianism to individualistic interpretation stressing that the essence of self-cultivation was to achieve one’s true self. Spurred by the highly
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commercialized southern China environment and the depressing politics of the late Ming, Wang’s theory facilitated the emergence of unorthodox Confucian writings, represented by two major clusters. Li Zhi (1527–1602), arguably the most radical thinker of the first cluster, vehemently attacked the ritualism of mainstream neo-Confucianism and promoted Buddhism. He praised the directness of children, argued that childlike innocence should be the goal of human cultivation,28 justified human wants and profit-making activity as natural, and even praised rebel heroes and advocated a more equal treatment of women. Li also lived very unconventionally in later life. At the age of 54, he resigned from his official position and left his family, shaved his head, and commingled the life of a Buddhist monk and that of a Confucian scholar.29 His critics accused him of consorting with prostitutes, frequenting wine shops, and having intimate relationship with Buddhist nuns, widows, and other women. Strikingly, he did not even bother to deny most such charges (Jiang 2001). Whereas the radical scholars of the first cluster pushed the individualistic tendency in Wang Yangming’s philosophy to its limits, scholars of the second cluster were traditionalists in morals but reformers in politics. Scholars of this cluster all lived through the wars and chaos of the Ming-Qing transition. The Manchu conquest of the Ming pained them greatly, but they blamed despotic Ming politics for the calamity. They also criticized Li Zhi’s unconventional thinking and behavior and even the entire Taizhou school with which Li was associated, and they blamed this radical wing of the Wang Yangming tradition for the moral anarchy that they held responsible for the Ming dynasty’s collapse (McMorran 1973). Yet they were all strongly influenced by Wang Yangming, and their thinking resembled that of unorthodox Ming neo-Confucians. Scholars of this cluster developed a political theory whose key points can mostly be seen as reactions to Ming despotism (de Bary 1983, chap. 4; Feng and Xie 2003; Gong 2005): 1. The state is a public entity. It does not belong to the emperor, who is only the guest of the state. 2. Emperor and officials should relate like colleagues or friends, not like master and servants. 3. The emperor’s power should be constrained by reinstating the position of prime minister and giving it substantial power, and by expanding the autonomy of local governments. It should also be held in check by the opinions of the Confucian scholars. The eunuchs and imperial consorts’ families should be strictly prevented from amassing power. 4. Moneymaking activities are legitimate, and merchants should not be regarded as a group of the lowest social status below the gentry, peasants, and artisans. Immediately noticeable from this summary are striking differences between Zhu Xi’s neo-Confucianism and the two clusters of late Ming unorthodoxy. These unorthodox
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ideas certainly appeared to be no less radical to the orthodox neo-Confucians than Martin Luther’s Wittenberg postings to orthodox Catholics. If these ideas had taken hold, they could very well have led to a Chinese “Reformation,” undermining the ideological bases of the Confucian state and paving the way for new possibilities. Yet, though the new unorthodoxy achieved certain influence, it did not, for two related reasons, have any real impact, unlike the Reformation in Europe. First, the premodern Catholic Church not only insisted that the Bible represented truth but also that its interpretation of the Bible was the sole truth, the sole path of righteousness, and the sole way to its concept of Heaven. Luther, John Calvin, and their followers being no less absolute, the ensuing controversy led to the destruction of the Catholic ecumene. Confucianism, even neo-Confucianism, was seen by most gentry scholars more as a system of ethics than as a transcendental truth. Therefore, the debates over Li Zhi’s unorthodox views were private in nature—for example, between Li and Geng Dingxiang, the brother of Li’s lifelong friend (Huang 1981; Jiang 2001). The Ming government never took sides in the debates, and the mainstream Confucian scholars were more interested in passing the civil-service examinations for which mastering Zhu Xi’s version of neo-Confucianism was essential. Unorthodox Confucianism, therefore, never caused any consequential schism in the Confucian ecumene. The second reason why unorthodox Confucianism did not have the same impact as the Reformation was that China was not an aggregation of European-style multistates. After Luther posed his theses on the church door in Wittenberg, he was “protected” by Frederick the Wise, elector of Saxony, from possible persecution by the Roman Curia. This, as Michael Mann (1986, 467) has pointed out, “immediately prevented a purely religious compromise” and split Europe ideologically as well as politically. In China, however, though the state was arguably more tolerant of various persuasions, if the single state decided to repress, its repression was highly effective (Zhao 2015). Wang Yangming’s teaching could not be disseminated during the reign of Jiajing (1521–67) because the emperor decided to ban it (Ge 2001, 299–330), and the radical wing of the Wang Yangming school, represented by Li Zhi, pretty much ended with Li’s suicide in 1602 under the joint assault of scholarly criticism and local official suppression. As for the second cluster of neo-Confucian philosophers active during the Ming-Qing transition, the influence of their reformist ideals also waned as the leading figures died out, the Manchus adopted the model of Confucian state (albeit with many nomadic features) (Naquin and Rawski 1987, chap. 1), and a new generation of scholars passed the civilservice examinations and became Qing officials (Struve 1979). Moreover, though the politically reformist spirit of the Ming-Qing transition generation was gone, their moral conservatism was endorsed by the Manchu rulers. The writings and activities of the early Qing scholars created a turn to conservatism with multiple social-cultural consequences: the lineage institutions and neo-Confucian ritualism were much strengthened in the villages; the subjugation of women intensified as the chastity cult took deeper root; and popular literary forms and urban entertainment businesses withered as the state tightened its control over the contents (Chow 1994).
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The Qing state, during a large part of its history, was also more repressive than the mid- to late Ming state. Many books written by scholars in the late Ming and during the Ming-Qing transition were banned, and the Qing state’s literary inquisitions greatly intimidated the scholars.30 Between the intellectual interests inherited from the MingQing transition and the caution generated by the Qing strictures, Qing scholars of the eighteenth century, motivated by caution, shifted their study to historical materials, which triggered the emergence of a kind of meticulous and apolitical scholarship known as evidential research (Guy 1987, chap. 3). These scholars “stressed exacting research, rigorous analysis, and the collection of impartial evidence drawn from ancient artifacts and historical documents and texts” (Elman 1984, 6),31 and their scholarship created a few sparks worthy of praise. But the scholars in this intellectual movement were mostly cultural conservatives (Chow 1994). Their attitude toward the Western sciences and technologies was chauvinistic (Zhang 1998, 206–12), and their research interests and methodologies differed greatly from early modern European sciences (Guy 1987, 46). Moreover, scholars still passed the examinations only by mastering Zhu Xi’s curriculum. When European imperialism arrived in China in the nineteenth century, while the Qing dynasty was already in decline, the Confucian political model was rock-solid. Only after repeated military setbacks did this political model start to crack and China to falter, moving into a coerced modernization. And only about the turn of the twentieth century were the late Ming and Qing unorthodox writings hailed as the “Chinese Reformation” or “Enlightenment” by reformers who were searching for reform ideologies in homegrown traditions (de Bary 1983, 101).
W E A K N E S S E S O F C H I N A’ S E C O N O M I C A C T O R S
As noted above, the rise of bourgeoisie power was one of the key conditions for the rise of industrial capitalism. In premodern Europe, successful merchants or heads of trading companies controlled the city-states and had a considerable say in the governance of the larger states; large overseas trading companies controlled semiprivate or private armies of significant strength; and scholars of urban background wrote treatises defending moneymaking as a virtue. Merchants thus wielded political, military, and ideological strength hitherto unparalleled in Eurasian history. Against this background, let us now evaluate the position of Chinese merchants before the arrival of the West. In his study of Chinese cities, G. William Skinner’s (1964/65) hexagon model is paradigmatic because it convincingly illustrates the economic functions of China’s market towns. Yet his model applies best to local townships and only to a lesser extent to county seats, because political considerations acquired increasing weight in determining the locations, functions, and fortunes of a city at or above the county level.32 Overall, Chinese cities obtained significant economic functions beginning with the Song dynasty’s “urban revolution” (Skinner 1977, 3–31; Twitchett 1968), and the cities of late imperial China shared many similarities with European cities (Rowe 1989). These
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similarities apart, the urban Chinese merchant class most notably never enjoyed autonomous political and legal status, let alone their own military of any type (Bartlett 1993, chap. 7). Scholars of Chinese urban life all acknowledge the decisive impact that dynastic changes and political and administrative decisions had on the fortunes of Chinese cities (Finnane 1993; Johnson 1993; Marmé 1993; Shiba 1970). The lack of autonomy of the Chinese merchants does not mean that they were powerless and that the state had total reign over businesses or that the state actually wished to eradicate profit-making activities. Except for the anti-business inclination of the early Ming emperors, the position of the late imperial Chinese state toward business was mostly practical (as it was toward most societal matters). Most of the time, the late imperial Chinese state protected, supported, and participated in or monopolized various commercial activities (Wong 1999, 222–26), and it maintained different levels of “property rights” according to the nature of the property or products (Xu and Wu 2003, 710–26). The lack of autonomy of the Chinese merchants does mean, however, that they did not have any political and military means or ideological weapons to defend their interests as their European counterparts had, and that their “property rights” existed ultimately at the state’s discretion. This had a huge impact on the behavior of Chinese merchants. For instance, facing the political dominion of the state and the ideological dominion of neoConfucianism, merchants of the Ming and Qing were pressingly eager for their children to receive Confucian educations and become gentry-officials (Naquin and Rawski 1987, 123). They cultivated close relations with local officials and marriage alliances with gentry’s families. They acted as local tax collectors for the government and took part in the governing of late imperial China’s market towns (Mann 1987). Participating in local charities and religious festivals and emulating the lifestyle of the Confucian gentry made them “honorable merchants” (Lufrano 1997). Their behavior earned them respect and trust and benefited their businesses (Brook 1998, 215–16). Yet their collective inability to conjure up and to establish as positive values such nontraditionalist ideas as liberalism or “the invisible hand” to justify their moneymaking, as well as their subordination to the state and officialdom, highlight their weakness as a class and the impossibility of an indigenous creation of industrial capitalism in China before the arrival of the West.
S U M M A RY
This chapter has explained the “Great Divergence,” or the West’s achievement of an indigenous breakthrough to industrialization and modernity versus China’s “failure” of having such a breakthrough in the nineteenth century. I argue that, though the rise of industrial capitalism in the West in the nineteenth century was not inevitable, China had no possibility of having an indigenous breakthrough to industrial capitalism in the nineteenth century or any time before or immediately after. While commercialism flourished and the people in the more prosperous parts of China enjoyed high living standards, China during the Ming and Qing dynasties was still a place where technological
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innovations were not rewarded, theoretical-formal rationalities were underdeveloped, and, most importantly, the neo-Confucian state/ideology faced no significant challenges and merchants were unable to use their wealth to gain any significant political, military, and ideological power to counterbalance the power of the state. What sustained late imperial China’s splendid commercialism was, therefore, not the weakening of the neo-Confucian ecumene and the rise of bourgeoisie power in a way similar to what happened in Europe but the empire’s huge market (because of its large territory and population) and the peace provided by a long-lasting, mid-dynasty political stability. When the Europeans arrived in China with modern weapons in the nineteenth century, China was not moving toward an industrial revolution but was undergoing another dynastic decline. China did not develop into but rather was dragged into the age of industrialization and modernity by the forces of Western and Japanese imperialism.
N OT E S
Some parts of this chapter have appeared in my new book, The Confucian-Legalist State: A New Theory of Chinese History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). 1. The “California school” was first used by Jack Goldstone (2000, 179) to name a group of scholars with distinctive answers on the question of “the great divergence.” These scholars are lumped together because the majority of them at a certain point are affiliated with universities in the state of California. 2. See Frank 2001 and Goldstone 2000 for reviews of the “California school” arguments. 3. The role of population in the economy is complicated. Even if we exclude issues such as gender relations and labor quality, population increase can itself trigger both a Smithian mechanism (population increase leads to further division of labor) and a Malthusian mechanism (population increase produces cheaper labor and thus slows down the development of labor-saving technologies), with opposite economic impacts. 4. See Zhao and Hall 1994 for the theories on economic development, especially the statecentered tradition. 5. It is a rule rather than an exception that similar levels of economic prosperity can be reached in vastly different institutional and cultural settings. The economic histories of the Soviet Union and Communist China have shown that, during the early postwar reconstruction period, their planned economies performed as well as or better than market economies. Post–World War II Japan is a democracy, and China today is an authoritarian regime, but they have both created economic miracles. India and China could hardly be more different sociopolitically, but they have both been engines of world economic development in the past decades. Nonetheless, though similar levels of economic development can be reached in different institutional and cultural settings, their long-term trajectories tend to be quite different. 6. In this chapter, instrumental behavior for the benefits of a collective entity is defined as public goods–oriented instrumental rationalism. Max Weber (1968) did not differentiate private goods–oriented and public goods–oriented instrumental rationalism, which led to several problems in his understanding of modernity (Zhao 2015).
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7. As Dieter Kuhn (2009, 207) has rightly commented, “Throughout Chinese history, merchants have been regarded as both indispensable and disreputable” by the Chinese elite. 8. Jean-Laurent Rosenthal and Bin Wong (2011) have made a similar argument on how late imperial China’s economic development was facilitated by its large “political scale” (the spatial scale and population size of a polity). 9. Between 1662 and 1795, China was ruled by three emperors, two of whom enjoyed extremely long reigns: Kangxi (r. 1662–1722), Yongzheng (r. 1723–35), and Qianlong (r. 1735–96). 10. Logically, arguing on the basis of some eighteenth-century economic and quality-of-life indices that China and England were developing in the same direction, at a similar pace, and under similar constraints, is comparable to arguing that two different mathematical functions are identical because the two functions reach the same value at a given point. 11. This definition bears no resemblance to Weber’s (1981, 334–47) notion of “irrational” versus “rational” capitalism, but it is close to Fernand Braudel’s (1992) distinction between the “market economy” and “capitalism.” 12. For instance, maritime trade remained outlawed throughout most of the Ming dynasty, especially before 1567 (Mielants 2007, 66). 13. Many scholars, from Weber (1951, 1958, 1981) to Braudel (1992), Samuel Finer (1997), Eric Jones (1981), and Michael Mann (1986), will in various degrees accept this view. I have, however, highlighted what seem the most significant historical forces promoting industrial capitalism and modernity and have stressed the “valuation of privately oriented instrumental rationalism” (discussed later in this chapter) as key to their inception. This understanding of the causalities at work is, to a certain degree, new. 14. Therefore, as William McNeill has keenly observed, although the elites of traditional states recognized the political need for wealth, they had “a general distrust of and disdain for merchants and men of the marketplace. . . . Accordingly, trade and market-regulated behavior, though present from very early times, remained marginal and subordinate in civilized societies before A.D. 1000. . . . Large-scale changes in human conduct, when they occurred, were more likely to be in response to commands coming from some social superior than to any change in supply and demand, buying and selling” (1982, 22–23). 15. Under the control of the states, religion increasingly served the interests of rulers rather than the papacy or the leaders of Protestantism. It even became a state-building device. But its impact on the lives of ordinary Europeans showed little sign of diminution until the nineteenth century (Gorski 2003; Kamen 1997; McLeod 2000). 16. Less systematic bourgeois ideologies had been bubbling in Europe ever since the Reformation and Renaissance. Richard Henry Tawney (1998) offers a classic account of how the conflicts and compromises between urban-centered Calvinist theology and the bourgeoisie facilitated the emergence of an individualistic spirit in the sixteenth century and the later triumph of laissez-faire philosophies. Michael Allen Gillespie (2008) analyzes how the humanist notion of individualism emerged as a new form of Christianity in the fourteenth century and how the tension it created expedited the coming of the Reformation and modern science. 17. After the eighteenth century, inventions came to rely more on the science of the time. Also, the advances and diffusion of the sciences equipped inventors with new ways of thinking
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and new experimental techniques crucial to their inventions (Mokyr 1990, 167–70; Musson 1972). 18. However, once the genie of humans’ instrumental desire has escaped from the control of tradition and received glorification, it is hard to push it back again. It would not take very long for this kind of society to recover and develop again after some disasters. Technological breakthrough became just a matter of time. Industrial capitalism is, in this sense, an inevitable accident. 19. China had by far the strongest fleet in the world in the fifteenth century, but it never occurred to the Chinese to use it for overseas expansion (Deng 1997; Levathes 1994). Until the eighteenth century, China was still a major economic center in the world. According to Andre Frank (1998), before 1820 half of the silver produced in the world ended in China. China made no effort, though, to turn its advantages toward overseas expansion. Qing China did pursue aggressive policies in Inner Asia, in what was part of the millennia-long Chinanomads confrontation (Zhao 2015), but these policies and the resulting aggression differed qualitatively from modern Western colonialism. 20. See Bodde 1991, Lloyd 1996, Nakayama and Sivin 1973, and Needham 1969 for discussions of the Chinese tradition in sciences and technologies. 21. The imperial state constructed long-distance canals and irrigation networks, palaces, and gigantic ocean-going ships. It also published and widely distributed agricultural handbooks to disseminate and standardize agricultural technologies. The state also conducted geographic surveys and supported astronomical researches for multiple purposes. These and other state activities were instrumental to China’s technological development (Deng 1993; Maddison 1998, chap. 1; Needham 1969). 22. In my understanding, modern science relies on controlled experiment. It requires the ability to postulate deductively the relationships between two “variables” in an isolated (controlled) situation without regard to the impact of the other factors. This “biased” way of thinking, crucial for us to conclude law-like regularities, comes hard to people accustomed to seeing their world in a holistic and/or mutually related manner. 23. Developments in steam engine technologies, for example, were from the very beginning informed by scientific advances (Mokyr 1990, 84–92). 24. Benjamin Elman (2005) correctly points out that many Chinese inventors and scientists were Confucian scholars. 25. Shen Kuo (1031–95), arguably the greatest “scientist” of ancient China, never thought of himself as a scientist. Most of his prestige and authority, and the preponderance of his knowledge, derived from his versatile experiences as a government official and successful diplomat. His most famous book, Dream Pool Essays (Mengxi bitan), contains much scientific writing, but he wrote it only after he was out of political favor and living in retirement. See Sivin 1982 for the mentality and achievements of Shen Kuo and the nature of Chinese sciences. 26. See Dreyer 2007, Levathes 1994, and Quan 1987, 3–5, for the nature of Zheng He’s naval expedition and why it had no sequel. 27. The following discussion of and quotations from Wang Yangming and Zhu Xi can be found in Ching 1976, Ivanhoe 1993, chap. 5, and Tang 1970. 28. In the orthodox Confucian tradition, the mentality and behavior of children, rather than offering a model for emulation, needs to be molded by education.
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29. Jin Jiang (2001) provides an informative account of Li Zhi’s thought and life after he left his family. See also Chan 1980 for some of Li Zhi’s works in English. 30. The Qing rulers, who were very sensitive to anti-Manchu expression, executed many scholars and their families as well for what the scholars had written, sometimes just because the accused had inadvertently used a taboo word in a text. 31. I agree with Elman (1984) that evidential research represented a significant shift in imperial China’s intellectual history and that some of the thinking of these scholars, as well as of their predecessors during the Ming-Qing transition, resembled the thinking of certain Renaissance European thinkers. Nevertheless, the unorthodox late Ming and mid-Qing intellectual developments left almost no deep impressions on Qing politics, culture, and society comparable to the impact of Renaissance intellectual development on European politics, culture, and society. 32. For example, Jiaxing prefecture had only three counties at the beginning of the Ming dynasty, but seven by 1429. During the Ming dynasty, Songjiang prefecture had only three counties, but, by the Qing, nine. These increases were political—that is, the result of state initiatives (Feng 2002, chap. 2).
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Nakayama, Shigeru, and Nathan Sivin, eds. 1973. Chinese Sciences: Explorations of an Ancient Tradition. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Naquin, Susan, and Evelyn S. Rawski. 1987. Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. Needham, Joseph. 1969. The Grand Titration: Science and Society in East and West. London: Allen and Unwin. Pomeranz, Kenneth. 2000. The Great Divergence: Europe, China, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. . 2002. “Beyond the East-West Binary: Resituating Development Paths in the Eighteenth-Century World.” Journal of Asian Studies 61: 539–90. . 2003. “Facts Are Stubborn Things: A Response to Philip Huang.” Journal of Asian Studies 62: 167–81. Quan, Hansheng. 1987. Ming Qing jing jishi yanjiu [Economic History of Ming and Qing China]. Taibei: Lianjing chuban shiye gongsi. Reischauer, Edwin O., and John K. Fairbank. 1960. East Asia: The Great Tradition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Ringmar, Erik. 2009. The Mechanisms of Modernity in Europe and East Asia: Institutional Origins of Social Change and Stagnation. London: Routledge. Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent, and Bin Wong. 2011. Before and Beyond Divergence: The Politics of Economic Change in China and Europe. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Rowe, William T. 1989. Hankow: Conflict and Community in a Chinese City, 1796–1895. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. . 2009. China’s Last Empire: The Great Qing. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Shiba, Yoshinobu. 1970. Commerce and Society in Sung China. Translated by Mark Elvin. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Sivin, Nathan. 1982. “Why the Scientific Revolution Did Not Take Place in China—Or Didn’t It?” In Explorations in the History of Science and Technology in China, edited by Daojing Hu, 89–106. Shanghai: Shanghai Chinese Classics Publishing House. Skinner, G. William. 1964/65. “Marketing and Social Structure in Rural China.” Journal of Asian Studies 24, nos. 1–3: 3–43, 195–228, 363–99. , ed. 1977. The City in Late Imperial China. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Struve, Lynn A. 1979. “Ambivalence and Action: Some Frustrated Scholars of the K’ang- hsi Period.” In From Ming to Ch’ing: Conquest, Religion, and Continuity in Seventeenth-Century China, edited by Jonathan D. Spence and John E. Wills, Jr., 323–65. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. . 1984. The Southern Ming, 1644–1662. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. Tang, Chun-I. 1970. “The Development of the Concept of Moral Ming from Wang Yang-Ming to Wang Chi.” In Self and Society in Ming Thought, edited by Wm. Theodore de Bary and the Conference on Ming Thought, 93–119. New York: Columbia University Press. Tawney, Richard Henry. 1998. Religion and the Rise of Capitalism: A Historical Study. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers.
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Tilly, Charles. 1992. Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990–1992. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell. Tilly, Charles, and Wim P. Blockmans. 1994. Cities and the Rise of States in Europe, A.D. 1000 to 1800. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. Twitchett, Denis C. 1968. “Merchant, Trade and Government in Late T’ang.” Asia Major 14, part 1: 63–95. von Glahn, Richard. 2003. “Towns and Temples: Urban Growth and Decline in the Yangzi Delta, 1100–1400.” In The Song-Yuan-Ming Transition in Chinese History, edited by Paul Jakov Smith and Richard von Glahn, 176–211. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center/Harvard University Press. Vries, Peer H. H. 2001. “Are Coal and Colonies Really Crucial? Kenneth Pomeranz and the Great Divergence.” Journal of World History 12, no. 2: 407–46. Wakeman, Frederic, Jr. 1985. The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-Century China. 2 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press. Weber, Max. 1951. The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press. . 1958. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York: Charles Scribner’s and Sons. . 1968. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Vol. 3. New York: Bedminster Press. . 1981. General Economic History. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books. Wong, R. Bin. 1997. China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. . 1999. “The Political Economy of Agrarian Empire and Its Modern Legacy.” In China and Historical Capitalism, edited by Timothy Brook and Gregory Blue, 210–45. Cambridge, Engl.: Cambridge University Press. Xu, Dixin, and Wu Chengming, eds. 2003. Zhongguo ziben zhuyi de mengya [Sprouts of Capitalism in China]. Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe. Zhang, Weiping. 1998. Ji Yun yu Qian-Jia xueshu [Ji Yun and Qian-Jia Scholarship]. Taibei: Guoli Taiwan Daxue Chuban Weiyuanhui. Zhao, Dingxin. 2015. The Confucian-Legalist State: A New Theory of Chinese History. New York: Oxford University Press.. Zhao, Dingxin, and John A. Hall. 1994. “State Power and Patterns of Late Development: Resolving the Crisis of the Sociology of Development.” Sociology 28: 211–30. Zhao, Wenli, and Xie Shujun. 1988. Zhongguo renkou shi [China’s Demographic History]. Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe.
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27 GLOBAL COMMODITY CHAINS AND DEVELOPMENT Jennifer Bair and Matthew Mahutga
Although the term “commodity chain” is used by scholars from multiple disciplines and diverse theoretical frameworks, its origin as an analytical concept lies squarely in worldsystems theory. For world-systems scholars, following the movement of particular commodities and the connections that their circulation forge between people, places, and processes is a way of tracing how new areas became incorporated into an emergent worldwide division of labor during the long sixteenth century. From this perspective, changes in the dynamics of accumulation along trade and production networks, and shifts in the territorial configuration of the particular nodes that constitute them, are important for what they tell us about the development of this single, integrated world-system. However, starting with the publication of the edited volume Commodity Chains and Global Capitalism (Gereffi and Korzeniewicz 1994), some researchers began to focus on how commodity chains were enabling what they suggested were new and qualitatively different relationships among economic actors and the implications these emergent inter-organizational networks had for the mobility of units within the world-system. The approach that emerged from this shift—the global commodity chain (GCC) framework— moved commodity chain analysis away from the central concerns of the world-system paradigm and toward those associated with the comparative sociology of national development. As the study of commodity chains became both more interdisciplinary and more policy-oriented, the field diverged yet again, leading to the formation of a global value chain (GVC) paradigm in which development is reconceived as upgrading (or potentially downgrading) along a chain of value-added activities. In this chapter, we
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review the changing perspective on commodity chains and development, concluding with a discussion of more recent literature that takes the developmental implications of commodity chains as the key explanandum and develops an exchange theoretic perspective to specify inter-firm power asymmetries as the key explanans.
C O M M O D I T Y C H A I N S A S V E C T O R S O F I N C O R P O R AT I O N A N D S T R AT I F I C AT I O N
The term “commodity chain” dates from a 1977 article published in Review, the journal of the Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems, and Civilizations at Binghamton University. In that article, Terence Hopkins and Immanuel Wallerstein suggest that commodity chains both integrate the world-system, insofar as they incorporate different geopolitical units into an emergent division of labor, and stratify it, insofar as they distribute unequal returns to the territories participating in this system, thereby creating and reproducing core and peripheral zones. Introducing the concept of the commodity chain, the authors suggest we start at the end of the chain with an ultimate consumable item, and then “trace back the set of inputs that culminated in this item—the prior transformations, the raw materials, the transportation mechanisms, the labor input into each of the material processes, the food inputs into the labor. This linked set of processes we call a commodity chain. If the ultimate consumable were, say, clothing, the chain would include the manufacture of the cloth, the yarn, etc., the cultivation of the cotton, as well as the reproduction of the labor forces involved in these productive activities” (Hopkins and Wallerstein 1977, 128). Studying a particular commodity chain over time is a method for analyzing the development of the modern world-economy, including the secular growth of the system over time, cyclical rhythms of economic expansion and contraction, the modes of labor control and reproduction found across and within different territories, and the changing geographic configuration of particular activities.1 A group of researchers at the Fernand Braudel Center was among the first to advance the commodity chain research agenda, studying two products central to the historical development of the modern world-system: ships and wheat flour (see Özveren 1994; Pelizzon 1994). By analyzing these commodity chains over the period of 1590 to 1790, scholars demonstrated how the world-economy emerged from the incorporation of regions into trade and production networks that stretched across the geographic boundaries demarcating political units. This research supported a central claim of world-systems theory—namely, that “transstate, geographically extensive, commodity chains are not a recent phenomenon, dating from say the 1970s or even 1945, . . . [rather,] they have been an integral part . . . of the functioning of the capitalist world-economy since it came into existence in the long sixteenth century” (Wallerstein 2000, 2). The modern world-economy as a historical social system emerged from the “warp and woof” of interlocking commodity chains (Hopkins and Wallerstein 1994, 17), and, for
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world-systems theorists, development is a process that refers to the emergence and evolution of the system. This definition of development contrasts with that found in conventional development economics and most comparative-historical sociology, where the unit of analysis is not the system but the discrete units constituting it. World-systems theorists regard this focus on “national development” as a misguided tenet of modernization theory and developmentalism more broadly, which treat economic growth and social development at the unit level as an essentially self-contained process occurring within states, as opposed to one that is inextricably bound with the dynamics of the larger system of which such states are part. Commodity chains integrate territories into this larger system but also stratify it, because the rewards to commodity chain participation are uneven. Those links in the chain that are more globally dispersed and more competitive are less lucrative, whereas activities where entry barriers are higher and competitors fewer are more profitable. Referring to these activities as “core-like” and “periphery-like,” Giovanni Arrighi and Jessica Drangel (1986) observed that they are not distributed randomly across space but rather tend to cluster such that some areas have a greater proportion of “core-like” activities relative to “periphery-like” ones. In other parts of the world, the reverse is true. The core-periphery organization of the world-system emerges from a series of linked “economic activities structured in commodity chains that cut across state boundaries” (Arrighi and Drangel 1986, 11). In any given chain, the participants engaged in activities with low rates of return will try to move to more profitable ones, but, if enough of them succeed in doing so, the downward pressure that heightened competition places on this formerly “core-like” activity erodes the returns to participants. In this way, all “core-like” activities are subject to “peripheralization” over time because what determines the rate of return across different links in the chain is not the nature of the activity but rather the degree of competition at that link in the chain. Core countries, then, are those political entities that contain a greater number of “core-like” versus “peripheral-like” links across the totality of commodity chains. Frequently, states seek to maintain and/or improve the proportion of more profitable links occurring within their borders by shielding those activities from competition or otherwise trying to secure an advantageous distribution of returns to commodity chain participation (Wallerstein 2009). Scholars have documented this process for a variety of commodities. Perhaps the most extensively studied is coffee. This research has yielded particularly rich insights because the regulation of trade in coffee under the International Coffee Agreement (ICA) generated an unusually detailed set of time series data that permits scholars to trace the changing distribution of surplus along the chain. John Talbot’s (2004) comprehensive analysis of the coffee commodity chain demonstrates that, under the ICA, coffee-exporting states received relatively favorable returns. He also details how a number of the states benefiting from the ICA used coffee revenues to move up the chain from exporting raw coffee beans to producing instant coffee for international markets. However, his analysis also underscores the limits of (peripheral) state
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action insofar as it recounts the efforts of core states to reassert their power within the coffee chain, both by eliminating the ICA and promoting competition among exporters of coffee beans and by undermining the instant coffee industries promoted by some coffee-exporting governments as a way to capture the value generated by processing the raw beans. The result was a shift in the distribution of the consumer’s coffee dollar, away from producers and toward chain actors, such as roasters and specialty retailers, located in core countries. A counterexample of “successful” repositioning can be found in Paul Gellert’s (2003) study of the wood-products commodity chain in Indonesia. Gellert demonstrates how an alliance between the Suharto government and an oligopoly of timberproducing firms enabled Indonesia to improve its position within this chain, specifically by becoming an exporter of manufactured plywood as opposed to an exporter of raw timber.2 Amy Quark (2013) examines another of the world’s most traded agricultural commodities, cotton. One of the ways (beyond subsidies) in which U.S. cotton farmers have ensured high returns on commodity chain participation has been via the role of the international standards that define cotton quality and the procedures used to verify these standards. Quark explores how the hegemonic coalition of the U.S. government and the leading firms in the global cotton trade have secured their advantageous position in the chain by defining both the standards that determine cotton quality and the procedures used to verify them. But, as Quark explains, China’s economic rise—as both the world’s largest domestic producer and its largest importer—is mounting a serious challenge to U.S. “sectoral hegemony” in cotton (Quark 2014). Although China has not succeeded in dislodging the United States from its dominant position, it has nevertheless achieved significant concessions in the form of revised standards and a more inclusive system of sectoral governance. Perhaps most significantly, the struggle over the cotton chain has weakened the hegemonic coalition on which U.S. dominance rests, insofar as the dominant private economic actors in the coalition—the transnational cotton merchants—are preparing for the possibility that a shift to Chinese hegemony will occur.
GLOBAL COMMODITY CHAINS AS MECHANISMS OF UPGRADING AND DEVELOPMENT
For Hopkins, Wallerstein, and Arrighi, as well as for the many scholars who work in the broad streams of world-systems analysis they forged, commodity chains are first and foremost mechanisms by which a stratified capitalist world-economy develops. Yet though this conceptualization of commodity chains has been a recurrent theme in the literature (see Bair 2014), it is also a contested one. Starting in the 1990s, Gary Gereffi and others associated with the GCC framework proposed a shift in research emphasis toward the study of contemporary global industries (see, e.g., Gereffi and Korzeniewicz 1994; Gereffi 1999). They argued that participation in commodity chains is a pathway for upward mobility for developing countries. This pivot toward studying commodity chains as
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opportunity structures facilitating development did not necessary entail a radical break with the precepts of world-systems analysis. Accepting the premise that all commodity chains include a combination of “core” activities (those earning relatively high returns) and “peripheral” activities (those earning relatively low returns), GCC scholars decided to study how the mix of activities occurring within the borders of a particular territory could change over time. Hence, within a particular, delimited unit—say, a country or region—a condition of economic development is increasing the ratio of core to peripheral activities occurring therein. The process of shifting to higher value-added activities soon became referred to as industrial upgrading. The concept of industrial upgrading, as developed by Gereffi, grew out of his earlier work, first on dependent development in Mexico (1983) and later on comparative industrialization trajectories in East Asia and Latin American (1990). He observed that one factor contributing to the relative success of East Asian countries as compared with their Latin American counterparts was the ability of the former to actively reposition themselves within and across commodity chains that linked them to foreign markets. Focusing on the garment industry, Gereffi (1999) argued that exporting countries such as Hong Kong and Taiwan used their participation in a low value-added, labor-intensive link in the apparel commodity chain to move “up” to higher value-added activities (such as design and product development) and “out” to other, more capital-intensive industries (such as electronics). The commodity chains linking retailers and brokers in the United States and Europe to local manufacturers based in Asia represented “potentially dynamic learning curves” that developing country–exporters could use to upgrade (Gereffi 1999, 39). This formulation of upgrading as a positive outcome of commodity chain participation reoriented the central research question of the field: rather than asking how commodity chain structure can reproduce global inequality at a systemic level, a growing set of scholars—many of whom came to the GCC paradigm not via world-systems theory but from economic geography, development studies, international business, and other social science fields—began studying how they could facilitate development at a unit level. Originally, Gereffi approached upgrading as a progression of export roles. Drawing from his work on the success of Asian manufacturers in the apparel commodity chain, he outlined a series of steps: from basic assembly subcontracting of imported components to a more demanding type of contract manufacturing, or “full-package” production, which involves some procurement activities as well as pre- and post-assembly activities; then to ODM, or own-design manufacturing, which involves delimited contributions of product development at the behest of lead firms; and then to OBM, or ownbrand manufacturing, which involves the design and marketing of apparel under one’s own label or brand (Gereffi 1999). As firms move up the chain, the barriers to entry become higher, meaning that there are fewer competitors and thus higher returns. In comparison, much of the apparel that is produced off-shore in Mexico and Caribbean countries is manufactured in maquiladoras, which are in-bond factories that assemble goods from imported components made in the United States. Since the barriers to entry
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in the assembly subcontracting link of the chain are low, so too are the returns to this export role.3 Implicitly, this scheme assumed that manufacturers needed to deepen and expand their capabilities and acquire new financial, material, or creative resources in order to progress through these successively more challenging export roles. Early efforts to operationalize the concept of upgrading extended this insight by identifying four different types of upgrading that can take place in commodity chains (Humphrey and Schmitz 2002): process upgrading (increasing efficiency by reorganizing the production process and/or introducing improved technology); product upgrading (moving into more complex or more sophisticated products); functional upgrading (acquiring new capabilities and/or expanding the repertoire of activities performed); and inter-sectoral or inter-chain upgrading (moving from a less skill- or capital-intensive chain to a higher one). The first three types describe a repositioning within or movement up a particular chain; the last category refers to switching from one chain to another. Although the last of these is more likely to occur at the level of a region or cluster as opposed to an individual firm, it translates into a commodity chain vocabulary the traditional notion of “ladder industrialization”— whereby economies move from labor-intensive light manufacturing to more capital- and/ or skill-intensive industries. Among the first empirical investigations of upgrading were several studies of the textile and apparel commodity chain in developing countries. Bair and Gereffi (2001) found that the passage of NAFTA, which introduced new rules of origin that allowed garments manufactured from fabrics originating in any of the signatory countries to enter the U.S. dutyfree, increased the interest of U.S. brands and retailers in sourcing from Mexico. Simultaneously, NAFTA paved the way for the transition of the maquiladora model, in which Mexican factories simply assembled garments from pre-cut pieces of imported fabric, to a qualitatively new kind of sourcing model. Fieldwork in the blue jeans–producing region of La Laguna, Mexico, yielded evidence of extensive functional upgrading. At the firm level, the region’s largest manufacturers developed the capabilities necessary to provide “full-package production” to an expanded set of U.S. clients. Rather than simple assembly, “full-package” producers procured or manufactured in-house all of the necessary inputs for garment production. At the regional level, growth in apparel exports spurred production in upstream and downstream links in the chain, including textile mills, cutting rooms, industrial laundries, and distribution centers. Judi Kessler’s (1999) research in a different area of Mexico yielded similar evidence of upgrading on the part of local firms, and, in a comparative study of the Indian textile and Kenyan horticultural sectors, Catherine Dolan and Meenu Tewari (2001) found that producers participating in GCCs experienced product, process, and functional upgrading. Although the foreign clients sourcing from local producers controlled activities such as design and distribution and imposed demanding criteria for their suppliers to meet in terms of product standards and quality requirements, the opportunity to work closely with these buyers “offers opportunities for learning and skill acquisition for those who
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are in the chain and some protection against substitution in the short term” (Dolan and Tewari 2001, 101). In addition to apparel (Pickles et al. 2006; Plankey-Videla 2005) and horticulture (Dolan and Humphrey 2001; Selwyn 2011), researchers have examined the prospects for upgrading in the commodity chains for autos (Humphrey and Memedovic 2003; Rothstein 2005), electronics (Hobday and Rush 2007; Sturgeon and Kawakami 2011), tourism (Tejada, Santos, and Guzman 2011; Bair 2011), aquaculture (Phyne and Mansilla 2003; Ponte, Kelling, and Jespersen 2014), and furniture (Ivarsson and Alvstam 2010; Kaplinsky, Readman, and Memedovic 2009). These studies yielded evidence of product, process, and functional upgrading, but they also generated a degree of skepticism about the developmental potential of commodity chains and upgrading therein.
THE CONTESTED TERRAIN OF COMMODITY CHAINS AS DEVELOPMENT PROJECT
The shift toward commodity chains as (potential) vectors of development spawned a robust stream of commodity chain research, which, since the 1990s, has grown into a vast interdisciplinary and increasingly policy-oriented literature of what are now more commonly referred to as global value chains (GVCs).4 Much of this literature documents the processes by which actors in a commodity chain leverage (or attempt to leverage) their participation in global production networks into positive outcomes, ranging from increased profitability or stability (for firms), greater value-added and generation of backward and forward linkages (for regions), and improved wages and working conditions (for workers). Yet this body of research yields mixed results. On the one hand, studies of upgrading across diverse industry and country contexts largely confirm that participation in commodity chains— and, more specifically, the inter-firm relationships linking local manufacturers in developing and emerging economies to foreign clients—provide opportunities for learning that firms can leverage to achieve process, product, and functional upgrading. On the other hand, many of the same studies underscore the limitations of upgrading as a model of development. Specifically, three main avenues of criticism have emerged.
WHO BENEFITS?
The first critique focuses on the narrowness of industrial upgrading, particularly with regard to the question of labor. It boils down to a single question: upgrading for whom? Even assuming that upgrading enables greater value capture at the firm level (a claim challenged by the second set of critiques discussed below), there is nothing in the upgrading paradigm that suggests how these benefits are likely to be distributed within the firm—either between capital and labor, or among workers. Calls for greater attention to the conditions of those at the “bottom of the chain” has been joined with a plea for a more multidimensional concept that would move beyond the narrow focus on industrial upgrading (Palpacuer 2008).
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In response to these criticisms, scholars of GVCs have expanded the upgrading concept to include a social dimension as distinct from the economic one (Barrientos, Gereffi, and Rossi 2011). Arianna Rossi (2013), for example, has applied this dual conceptualization of upgrading to her analysis of Moroccan apparel manufacturers, essentially examining empirically what had been assumed previously: that a positive relationship exists between economic upgrading at the firm level and social upgrading in terms of the wages, working conditions, and rights of workers. Rossi finds that the relationship between economic and social upgrading was more complicated than a linear upgradingas-improvement model would suggest. On the one hand, she finds that process upgrading, which can result in shorter through-put times, more effective use of the workday, and more accurate estimation of production schedules, helped reduce wage and hour violations associated with excessive overtime. But, on the other hand, she finds that functional upgrading at the firm level actually had negative implications for some workers; as garment manufacturers expanded into additional activities such as handling the logistics and packing and shipping finished garments, they found themselves dealing with sharply fluctuating demand for workers in these new links of the chain. Although firms were becoming the highly flexible, “full-package” suppliers sought after by clients, their ability to functionally upgrade was linked to the development of a secondary labor force whose employment conditions were irregular and precarious. In this sense, economic upgrading was linked to social downgrading, at least for one set of workers (Barrientos, Gereffi, and Rossi 2011; see also Anner, Bair, and Blasi 2013; Goto and Endo 2014). Other studies have generated similar findings, underscoring the degree to which upgrading may not be a uniform process but rather one that deepens or creates new forms of exclusion—particularly along lines of social difference, such as gender, race, and ethnicity (Barrientos 2001; Dolan 2002; Nakazibwe and Pelupessy 2014; Werner 2012). Research has also emphasized the degree to which small-scale producers may face bleaker upgrading prospects than their larger counterparts. Studies show that small and medium enterprises are often excluded from GVCs entirely; at other times they are incorporated, but in a subordinate and secondary position that offers them very little opportunity to increase their share of surplus (i.e., as a subcontractor to larger local firms connected to foreign buyers) (Bazan and Navas-Alemán 2004; Dolan, Harris-Pascal, and Humphrey 2001). Overall, upgrading is, at best, an uneven process, both within and between commodity chains. As Peter Gibbon has observed, this unevenness is one of the constituent features of upgrading, as there is “clearly a tradeoff between upgrading and exclusion, whose identification is one of the key elements of GCC analysis. If in certain GCCs the upgrading of a few (larger-scale) developing country producers seems to be accompanied by the marginalization of many (smaller-scale) others, then the positive implications for growth of dedicating resources to promoting involvement in these GCCs may be counterbalanced by negative implications for equity and perhaps also poverty reduction” (2001, 350).
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C O N F L AT I O N O F P R O C E S S A N D O U TC O M E
The second set of criticisms points to the conflation of upgrading as process and outcome and the need to disaggregate conceptually and empirically the relationship between the former and the latter. Simply put, upgrading does not necessarily produce benefits for suppliers in the form of increased profitability or stability, nor does it redress the power imbalance in the buyer-supplier dyad. Studies consistently find that, while suppliers can and do learn from their clients, the latter focus their lessons on particular abilities and skills—namely, those prized by the lead firms. Although process upgrading in particular can be a “win-win” scenario, lead firms are able to obstruct forms of supplier upgrading that would challenge their own power and profitability. In this sense, commodity chain participation represents “a double-edged sword. It facilitates inclusion and rapid enhancement of product and process capabilities,” but at the same time it “can lead to producers being tied into relationships that provide functional upgrading and leave them dependent on a small number of powerful customers” (Schmitz 2006, 566). This conclusion is echoed by Petr Pavlinek and Jan Zenka (2011), who use firm-level data such as turnover per employee, R&D expenditures as a percentage of value-added, and capital and labor productivity to assess upgrading among auto suppliers in the Czech Republic between 1998 and 2006. Although they find some limited evidence of product and functional upgrading, these outcomes were far less pervasive than process upgrading. Indeed, the authors suggest that, rather than a strategy for increasing value-added or moving up the chain, process upgrading is becoming a necessary (if not sufficient) condition of chain participation: “The cutthroat competition in the automotive industry compels firms to continuously improve production processes to enhance their overall efficiency and productivity that allow them to keep prices low while achieving high product quality” (Pavlinek and Zenka 2011, 581). Similarly, in a study of the electronics industry in Asia, Michael Hobday and Howard Rush (2007) discuss upgrading using an export role trajectory similar to the one that Gereffi (1999) introduced in his seminal research on upgrading in the GCC for apparel. They find that, between the 1960s and the 1990s, a few countries, such as Singapore, managed to move from assembly contracting to more sophisticated forms of manufacturing that included process engineering, product development, and R&D activities. Yet they find that this trajectory is not being replicated to the same degree in Thailand, where upgrading, though present, is more uneven. They conclude that upgrading is limited when lead firms tightly control overseas subsidiaries and suppliers. In such chains, “nonroutine engineering decision-making (e.g. the choice of capital goods, installation of machinery, new product development and process innovation) were undertaken by the parent. . . . Decisions not to develop technology within Thailand were not negative or obstructive, but were part of a coherent corporate strategy towards global markets and technologies” (Hobday and Rush 2007, 1354).
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As a result of these and similar findings underscoring the unevenness of upgrading outcomes, even within the same country or industry, researchers have turned their attention to identifying the factors that explain this variation (see, e.g., Goto and Endo 2014; Palpacuer, Gibbon, and Thomsen 2005). Hubert Schmitz and Peter Knorringa (2001) argue that the type of linkage connecting a local manufacturer to the GCC creates conditions more or less conducive to upgrading. They conclude that indirect sourcing—that is, via brokers or trading houses—creates more space for local firms to move into high value-added activities. Such activities include “intangibles” (design, marketing) that are the most lucrative niches in contemporary commodity chains and thus most closely guarded by lead firms. Yohanes Kadarusman and Khalid Nadvi (2013) go so far as to suggest that developing-country suppliers should seek opportunities to serve local, domestic, or emerging markets, where opportunities to move into “lead” roles within the chain may be greater. Mike Morris and Cornelia Staritz (2014) emphasize the importance of differentiating among lead firms when evaluating opportunities for and implications of upgrading. In a study of the Madagascar apparel industry, they find that Asian multinationals have little interest in upgrading, since their presence in the region is motivated by a desire to access the U.S. market under the preferential terms provided by the U.S. Growth and Opportunity Act. Because these companies can shift orders rapidly among an extensive network of owned and operated facilities and subcontractors scattered throughout world regions, their operations are loosely anchored in the locations serving as export platforms. Thus, their continued presence in any given country and region is contingent on the trade policy environment—a factor over which local stakeholders have little to no control. Morris and Staritz conclude that, in the case of Madagascar, apparel firms exporting to the European market, many of which are owned by Mauritians of French ancestry, are more sustainable and have more auspicious upgrading prospects than their Asian-owned counterparts exporting to the U.S. market. The trade-dependent nature of Asian-based commodity chains in Latin America led to similar pessimism about the upgrading prospects for firms in Central America, which became a more prized sourcing location after the passage of the Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement with the United States (Bair and Dussel Peters 2006). In short, the principal observation that emerges from this second stream of criticism is that upgrading is not a reliable means to the end of value capture because it is a process that tends to take place on terms set by lead firms. Leads firms are not likely to encourage, and may even prevent, suppliers from developing competencies that threaten their control over the chain.
E R O D I N G B A R R I E R S TO E N T RY
This brings us to the third criticism of upgrading: efforts to identify the conditions under which upgrading takes place are futile precisely because the very act of successful upgrad-
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ing erodes the barriers to entry that protect particular links in the chain, and thereby reduces the returns accruing to the incumbents of those links. Andrew Schrank (2004) drew this conclusion based on the finding that an ever larger number of apparel manufacturers in Latin America (and elsewhere) were transitioning from assembly subcontracting to full-package production, but these improved efficiencies and expanded capabilities did not result in improved outcomes, whether measured in terms of the unit value of exports (Schrank 2004), the financial position of the firm (Pickles et al. 2006), or even the firm’s very survival (Bair and Werner 2011). Schrank concluded that the declining returns to full-package producers were happening not in spite of widespread upgrading but precisely because of it: “A general theory of industrial upgrading is a contradiction in terms, for readily replicable development strategies are likely to undermine the oligopolistic underpinnings of developmentally nutritious sectors and are therefore likely to be devalued or ‘downgraded’ by the very act of diffusion” (2004, 125; see also Tewari 2006; Tokatli 2013). Benjamin Brewer (2011) accepts Schrank’s indictment of upgrading—but elevates this insight to an explanation for persistent inter-country income inequality (see also Arrighi, Silver, and Brewer 2003). For Brewer, the upgrading turn was, from the beginning, a misguided departure from the tenets of world-systems theory. Within this tradition, what is referred to as “national development” is, in reality, a description of unit mobility among the system’s stratified tiers. Thus, Brewer describes the upgrading paradox as one inherent to a “research program that is focused on unlocking the keys to successful commodity chain upgrading, but which is itself an offshoot of a theoretical framework that views ‘national development’ as a ‘illusion’ ” (2011, 312). Whereas Brewer recommends jettisoning the concept of upgrading, the thrust of Schrank’s critique pushes in the direction of greater attention to the political-economic and policy environments in which these networks operate. This conviction is shared by the many scholars who study Global Production Network (GPN), a framework that is closely analogous to that of the GCC and GVC approaches to understanding the developmental implications of globalization. Rooted primarily in economic geography, the GPN perspective emphasizes the territorial and institutional embeddedness of global networks—a term they prefer to chain, which is rejected as overly deterministic in its linearity and directionality (Coe, Dicken, and Hess 2008; Henderson et al. 2002). In place of the upgrading focus found in much research on GCCs, GPN scholars highlight the importance of “coupling” for positive development outcomes. Coupling refers to a kind of matching process between the assets—e.g., human, material, physical—of a particular location and the strategies of corporate actors. Successful coupling is an impediment to capital flight, because firms and industries that depend on local resources and assets are more likely to become rooted in situ. Unlike much commodity chain research, which, from the vantage point of GPN research tends to be overly firm-centric, scholars of GPNs emphasize the importance of non-firm actors as potential agents of coupling and, thus, development. These include state and local governments, public-private partnerships,
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industry associations, trade unions, and NGOs, among others. Yet despite variation in theoretical emphases, in practice there is considerable overlap between the methods, findings, and conclusions of GVC and GPN research. The concept of governance is central to both literatures, and in each it is the lynchpin connecting upgrading (or coupling) to development outcomes.
GCCS AS GOVERNED NETWORKS AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE GAINS THEREIN
Proposed as one of the three original dimensions of the GCC framework, governance refers to the “authority and power relationships that determine how financial, material, and human resources are allocated and flow within a chain” (Gereffi 1994, 97).5 In their review of the governance literature, Stefano Ponte and Timothy Sturgeon explain that “[t] he idea of governance in GVCs rests on the assumption that, while both disintegration of production and its re-integration through inter-firm trade have recognizable dynamics, they do not occur spontaneously. . . . Instead these processes are ‘driven’ by the strategies and decisions of specific actors. The relevance of GVC governance is that it examines the concrete practices, power dynamics, and organizational forms that give character and structure to cross-border business networks” (2014, 200). The precise formulation of chain governance has been a moving target. Gereffi’s (1994) original distinction between buyer and producer-driven commodity chains focused on developing the concept of buyer-drivenness. What was crucial to this formulation of governance was that buyers (rather than producers) set the conditions for accessing the chain and thereby appeared to determine the degree and distribution of returns as well. Examples include apparel (brands and retailers), footwear (marketers like Adidas and Nike), and horticultural chains, where the size and market power of large supermarkets “means that the decisions they take to win customers and comply with food standards regulations define what the other actors in the chain have to do” (Dolan, Harris-Pascal, and Humphrey 1999, 1). In each of these cases, lead firms specialize in “intangible” activities such as product design and development and marketing, contracting out the “tangible” activities of production to a set of independent contractors (Gereffi et al. 2001). In this context, driving the chain refers to deciding what is produced, where, by whom, and at what cost. In contrast, the returns to lead firms in producer-driven chains derive not just from their control of intangible activities such as research and development but also from their ownership of relatively scarce physical assets such as the capital goods needed to engage in complex manufacturing. Contributions in the early 2000s began to challenge the utility of this dichotomy, with researchers calling for an expanded typology of governance structures, especially outside of the manufacturing sector. Gibbon proposed that some agricultural chains were better described as “trader-driven,” insofar as international “trading companies play a coordinative role in these commodity chains” and “entry barriers to the trading function are very
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high” (2001, 350–52). That is, Gibbon understood governance as a demarcation of which actors were involved in coordinating economic activity in the chain, as well as which links in the chain captured the greatest returns, insofar as high entry barriers correspond to greater gains. Much like the original dichotomy, in trader-driven chains the lead firms both performed the key coordination functions and secured the highest returns. The first serious critique of the central organizing principle of GCC governance came from Timothy Sturgeon (2002), whose analysis of the electronics industry caused him to problematize the very concept of driven-ness. In the electronics industry, relations between lead firms and key suppliers were more symmetrical—it was not clear who was driving the chain per se, nor whether the returns to manufacturing were higher/lower than those to “buying.” Sturgeon initially called this mode of governance “relational,” roughly corresponding to the conceptualization of the “embedded” network in sociology. But, in 2005, Gereffi, Humphrey, and Sturgeon proposed a new scheme for categorizing value chain governance, where particular combinations of three variables—complexity, codifiability, and capabilities—produce five forms of governance: market, modular, relational, captive, and hierarchy. What Sturgeon had previously described as relational was now conceptualized as “modular,” with relational now referring to relationships in which transactions require a degree of asset-specificity that makes exchange partners mutually dependent on each other. This is in contrast to either modular networks, in which the absence of asset-specificity gives partners a degree of mutual independence, or captive networks, which refer to situations of asymmetrical dependence. What was particularly appealing to scholars of the newly branded GVC literature was that, first, there was now a range of governance types that seemed to do a better job capturing the observed variation in governance across value chains, and, second, governance was now understood as a dynamic process that would evolve with changes in any of the three key variables as opposed to ideal types associated with specific industries. Among the key differences between the original GCC and the new GVC modes of governance was that power asymmetry was a variable outcome of the latter. That is, power asymmetry was an inexorable characteristic of the GCC framework’s buyer-driven and producer-driven typology: the locus of power and the way in which it was exercised differed between these two types of governance, but buyers in buyer-driven chains were no less powerful than producers in producer-driven chains. In the new GVC typology, “power” varied with the type of governance: it progressed from low (market) to high (hierarchy) in the order implied above. The argument that inter-firm power asymmetry varies with governance is not only intuitive but also corresponds to inter-firm relations observed empirically, yet it is unclear whether or not the particular conceptualization of power in this formulation, and the characterization of the five governance types in terms of power, represents analytical progress (Bair 2005; Gibbon and Ponte 2005). First, power is conceptualized by Gereffi, Humphrey, and Sturgeon (2005) in terms of both the degree of power asymmetry between firms and the extent to which a single actor controls the production process. However, this leads to conceptual slippage across
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categories. For example, Gereffi and his colleagues (2005, 87) claim that the degree of explicit coordination and power asymmetry is highest in the hierarchy form of governance but, though it is clearly the case that a single firm has complete control over a production process when it is entirely internal to the firm, it is far less clear how this conception of power—the formal authority of administrative fiat within an organization—is comparable to the nature of power in relationships between firms. Second, and perhaps more fundamentally, by making governance an outcome of industry and process characteristics, the GVC scheme obfuscates the role of lead firms in developing and coordinating GVCs. The formation and governance of inter-firm networks are bound up with the competitive strategies of firms, and those with the ability to do so will use their relationships with other chain actors to secure their competitive position in an industry. This differential capacity of firms to shape chain dynamics was a premise of the earlier producer-driven and buyer-driven distinction, and it is in this sense that the reformulation of GVC governance operates with a blunted and underspecified sense of power. Thus, more recent theoretical work takes the basic insight that power is a variable characteristic of commodity chains as a point of departure and then attempts to understand why this is the case (Gibbon and Ponte 2005; Mahutga 2012, 2014a). One approach is to combine the initial GCC focus on barriers to entry with classic relational treatments of power in exchange networks (see, e.g., Cook 1977). In the original GCC formulation, it was simply taken as given that “increasing barriers to entry . . . exist as one moves along” the chain from supplier to lead firms (Bair 2005, 165). The link between entry barriers, firm power, and value capture was relatively under-theorized beyond the intuition that all three worked together to the benefit of lead firms. To more clearly specify the relationship between entry barriers to manufacturing and inter-firm bargaining power, or power asymmetry, Matthew Mahutga (2014a) begins by unpacking the concept of barriers to entry. First, the particular entry barriers often highlighted in the GCC literature—such as global brands, access to lucrative consumer markets, proprietary technology, and deep capital stocks—are resources that make commodity chains driven by lead firms attractive “markets” for suppliers. Second, the very concept of entry barriers presupposes that there are relatively few firms engaged in activities protected by high entry barriers and many firms engaged in activities protected by low entry barriers. Thus, entry barriers should also affect the relative supply of buyers and producers in different ways across industries. The relatively few firms protected by high barriers to entry should enjoy a high degree of bargaining power vis-à-vis the relatively abundant supply of potential exchange partners because the former “have both (1) a large number of partners with whom it would be possible to exchange; and (2) partners who are limited in their ability to exchange with alternative partners” (Mahutga 2014a, 161). Thus, entry barriers make leading firms attractive exchange partners for suppliers worldwide and also give them a degree of asymmetrical bargaining power vis-à-vis suppliers. This more recent exchange-theoretic conceptualization of governance recasts some of the GVC governance categories proposed by Gereffi, Humphrey, and Sturgeon (2005) in
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terms of the macro-structural dynamics giving rise to particularly types of dyadic exchanges. For example, an exchange-theoretic perspective would expect that “modular” value chains/networks, in which the ratio of the supply of buyers to producers approaches 1, have a relatively low degree of power asymmetry, and this expectation is consistent with the description by Gereffi and his colleagues of modular value chains. An exchangetheoretic approach leads to a different conceptualization of market governance than the one offered by the GVC paradigm, however. In Gereffi et al.’s framework, market governance arises in the context of low complexity, high codifiability, and high capabilities in the supply base. This formulation leads Gereffi et al. to claim that power asymmetries are lowest in markets because “the costs of switching to new partners are low for both parties” (2005, 83). Yet we would argue that the degree of power asymmetry in a market transaction cannot be determined a priori from the value of the complexity, codifiability, and capabilities variables; rather, power is a function of the exchange ratio between buyers and suppliers. In other words, when the number of suppliers is far greater than the number of buyers—a scenario consistent with the market form as they describe it—and thus the ratio of exchange partners is strongly skewed in the favor of the latter, an exchange-theoretic conceptualization of inter-firm power suggests that “market” governance is likely characterized by a significant degree of power asymmetry.6 This work is ongoing, but emergent exchange-theoretic conceptualizations of governance portend a shift in the way that academics and practitioners think about the causes and consequences of inter-firm power differentials in global commodity/value chains and production networks. This shift will, of course, have important implications for how the relationship between commodity chains and development is theorized and investigated. As we discussed above, conclusive developmental implications of GCC/GVC/GPNs are allusive, and part of the reason is that development is understood and operationalized at different scales and in different ways in different studies. What these exchange-theoretic conceptualizations of chain governance do is imply a more singular focus on the relative gains from participating in globally networked economic activities or, in other words, the distribution of the gains in GCC/GVC/GPNs. This, in turn, lends itself to two questions (Mahutga 2014b, 2014c). The first is rather consonant with the entire stream of literature dating back to the earliest GCC studies as they emanated from within the world-systems tradition: If most commodity chains are characterized by some degree of power asymmetry between firms, then to what extent do the gains enjoyed by the firms with power come at the expense of those with less power? Put differently, how do the relative developmental returns among chain participants vary across powerful and subordinate chain/network positions? The second type of question follows logically from differences in governance across particular chains/networks. Assuming that we can answer the first question posed above, to what extent do observed differences in returns to dominant and subordinate positions vary across chains with different types of governance, and to what degree do we need to
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examine other factors (such as institutional influences) to explain this variation? Empirically, the exchange-theoretic conceptualizations of chain/network governance emerging in the literature call for comparisons of developmental returns both across differentially positioned actors within similarly governed chains/network as well as across similarly positioned actors between differentially governed chains/networks. A final, enduring challenge for commodity chain scholars is to clarify how the distribution of returns to chain participants facilitates, delimits, or otherwise shapes the macro-processes of capital accumulation, economic growth, and improved well-being that are typically understood to connote development. As noted above, research seeking to identify and explain the relationships that exist between economic upgrading and social upgrading represent one such effort. Another research frontier is charting the ecological dimensions of upgrading and the environmental consequences of commodity chains as well as the degree to which these elements are implicated in governance dynamics (Bowen and Valenzuela Zapata 2009; Ciccantell and Smith 2009).
CONCLUSION
The commodity chain construct originated in world-systems analysis as a heuristic for understanding the production and reproduction of a stratified world-system and the structural necessity of underdevelopment in such a system. Later, it became central to explaining observed changes in the organization of the world manufacturing economy associated with the most recent round of economic globalization and the implications of these changes for less developed countries. As a result, the construct shifted from a description of macro-structural vectors of incorporation and stratification to a diagnostic of the potential for industrial upgrading made possible by economic globalization. This shift also eventuated a new terminology, as scholars subscribing to this formulation of chain as developmental opportunity structure came increasingly to refer to global value chains as opposed to global commodity chains. However, the transition of commodity chains to value chains arguably created more problems than it solved, insofar as it conflated firm-level upgrading with economic development. Thus, cases of successful upgrading can be read alongside cases of failure, and even cases of successful upgrading have ambiguous implications for economic development if upgrading is dependent on a small number of powerful lead firms, if successful upgrading strategies are undermined by their replication elsewhere, or if they do not “upgrade” the social position of workers and the larger community in which an upgrading firms is located. In short, the transition from commodity chain as vector of incorporation and stratification to value chain as mechanism of upgrading and economic development has created a set of paradoxes in need of explanation. To resolve these paradoxes, more recent research focuses on the implications of commodity/value chain/production networks not for their developmental implications per se but rather for how they distribute returns to the actors who participate in these organizational
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structures. One emergent project is an effort to make the degree of power asymmetry between lead firms and their suppliers the key explanandum. Here, the power of a lead firm vis-à-vis others in the network is theorized as a joint function of the scarcity and attractiveness of the resources the lead firm possesses and the number of exchange partners available to it. Networks in which lead-firm resources are both attractive and scarce, and in which lead firms have a large number of potential suppliers from which to choose, will be characterized by a higher degree of power asymmetry between lead and other participating firms. Alternatively, when lead firms do not have attractive/scarce resources, or the ratio of lead firms and suppliers is more balanced, inter-firm relations will be more symmetrical. The other emergent project is to treat the degree of power asymmetry among differentially governed chains/networks as the key explanans for the distribution of returns to commodity/value chains and production networks, where greater degrees of power asymmetry are expected to cause a more unequal distribution of the returns therein. We believe that this more recent research represents a promising direction, but it also raises a number of questions about how best to study commodity/value chains. Because these structures typically transcend national borders, the standard approach to studying them has been the qualitative case study, often involving interviews with lead firms and/ or fieldwork in (frequently distant) production sites. Although such studies have generated a wealth of knowledge and helped explicate some of the precise mechanisms underlying inter-firm governance, they are perhaps ill-suited to analyzing the distributional kinds of questions outlined above, especially at the macro-level. Commodity/value chains are also difficult to capture with statistical data collected and disseminated at the level of the nation state.7 Thus, future analysts will have to think creatively about how best to design qualitative research to capture the totality of a given commodity/value chain and to repurpose available quantitative data to measure things it was not designed to measure. We see these realities as opportunities rather than limitations and believe that the most illuminating research on global commodity/value chains is very much in front of us.
N OT E S
1. Consistent with the chain metaphor, many commodity chain scholars refer to the discrete segments of the chain as “links.” Hopkins and Wallerstein (1977) referred to these alternatively as “boxes” or “nodes.” The term “nodes” is particularly resonant with the morphology expressed in Hopkins and Wallerstein’s (1986) definition of the commodity chain as a “network of labor and production processes.” 2. See Chang 2002 for a discussion of the difficulties that contemporary development policies pose for semi-peripheral and peripheral countries trying to move up the commodity chain. 3. This discussion points to a unit-of-analysis problem that has long troubled the field of commodity chain research. Although the concept of export roles that Gereffi (1999) proposed suggests that countries upgrade—as in the suggestion that East Asian economies have been more successful than Latin American ones in moving from assembly subcontracting to
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full-package production—the discussion of how upgrading occurs makes clear that this is a process occurring at the firm, not country, level. See also Bair 2005. 4. Although the decision by a set of key scholars in the field to shift from the commodity chain to the value chain terminology is briefly discussed below, see Bair 2005 and Sturgeon 2009 for more detailed explanations and interpretations of the change. 5. Governance was later defined more narrowly as the “authority and power relations between firms,” and a new dimension—institutional context—was added to the GCC framework to capture the importance of the state and other non-firm actors that may influence commodity chains (Gereffi 1995, 133, emphasis added). 6. In fact, such conditions would seem to apply well to apparel—the classic buyer-driven commodity chain—and we know from empirical research on apparel that “the costs of switching are decidedly higher for producers than buyers” (Mahutga 2014a, 189; see also Anner, Bair, and Blasi 2013; Gibbon and Ponte 2005; Mahutga 2012). 7. The OECD-WTO Trade in Value-Added Initiative is a recent effort to better capture the nature of global production. As a rough approximation of GVCs in eighteen industries, it uses input-output tables to measure the participation of fifty-seven countries in integrated production networks. See http://www.oecd.org/sti/ind/measuringtradeinvalue-addedanoecdwtojointinitiative.htm.
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Ponte, Stefano, and Timothy Sturgeon. 2014. “Explaining Governance in Global Value Chains: A Modular Theory-Building Effort.” Review of International Political Economy 21, no. 1: 195–223. Quark, Amy. 2013. Global Rivalries: Standards Wars and the Transnational Cotton Trade. Chicago: Chicago University Press. . 2014. “Private Governance, Hegemonic Struggles, and Institutional Outcomes in the Transnational Cotton Commodity Chain.” Journal of World-Systems Research 20, no. 1: 38–63. Rossi, Arianna. 2013. “Does Economic Upgrading Lead to Social Upgrading in Global Production Networks? Evidence from Morocco.” World Development 46: 223–33. Rothstein, Jeffrey. 2005. “Economic Development Policymaking Down the Global Commodity Chain: Attracting an Auto Industry to Silao, Mexico.” Social Forces 84, no. 1: 49–69. Schmitz, Hubert. 2006. “Learning and Earning in Global Garment and Footwear Chains.” European Journal of Development Research 18, no. 4: 546–71. Schmitz, Hubert, and Peter Knorringa. 2001. “Learning and Earning in Global Garment and Footwear Chains.” European Journal of Development Studies 37, no. 2: 177–205. Schrank, Andrew. 2004. “Ready-to-Wear Development: Foreign Investment, Technology Transfer, and Learning-by-Watching in the Apparel Trade.” Social Forces 83, no. 1: 123–56. Selwyn, Ben. 2011. “Institutions, Upgrading and Development: Evidence from North East Brazilian Export Horticulture.” Competition and Change 12, no. 4: 377–96. Sturgeon, Timothy. 2002. “Modular Production Networks: A New American Model of Industrial Organization.” Industrial and Corporate Change 11, no. 3: 451–96. . 2009. “From Commodity Chains to Value Chains: Interdisciplinary Theory Building in an Age of Globalization.” In Frontiers of Commodity Chain Research, edited by Jennifer Bair, 110–35. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Sturgeon, Timothy, and Momoko Kawakami. 2011. “Global Value Chains in the Electronics Industry: Characteristics, Crisis, and Upgrading Opportunities for Firms from Developing Countries.” International Journal of Technological Learning, Innovation and Development 4, nos. 1–3: 120–47. Talbot, John, 2004. Grounds for Agreement: The Political Economy of the Coffee Commodity Chain. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield. Tejada, Pilar, Francisco Santos, and Joaquin Guzman. 2011. “Applicability of Global Value Chain Analysis to Tourism: Issues of Governance and Upgrading.” Service Industries Journal 31, no. 10: 1627–43. Tewari, Meenu. 2006. “Adjustments in India’s Textile and Apparel Industry: Reworking Historical Legacies in a Post-MFA World.” Environment and Planning A 38, no. 12: 2325–44. Tokatli, Nebahat. 2013. “Toward a Better Understanding of the Apparel Industry: A Critique of the Upgrading Literature.” Journal of Economic Geography 13, no. 6: 993–1011. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2000. “Introduction to the Special Issue on Commodity Chains in the World Economy, 1590 to 1790.” Review 23, no. 1: 1–13. . 2009. “Protection Networks and Commodity Chains in the Capitalist World-Economy.” In Frontiers of Commodity Chain Research, edited by Jennifer Bair, 83–89. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Werner, Marion. 2012. “Beyond Upgrading: Gendered Labor and the Restructuring of Firms in the Dominican Republic.” Economic Geography 88, no. 4: 403–22.
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is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Merced. His research centers on social movements. His articles have appeared in American Journal of Sociology, Mobilization, Social Forces, Social Problems, and other scholarly outlets. He is the author of Mobilizing Democracy: Globalization and Citizen Protest (2014; recipient of the 2015 Pacific Sociological Association’s Distinguished Scholarship Award) and Waves of Protest: Popular Struggle in El Salvador, 1925–2005 (2008), and is the coeditor of Latin American Social Movements: Globalization, Democratization and Transnational Networks (with Hank Johnston, 2006) and Handbook of Social Movements across Latin America (with Allen Cordero, 2015). He is currently a Fulbright Scholar affiliated with the National Autonomous University of Honduras. PA U L A L M E I D A
is Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Community Health and Behavioral Science at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. His research involves demographic and social processes in developing countries; recent examples include the relationship between migration and health in Thailand and Malawi, marriage dynamics in sub-Saharan Africa, and informal transfers systems in low-income settings. PHILIP ANGLEWICZ
J E N N I F E R B A I R is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia. She works at the intersection of global political economy and development studies. She is the editor of Frontiers of Commodity Chains Research (2009) and coeditor of Putting Labour in Its Place: Labour Process Analysis and Global Value Chains (2015) and Workers’ Rights and Labor Compliance in Global Supply Chains: Is a Social Label the Answer? (2013). Her journal publications include articles in Social Problems, World Development, Global Networks,
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Economy and Society, and Signs. Her current research focuses on the relationship between lead firm governance and development outcomes for firms, workers, and regions in global value chains. N I N A B A N D E L J is Professor of Sociology and Codirector of the Center for Organizational Research at the University of California, Irvine. Her work examines the social and cultural bases of economic phenomena, emotional embeddedness of economic action, determinants and consequences of globalization, and social change in post-socialist Europe. She is the (co)author or (co)editor of five books and articles published in American Sociological Review, Social Forces, and Theory and Society, among others. She serves as Editor of Socio-Economic Review, is on the Executive Council of the Society for Advancement of Socio-Economics, and is a member of the Research Committee on Social Transformations and Sociology of Development of the International Sociological Association (RC09). She is past Chair of the American Sociological Association’s Economic Sociology Section. D AV I D B . B I L L S is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Graduate Programs in the University of Iowa College of Education and Professor of the Sociology of Education. His research interests are in education and the workplace, labor markets, technological and organizational change, educational demography, and social inequality. He is the author of The Sociology of Education and Work (2004) as well as several edited volumes and journal articles. He has papers forthcoming in the Annual Review of Sociology and Research in Social Stratification and Mobility. He is collaborating on various projects with colleagues from Brazil, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Ukraine, Chile, and Albania. He is also collaborating with several colleagues on a project examining the non-cognitive determinants of success in post-secondary STEM programs, sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences. He recently completed a term as Editor of Sociology of Education. R A E L E S S E R B L U M B E R G is William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia. Her theories of gender stratification and gender and development illuminate much of her academic work; she has authored ca. 100 publications since Stratification: Socioeconomic and Sexual Inequality (1978). In her fieldwork, she has worked in forty-six countries, in virtually every sector of development, since being in the Peace Corps in Venezuela. In 2014–15, she was Chair of the American Sociological Association’s Sociology of Development Section. Her newest book, Crisis in Development: Threats to Human Well-being in the Global South and Global North (coedited with Samuel Cohn, 2015), emerged from the section’s second annual conference in 2012. Her forthcoming The Queen Midas Chronicles links her academic theories and work in international development.
scholarship is motivated by an interest in explaining the determinants of spatial inequality in more developed nations. In particular, he is interested in how processes of uneven national development shape opportunity structures and the life chances of people living in various types of areas. Space and locality are organizing principles in his work, and he views them as contingent social structures that affect social behavior, modifying overall social relationships. His work is focused in the United States, the United Kingdom, and in Central and Eastern Europe. D AV I D L . B R O W N ’ S
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B R E T T C L A R K is Associate Professor of Sociology and Sustainability Studies at the University of Utah. His research focuses on the political economy of global environmental change and the philosophy, history, and sociology of science. He teaches courses in the Department of Sociology, the Environmental Humanities Graduate Program, and the Environmental and Sustainability Studies Program. He is the coauthor of several books, including The Tragedy of the Commodity (with Stefano Longo and Rebecca Clausen, 2015), The Science and Humanism of Stephen Jay Gould (with Richard York, 2011), The Ecological Rift (with John Bellamy Foster and Richard York, 2011), and Critique of Intelligent Design: Materialism versus Creationism from Antiquity to the Present (with John Bellamy Foster and Richard York, 2008). He has published articles in American Journal of Sociology, Social Problems, Social Science Research, Theory and Society, Sociological Inquiry, Sociological Quarterly, and Organization and Environment, among other scholarly publications. S A M U E L C O H N is Professor of Sociology at Texas A&M University and is the founder and first President of the Sociology of Development Section of the American Sociological Association. He has written on gender and development in Victorian Britain and on the state and development in contemporary Brazil; he is working on the theory of late development as it applies to nations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. S A R A R . C U R R A N is Professor of International Studies and Public Affairs at the University of Washington. She investigates how social contexts, social categories, and social structures of power and hierarchies shape human behavior and how human behavior and human interactions reshape social contexts, social categories, and social structures. She focuses these general investigations around migration, gender, family, demographics, and ecological well-being in developing country settings, primarily in Southeast Asia and the United States. She employs methodological approaches that include quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods, and program evaluation. Currently she directs the University of Washington’s Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology. K I R S T E N D E L L I N G E R is Professor of Sociology and Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Mississippi. She is the coeditor of Gender and Sexuality in the Workplace (with Christine L. Williams, 2010) and has published articles in a variety of journals, including American Review of Sociology, Sociological Spectrum, Gender and Society, Gender Issues, Sexuality Research and Social Policy, and Social Problems.
research covers three related areas that include the sociology of education, social change, and the demography of inequality. A major focus in his current work is to refine existing frameworks for estimating the effects of demographic change on human capital formation and particularly on a range of socioeconomic outcomes that include schooling, income inequality, and economic development. He applies these frameworks to study global trends in socioeconomic inequality. In this research, he extends existing theoretical arguments (e.g., dilution, dividends) and methodological approaches (e.g., decomposition analysis). This work contributes to current policy efforts to expand schooling in developing countries but also to unanswered scientific questions about the consequences of demographic change. His empirical research combines national statistics and panel survey data. P A R FA I T E L O U N D O U - E N Y E G U E ’ S
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R E B E C C A J E A N E M I G H is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She specializes in comparative-historical, economic, and cultural sociology. She studies how cultural, economic, and demographic factors intersect to create long-term processes of social change. She uses historical perspectives and mixed methods to analyze the similarities and differences in social phenomena in the past and present. She is especially interested in a “view from below”—that is, how ordinary people affect social relations and, thus, the course of history. She is the author of The Undevelopment of Capitalism: Sectors and Markets in Fifteenth-Century Tuscany (2009) and Antecedents of Censuses from Medieval to Nation States: How Societies and States Count (Vol. 1) and Changes in Censuses from Imperialist to Welfare States: How Societies and States Count (Vol. 2) (with Dylan Riley and Patricia Ahmed, 2016), as well as multiple articles. She is on the Executive Committee of the Social Science History Association and is the past Chair of the Comparative/Historical Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association. K AT H L E E N M . FA L L O N ’ S interests lie within political sociology, international development, and gender studies. Specifically, she focuses on women’s social movements, women’s political rights, and democracy within sub-Saharan Africa as well as other developing countries. She has done in-depth field research within Ghana, examining how democratization influenced both women’s rights and the emergence of the women’s movement. Additionally, through comparative analyses and using both qualitative and quantitative methods, she has explored how types of democratic transitions influence women’s political representation. J E N N I F E R E . G I V E N S is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Utah State University. Her comparative international research focuses on environmental sociology, global inequality, and development. Her work has been published in Social Science Research, International Journal of Sociology, Human Ecology Review, and Organization and Environment.
is Professor and Chair of Sociology at McMaster University. His research examines development processes in several respects. First, he has pursued a multifaceted examination of the military and militarism—including impacts on development—with a focus on the U.S. military-industrial complex. Second, in collaboration with Chad Smith, he has examined the treadmill of destruction. This line of research is focused on the disastrous environmental legacy of war and militarism. Third, in collaboration with Linda Lobao and Ann Tickamyer (The Sociology of Spatial Inequality, 2007), he has examined spatial dimensions of development and underdevelopment. His articles have appeared in American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, Social Problems, Sociology of Development, and other scholarly outlets. He has served as Chair of the Sociology of Development Section (American Sociological Association). G R E G O RY H O O K S
R O S E M A RY L . H O P C R O F T is Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. She has published widely in the areas of evolutionary sociology and comparative and historical sociology in journals that include American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, Evolution and Human Behavior, and Human Nature. Most recently, she is the author of Evolution and Gender: Why It Matters for Contemporary Life (2016).
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H O - F U N G H U N G is Associate Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University. He researches global political economy, neoliberalism, protest, and nationalism. He is the author of the award-winning Protest with Chinese Characteristics (2011) and of The China Boom: Why China Will Not Rule the World (2015). His articles have appeared in, for example, American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Development and Change, New Left Review, Review of International Political Economy, and Asian Survey.
is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Mississippi. He is the author of The Globalizers: Development Workers in Action (2007) and has published in various periodicals, including Journal of International Development and Journal of Intercultural Studies. Together with colleagues Kirsten Dellinger, Kathryn McKee, and Annette Trefzer, he is a member of the University of Mississippi Faculty Working Group on the Global South, which began in the fall of 2005 with a grant from the University of Mississippi Office of Research. The group has brought a number of speakers to campus, hosted workshops, presented at conferences, and participated in faculty forums featuring its collective work, particularly as it has pertained to a shared interest in the U.S. South, especially Mississippi. Membership in the working group has necessarily fluctuated over time, as faculty have left the university or become invested in different projects. Jackson, Dellinger, Trefzer, and McKeeremain the group’s core but owe a debt of gratitude to earlier collaborative efforts with their colleagues. J E F F R E Y T. J A C K S O N
A N D R E W K . J O R G E N S O N is Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies at Boston College. The primary area of his research is the political economy and human ecology of global environmental change. His current collaborative research on the facility-level and country-level factors that shape power plant carbon emissions is funded by the National Science Foundation. His peer-reviewed research appears in such journals as American Journal of Sociology, Nature Climate Change, Social Problems, Social Forces, Climatic Change, Social Science Research, Global Environmental Politics, Ecological Economics, and Sustainability Science. He is the Chair-elect of the Environment and Technology Section of the American Sociological Association (ASA), a member of the ASA’s Task Force on Global Climate Change, an at-large officer for the Society for Human Ecology, and a council member for the Sociology of Development Section of the ASA. He is the founding coeditor of the journal Sociology of Development, published by the University of California Press. K I M KO R I N E K is Associate Professor of Sociology and Associate Director of the Asia Center at the University of Utah. She has also been a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Asia Research Institute and Centre for Family and Population Research. Her research examines the mutually transformative effects of social demographic changes, like population aging and population mobility, and individual and family-level experiences of support, living arrangements, socioeconomic mobility, healthcare utilization, and other outcomes related to well-being. M A RY M . K R I T Z is Honorary Fellow at the Center for Demography and Ecology, Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her research focuses on migration and development, international student mobility, immigration policy, and national origin differences in immigrants’ settlement and integration processes. She has served as a faculty
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member at Cornell University, program officer at the Rockefeller Foundation, SecretaryGeneral and Treasurer of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, Editorial Board member of International Migration Review, and consultant to several governmental and private foundations. L Á S Z L Ó J . K U L C S Á R is Professor of Sociology and Department Head of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work at Kansas State University. His field of expertise is social demography, with a particular emphasis on migration, urbanization, aging, and regional development. He does research on population dynamics and community development in rural areas, focusing on aging and natural resource use. He also studies the social and demographic transformation of post-socialist Eastern Europe from a historical perspective. Prior to his academic career, he was a consultant on various European Union rural development projects and worked in the poll opinion industry in Hungary.
is Professor of Sociology at the University at Albany, State University of New York. He is the author of Capitalists in Spite of Themselves: Elite Conflict and Economic Transitions in Early Modern Europe (2000) and States and Power (2010). He is currently writing a book entitled First Class Passengers on a Sinking Ship: Elite Privilege and the Decline of Great Powers, 1492–2015, which examines the decline of dominant economic and military powers in early modern Europe and the contemporary United States. He is also researching media coverage of war deaths in the United States and Israel from the 1960s to the present. RICHARD LACHMANN
L I N D A L O B A O is Professor of Rural Sociology, Sociology, and Geography at the Ohio State University. She coedited The Sociology of Spatial Inequality (with Gregory Hooks and Ann Tickamyer, 2007) and is currently Coeditor of The Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy, and Society. She is a past President of the Rural Sociological Society and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. P E T E R L O E B A C H is Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology at Weber State University. His research is in the areas of development, migration from developing communities, and individual and community recovery from natural disasters. His most recent works examine livelihoods as determinants of disaster resilience and migration as a livelihood response to natural disasters. His secondary interests include long-term health outcomes in war veterans in developing countries. M AT T H E W M A H U T G A’ S research interests lie at the intersection of global/transnational and economic sociology, political economy, stratification, and development. Most of his work examines the organizational features of economic globalization and the consequences of these and related social processes for economic development and stratification. The particular empirical and theoretical questions he asks require varying empirical contexts to answer. For example, questions orienting his work on the world-wide diffusion of globally networked models of economic organization sometimes require comparisons of cases within the “command and control” center of these organizational structures, and at other times require comparisons between these central actors and other types of network participants. Other projects focus more narrowly on post-socialist transition countries, both because there are many interesting explananda intrinsic to the transition process, and
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because transition provides a historically novel context with which to examine questions about the developmental and distributional consequences of social change more generally. Because his substantive foci involve historical social change, nearly all of his empirical examinations are longitudinal. And, though data is central to his scientific enterprise, he also finds it necessary to engage in pure theoretical work and to develop new methodological tools with which to pursue the empirical questions that follow from it. is Reader in the Development Studies Department of SOAS, University of London, where she teaches security to undergraduates and postgraduates. She has researched extensively in countries affected by conflict in Africa and is the author of Not Breaking the Rules, Not Playing the Game: International Assistance to Countries at War (2006). More recently, she has focused on the relationship between security and development in the Democratic Republic of Congo, publishing on demobilization and the imposition and pursuit of security, as evidenced in her book Formal Peace and Informal Wars: Security and Development in Congo (2013). ZOË MARRIAGE
K AT H RY N M C K E E is McMullan Associate Professor of Southern Studies and Associate Professor of English at the University of Mississippi. She is the coeditor of American Cinema and the Southern Imaginary (with Deborah Barker, 2011), and her articles have appeared in various journals, including American Literature, Legacy, Southern Literary Journal, and Mississippi Quarterly. VA L E N T I N E M . M O G H A D A M is Professor of Sociology and Director of the International Affairs Program at Northeastern University. Born in Tehran, she previously taught at Purdue University and Illinois State University and was a staff member at UNESCO and at the United Nations University’s WIDER Institute in Helsinki. Her recent publications include Globalization and Social Movements: Islamism, Feminism, and the Global Justice Movement (2009, 2013) and Globalizing Women: Gender, Globalization, and Transnational Feminist Networks (2005), which won the American Political Science Association’s Victoria Schuck Award in 2006 for best book on women and politics. The revised third edition of Modernizing Women: Gender and Social Change in the Middle East appeared in 2013. A N O U K P AT E L - C A M P I L L O is Assistant Professor of Gender, Development and Globalisation in the Gender Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her substantive research interests in global political economy focus on issues including economic restructuring, governance and regulation, gender and labor, and value chains. Her approach to the examination of global processes and its implications on people and places is comparative, interscalar, and regional. Her work has been published in flagship journals, including Economic Geography, Review of International Political Economy, Feminist Studies, and Territory, Politics, Governance.
got his first exposure to tropical rain forests right after college, when he worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Ecuadorian Amazon. After earning a Ph.D. in Sociology, he carried out a series of studies of the social forces that have caused the recent destruction of so many tropical forests. He has written two books and more than twenty articles on the loss of tropical forests. These studies have included detailed, village-level THOMAS K. RUDEL
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studies in the Ecuadorian Amazon as well as quantitative analyses at the global scale. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Human Ecology and Sociology at Rutgers University and President-elect of the Rural Sociological Society. E L I Z A B E T H S O W E R S is Assistant Professor in the Sociology Program at California State University, Channel Islands. Her research interests are in the areas of work, globalization, and economic sociology, with a specific focus on investigating working conditions within the logistics—or goods movement—industry. She is the coauthor of Economy and State: A Sociological Perspective (with Nina Bandelj, 2010) as well as articles and book chapters on critical capitalist commodity chains (with Paul Ciccantell and David Smith), intimacy and economy (with Nina Bandelj and Paul James Morgan), work and neoliberal globalization (with Nina Bandelj and Kristen Shorette), and global economic networks (with Nina Bandelj and Kristen Shorette).
is a former field epidemiologist and nurse. His research has focused on the effect of economic and non-economic shocks and reciprocity burdens on physical and mental health in resource-deprived settings. JOSHUA STROUD
A D A M S Z I R M A I is Professorial Fellow at UNU-MERIT and Professor of Development Economics at Maastricht University. His research focuses on technological change, productivity, growth, and industrialization in developing economies. His recent books include Socio-Economic Development (2d ed., 2015), Pathways to Industrialisation in the 21st Century (coedited with Wim Naudé and Ludovico Alcorta, 2013), and Structural Change and Industrial Development in the BRICS (coedited with Wim Naudé and Nobuya Haraguchi, 2015). A N N R . T I C K A M Y E R is Professor of Rural Sociology, Sociology, and Women’s Studies, and Head of the Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education in the College of Agricultural Sciences, at the Pennsylvania State University. Her research focuses on rural poverty, inequality and livelihoods, gender and development, and social welfare provision in the United States and Indonesia. Currently, she is conducting research on gender and climate change in REDD+ projects in Southeast Asia. She has published more than sixty journal articles and four books. She is a past President of the Rural Sociological Society and a past Editor of its flagship journal, Rural Sociology. A N N E T T E T R E F Z E R is Associate Professor of English at the University of Mississippi. She is the author of Disturbing Indians: The Archaeology of Southern Fiction (2006) and is currently at work on a monograph about Eudora Welty’s photographs. She has published articles in American Literature, Journal of American Studies, and Mississippi Quarterly, and she has edited four volumes of essays in the Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Series, University Press of Mississppi. M A R K VA N L A N D I N G H A M is the Thomas C. Keller Professor at Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. He has led several studies investigating a wide range of population and health issues, including how migrants fare at destination, how immigrants fare after a major disaster, and how the HIV epidemic affects the well-being of the elderly.
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J O C E LY N V I T E R N A is Associate Professor of Sociology and Co-director of the Transnational Studies Initiative at Harvard University. Her research examines how social mobilization affects gender norms and gender practices in states, in warfare, in institutions, and in communities. Currently, she is investigating the recent “backslide” in abortion rights in Latin America, asking what caused the reversal and how the new legislation is affecting the impoverished women it targets. Her articles have been published in such journals as American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Politics and Gender, and Latin American Research Review. Her multiple-award-winning book, Women in War: The Micro-processes of Mobilization in El Salvador, was published in 2013. D I N G X I N Z H A O is Max Palevsky Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago and Qianren Jihua Visiting Professor at Zhejiang University. His research covers the areas of historical sociology and political sociology. His interests also extend to sociological theory and methodology. He has published in American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Sociology, Problems of Post-Communism, and China Quarterly. He is the author of two books in English—The Power of Tiananmen: State-Society Relations and the 1989 Beijing Student Movement (2001) and The Confucian-Legalist State: A New Theory of Chinese History (2015)—and four books in Chinese: Social and Political Movements (2006), Eastern Zhou Warfare and the Rise of the Confucian-Legalist State (2006), Limits of Democracy (2012), and State and War: A Comparative Analysis of Chinese and European Historical Development (2015).
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INDEX
Abel, Jaison, 250–51 Abel, Wilhelm, 608 aboriginal populations, 120n7 Abramovitz, Moses, 99, 115, 116 absolute poverty, 95, 132, 133, 141 absorptive capacities, 101, 112, 115–19 Abu-Lughod, Janet, 555, 621 accumulation by dispossession, 468 Acemoglu, Daron, 99, 103, 113, 114, 117, 612 Acharya, Meena, 159–60, 174 Addario, Lynsey, 131 Adjustment with a Human Face (Cornia, Jolly & Stewart), 110 Adler, Emily, 25 advantages of technological backwardness theory, 115–17 Afghanistan: discount factors, 162; educational gender gap, 157; fertility rates, 167; and FLFP, 166; gender inequality, 156, 166–67; as Global South country, 134; invasion of, 451, 453; research methodology in, 180n35; revolution in, 424; UNDP projects in, 166; universities, 353; warfare in, 451, 510 Afghanistan National Development Program, 166
Afghanistan National Development Strategy, 166 Africa, 429n9; Ebola outbreak, 224, 233–34, 237; economic performance divergence, 95–96; and education, 215; education systems, 98; flower sales, 176n2; free markets, 9; Global South countries in, 134; land laws, 179nn27–28; peace agreements, 512–14, 516–18; public health in, 232; women in agriculture in, 23; world population, share of, 613fig.25.5. See also Africa, sub-Saharan; African conflicts, sub-Saharan; MENA Africa, sub-Saharan: and education, 348fig.14.4; female labor, 27; field research in, 36; HIV/ AIDS, 168; hoe cultivation in, 177n11; horticultural cultivation, 179n26; national governments in, 203; north-south fault line, 509–10; poverty in, 33, 97; women’s coping strategies in, 29 African conflicts, sub-Saharan: civil wars, 509; Cold/post-Cold War and, 506–8; conclusions, 520–22; Congo, Democratic Republic of, 514–20; millennial priorities, 511–14; new world order/disorder, 508–11; overview, 505–6
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Agency for International Development, U.S., 23 Age of Enlightenment, 49, 50, 51 age structures: conclusions, 218–19; and demographic dividend, 213–18; development effects on, 210–11; development effects on population change, 208–10; and economic growth, 62; effects on development, 211–13; overview, 207–8 agglomerations, 105, 250, 272, 294, 295 Aghion, Philippe, 243, 257nn3–4 AGIL scheme, 396 Agnew, John, 303 agriculture: agrarian patriarchy, 28; farming systems, 163–64; and globalization/ neoliberalism, 201–2; intensification/ population pressure, 58; and land use, 200–202; plantation, 544n2; and rural-urban migration, 10; studies on, 543n1; sustainable, 10; and women’s marginalization, 10, 23, 33–34, 39n1 Ahmed, Fauzia, 176n5 AIDS. See HIV/AIDS Albritton, Robert, 583 Alderson, Arthur, 274, 560 Algeria, 134, 166, 199, 428n7 Allen, Robert, 600, 606, 607, 609 Almeida, Paul, 87n4, 274, 283, 528–50 Amazonia region: Brazilian, 201, 276; Ecuadorean, 276; European settlement of, 199; location of, 295; regional development of, 268, 269, 302; subnational development, 294; uneven development, 285 American Indians, 120n7 American Medical Association (AMA), 237n2 American Public Health Association, 237n2 American Statistical Association, 237n2 Amin, Samir, 23 Amsden, Alice, 109, 472 Andean Trade Preference Act, 155 Andersen, Mikael, 73 Andrade, Tonio, 622 Anglewicz, Philip, 224–40 Angola, 199 anticommunist ideology, 506, 536 antiglobalization processes, 9 anti-Manchu expression, 639n30 anti-retroviral therapies, 178n21
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Appalachia: perceptions of, 304–6; as persistent poverty area, 140, 276; as regional development, 268; as subnational regional development, 269, 273, 293, 294, 296, 297 Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), 285, 304 Arab Spring, 37tab.1.1, 38, 477, 530 Arestis, Phillip, 563 Argentina, 99, 357n5, 472, 535 Arrighi, Giovanni, 468–69, 555, 582, 612, 647, 648 Asia: 21st century violence, 450; agrarian capitalism, 577–78; agricultural exports, 532; apparel industry, 649; Asian financial crisis (1997), 9, 31, 490; and capitalism, 621; capital stock growth in, 108; catch-up growth countries, 95; civil wars, 455; and Cold War military presence, 447; collective action, 543; commodity chains, 654; contemporary peripheral countries of, 137; decolonization, 530; demographic changes in, 598–99, 613–14; divergence of developing countries in, 96; and ecological modernization theory, 73; economic performance divergence, 95–96; and education, 345, 347, 348fig.14.4, 350–52, 356; electronics industry, 653; entrepreneurship, 403; and European/American experiences, 5; and global economic crisis, 492; globalization, 555; Global South countries in, 134; great divergence, 601–3; highly skilled emigration rates, 315; industrialization of, 522, 586–87; labor migration, 321, 323, 364–66, 376; migrants in, 314; monoculture rebellions, 534; population growth, 345; postwar era, 447; privatization, 540; and SAPs, 507; secessionist movements, 199; state controlled economy of, 478; state/ warmaking interplay, 443; and superpowers, 506; and transitions to capitalism, 586–88; transitions to democracy, 421; urban expansion, 194; urban migration, 536; women’s inequality in, 158; world systems approach, 8; and WTO evasions, 473. See also East Asia; Southeast Asia; specific countries Asian Tigers. See East Asian Tigers
Aulette, Judy, 134–35 Australia: aboriginal populations, 120n7; bilateral kin/property systems, 178n18; colonialism, 103; as core country, 136; and education, 347; as G20 member, 357n5; natural resources, 98 Autler, Lilian, 372 Babb, Sarah, 558–59 Babones, Salvatore, 562 Bacon, Francis, 630 Bair, Jennifer, 645–66 Baires, Sonia, 372 Bakker, Karen, 474 Baldwin, Norman, 244, 252, 256 Ballmer-Cao, Thanh-Huyen, 560
Blair, Tony, 477 Blanchard, Troy, 273 Blaut, James, 621 Blaydes, Lisa, 172–73 Blee, Kathleen, 305 Blood, Robert, 159 Bloom, David, 209 Bluestone, Barry, 279 Blumberg, Rae Lesser, 11, 33, 34–35, 153–89 Blumstein, Philip, 159 Boeke, Julius H., 102 Bolak, Hale, 28 Bolivia, 137, 141, 200, 400, 467, 540, 541 Bonacich, Edna, 371 Bonini, Astra, 274 boomerang effect, 197
Bandelj, Nina, 553–76 Bangladesh: and education, 350; and environmental crises, 479; garment factory disaster, 31; Grameen Bank, 155, 170, 179n30; immigrants, 362; life expectancy, 141; and MFIs loans, 179n33; microfinance, 173–74, 176n5, 179nn31,33; as peripheral country, 137; U.N. Human Development Index, 137; women’s economic power, 154, 155–56, 170, 176n5 Bangwayo-Skeete, Prosper, 245 Baran, Paul, 23 “Bargaining with Patriarchy” (Kandiyoti), 29 Barrero, Mario, 324 Barro, Robert, 255 Beck, E. M., 284 Becker, Gary, 59, 106 Becker, Marc, 533 Beijing Declaration (1995), 32 Benavot, Aaron, 255 Bennett, Lynn, 159–60, 174 Berlepsch, Viola von, 278 The Better Angels of Out Nature (Pinker), 449 Bieling, Hans-Jurgen, 563 bilateral kin/property systems, 164, 178n18 Billings, Dwight, 305 Bills, David, 241–62 Bils, Mark, 242 binding constraints identification, 99, 115, 117 biofuels, 201, 513, 543 birth rates, 61–62, 456, 604 black belt region, 285, 294
Booth, David, 273 Borlaug, Norman, 55 Bornschier, Volker, 560 Borrelli, Stephen, 244, 252, 256 Boserup, Ester, 23, 25, 58, 59, 114, 211 Botswana, 95, 98 bottom-up/top-down dynamic, 13, 144, 146, 148, 425 Bourdieu, Pierre, 272, 470 bourgeoisie ideologies, 400, 624, 626–28, 630–31, 634, 636, 637nn14,16 Boyd, Monica, 368 BRAC (NGO), 155, 170 Bracero Treaty, 365, 368 Brady, David, 273 brain drain rate, 323, 326, 347 Brandon, Pepijn, 586 Braudel, Fernand, 637n11, 637n13 Brazil: as BRICS country, 36, 81, 357nn4–5, 512; CCTs (conditional cash transfers), 174; and collective action, 536, 540, 541; debt crisis, 409; democracy, participatory direct, 425, 474; as developing country, 99; economic performance divergence, 96–97, 97fig.4.1; and education, 347, 355, 537; and FLFP, 25; and foreign capital dependency, 399–400; forest transitions and urbanization, 194; as G20 member, 357n5; as Global South country, 134; import substitution industrialization, 535; and investments, 401–3; and land use, 200–201; life expectancy, 131, 141; national innovation systems, 354; and
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Brazil: as BRICS country (continued) natural resource export, 485; and neoliberalism, 466, 474, 478; and physical infrastructure, 406–7; poverty/plenty mixture in, 133, 139; and privatization, 472; as semiperipheral country, 137; uneven development, 276 Brenner, Neil, 303–4, 474–75 Brenner, Robert, 579, 583 Brewer, Benjamin, 138, 655 BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries, 36, 38, 81, 357nn4–5 Bridges, Gavin, 301 Britain: Department for International Development, 511; economic/quality-of-life indices comparison, 637n10; as G20 member, 357n5; General Board of Health, 237n2; as Global North country, 134; international trade expansion, 200; as island, 113; London Epidemiological Society, 237n2; Nairobi settlers from, 199; seventeenthcentury, 5; sixteenth-century, 211; social debates of, 407; tariff use, 405; Victorian, 2, 119n3. See also Industrial Revolution Broadberry, Stephen, 604, 608 Brown, David L., 207–23, 235 Brown, R. G., 230 Bryant, Joseph, 623 Bucharest, Romania, 55, 64, 212 Bunker, Stephen, 79, 273, 302 Burgess, Ernest, 192 burqa, 167, 178n20 Bush administration, 453, 467, 539 Cairo, Egypt, 60, 64, 212 Caldwell, John, 210, 225 Calhoun, Craig, 612 California school, 622–25, 636n1 Calvin, John, 633 Calvinism, 637n16 Cameron, David, 408 Cameroon, 177n13, 535 Canada: colonialism, 103; as core country, 136; and education, 345, 347, 348fig.14.4; as G20 member, 357n5; and institutional evolution, 113; welfare state development, 466 Canning, David, 216
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Canton, E., 258n8 capability approach, 13 capital: availability of, 13, 55; as basic resource, 55; capital accumulation, 6, 12, 27, 36, 74–75, 98, 105; capital investments, 118, 120, 120n11, 303, 354; ethnic capital, 362, 369, 374–78; foreign capital investments, 106, 364, 365 Capital (Marx), 5, 271 capitalisms: Asia, transition to in, 586–88; capitalist economy, 33; capitalist wage sector, 10; capitalist world system, 36; conclusions, 591–92; conflict with environment, 74; Eastern/Central Europe transition, 588–91; and education, 257n1; effects on women, 24; and feminist development sociology, 22; and FLFP, 36; and housewifization, 24, 34; and patriarchy, 28; and sexual division of labor, 24; transitions overview, 577–78; transitions theories, 578–82; transitions theories, region applications of, 582–86; and WAD, 24, 39n1. See also industrial capitalism Capo, Jordi, 253 Capo-Vicedo, Josep, 253, 258n10 Caprioli, Mary, 165, 174 Caraway, Teri, 39n4 carbon intensity, 14, 70, 82–86 Card, David, 379 Cárdenas, Lázaro, 533 Cardoso, Fernando Henrique, 5, 23, 273, 299, 409 CARE, 429n15 Caribbean, 36, 348fig.14.4 Carter administration, 464 Caspar, Steven, 253 Castles, Stephen, 329 catch-up growth: in Asia, 95; and intellectual property rights, 99; postwar era, 115–18; rate of, 98; and technology, 112 Catholic Church, ?, 171 Cauresma, Jesus, 247, 255 CCTs (conditional cash transfers), 176n4, 176n5 CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination), 428n2 census data, use of, 25, 55 Centeno, Miguel, 445, 457 Central Europe, 588–91
central place theory, 191–93, 202 Chabbott, Colette, 255, 340 Chad, 535 Chadwick, Edwin, 228 Chafetz, Janet, 33, 34–35 Chang, Ha-Joon, 109, 405, 469 Charles, Aurelie, 563 Chase-Dunn, Christopher, 136–37, 560 Chávez, Hugo, 400 Chávez administration, 99, 474 Chibber, Vivek, 404, 557 child mortality, 96tab.4.1; decline of, 95; high-income/least developed countries, 237n5; as UN goal, 64; and women’s income, 179n25 children: child migration crisis, US, 331n1; in
state, 638n21; trade and market-regulated behavior, 637n14; Western colonialism comparison, 638n19; women’s urban migration, 31; and world economic development, 636n5. See also Chinese financial crisis; Great Divergence Chinese financial crisis: China’s developmental model, 486–92; and Chinese stimulus, 492–97; conclusions, 499–500; expectations of, 500n3; overview, 485–86; sustainable growth prospects, 497–99 Chirac administration, 470 Christianity, 171, 637nn15–16 Ciccantell, Paul, 79 CIRI Human Rights database, 33 The City (Weber), 271
Confucian tradition, 638n28 Chile, 429n12, 472 China: aggressive Inner Asia policies, 638n19; average rural household income, 498fig.20.5; as BRICS country, 36, 357nn4–5; catch-up growth, 116, 118; Chinese inventors/scientists, 638n24; coercive one-child policies, 63; Confucian tradition, 98, 638nn24,28; consumption, 496fig.20.4; and corruption, 98; developmental model, 493fig.20.1; economic performance divergence, 95, 97, 97fig.4.1; economy of, 636n5, 637n10; and education, 357n7; emperors, 637n9; exports, 496fig.20.4; fertility decline in, 62; as G20 member, 357n5; GDP, 119n1, 496fig.20.4; as Global North/Global South country, 134; imperial economic development, 637n8; imperial state and technological development, 638n21; intellectual history of imperial, 639n31; inventors/scientists, 638nn24–25; investments, 496fig.20.4; merchant class, 637nn7,14; Ming dynasty, 637n12, 639n31; overseas expansion, lack of, 638n19; palm oil industry, 197; political scale, imperial economic development facilitated by, 637n8; population trends, 64; purchasing manager index, 494fig.20.2; Qing dynasty, 639nn30,31; rapid growth in, 98; as semiperipheral country, 137; social engineering, 64; technological development and imperial
civil wars: African conflicts, sub-Saharan, 509; Civil War, US, 237n2; civil war onset, 455tab.18.1; sub-Saharan Africa, 509 Clark, Brett, 69–94 Clark, Gregory, 608–10 Clark, Rob, 561 Clark, Roger, 25 class alliance theory, 5 classical economics, and population, 50, 51 class relationships: changes in, 114; class polarization, 36; and resource access, 108; as ultimate factor, 100, 110, 111 climate change, 38, 61, 82–84 Clinton administration, 467 clothing production: female labor force preference, 26; garment factory disaster, 31; measurement of primary source of, 10; in world market factories, 25 Coale, Ansley, 59, 209, 210, 211, 226 Cohn, Samuel, 1–18, 393–413 Cold War era: and sub-Saharan African conflict, 506–8; and Third World importance, 53–54 collective action: in Brazil, 536, 540, 541; constraints on, 531; and economic development, 35, 38, 529tab.22.1; in Ecuador, 533; and GAD, 35–36; and Global South economic development, 529–30; in India, 534, 540, 541 Collier, Paul, 98, 442, 458 Collins, Patricia Hill, 148 Collins, Randall, 586 Colombia, 193
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colonialism: bilateral kin/property systems, 178n18; in China’s aggressive policies in Inner Asia, 638n19; colonial/neocolonial exploitation theories, 99; colonial regimes, 198–99; colonization programs, 200; inclusive/extractive structures, 103; land use, 198–99; population as element of, 50 Commission on Population and Development, U.N., 49 commodity chains, 27, 36, 645–66 Commodity Chains and Global Capitalism (Gereffi & Korzeniewicz), 645 commodity markets, 30, 96tab.4.1 communist countries, 428n7; Communist China, 488, 497, 610, 612, 636n5; economic history of, 636n5; Soviet Union (former), 57, 636n5; threat from, 53; urban migration, 63 Communist party, 418–19, 507, 532, 533, 534 comprador state, 397–99 concentric zone theory, 192–93, 196 conditional cash transfers (CCTs), 173–74, 176n4, 176n5 Conefrey, Mick, 176n2 Confucian tradition, 98, 638n24, 638n28, 638nn24,28 Congo, Democratic Republic, of African conflicts, sub-Saharan, 514–20 Congo, Democratic Republic of: GDP comparison, 119n3; international conflict dynamics, 518–20; invasion and occupation, 515; Mobutu era, 514–15; national conflict dynamics, 516–18; natural resources, 98; transition, 515–16 conservative ideologies, and FLFP, 28 consumption: in China’s GDP, 496fig.20.4; and environmental impacts, 87n5; of natural resources, 76 contraception, 4, 7, 64, 160, 171, 177n7, 226, 227 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination (CEDAW), 32, 428n2 Copeland, Curtis, 168–69 Correa, Raul, 155 Costa Rica, 195, 274, 535 Cowan, Robin, 253 Crimmins, Eileen, 59 critical theory, 56, 63 Crouch, Colin, 465–66, 467, 469, 475 Cuba, 97, 199
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Cuberes, David, 158 cultivation, horticultural, 179n26 cultural capital, benefits of, 32 cultural contexts: cultural variables/discount factors, 162–63; and economic prosperity, 636n5; and FLFP, 25; importance of, 10; and new modernization theory, 220n1; obstacles and backlash against women, 29; role of power in, 12; and women, 11, 29, 31 Cultural Survival (NGO), 198 Curran, Sara R., 311–39, 369 Cvrek, Tomas, 243, 257n1 Dahlman, Carl, 345 Danaher, William, 283 Dannreuther, Roland, 510 data availability, 23, 286n5 databases, 32–33, 36, 53 Daviron, Benoit, 566 Davis, Kingsley, 53 Deane, Glenn, 284 death rates, comparisons, 220n3 de Boyrie, Maria, 561 debt crises, 409, 475 decolonization, 53, 54 de facto land rights, 176n3 degradation, environmental: in Appalachia, 305; and capitalist economic development, 75–76; as development problem, 1; as domestic developmental outcome, 555; and ecologically unequal exchange, 79–81, 83, 86; and economic growth, 71; effects on women, 38; as form of inequality, 268; and growth dynamics, 74; and indigenous peoples, 199; in Japan, 87; and militarism, 77–78; and neoliberalism, 479–80; REDD+ program, 197; in Rwanda, 171; in Thailand, 72; and women, 175, 176 Dellinger, Kirsten, 129–52 democracy: democratic transition, 38; and economic power factor, 32; gendered outcomes of, 38; retardation of advancement of and patriarchy, 13; and women’s legislative representation, 429n9 democracy and women: conclusions, 425–27; developing countries, 419–21; Eastern Europe, 418–19; gender and the state, 415–16; optimist outcomes, 424–25;
overview, 414–15; pessimist outcomes, 421–23; Western welfare states, 416–17 Democratic Republic of Congo, 119n3 democratizing state, and women’s mobilizations, 22, 421–23, 424–25, 428n8 demographic change: conclusions, 614; industrial revolution debates, 605–10; overview, 597–98; preindustrial economic growth, 598–604; preindustrial population trends, 604–5; recent demographic change, 613–14; since 1820, 610–13 demographic dividend: and age structure, 213–18; contemporary research on, 214–15; extreme population aging, 216–18; importance of, 213–14 demographic issues, 62, 63, 64, 230fig.9.1 demographic transitions, 224–27 demographic transition theory, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 63 Demographic Yearbook, 53 denationalization, 30 Denison, Edward, 107, 393 dependency ratio, 62 dependency theory: and Boserup, 25; fading of, 103; and feminist development sociology, 36; as neo-Marxist theory, 7, 55, 317; and protectionism, 404; and regional development, 268; and world-systems theory, 135 Dependent Development (Evans), 399 depopulation, 49 Desmet, Klaus, 612 de Soysa, Indra, 560, 561 destination development: conclusions, 381–82; destination economies and, 367–70; economic globalization and, 363–67; enclaves and immigrant entrepreneurship, 370–74; limits and ethnic capital, 374–78; new immigrant gateways, 378–81; overview, 362–63 The Determinants and Consequences of Population Trends (United Nations), 207 developing world: dynamic changes in, 95, 96tab.4.1; gender of governance in, 428n3; and modernization theory, 55; and subnational variations, 286n5; women, democracy and the state, 419–21; women’s employment in, 31; world population, share of, 613fig.25.5
development, definitions of, 64–65 developmentalist state theory, 400–404 developmental models, China, 486–92, 493fig.20.1 developmental states, 446–49 development challenges, 62 development discourses, 14, 64 development economics: feminist scholars critiques of, 9–11; importance of, 12; and population controls, 54; and sociology of development, 6–11 development process, marginalization of women from, 22–23, 39n1 development sociologists: and climate change issues, 82; collaborations, 7; contributions of, 21; and debates over war, 443; feminist, 21, 38; and Global North/South divide, 142–44, 147–48; and growth performance studies, 100; intellectual/theoretical diversity of, 5–6; and theories of state, 395, 401, 404 development sociology studies: and development discourse, 12–15; and development economics, 6–11; development theories, 37tab.1.1, 556–60; as distinguished from globalization/Third World studies, 3–5; in economics, 529tab.22.1; overview, 1–3 de Vries, Jan, 606, 607 Dey, Jennie, 177n8 Diamond, Jared, 98, 113, 170–71, 178n17, 603 diasporas communities, 314, 319, 322–23, 328–30. See also professional labor diasporas Diaz, Maria-Elan, 284 Dietz, Richard, 250–51 Dietz, Thomas, 82–83, 85 disability-free life expectancy, 62 disempowerment, women’s economic, 163–64, 165–68 diversity, 2, 87n3 dividend, 120n11 The Division of Labor in Society (Durkheim), 271 Dolan, Catherine, 650 domestication, animal, 163, 178n17 Domhoff, G. William, 471 Dominican Republic, 35, 159 Donaldson, Caitlin, 254 Drahokouopil, Jan, 590 Drangel, Jessica, 647
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Dream Pool Essays (Mengxi bitan) (Shen Kuo), 638n25 Dreier, Peter, 281 Duchesne, Ricardo, 622 Duffield, Mark, 510 Dumont, Arsene, 52 Dunaway, Wilma, 27, 302 DuPlessis, Robert, 583 Durkheim, Émile, 7, 191, 265, 270–71, 531, 577 East Asia: Asian financial crisis (1997), 9; and commodity chains, 649, 661n3; comparisons, 486–92; developmentalist state theory, 400–404, 441, 446–49, 458, 469, 473; East Asian Tigers, 400, 402, 469; economic growth, 7, 598, 599, 611, 611n25.4, 614; economies, 4, 7, 98, 116, 661n3; and education, 341, 342, 404; and embedded autonomy, 113; and FLFP, 404; manufacturing in, 28; and migrant networks, 367; and neoliberalism, 481; postwar era, 557; poverty reductions in, 97; preindustrial population trends, 605; property, 178n18; and SEZs, 367; social movements, 536; tiger economics, 9; traditional kin/property systems, 164, 178n18; and war/armed conflict, 446–49, 458. See also China; Hong Kong; Japan; South Korea; Taiwan East Asian Tigers, 9, 57, 345, 400, 402, 469, 487, 488, 492, 536 Easterlin, Richard, 59, 209 Easterly, William, 107, 323 Eastern Europe, 217, 429n9; capitalisms, transition to, 588–91; free markets, 9; labor migration, 31; and neoliberalism, 57; transitions in, 32, 73; women, democracy and the state, 418–19. See also specific countries Ebola outbreak, 224, 233–34, 237 Ecevit, Yildiz, 28, 35 ecofeminists, 24, 33 ecological degradation, as development problem, 38 ecological footprint, 57 ecological intensity, 14, 70, 84–86 ecologically unequal exchange, 79–81
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ecological modernization theory, 86, 86n2; critics of, 87n3; critiques of, 87n5; opposing viewpoints, 76, 82–85; and post-materialist values, 70–74, 86n2; and Southeast Asia study, 87n4 ecological rationality, 70, 71, 73 ecological unequal exchange, 78–82 economic convergence, 115 economic development: and collective action, 35, 38, 529tab.22.1; dominant development strategies, 529tab.22.1; and environmental harms, 70, 73, 84, 87; in Japan, 87n4; and modernization theory, 54; and women, 21 economic divergence, 97fig.4.1, 115 economic growth: between 1940s and 1970s, 54; and age structures, 62; conclusions, 614; delegitimatization of, 12; and female productive/reproductive labor, 22; industrial revolution debates, 605–10; and migration, 313–16; and migration networks/immigrant communities and, 363–67; overview, 597–98; and population, 48, 62; preindustrial economic growth, 598–604; preindustrial population trends, 604–5; recent demographic change, 613–14; since 1820, 610–13; and social outcomes, 101. See also economic development economic inequality, 202–3 economic performance divergence, 97fig.4.1, 97tab.4.1 economic power, women’s: advocacy for, 33; in Bangladesh, 155–56, 176n5; conclusions, 173–76; discount factors, 162–63; disempowerment, 163–65; in Ecuador, 154–55; and employment, 34; and endless growth models, 38; and formal sector jobs (or labor), 28; and gender equality, 178n15; and genocide in Rwanda, 170–72; HIV/ AIDs and, 168–69; land rights in Rwanda, 179n27; macro-level consequences of, 161; and malnutrition in South Asia, 169–71; measurements of, 33; micro-level consequences of, 158–61; and oil economy, 172–73; overview, 153–54; and Oxfam International, 429n15; and political empowerment, 35; by structural adjustment policies, 32; synergy bonus of, 161–62; theory and data about,
156–58; and United Nations Development Program, 429n15; and war/armed conflict, 165–68 economics: development strategies, dominant, 529tab.22.1; divergence, performance, 97fig.4.1; diversification of, 28; economic power factor, 32, 34, 179n29; economic prosperity, 65, 636n5; economic/quality-oflife indices comparison, 637n10; economic resources, 14, 34; economic restructuring, 30; economic theories, 14–15; and fertility rate, 220n2; global commodity chains, 645–66; gross domestic product (GDP), 611fig.25.4; high-wage economy in Europe, emergence of, 599–601; income levels, 230fig.9.1; market economies, 636n5; performance divergence, 97fig.4.1; planned economies, 636n5; and population, 636n3; profit rates, 492tab.20.1. See also development economics; ethnic economies economies, destination, 367–70 economies of scale, 105, 106, 201 Ecuador: anti-neoliberal protests, 541; buffer zones, 175; and collective action, 533; economic empowerment/disempowerment, women’s, 154–55; and education, 355; and European settlement, 199; forest transitions and urbanization, 193; gender income gap/ wage disparity, 27; and microentrepreneurs, 159; NTAEs (nontraditional agricultural exports), 176n1; and pink tide governments, 540; Shuar people, 196; treaty with US, 539; and uneven development, 276; and women, 169–70, 175 education, 36, 257nn3–5; in Africa, 98; conclusions, 256–57; in East Asia, 341, 342, 404; and economic development, 107; and economic growth, 244–46; education factors, 14; enrollment, 96tab.4.1, 343fig.14.1,14.2; and fertility rate, 237n1; financial returns of universities, 258n9; firm-level outcomes, 249–50; gender equality in, 32; gender income gap/wage disparity, 27; as human development indicator, 14; illiteracy rates, 96tab.4.1; individual-level outcomes, 247–48; international mobile students, 346fig.14.3; and knowledge economy, 30; level
reciprocity, 258n11; literacy, 54; nationlevel outcomes, 254–56; and neoliberal globalization, 32; as nested process, 246–56; overview, 241–44; and patriarchy, 13; region-level outcomes, 250–54; and technological knowledge, 120n10; and UNESCO, 23; and violent development, 13; and WID programs, 24; and women, 166, 167; for women, 226–27; women’s, 23, 25, 35. See also tertiary education; training Edwards, Richard, 543n1 efficiency: in automobile industry, 653; and capitalism, 578; defined, 106; energy, 76; gains, 87, 87n5, 105; in health systems, 229; in hiring practices, 369; increasing, 650; in India, 497; low-efficiency investments, 497; market inefficiency, 53–54; measures of, 84; in neoliberal era, 280; and proximate sources of growth, 108 effort: attitudes toward, 111; and land use, 196–97, 199, 202; mobilization of, 117; monetization of, 165; as primary factor of production, 105, 106; and technological change, 107 Egypt, 29, 60, 64, 212, 351, 506, 537 Ehrlich, Paul, 54–55, 57–58 Eisenstadt, Shmuel, 396–97 elderly, 62 electronics production, 25, 26 Elimination of Violence against Women law, 167 Elliott, James, 369 Elman, Benjamin, 638n24, 639n31 Eloundou-Enyegue, Parfait, 207–23, 235 El Salvador, 274, 428n2, 535 Elson, Diane, 11, 26 Elvin, Mark, 623 Emami, Aristotle, 561 embedded autonomy, 113, 448 Embedded Autonomy States (Evans), 448 Emigh, Rebecca Jean, 577–96, 620 emissions: carbon, 81, 85; carbon monoxide, 565; and climate change mitigation, 70, 71, 73, 82–84; as environmental outcomes, 72, 78; REDD+ program, 197 employment, 36; deterioration of, 26; gender equality in, 32; intermittent, 27; stable/ flexible employment arrangements, 30; women’s, 27–28, 34
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empowerment, women’s. See economic power, women’s Engels, Friedrich, 33, 39nn8–9, 51, 228, 531 Engerman, Stanley, 113, 114 Engle, Patrice, 170 Engleman, Robert, 160 Enlightenment, 64 entrepreneurship, 12, 27, 30, 370–74 environmental sociology: climate change mitigation, 82–84; conclusions, 85–86; ecofeminists, 24; ecological modernization theory, 70–74, 76, 82–85; ecological unequal exchange theory, 78–82; and Ehrlich, 57; environmental capacity, 57; environmental conditions, 87n3; environmental damage, 87n5; environmental degradation, 74–78, 87n4, 479; environmental harms, 70, 73, 84, 87; environmental impact debate, 58, 61, 65, 74; environmental inequality, 14; environmental movements, 87n4; environmental NGOs, 197; environmental outcomes, 71–72, 73, 78, 80, 87, 87n2; environmental reforms, 70–72; environmental sustainability, 64, 71, 74; environmental theories, 86n2; overview, 69–70; political-economic perspectives, 74–78; post-materialist values theory, 71; and sustainability, 84–85 epidemiological transition, 227 Epstein, Stephan, 585 EPZs (export-processing zones), 31 estrangement, 512 Ethiopia, 216 ethnic economies: conclusions, 381–82; as destination economies, 367–70; and entrepreneurship, 370–74; ethnic capital, 374–78; limitations of, 374–78; new gateways of, 378–81; overview, 362–63 Eucador, 180n35 eugenics movement, 52, 54, 63 Eurasian landmass, 163, 178n17 Eurocentricity, 87n3 Europe: bilateral kin/property systems, 178n18; core/periphery models, 136; Eastern Europe, 418–19; and education, 257n1, 348fig.14.4; effects of war on development of, 443–46; European Union, 357n5, 475; fertility decline in, 62; Hapsburg Empires,
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257n1; high-wage economy in Europe, emergence of, 599–601; mature age structures in, 216–17; migration crisis, 331n1; population growth, 50; preindustrial economic growth, 599 European Fertility Project, 59, 226–27 Europe/Asia divergence, preindustrial economic growth, 601–4 Evans, Peter, 12, 14, 113, 399, 402, 448, 560 exploitation, 25, 27, 28, 33, 34 export-led manufacturing, and FLFP, 25, 28, 31 export-processing zones (EPZs), 31 exports, 25, 176n2, 496fig.20.4, 661n3 extreme population aging, 216–18 Fabrizio, Stefania, 610–11 factor income, 105 Faletto, Enzo, 273, 299 Fallon, Kathleen M., 414–39 family planning: in Asia, 345; in Bangladesh, 155; coercive one-child policies, 63; critiques of, 59; in Ecuador, 175; as fertility transition management, 53–55, 58, 63–64; fragmentation of population and development discourse, 58; international assistance provide for, 53, 55; problems/solutions with, 63–64; and public health, 229, 231; and UN, 64 A Farewell to Alms (Clark), 608 Fargues, Phillipe, 366 Fatima, Nasrin, 252 Fedderke, Johannes, 407 Feldman, Maryann, 252 female education: and GDP growth rates, 11; restriction of, 11 female employment: levels in MENA, 27–28; and oil economy, 28; restrictions on, 11; and systems of production, 34 female labor force participation (FLFP): and armed conflict, 11; and capitalism, 36; changes in, 25; and conservative ideologies, 28; countries with lowest, 166; in East Asia, 404; and global commodity chains, 11; and kinship structures, 28; and legal frameworks, 28; in Mexico, 35; in Middle East, 29; and neopatriarchal states, 28; and oil economy, 28; and patriarchy, 35; variations in, 36
female land rights, 179n27, 179n28 female productive labor, 22, 30; in Cameroon, 177n13; and China’s export manufacturing, 31; debates over, 25; and food crops, 23, 179n26; migration, across border, 31; preference for, 25–26; in world economy, 24, 27; in world market factories, cheap labor, 25 female reproductive labor, 22, 30; contraception access/use, 177n7; exploitation, 34; replacement fertility, 177n12 female subordination, prostitution as form of, 39n9 female traders, travel restrictions on, 11 feminist activism, 23, 36, 38, 148, 416, 425, 428n8, 429n10, 429nn10–11 feminist critique agenda, 9–11, 14, 15 feminist development sociology: and advocacy, 21–22, 23, 29, 33, 37, 39n1; elucidation of operations of gender in development policies/projects, 22; features of, distinguishing, 21–22; feminist development sociologists, 22, 29–33; and gender relations, 38; main issues/debates, 10, 22; migration theory, 36; prescient critique of capitalist development and growth, 22; social change theory, 36; and state policies/ institution in connection with women’s participation/rights, 22; stratification theory, 36; women/gender and development field, 21; and women’s economic participation/agency, 33–36 Ferguson, Niall, 603 Fernald, John, 406–7 fertility: in Afghanistan, 167; causes of change/ or lack of, 56; control of, 7, 55; decline of, 53, 62, 209; decreased, 161; demographic transition theory and, 53; drivers of limits to, 52; and education, 237n1; and female control of income, 177n12; fertility transition, 226–27; fragmentation of population and development discourse, 58; high fertility, 53, 177n12; low fertility, 177n12; mortality/socioeconomic development interactions, 227; and patriarchy, 13; patriarchy effects on, 35; patterns studies, 52; rate as measure of status, 24; reduction of among poverty populations, 55; replace-
ment fertility, 177n12; in Rwanda, 171; studies on, 59–60; sustained slow growth pattern, 53; total US fertility rate, 220n2, 220n4 financial sector: financial crises, 31, 32; financial investment, 120n11; financialization, 33; financial markets, 30 Finer, Samuel, 637n13 Finlay, Barbara, 35 Finn, Michael, 347 firms, as nested processes, 249–50, 257n5 The Fiscal Crisis of the State (O’Connor), 405–6 Fishlow, Albert, 409 Fleischmann, Arnold, 280–81 flexible forms of labor, entrepreneurship, 27 flexible/stable employment arrangements, 30 flower industry, 154–55, 176n2, 193 Fontana, Giuseppe, 563 food production, 96tab.4.1; and female productive labor, 23, 179n26; measurement of primary source of, 10; and modernization theory, 55; and population, 55, 95; reduction and gender exclusion, 11 food sovereignty, 10 Foran, John, 540 Ford administration, 464 forest transitions and urbanization, 194–95 formal sector labor: and economic independence, 33; and MENA women, 27; and women’s empowerment, 28, 179n30 Foucault, Michel, 510 fragmentation, 58, 62 France, 52, 134, 195, 357n5 Franceschet, Susan, 429n12 Frank, Andre Gunder, 23, 621 Frank, Gunder, 398 Frederick the Wise, 633 free trade, 50; Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement, 654; and entrepreneurship, 464; free trade zones, 25, 31; in Global South, 201; NAFTA trade agreement, 324, 365, 379, 539, 565, 650; and neoliberal development, 468–69, 529n22.1, 530, 539–40, 543; and protectionism, 404–5; Smith on, 50–51 free trade zones: in Southeast Asia, 25; and women, 31 Friedman, Milton, 464, 466
INDEX
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6 87
Fukuyama, Francis, 508, 510 functionalism, 6, 7, 87, 297, 317, 395, 396 funds, development, 331n1 Furtado, Celso, 399 G20, countries of, 357n5 Gaburro, Giuseppe, 57 GAD (gender and development). See gender and development (GAD) Galbraith, John Kenneth, 75 Galeano, Eduardo, 398 Gallin, Rita, 24 Galor, Oded, 606 Gambia, 177n8 Gamoran, Adam, 246 Ganz, Marshall, 543n1 garment factory disaster, 31 garments. See clothing production Gaston, Gohou, 561 Gates, Scott, 456 GDP (gross domestic product), 96tab.4.1; alternative conceptualization of “good development” to replace, 13; China, 119n1, 469fig.20.4, 496fig.20.4; comparisons, 119n3; in developing countries, 95; and growth/productivity equation, 120n9; growth rates and female education, 11; and human development indicators, 14; and major emerging market regions, 611fig.25.4; and population, 120n9; and population/ economic growth debate, 57; proximate sources of growth of, 104–6; statistics accuracy, 10; U.S., 611fig.25.4 Gedicks, Al, 454 Gellert, Paul, 648 gender, 428n3; environment and genocide in Rwanda, 171–72; and labor market segmentation, 27; and parity definition, 177n6; social relations of, 26; and the state, 415–16; use of term, 427n1 gender and development (GAD), 29, 36; advocacy, 33; and collective action, 35–36; and global women’s rights agenda, 32; and informalization of labor, 26–27; shift from WAD, 22, 26; and social relations of gender, 39n1; and structural adjustment policies effects, 32 Gender and Development Index, 32
68 8
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INDEX
gender bias, gender income gap/wage disparity, 27 gender-blind processes, and Third World outsourcing, 11 gender conflicts, as cultural repercussion, 29 Gender Data Portal, 32 gender difference, social construction of, 11 gender-disaggregated data, 33 gender dynamics, of revolutionary movements, 38 gendered differentials: in labor markets, 11; in pay and manufacture within global commodity chains, 10 gendered inequality, and Third World outsourcing, 11 gendered nature, of structural adjustment policies, 30 gendered privilege, and salary differential, 11 gendered production relations, 26 gendered relations, of households, 27 gendered scripts, and development outcomes, 10 gender equality: and economic empowerment/ disempowerment, women’s, 178n15; goals, 32; as human development indicator, 14; and population policies, 64; and United Nations Development Program, 429n15 gender equity: in authoritarian governments, 428n7; in communist countries, 428n7; in Middle East, 428n7 Gender Equity (Chafetz), 34 gender exclusion, and reduced crop yields, 11 gender ideologies: defined, 34; effects on women, 32 gender income gap/wage disparity: and education, 27; explanations, 27 gender-in-development (GAD) field, 26 gender-in-development literature, 10 gender indicators, online, 32 gender inequality: feminist development sociology and, 21; gender discrimination, 428n2; gendered wages, 11; and HIV/AIDS, 168; and human development indicators, 14; nested levels, 34; and new modernization theory, 220n1; system models of, 34–35, 36; weakened or strengthened, 21 gendering of labor markets, 26 gender mainstreaming, 32 gender models, 30
gender norms, defined, 34 gender of governance, 415–16, 428nn2–3 gender privilege, social conflict over and patriarchy, 13 gender process, distortion of market outcomes by, 11 gender quotas, 428n6 gender relations, 636n3; and economic restructuring effects, 30; feminist concepts of, 36; macro-level analyses of, 28; and social transformations of development and modernization, 21; and WID/WAD/GAD field, 36; women’s gains in, loss of, 32 gender scripts, importance of, 10 gender social definitions, 34 gender sociologists, 21
Gilbertson, Greta, 376 Gillespie, Michael Allen, 637n16 Gini, Corrado, 52 GIS (Geographic Information Systems) technology, 270, 285 Givens, Jennifer E., 69–94 Glaeser, Edward, 235 Glasgow, Nina, 218 global aging, 61–62 global capitalist system, and inequality, 56 global care chain, 31 global commodity chains, 645–66; and apparel industry, 662n6; conclusions, 660–61; criticisms of, 651–56; definitions, 661n1; and female labor, 11; and gendered differentials, 10; as governed networks, 656–60;
gender stereotypes, defined, 34 gender stratification theory, 34, 156, 159, 160, 162, 165, 179n29 gender studies, and institutions, 428n4 General Board of Health (Britain), 237n2 Geng Dingxiang, 633 genocide, 170–72 Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology, 270, 285 geographic location: as causal determinant, 269; of Chinese cities, 634; and Global North/South divide, 132, 134, 141; landlocked economies, 98, 111, 113; and migration, 320; national organizational structures and, 556; and regional development, 295, 300, 302–3; regulation of, 394; remote locations, 197, 200, 276; sourcing locations, 654; transcending, 146; and von Thunen’s theory, 193 Gereffi, Gary, 648–50, 653, 656, 657–59, 661n3 Germany: as G20 member, 357n5; as Global North country, 134; imperial, 120n14; imperial/Empire of/2nd Reich, 5; mature age structures in, 217 GERs (gross enrollment ratio), 96tab.4.1, 342, 344fig.14.2, 357n6 Gerschenkron, Alexander, 115–16, 118 Gerschenkronian theory, 115–17, 118, 120n14 Ghana, 134, 141; economic performance divergence, 96, 97fig.4.1 Gibbon, Peter, 652, 656–57 Giddens, Anthony, 133–35, 272
as incorporation and stratification vectors, 646–48; and institutional context, 662n5; overview, 645–46; research field of, 661n3; shift to value chain terminology, 662n4; as upgrading development mechanisms, 648–51 global economic crisis, and Chinese stimulus, 492–97 global economic market, emergence of, 57 global economy, polarization of, 32 global flower exports, 154–55 Global Gender Gap database, 32 globalization: adverse effects of, 14; and agribusinesses, 200–202; conclusions, 567–68; cultural wealth strategy, 565–66; defined, 554–55; and development definitions, 64; and development theories, 556–58; downside of for women, 30–31; economic globalization and migration networks/immigrant communities and, 363–67; FDI and trade indicators, 560–62; financialization consequences, 562–63; global commodity chains, 645–66; global migration and remittance flows, 563–64; institutional-cultural perspectives, 555–56; and knowledge economy, 30; labor mobilization studies, 543n1; and migration, 327–31; neoliberal globalization, 30; and neoliberalism, 200–202; overview, 553–54; political-economic perspectives, 555; of production, 26; studies, 3–6; transnational governance, 564–65; and Washington
INDEX
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6 89
globalization (continued) Consensus, 558–60. See also economic power, women’s; global crisis Global North. See Global South/Global North construct global precariat, defined, 32 Global South: diasporas strategies, 353–55; distorted development in, 8; and global development problems, 54; social inequalities in, 10; studies abroad, 355–56; university partnerships, 349–53; women and revolutions in, 38; women workers in textile and computer factories for low wages, 11. See also Global South economic development; Global South/Global North construct; tertiary education Global South economic development: agroexport/monoculture/mineral extraction development, 532–35; and collective action comparison, 529–30; conclusions, 542–43; neoliberal development, 538–42; overview, 528; and social movements, 531–32; state-led development, 535–38 Global South/Global North construct: beyond nation-state centrism, 138–41; core/ periphery models, 135–38; cross-border programs/partnerships, 358n8; developed/ developing models, 133–35; overcoming the divide, 143–44; overview, 129–33; recommendations, 147–49; redefining, 129–33, 144–47; scholarly divide on, 142–43; tertiary education systems, 357n3; underdevelopment in, 8 global value chains (GVCs), 301, 645, 651, 660 global warming, 202–3 Godwin, William, 51 Goldstone, Jack, 577, 581, 609, 621, 636n1 Gore, Charles, 559 governance, 13, 415–16, 428n2, 662n5 governance of gender, 415–16 Grace, Jo, 166 Grameen Bank (Bangladesh), 155, 170, 179n30 Gray, John, 450 Great Divergence: arguments about, 620–22; California school critics, 622–25; and Chinese merchant class, 634–35, 637n14; conclusions, 635–36; overview, 620; and premodern China, 629–31; unorthodox
690
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INDEX
Confucianism, 631–34; Western rise explanations, 626–29 The Great Divergence (Pomeranz), 621–22 Great Recession ( 2008), 31, 33, 218, 276, 485, 499 The Great Transformation (Polanyi), 190 Green, Anne, 217 Green, Gary, 280–81 green economy, 71 greenhouse gas emissions. See emissions green label campaigns, 154, 156 Green Revolution, 55 Greif, Avner, 583, 587 gross domestic product (GDP): China, 119n1, 469fig.20.4; comparisons, 119n3; and growth/productivity equation, 120n9; and major emerging market regions, 611fig.25.4; and population, 120n9; U.S., 611fig.25.4 Grown, Caren, 30 growth: and East Asian tiger economics, 9; endless growth models, 38; and GDP, 119n1; intermediate sources of, 100fig.4.2; models of, 119n5; proximate sources of, 100fig.4.2; sources of, 100fig.4.2; ultimate sources of, 100fig.4.2; and violent development, 12–13; world population growth, 605fig.25.3. See also economic growth; quantitative growth; tertiary education growth, quantitative. See demographic growth growth equation, 100fig.4.2, 101, 120n9 growth models, 12–15 Grundrisse (Marx), 271 Guatemala, 141, 159, 170, 536, 538, 541 Guillén, Mauro, 554, 565 Guinea Bissau, 159 Guterl, Matthew Pratt, 130–31 GVCs (global value chains), 301, 645, 651, 660 Hagan, Jacqueline, 370 Hall, Peter, 577 Hall, Thomas, 136–37 Hamilton, Alexander, 405 Hansen, Hal, 257n2 Hanushek, Eric, 245–46 hard-bargaining state, 399–400 Hardin, Gerrett, 57 Harrison, Bennett, 279
Harrison, Lawrence, 114 Harrod-Domar model, 393 Hart-Landsberg, Martin, 500 Hartwick, E., 58 Harvey, David, 468 Hass, Jeffrey, 589 Hatcher, John, 600 Hausmann, Ricardo, 117 Hayek, Friedrich von, 464 Hayter, Christopher, 253 Health, Education and Welfare, US Department of, 237n4 Health and Human Services, US Department of, 237n4 health care, and women, 167–68, 178nn21~22 “Healthcare in Mississippi” (Addario), 131 Hechter, Michael, 402 Heflin, Colleen, 375 hegemony, US, 479–80 Heller, Patrick, 408 Henisz, Witold, 565 Henn, Jeanne, 177n13 Herbst, Jeffrey, 445, 457 Hernández-León, Rubén, 379 Herrmann, Andrea, 250 higher education. See tertiary education Hill, Richard Child, 246 Hirschman, Albert, 99 Hirschman, Charles, 273 Hiskey, Jonathan, 273 HIV/AIDS, 64, 168–69, 212, 236, 237, 420, 456, 511 Hobbes, Thomas, 522 Hobday, Michael, 116, 653 Hoff, Karla, 12 Holm-Nielsen, Lauritz, 353 home-based work, 26–27 Hong Kong: catch-up growth, 95, 116; China’s re-exports via, 492; and commodity chains, 649; economic performance divergence, 95; postwar era, 536; universities, 357n7 Hooks, Gregory, 1–18, 77, 273, 275, 440–62, 506 Hoover, Edgar, 209, 210, 211 Hopcroft, Rosemary L., 583, 587, 597–19 Hopkins, Terence, 300, 646, 648, 661n1 horticultural cultivation: in Africa, sub-Saharan, 179n26; flower industry, 154–55, 176n2, 193; in Rwanda, 179n26
Hoselitz, Bert, 102 households: female-headed, 27; housewifization, 24, 34; and population growth, 51; and small-scale entrepreneurship, 35; women’s role in, 30, 35, 36 Hout, Michael, 247 Htun, Mala, 425 Huang, Philip, 622, 623 Huber, Evelyne, 449 human capital: brain drain rate, 61, 323; concept of, 107; and development, 55, 98; and education, 252–53, 255, 257n1, 258n8, 394; externalities, 258n8; and foreign capital dependency, 560; formation of, 55, 213; human capital thesis, 58; increases in, 95, 235–36; India’s diaspora of, 354; investments in, 105, 106, 108, 110, 216, 326; and migrant networks, 380; and migration, 61, 311–12, 315, 317–18, 320, 322–24; and modernization, 55; Simon on, 58; states investment in, 405, 444; and subnational governments, 282; synergy bonus, 161–62; theory of, 245–46, 248, 340; as ultimate resource, 58; and unified growth theory, 606–7, 612; and violence, 442; women’s child-focused spending, 159–61 Human Development Index, 62, 64 human development indicators, 13, 14 Human Development indicators database, 32 human ecology school, 192, 271–73, 276, 295, 297–99 Human Security Report, 513, 519 human well-being, 11, 12, 14, 70, 84–86, 464 Humphrey, John, 25, 657, 658 Hung, Ho-fung, 485–504, 586–87 Hungary, 589 Huntington, Samuel, 114 IA societies, 161, 177n11 Ibn Khaldun, 49, 208 Iceland, 475 IH societies, 161, 177n11 illiteracy rates, 96tab.4.1 ILO (International Labour Office), 35 immigrant communities: conclusions, 381–82; destination economies and, 367–70; economic globalization and, 363–67; enclaves and immigrant entrepreneurship,
INDEX
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691
immigrant communities (continued) 370–74; limits and ethnic capital, 374–78; new immigrant gateways, 378–81; overview, 362–63 immigrant/ethnic economies: conclusions, 381–82; destination economies and, 367–70; economic globalization and, 363–67; enclaves and immigrant entrepreneurship, 370–74; limits and ethnic capital, 374–78; new immigrant gateways, 378–81; overview, 362–63 immigration laws, U.S., 52, 64, 378 inactivity. See dependency ratio income controls, 32, 33, 35, 36 income expenditures, women’s, 177n8 income factors, 14 income levels, 96tab.4.1; in China, average rural household, 498fig.20.5; deterioration of, 26; disparities in, 27; gaps within countries, 33; mortality causes by country, 230fig.9.1; national, 495fig.20.3; reduction of among poverty populations, 13; subsistence ratios, 601fig.25.2 indentured workers, 113, 194, 364 independent states, land use in, 199–200 India: as BRICS country, 36, 81, 357nn4–5, 512; catch-up growth, 95, 116, 118; China comparison, 636n5; collective action, 534, 540, 541; and commodity chains, 650; and development studies, 2, 55; economic performance divergence, 95, 97fig.4.1; and education, 345, 351, 352–53, 356; emissions, 83; financial deregulation issue, 470, 472; and FLFP, 158; as G20 member, 357n5; as Global South country, 134, 148; income expenditures, women’s, 177n8; industrialization in, 608, 629; inheritance laws, 169; life expectancy in, 141; manufacturing sector, 535; Medieval trade networks, 555, 599; MFIs loans, 173, 179n33; and migrant labor, 365; per capita income comparison, 119n3; physical infrastructure study, 407; political participation in, 425; population growth, 605, 605fig.25.3, 613, 613fig.25.5; professional labor diasporas, 354; resource competition, 480; rice cultivation, 164; and SKS loan tragedy, 179n30; and social democracy, 408; South Korea comparison,
692
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INDEX
557, 558; women’s economic power, 173; women’s mobilization, 420–21; and world economic development, 636n5 indicators, gender, 32 indigenous mobilizations, against development projects, 9 indigenous peoples: in Africa, 535; and cocoa boom, 193; and environmental NGOs, 197–98; and globalization, 396; and labor force, 217; and land use, 199–200; and Latin American uprisings, 533; in multi-sectoral coalitions, 541; in US, 77 individualism, and Christianity, 637n16 individual level, and population growth, 51 individuals, nested processes, 247–48 Indonesia: and commodity chains, 648; economic performance divergence, 95; and education, 347; female productive labor growth, 39n4; forest/agriculture margin in, 193; as G20 member, 357n5; as Global South country, 130; natural resources, 98; and neoliberalism, 466; and privatization, 467, 542; rapid growth in, 98; REDD+ program in, 197; Suharto government, 98, 648; underdevelopment in, 102 industrial capitalism: California school critics, 622–25; and Chinese merchant class, 634–35, 637n14; conclusions, 635–36; organization studies, 543n1; and premodern China, 629–31; profit rates, 492tab.20.1; unorthodox Confucianism, 631–34; western rise of, 625–29, 637n13, 638n18 industrial development, in Japan, 87n4 industrialization: change caused by, 35; in post-WWII era Japan, 87n4; and women’s marginalization, 39n1 Industrial Revolution: Clark on, 608–9; contemporary comparisons, 610–13; debates over, 604, 605, 614; and economic growth, 605–10; of England, explanations of, 609–10; existence of, 598, 606–7; and institutions, 609–10; and population growth, 50, 208; and public health, 208, 228, 235; rural-urban migration, 235; Schumpeterian view of, 607–8; Social Change in the Industrial Revolution (Smelser), 6, 397 industrious revolution, 605, 607–8
inegalitarian development, and social unrest/ popluar mobilization, 12 inequality: and global capitalist system, 56; issues of, brought to forefront, 14; sociology’s focus on, 14 inequality, women’s: in Global South, 10; issues of, brought to forefront, 14; and the virus, 178n23; and WAD, 24 infant mortality rates: in Afghanistan, 167; and higher women’s statue correlation, 11; as human development indicator, 14, 54 infectious diseases control, 178n22, 227, 229, 232, 237, 407 informal economy sector: and MENA women, 27; as solution, 30; of Third World, 25; women’s work, economic value of, 10
North-South scholarly divide, 142–43; overcoming the divide, 143–44; overview, 129–33; recommendations, 147–49 intermediate sources of growth and development: debates on, 112–15; framework structure, 99–102, 100fig.4.2; and incentives, 120n12; and intermediate sources, 108; postwar era studies, 102–3; and research literature, 110–11; of socioeconomic development, 109–11; socioeconomic outcomes, 104; summary of, 111–12 international assistance, 55 international capital markets, 9 international crime cartels, 9 international data collection methods, 64
information processing sector, 26 Inglehart, Ronald, 71, 209, 220n1 INGOs (international nongovernmental organizations), 37tab.1.1, 426, 556, 561, 565, 567 inheritance laws: in Afghanistan, 166, 167; in Asia, 164; consequences of, 108; de facto land rights, 176n3; denial of, 178n23; impartible, 584; in India, 169; and land inheritance, 171; and rural women, 176n3; as ultimate factor, 112 initiatives, and feminist development sociology, 22 Inkeles, Alex, 102 institutional structures: critical studies of, 14; gendered nature of, 26, 36; and gender studies, 428n4; and innovation, 58; institutional change, 12; institutional context, 662n5; institutional economics, 409; institutionalism, 36; institutionalist literature, 120n7; institutional logics, 14; institutional obstacles, 28; institutional quality, 409; understanding of, 12 institutional turn agenda, 14–15 instrumental rationalism, 636n6, 637n13 integration, 24, 25 intellectual property rights, 99 interdisciplinary perspectives, 22; beyond nation-state centrism, 138–41; existing models: core/periphery, 135–38; existing models: developed/developing, 133–35; Global South, redefining, 144–47;
international datasets, 32–33 international debt, 13–14 international inequalities, 24 International Labour Office (ILO), 23–24, 35 International Labour Organization, 23–24, 26, 33 International Monetary Fund, 9, 29–30 international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), 37tab.1.1, 426, 556, 561, 565, 567 International Parliamentary Union, 33 international policies, 14 international poliitical/security concerns (international politics), 63 international political/security concerns (international politics), 52 International Sociological Association (ISA), 24 International Union for the Investigation of Population Problems, 52 International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, 52 interventions: critiques of, 14; and feminist development sociology, 22 inventions, and science, 637n17 investments: in China’s GDP, 496fig.20.4; and development, 98; and development economics, 55; in education & human capital, 105; fixed asset investment, 495fig.20.3; fixed asset investment national income generation, 495fig.20.3; and violent development, 12 Ionescu, Dina, 354
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693
Iran: and FLFP, 158, 166; international student recruitment, 353; international students, 347; migrant workers in, 365; poverty in, 131; re-domestication of women in, 29; revolution in, 424, 538; university enrollment, 350 Iraq, 166, 173, 451, 453, 510 Ireland, Republic of, 28, 475 irrational vs rational capitalism, 637n11 Irwin, Michael, 273 Isaacman, Allen, 534 Isett, Christopher, 622 Islamic State group, 173, 175, 453 Islamic states, 11, 428n7 Islamism: Afghan women, 166–67; in Algeria, 428n7; and economic development, 599; and economic success, 98; and industrial capitalism, 629; Islamic State group, 173, 175, 453; Islamic tradition, 98; laws and norms, 39n6; male dominance in, 11; patriarchal structures, 39n6; redomestication of women, 29; and regressive gender policies, 172–73; and tertiary education, 350 Italy: as G20 member, 357n5; mature age structures in, 217 Jackson, Jeffrey T., 129–52 Jamaica, gender income gap/wage disparity, 27 Japan: capitalism, 586–87; catch-up growth, 116; central government role, 487; as classic developmental state, 441, 446–49; as core country, 136; economic development in, 87n4; economic dominance of, 603; economic success, 408, 636n5; environmental movements, 87n4; fertility in, 217; as G20 member, 357n5; and Gerschenkronian theory, 116; as Global North country, 134; and government allocation tactics, 401; governmental reforms, 87n4; imperialism, 636; industrialization, 87n4, 608; international students from, 347; as interventionist state, 469; investments of, 402–3; as island, 113; mature age structures in, 216–17; and migrant networks, 362; as modern core country, 136; natural resources, 98; 1980s economic growth, 2, 485; 1990s economic crisis, 486, 488, 490; physical infrastructure study, 407;
694
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INDEX
pollution controls, 87n4; silver export, 630; Thompson on demography of, 52; universities, 347, 357n7 Japanese firms, outsourcing of production, 87n4 Jaquette, Jane, 429n9 Jeanty, Wilner, 281 Jenkins, J. Craig, 274 Jevons Paradox, 76 Jiang, Jin, 639n29 job losses, 31–32 Johns, Roger, 561 Johnson, Chalmers, 446 Johnson, Lyndon, 465 Johnson, Simon, 103, 113, 114 Johnson administration, 465–66 Jones, Eric, 113, 602–3, 637n13 Jordan, 29, 141, 166 Jorgenson, Andrew K., 69–94, 561, 567 Kabila, Joseph, 514, 517, 518, 520 Kabila, Laurent, 514, 517, 518 Kadarusman, Yohanes, 654 Kagame, Paul, 171 Kampwirth, Karen, 424 Kanas, Agnieszka, 375 Kandiyoti, Deniz, 24, 29 Kangxi (Chinese emperor), 637n9 Kaplan, Robert, 508, 510 Kapur, Devesh, 354 Kasarda, John, 406 Kaya, Yunus, 561 Kentor, Jeffrey, 560 Kenya: British settlers in, 199; cash crops in, 535; and education, 352; as Global South country, 130; horticultural sector, 650; infection rates, women’s, 178n22; Kikuyu tribe, 420; Nairobi/London comparisons, 232–33; scholar-activists from, 39n8; settler societies, 199 Kessler, Judi, 650 Keynesianism, 5, 26, 29 Keywords for American Cultural Studies, 130 Khadka, Pramod, 346 KIDDOS (Kids in Downtown Denver Organized), 218 Kids in Downtown Denver Organized (KIDDO), 218
Kim, Jim Young, 158 Kim-Puri, H.J., 145 kinship structures, 28; in East Asia, 164, 178n18; in Southeast Asia, 164, 178n18 Klein, Naomi, 466, 467, 469, 473 Klenow, Peter, 242 Kloosterman, Robert, 376 Knight, Kyle, 85 Knorringa, Peter, 654 knowledge. See technological knowledge Koball, Heather, 380 Koch, Martin, 565 Kohli, Atul, 404 Korinek, Kim, 361–92 Korpi, Walter, 408 Kraybill, David, 281 Krippner, Greta, 466, 471 Kritz, Mary M., 340–61 Krueger, Dirk, 255 Krugman, Paul, 3, 272, 493 Kuhn, Dieter, 637n7 Kulcsár, László J., 48–68 Kumar, Krishna, 255 Kuran, Timur, 599 Kus, Basak, 563 Kusterer, Ken, 159 Kuznets, Simon, 102, 107 Kuznets curve, 73, 82–83, 85 Kwon, Seok-Woo, 375 Kwong, Tsz Man, 280–81 labor economics theory, and feminist development sociology, 36 laborers: subsistence ratio for, 601fig.25.2; and technological knowledge, 120n10; wages, worldwide, 600fig.25.1 labor force: and economic development, 21; feminization of employment, 26; informalization of, 26–27 labor inputs, and growth/productivity equation, 120n9 labor market: and gendered differentials, 11; segmentation, 27; social power decline, 26; women’s positions in, 32 labor migration, 31 labor quality, 636n3 labor supply reproduction, and capitalist wage sector, 10
Lachmann, Richard, 5, 463–85, 558, 562, 585, 589–90 Ladurie, Emmanuel Le Roy, 608 laissez-faire values, 8, 401, 409, 556, 584, 637n16 land access controls, 11 Landau, Loren, 377 land desertifcation, 13 Landes, David, 602 land-grabbing, 197, 201 land laws, 179n28 landlocked economies, 98, 111, 113 Landolt, Patricia, 372 land right, women’s, in Rwanda, 179n27 Landry, Adolphe, 226 land use: central place theory, 191–93; colonial regimes, 198–99; concentric zone theory, land use; defensive environmentalism, 196; forest transitions and urbanization, 194–95; frontier expansion and resource partitioning, 193–94; future change drivers, 202–3; intensification of, 195–96; land settlement schemes, 200; and neoliberalization, 200–201; newly independent states, 199–200; overview, 13, 190–91; recent conflicts/constraint in, 196–98 Lane, David, 590 Lange, Matthew, 404 Lankao, Patricia, 73 Latin America, 429n9; economic performance divergence, 95–96; economies, 661n3; and education, 348fig.14.4; female labor, 27; field research in, 36; free markets, 9; newly independent states, 199–200; poverty reductions in, 97; world market factories/ cheap female labor, 25 laws/legislation, 28, 29, 429n9 Lee, Everett, 60 Leicht, Kevin, 274 Leigh, Daniel, 611 Lenin, Vladimir, 271 Lenski, Gerhard, 161 Lerner, Daniel, 102 Lerner, Gerda, 34 Lewis, Arthur, 107 Lewis, Ethan, 379 Li, Bozhong, 622 liberal peace ideology, 505, 508, 510, 512, 516
INDEX
•
695
Libya, 141, 478 Lie, John, 28 life expectancy, 62, 95, 96tab.4.1, 141 Light, Ivan, 371 Lim, Alwyn, 565 limited access orders, 103, 111, 112, 117, 120n6 limited/open access orders, 120n6 limited/open access orders dichotomy, 103, 111, 112, 117, 120n6 Linzer, Drew, 172 List, Friedrich, 405 literacy, 54 Li Zhi, 632, 633, 639n29 Lobao, Linda, 139, 265–92 local levels, 286n3 Lo Cascio, Elio, 599 Loebach, Peter, 361–92 Logan, John, 282 London Epidemiological Society, 237n2 London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 237n3 Lowell, Lindsay, 346 low fertility, 177n12 Luiz, J. M., 407 Lula da Silva administration, 474 Luther, Martin, 633 Lutz, Wolfgang, 247, 255 Luxembourg, 119n3 Luxemburg, Rosa, 271 Lyson, Thomas, 273 MacKinnon, Catherine, 416 macro-level analyses, of gender relations, 28, 30, 33, 36 Maddison, Angus, 99, 119n3, 599–600, 602, 610 Madhavan, Sangeetha, 377 Madrick, Jeff, 471 Maheu, René, 39n2 Mahutga, Matthew, 561, 567, 645–66 mainstream theories, 51, 62 Making Globalization Work (Stiglitz), 406 Malanima, Paolo, 599, 606 malaria: public health improvements in, 234; and UN, 64; UN Millennium goal, 64, 456, 511; US public health issue, 229, 231, 232, 234 Malawi, 535
696
•
INDEX
Malaysia, 535; catch-up growth, 118; economic performance divergence, 95, 97fig.4.1; rapid growth in, 98; rural insurrections in, 200 male domination: challenges of, 35; of female occupations, 11; male elites, 35; male indifference, 11; male privilege, 39n9; in MENA, 27; in neoclassical economic theory, 26 malnutrition, 169–71 Malthus, Thomas Robert, 51, 52, 57, 61, 211, 604 Malthusian theory: Clark on, 608–9; criticisms of, 62–63; and demographic change, 597; and economy, 612; focus on population growth, 207; limitations, 622; Malthusian dilemma, 211–12; Malthusian mechanisms, 636n3; neo-Malthusianism, 212; population/resource debate, 55; post-Malthusian discourse, 218–19; predictions of, 95, 213; and unified growth theory, 606 Mann, Michael, 441, 443, 464, 470, 471, 472, 474, 633, 637n13 manufacturing sector: developing world, 95, 96tab. 4.1; as engine of growth, 107; and FLFP, 25 maquiladora industry, 25, 296, 367, 649–50 Marchand, Marianne, 39n8 marginalization: of women, 25, 33–34; of women and WID, 23, 39n1 maritime trade, China during Ming dynasty, outlawed in, 637n12 market economy/capitalism distinction, 637n11 market failure, 401–2 market outcomes, distorted by gendered process, 11 market regions, emerging, major, 611fig.25.4 market relations, importance of, 10 Marrett, Cora, 246 Marriage, Zoë, 505–27 Marx, Karl, 7, 33, 51–52, 75, 191, 265, 270–71, 364, 468, 531, 577, 579, 581 Marxism, 22, 273, 583; fading attraction of, 103; and FLFP, 25, 30; and gendered differentials, 30, 33 Marxist sociologists, 24 Marxist theories, 36, 51–52, 99 Mason, Andrew, 216 Massey, Doreen, 406
Massey, Douglas, 318–19, 367, 368 maternal health, 64, 167 Mauritius, 95 Mayer, Heike, 252 Mazur, Alan, 84 McAdam, Doug, 543n1 McHenry, Peter, 252 McKee, Kathryn, 129–52 McKenzie, Roderick, 192 McKeown, Thomas, 229, 230, 604 McMichael, Philip, 531, 559 McMichael, Phillip, 558 McNamara, Robert, 54 McNeill, William, 363, 637n14 McNicoll, Geoffrey, 212, 217 McQueen, Brian, 275 McVeigh, Rory, 283, 284 MENA (Middle East and North Africa): female employment levels, 27–28, 157–58, 172; female oppression in, 175; male dominated formal sector, 27, 157, 163–64; population growth rate in, 161; unilineal-patriarchy systems, 178n18 Mencher, Joan, 177n8 Mencken, Carson, 273 Menjívar, Cecilia, 370 mercantilism, 50 merchant (bourgeois) class, 627, 637nn14,16 merchant class, 637n14 Mernissi, Fatima, 24 meso-level analyses, 36, 50 metabolic theory, 70, 74–78, 83, 86, 191 methodological individualism, 12 Mexico: and CCTs, 176n5; domestic violence, 176n5; economic performance divergence, 96–97, 97fig.4.1; financial crises, 486; and FLFP, 35, 37tab.1.1; free trade agreements, 539–41; as G20 member, 357n5; gender conflicts, 29, 176n5; income expenditures, women’s, 177n8; and labor migration, 324, 325, 365, 367; maquiladora industry, 649–50; and national innovation systems, 353–54; and neoliberalism, 472, 538–40; and new destination migration, 378–80; privatization, 472; as semiperipheral country, 137; state-led development, 535; and tertiary education, 347, 349, 537; U.N. world conference, 23, 64; and women, 159,
177n8; workers reform movement, 532–33, 535; world market factories, 25 Meyers, Daniel, 283 microfinance industry: in Bangladesh, 26, 155, 170; Compartamos (Mexican profit-making MFI), 179n30; feminization of, 30, 176n5, 178n13; in India, 179n30; in India, Bangladesh and Nepal, 179n33; and MFIs, 173, 179n33; and women, 26, 159, 170, 173, 178n13 micro-level analyses, 30, 36, 52 Middle Ages: bourgeoisie, 627, 637nn14,16; economics of, 599–600, 621; wages, worldwide, 600fig.25.1, 601fig.25.2, 608 middle class, 35, 627, 637nn14,16 Middle East: authoritarian governments, 428n7; economic performance divergence, 96; feminist movements in, 38; field research in, 36; FLFP(female labor force participation) in, 29; and gender of governance, 428n3; preindustrial economic growth, 599; and women’s rights, 11, 29, 429n9. See also MENA Mielants, Eric, 587, 602 Mies, Maria, 24, 38, 173 Mignolo, Walter, 145 migrant transnational organizations (MTOs), 4, 373–74, 378 migration, 60–61; (dis)articulations with globalization, 327–31; countervailing forces, 331n1; and economic growth, 313–16; and education, 257n3; European migration crisis, 331n1; growing systems of, 331n1; as measurement, 63; overview, 311–13; patterns studies, 543n1; rapid-onset migration crises, 331n1; regulatory schemes, 331n1; scholarship on, 316–20; vicious cycle arguments and evidence, 324–27; virtuous cycle arguments and evidence, 320–24; and women’s marginalization, 39n1. See also migrant networks migration networks: conclusions, 381–82; destination economies and, 367–70; economic globalization and, 363–67; enclaves and immigrant entrepreneurship, 370–74; expansion of, 331n1; limits and ethnic capital, 374–78; new immigrant gateways, 378–81; overview, 362–63
INDEX
•
697
Miles, Angela, 142 militarism, 33, 39n9, 74. See also war Mill, John Stuart, 52 Millennium Declaration, 64 Millennium Development Goals, 13, 32, 64, 208, 212, 429n15 millennium: new priorities: development goals, 101; estrangement, 512; partnerships, 511–12; peace agreements, 512–14 Millennium Summit, 64 Mills, C. Wright, 580 Mincer Model, 248 Ming dynasty: maritime trade outlawed during, 637n12; Ming-Qing transition, 639n31; prefecture changes, 639n32 Mississippi, 129–31, 137, 139–41, 143 Mitter, Swasti, 26, 27 Mitterrand administration, 471 mobility trends, 30, 345–48 mobilizations, women’s, 21, 33, 38, 429nn10–12 Mobutu Sese Seko, 514, 518 modernity, 636n6, 637n13 modernization: and population growth, 58; vs socialism, 64; social transformations because of, 21; and women’s marginalization, 25, 39n1; and women’s work, economic value of, 10 modernization theory, 38, 55, 86n2; and critical theory, 56, 63; critiques of, 7, 55, 220n1; and demographic transition theory, 54, 63; and developing countries, 55; and development economics, 54; feminist critique of, 10; and FLFP, 25; and gendered differentials, 30; new modernization, 220n1; new versions of, post-Cold War, 220n1; and political economy theory, 56 Modernizing Women (Moghadam), 39n5 modern science: and Christianity, 637n16; controlled experimentation bias, 638n22 modern society: and environmental damage, 87n5; environmental outcomes of, 72, 73, 78, 80, 87, 87n2 The Modern World-System, 5 Mody, Ashoka, 611 Moghadam, Valentine M., 11, 21–47, 166, 172, 424, 429n9 Mokyr, Joel, 609 Mol, Arthur, 71, 72, 86n2
698
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INDEX
Molina-Morales, Xavier, 253 Mollenkopf, John, 281 Moller, Stephanie, 274 Molotch, Harvey, 282 monocausal model of development, 98–99, 102, 115 Montes, Manuel, 473–74 Montesquieu, 49, 51 Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat de, 49 Moore, Barrington, Jr., 114, 457 Moore, Wilbert, 103 Morales, Evo, 400 morality transition, 10, 226 morbidity, as UN goal, 64 Morocco, income expenditures, women’s, 177n8 Morris, Mike, 599, 603, 654 mortality: causes by country income level, 230fig.9.1; causes of decline of, 56; decline of, 53, 54, 209; demographic transition theory, 53; high mortality, 53; infant mortality rates, 11; patterns studies, 52; as UN goal, 64 Mosca, Gaetano, 580 Moschella, Manuela, 562 Mozambique, 535 Mugabe, Robert, 99 Muller, Walter, 248 Muslims: in Bangladesh, 155, 176n5; family law and patriarchy, 28; and fundamentalist movements, 172; Medieval trade networks, 555, 599; women’s coping strategies, 29 Myrdal, Gunnar, 102, 316–17, 324 Myroniuk, Tyler, 377 Nadvi, Khalid, 654 NAFTA trade agreement, 324, 365, 379, 539, 565, 650 Nam, Sunghee, 25 national innovation systems, 118, 353–54, 356 National Institutes of Health, 237n4 nationalism: as challenge to neoliberalism, 477–78; nationalist conflicts, 257n1; nested processes, 254–56 nation-state centrism, 138–39, 141, 145 nation-state level, 73, 286n5 Native Americans. See American Indians natural resources: accumulation by dispossession, 468; availability and socio-
development processes, 65; and comprador state, 398; consumption of, 76; and ecologically unequal exchange, 79–81; exploitation of, 74, 302, 305, 515; exportation, 485; and indigenous peoples, 199; mineral resource exhaustion, 13; mining operations in Nicaragua, 544n2; as proximate source of growth, 104, 106, 120n9; resource partitioning, 194–96; scarcity of, 98; sectoral theories and, 581 Nazi Germany, eugenics movement, 52 Nee, Victor, 587–88 neoclassical models, 12, 26, 51, 58 neoliberal globalization, 30, 58; and financial crises, 31, 32; and organized protest activity, 38; polarization effect of, 32; and socialist countries, 54 neoliberalism: adverse effects of, 13–14; conclusions, 480–81; decline of US hegemony, 479–80; defined, 463–65; development economists, 9; development policies, 8; endurance of, 475–77; and environmental degradation, 479; and feminist development research, 29–33; gendered nature of, 31; and land use, 200–202; and nationalism, 477–78; 1970s and, 465–70; overview, 463; practice/future of, 470–75; practice of, 470–75; turning point of, 465–70; and women’s mobilizations, 429n13 neo-Malthusianism, 212, 513 neo-Marxism, 7, 55, 56–57, 272, 281, 396 neopatriarchal states, 28 Neo-Weberian network theories, 587 Nepal, 160, 174, 179n33 nested processes: firms, 249–50, 257n5; individuals, 247–48; nations, 254–56; overview, 246–47; regions, 250–54 Neumayer, Eric, 561 New, Michael, 244, 252, 257 newly industrialized countries (NICs), 36 new modernization theory, 220n1 New Zealand, 103, 178n18, 347 NGOs (nongovernmental organizations): CARE, 429n15; environmental, 197; funding for women’s, 32; increasing role of, 14 Nicaragua, 170, 544n2
NICs (newly industrialized countries), 36 Nielsen, Francois, 274, 560 Nigeria, 98, 134, 216, 420, 478, 537 Nik, Theodore, 474–75 Nixon, Richard M., 464 Nolan, Patrick, 161 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). See NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) North, Douglass, 103, 111, 112, 114, 117, 582–83, 610 North Africa, 36, 38. See also MENA North America: and agricultural commodities trading trends, 201; Cultural Survival (NGO), 198; development in, 8; and female labor migration, 31; forest transitions and urbanization, 194–95; Iroquois women’s economic power, 156; and Latin American disparities, 114; mature age structures in, 216–17; and migrants, 314; migratory system, 365; tertiary education, 342, 347, 355–56; and war/armed conflict, 443, 444, 519. See also Canada; Mexico; United States North Korea, 5, 404, 447 Norway, 98 Notestein, Frank, 53, 226 Nove, Alec, 409 NTAEs (nontraditional agricultural exports), 154 Nyarko, Yaw, 323 Nychka, Doug, 73 occupational sex segregation, 11, 27 Oceania, 216, 347, 348fig.14.4 O’Connor, James, 114, 405–6 O’Connorian theory, 395, 405–7 Odum, Howard, 295 oil economy, 28, 39n6, 57, 58, 172–73 O’Keefe, Suzanne, 254 older adults, 62 Olson, Mancur, 99 Omran, Abdel, 227 Oneal, John, 560 one-child policies, 63 O’Neil, Kevin, 380 open access orders, 103, 111, 112, 113, 117, 120n6 Opper, Sonja, 587–88 Origins of the Family (Engels), 33 Osirim, Mary, 35 outcomes, 10, 24, 55
INDEX
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699
outsourcing, 11, 30, 87n4 Overbaugh, Julie, 178n22 overpopulation, 51, 53 Owen, David, 217 Oxfam International, 429n15 Paige, Jeffery, 457 Paige, Jeffrey, 531 Pakistan, 28, 35 palm oil industry, 161–62, 197, 563 Palomera, Jaime, 563 Pampel, Fred, 25 Pamuk, Şevket, 606 Papanek, Hanna, 24 paper mill industry, 72 Papua New Guineau, 161–62 parental generation, 220n2 Parente, Stephen, 612 Pareto, Vilfredo, 580 parity, defined, 177n6 Park, Robert, 192 Parpart, Jane L., 39n8 Parsonians, 396 Parsons, Talcott, 7, 396 Parsonsian models, 395–97 partnerships, 358n8, 511–12 Pashtuns, 166–67 Patel-Campillo, Anouk, 268, 293–310 Pateman, Carole, 416 patenting, 257n3 patriarchy: barriers to women, 35; bilateral kin/ property systems, 178n18; and capitalism, 28; and civil institution advancement retardation, 13; creation of, 34; and democracy advancement retardation, 13; dependency burden, 13; and feminine movements, 429n11; feminist concepts of, 23, 36; feminist critique of the neglect of, 9–11; feminist development sociology and, 21; and feminist laws, 428n8; importance of, 10; increases in fertility growth, 13; as institutional obstacle to FLFP, 28; and MFIs loans, 179–80n33; patrilineal descent, 176n3; patrilocal residence, 176n3; and petroleum industry, 172–73; public patriarchy, 28; and reduced education levels, 13; and sexual division of labor, 24; and social conflict increases, 13; structures
700
•
INDEX
of, 28, 39n6; unilineal-patriarchy systems, 178n18; and WAD, 24; women and, 28, 31, 178n14 Patridge, Mark, 281 patrilineal descent, 155, 176n3, 179n28 patrilocal residence, 176n3 Paulsen, Michael, 252 Pavlinek, Petr, 653 payments for environmental services (PES), 197 peace agreements, 512–14, 516–18 Pearson, Ruth, 11, 26, 27 Peck, Jamie, 474–75 Peet, Richard, 58 Peine, Alexander, 250 Pereira, Alfredo, 407 Peres, Wilson, 405 Perkins, P., 407 Persian Letters (Montesquieu), 49 Peru, 25, 134 PES (payments for environmental services), 197 Pessar, Patricia, 376 pesticides, 154 petroleum industry, 172–73 Philippines, 27 physiosocratic school, 50 Pietila, Hilkka, 24 pink collar jobs, 32 Pinker, Steven, 441, 449–50, 453 Piore, Michael, 364 Platform for Action, 32 plow cultivation, 177n11 Poelhekke, Steven, 254 Poland, 424, 589 Polanyi, Karl, 190, 580 polarizations: class polarization, 36, 114; economic polarization, 33, 266, 276; as effect of neoliberal globalization, 32, 33; gender polarization, 32; social polarization, 489 policies: and age structure, 218–19; distributive policies, 110; economic policies, 110; role of, 109; social policies, 110; structural adjustments policies, 110 Polillo, Simone, 565 political-economic perspectives, 74–78 political economy theory, and modernization theory, 56 political empowerment, women’s, 35
political factors, broader agenda range, 13 political participation, gender equality in, 32, 38 political policies, and gender quotas, 428n6 political scientists, postmodernist feminist perspective, 39n8 political structures, women’s representation in, 428n8 politics: and ecological modernization, 73; and economic life, 9; examination of contentious, 14; political-economic perspectives, 74–78; women’s effects, 21, 428n8; and women’s rights in Middle East, 166–67, 429n9. See also democracy and women pollution: as environmental outcome, 81–82; generation of, 74, 75, 79; in Japan, 87, 87n4; reduction efforts, 71, 72; of tourism centers,
population dynamics, in development discourses, 64 population ecology, 57 population/economic growth debate, 57 population environment discourse, 61 population explosion, term, 53 population growth: control of, 54, 57, 58, 209, 345, 581, 604; and economic development, 51; and economic growth, 54; and modernization, 58, 64; population/ resource debate, 57; and urbanization, 56. See also family planning population growth/economic development, and Western countries, 55 population policies, and gender equality/ women’s empowerment, 64
13; water pollution, 86, 561, 565, 567 Pomeranz, Kenneth, 577, 586–87, 601, 621–22, 623–24 Ponte, Stefano, 566, 656 Popov, Vladimir, 473–74 population: aging population structures, 62, 64; debates over, 62, 64; defined, 48; and development economics, 54; and economic growth, 48; and economic variables, 55; and economy, 636n3; fear of decline in, 52; fragmentation, 62; and labor, 636n3; mercantilist view of, 50; and resource relationship, 55; and resources, 48; and social equality, 48; and subsistence, 50; trends, 62; and wage/labor relationship, 51 population, age, tertiary, 343fig.14.1,14.2 population and development: conclusions, 62–65; and GDP, 57, 120n9; overview, 48–50; post-1970s perspectives, 58–62; post-WWII perspectives, 53–58; pre-WWII perspectives, 50–52 population and development discourse, changes in, 58 population and resources, debates, 57 The Population Bomb (Ehrlich), 54–55 population control, 7 population density, 111, 114, 271 population/development interdependencies, modernization’s role in, 220n1 population/development nexus: issues of, brought to forefront, 65; modernization’s role in, 63; population data collection, 63
population redistribution, 60 population/resource debate, traditional form, 57 populations, world population growth, 605fig.25.3 The Population Bomb (Ehrlich), 54–55 population trends: and demographic indicators, 62; and social engineering, 64; systematic data collection on population trends, 63 Portes, Alejandro, 324, 326, 378 Portugal, 199, 475 positivist paradigm, 52 Postan, Michael, 608 post-Cold War: modernization theory, new versions of, 220n1; and sub-Saharan African conflict, 506–8 post-communist turn, and neoliberal globalization, 30 post-developmentalism, 13–14, 58 post-development critique, 14 post-development thinkers, 14 post-development thought, debates over, 14 post-Keynesianism, 26 post-Keynesian turn, and neoliberal globalization, 30 post-materialist values, 70–74 post-materialist values theory, 70–73, 86n2 postmodernist feminist perspective, relevance of, 39n8 Poston, Dudley, 57 post-secondary education. See tertiary education post-statist turn, and neoliberal globalization, 30
INDEX
•
70 1
postwar era: absorptive capacities, 117–19; binding constraints identification, 117; development theory explanations, 98, 99, 102–3; and Gerschenkronian theory, 115–17, 118; Japanese industrialization, 87n4; and late industrialization, 557; and overpopulation, 53; population data collection, 63; reconstruction periods, 636n5 poverty, 33; absolute poverty, 95, 132, 133, 141; in Africa, sub-Saharan, 508; and CARE, 429n15; in China, 489; in Congo, Democratic Republic of, 514, 518; and developmentalist states, 402; as development indicator, 213, 215, 268; and development narrative, 14; as development problem, 142; and Global North/South divide, 148; as Global North threat, 512; of indigenous peoples, 199; local/global poverty, 143–44, 149n2; Malthusian perspective on, 211–12, 213; Malthusian predictions, 51, 95; microfinance projects, 30; and migration, 346; and overpopulation, 51; persistent poverty areas, 140, 304–6; and population growth, 219; and post-development thought debates, 14; prostitution as generated by, 39n9; reduction, 448, 454, 456, 511, 652; regional disparities, 277–86; and remittances, 314; as social indicator, 97; and subnational variations, 269; and urbanization, 236; and virtuous/vicious cycle debate, 317, 320, 326; and WAD, 24; and wealth disparity, 139–40; women’s, 27, 158, 162, 178, 429n15 poverty level, as human development indicator, 14 poverty populations: and income level reduction, 13; and internal market reduction, 13; and micro-enterprise, 13 Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, 511 power, failure to consider, 87n3 power differences, sociology’s focus on, 14 power relations: and governance, 662n5; meanings/mappings of, 14; sociology’s focus on, 14 Prasad, Monica, 470–71 Prebisch, Raul, 109 predation, and violent development, 12
702
•
INDEX
preindustrial economic growth: Europe, 599–604; Europe/Asia divergence, 601–4; in Far East, 599; in Middle East, 599 preindustrial population trends, 589, 604–5 Preston, Samuel, 210, 215 pre-WWII, and eugenics movement, 63 price/trade liberalization, 30 primary education levels, 14 primary sources, of food and clothing production, 10 Pritchett, Lance, 107, 117 private patriarchy, 28 private property, and female subordination, 39n9 private sector, women’s wage disparity/gender income gap, 27 privatization, 472 privatization/statist economic strategies, 30 production: and efficiency gains, 87n5; and environmental impacts, 74, 87n5; and structural transformation, 51–52; upgrading in developing countries, 661n3; workplace concept, 258n6 productivity equation, transformation from growth equation, 120n9 professionalization, of demography, 52 professional labor diasporas, 323, 326, 353–56, 612. See also professional labor diasporas profit maximization strategies, 12 profit rates: and female productive labor, 25; industrial enterprises, 492tab.20.1 profits, as net income inclusion, 120n11 projections, of population and development, 55 property, in MENA/South Asia and East Asia, 178n18 property rights: in China, 99; and colonialism, 103; endangerment of, 12–13; and market reactions, 58; protection of, 98 prostitution: female labor migration and, 31, 39n9; and male privilege, 39n9; militarism’s generation of, 39n9; poverty’s generation of, 39n9; state failures’ generation of, 39n9 protectionism, 30, 404–5 Protestantism, 98, 609, 628, 631, 637n15 The Protestant Ethic (Weber), 5 provider responsibilities, and women’s income expenditures, 177n8
proximate sources of growth, of socioeconomic development, 104–8 proximate sources of growth and development: debates on, 112–15; framework structure, 99–102, 100fig.4.2; postwar era studies, 102–3; and research literature, 110–11; socioeconomic outcomes, 104; summary of, 104–8; technological change, 105–6, 107–8, 114–15, 118 public goods-oriented instrumental rationalism, defined, 636n6 public health: democratic transition consequences for, 235–36; Ebola outbreak, 224, 233–34, 237; as emergent discipline, 228–29; epidemiological transition model, 234–35; future issues, 236–37; improve-
Rathelot, Roland, 375 Razzell, Peter, 604 RC-32 (Research Committee on Women in Societies), 24 Reagan administration, 57, 64, 465, 471, 507, 558 REDD+ program, 197 redistribution, 12, 54 Redistribution with Growth (Chenery et al.), 110 re-domestication, of women, 29 reductionist market-based models, 7 reflexivity and development, 70–74 Reformation, 637n16 regional applications of transition theories, 582–86 regions: analytical approaches to, 296–99;
ments/disparities in, 229–32, 234–35; malaria issue, 234; mortality causes by country income level, 230fig.9.1; organizations/institutions, 237n2; tuberculosis issue, 233; water and sanitation projects, 232–23. See also demographic processes/ public health Public Health Service, US, 237n4 Puentes, Ruben, 330 Puerto Rico, 160 Putnam, Robert, 381 Pyle, Jean, 28
Appalachia, 304–6; conclusions, 306–7; defined, 286n1, 286n6, 294–96; macro-level analyses, 299–300; nested processes, 250–54; networked spaces of production, 300–303; study of, 286n2; subnational development, 303–4 regressive gender policies, and Islam, 172–73 Reinert, Erik, 405 religion: Christianity, 637nn15–16; impact on ordinary Europeans, 637n15; Islamic movements, 29; and rulers’ interests, 637n15; women’s dress conformity, 29. See also Islamism; Protestantism remittances, 31 Renaissance, 637n16, 639n31 repayment plans, 9 replacement fertility, 177n12, 220n2, 220n4 Research Committee on Women in Societies (RC-32), 24 resources: consumption of, 80–81, 84; equipping women with, 429n15; Jevons Paradox, 76; and population, 48; and population relationship, 55, 57; and sustainability, 84–85 Ricardo, David, 556 Ringmar, Erik, 603 Ritzer, George, 132, 134–35, 143 Rivera, Lauren, 566 The Road to Poverty (Billings & Blee), 305 Robinson, James, 99, 103, 113, 114, 117, 612 Robinson, William I., 138–39, 470 Rodney, Walter, 23, 534
Qatar, natural resources, 98 Qianlong (Chinese emperor), 637n9 Qing dynasty: Ming-Qing transition comparison to Renaissance, 639n31; prefecture changes, 639n32; Qing rulers, 639n30 quality, institutional, 409 Quark, Amy, 648 Quinn, Thomas, 178n22 quota system, effects of eugenics movement on, 52 Rahim, Alaf H., 245 Rahman, Aminur, 173 Rakowski, Cathy, 30 Ramirez, Francisco, 241, 255, 340 Ramsbey, Thomas, 25 rapid appraisal, validity of, 180n35 rapid-onset migration crises, 331n1 Rath, Jan, 376
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Rodriguez-Pose, Andres, 278 Rodrik, Dani, 99, 106, 113, 114, 115, 117, 403, 559 Roldan, Marta, 159, 177n8 role conflicts, and traditional family, 28 Romania, 55, 64, 141, 195, 212 Rosa, Eugene, 82–83, 84, 85, 87, 87n5 Roscigno, Vincent, 283 Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent, 637n8 Rosenzweig, Mark, 346 Ross, Emma, 178n23 Ross, Michael, 39n6, 172 Rossi, Arianna, 652 Rostow, Walt, 54, 55, 102 Rubinson, Richard, 560 Rudd, Thomas K., 86n1, 190–206 Ruef, Martin, 375 Rueschemeyer, Dietrich, 404 Ruf, Francois, 193 rural sectors: average household income, 498fig.20.5; marginalization of women in, 23; rural death rates, 220n3 rural-urban migration, 10, 31, 39n1, 176n3 Rush, Howard, 653 Russia: as BRICS country, 36, 357nn4–5; catch-up of, 115; debt crisis, 475; emerging markets of, 81; exports, flowers, 176n2; as G20 member, 357n5; Medieval trade networks, 599; mortality in, 610; poverty in, 141; Russian government, 467; as semiperipheral country, 137 Rwanda: gender, environment and genocide in, 171–72; genocide, 170–71; horticultural cultivation, 171, 179n26; women’s land rights, 171–72, 179n27 Sachdeva, Ravinder, 178n22 Sachs, Jeffrey, 3, 98, 113 Safi, Mirna, 375 Safiotti, Heleith, 25 Saguy, Abigail, 369 Sand, Benjamin, 253 Sanderson, Allen, 252 Sanderson, Stephen, 138 Sanderson, Warren, 247, 255 Sandino, Augusto César, 544n2 Sanitary Commission, U.S., 237n2 Santos, Theotonio Dos, 23
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Sarkozy commission report, 120n8 Sassen, Saskia, 148–49, 365, 376 Saudi Arabia, 166, 357n5 Savimbi, Jonas, 507 Schmitter, Philippe, 408 Schmitz, Hubert, 654 Schofield, Roger, 604 Schrank, Andrew, 655 Schröder, Gerhard, 477 Schultz, Theodore, 107 Schumpeter, Joseph, 114 Schumpeterian growth, 118, 598, 607, 613 Schwartz, Pepper, 159 Scott, Alison MacEwen, 25, 26 Scott, Catherine, 429n9 Secada, Walter, 246 secondary education levels, 14, 35 second-wave feminism, 23 sectoral hegemony, 648 sectoral theories, 215, 580–88, 590–91 security paradigm change, and sub-Saharan African conflict, 508 Seers, Dudley, 110 segregation, in Islamic states, 29 self-employment, 27 self-regulating markets, 50 semiperipheral countries: and BRICS, 36; as descriptor, 132, 137–38, 141; and developmentalist states, 404; economies of, 5; and hard-bargaining states, 399–400 Sen, Amartya, 3, 13, 441, 442, 444, 448–49, 506 Sen, Gita, 30 Senegal, 137 settlement/resettlement efforts, 331n1 sexual abuse, in Afghanistan, 167 sexual division of labor: effects of, 24; feminist concepts of, 36; sex roles concept, 23; and WAD, 24; and women’s employment, 29 sexual harassment, 29, 31 SEZs (special economic zones), 367 Shavit, Yossi, 248 Shaw, Martin, 78, 450, 451–52 Sheldon, Kathleen, 429n9 Shen Kuo, 638n25 Shioji, Etsuro, 407 Shiva, Vandana, 24, 38 shock therapy, as tool of neoliberalism, 57 Shorette, Kristen, 567
Siegfried, John, 252 Sikkink, David, 283 Silver, Beverly, 543n1 Simmel, Georg, 286n4 Simon, Julian, 58, 64, 211, 212 Singapore: catch-up growth, 95, 98, 116, 118; economic performance divergence, 95, 345; and education, 347, 352, 353, 354–55; manufacturing, 653; postwar era, 536; rapid growth in, 98; universities, 357n7 Singer, Hans, 109 Skeldon, Ronald, 330 skills-building, and knowledge economy, 30 Skinner, G. William, 634 Skocpol, Theda, 114, 457 SKS loan tragedy, 179n30
social reproduction, 9–11, 36 The Social System (Parsons), 396 socioeconomic development sources: absorptive capacities, 117–19; binding constraints identification, 117; causality frameworks, 99–102; intermediate sources, 109–11; monocausal explanations, 98–99; overview, 95–98, 100fig.4.2; postwar development theory explanations, 102–3; proximate sources, 104–8; socioeconomic outcomes, 97, 100fig.4.2, 104, 119n5; technological backwardness advantages, 115–17; ultimate sources, 111–15 sociological theory: classical foundations of sociology and subnational development, 270–72; in the contemporary period,
slavery, 113, 194, 198, 364, 445, 514 small-scale entrepreneurship, 30, 35 Smelser, Neil, 6, 397 Smelserian schemes, 396 Smith, Adam, 50–51, 52, 556, 577, 580 Smith, Chad, 77, 452 Smith, Lisa, 169 Smith, Robert, 374 Smithian growth, 598, 607, 613, 625, 636n3 Snow, John, 228, 232 social capabilities, 112, 116 social change, 14, 36 Social Change in the Industrial Revolution (Smelser), 6, 397 social democratic models, 36, 405–7 social engineering, 63, 64 social equality/inequality, 10, 24, 48, 65 socialism, 54, 64 social justice/injustice, 12 social movements: and agro-export/monoculture/mineral extraction development, 532–35; collective actions, 529–30; and conclusions, 542–43; defined, 531–32; economic development, 528–50; and neoliberal development, 538–42; overview, 528; and state-led development, 535–38; studies on, 543n1 social order, 50, 113, 209, 416–17 social outcomes, 10, 37tab.1.1, 101 social positions, women’s: and economic development, 21; understanding of, 23 social relations of gender, GAD and, 26, 39n1
272–74; subnational research and nation-states’ development, 274–75 sociologists, development. See development sociologists Soja, Edward, 271 Sokoloff, Kenneth, 113, 114 Solow, Robert, 107, 393 Sonnenfeld, Donald, 72–73 Soskice, David, 577 Soule, Sarah, 284 Soumaré, Issouf, 561 South Africa: as BRICS country, 36, 357nn4–5; as G20 member, 357n5; manufacturing sector, 535; poverty in, 141; as semiperipheral country, 137; setter societies, 199; Women’s National Coalition in, 428n8 South Asia: and gender of governance, 428n3; poverty in, 33, 97; property, 178n18; South Asian Enigma term, 169; unilineal-patriarchy systems, 178n18; women’s coping strategies in, 29 Southeast Asia: and ecological modernization theory, 87n4; environmental degradation in, 87n4; field research in, 36; free trade zones, 25; paper mill industry, 72; world market factories/cheap female labor, 25 South Korea: catch-up growth, 116, 118; economic performance divergence, 95, 96, 97fig.4.1; and education, 345, 347, 352, 353–54, 356; FLFP in, 25; as G20 member, 357n5; manufacturing sector, 535; natural resources, 98; patriarchy in, 28; as
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South Korea (continued) semiperipheral country, 132, 137; universities, 357n7 Soviet Union (former): collapse of, 103; economic history of, 636n5; female labor migration, 31; and neoliberalism, 57; population trends, 64; social engineering, 64; Soviet-style development, 54; transitions in, 32 Sowers, Elizabeth, 553–76 Spaargaren, Gert, 86n2 spatial biases, 401–2, 403 spatial scales, 286n3, 286n4 special economic zones (SEZs), 367 spillover theory, 253 Spirit of Laws (Montesquieu), 49 Sri Lanka, 95 stagnation: in Africa, 95; of extant regimes/ institutions, 457; of former colonies, 99; and industrious revolution, 607; in Latin America, 96–97; migration and, 320–21; and neoliberalism, 473, 481; sources of, 102; and Third World debt crisis, 538; and uneven development, 98, 297 Stallings, Barbara, 405 Standing, Guy, 26, 32, 149 Staritz, Cornelia, 654 Stark, Oded, 321 states, 36; China’s imperial state, 638n21; contradictory goals of, 28; developmentalist state theory, 400–404; economic interests, 50; and female subordination, 39n9; financially depleted, 9; further observations, 409–10; the future of, 477–81; and modernization theory, 54; O’Connorian state theory (fiscal crisis theory), 405–7; overview, 393–95; Parsonsian models of, 395–97; potential negatives list, 394–95; potential positives list, 394; protectionism, 404–5; social democratic models, 407–8; State Boards of Health, 237n2; state failures, 39n9; state orchestrated growth, 7; state regulations, 50; statist/privatization economic strategies, 30; underdevelopment theory, 397–400. See also democracy and women; neoliberalism; politics statistical measures, 10, 32, 36 Stearns, Linda Brewster, 87n4
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STEM fields, 341, 349, 354, 355, 356 Stephens, John, 449 Stevens, Philip, 248 Stiglitz, Joseph, 12, 109, 402, 406 stimulus, Chinese, and global economic crisis, 492–97 Stinchcombe, Arthur, 531 Stokes, Andrew, 210, 215 The Strategy of Economic Development (Hirschman), 99 stratification, 30, 36 Streeck, Wolfgang, 408, 476, 477 Stroud, Joshua, 224–40 structural adjustments, 39n1, 179n29; future opportunities identification, 105; gendered nature of, 30; policies, 110; policy effects, 29–30; policy effects of, 32; and sub-Saharan African conflict, 507–8; in Zimbabwe, 35 structural functionalism, 87n3 structural transformation, 51–52 Sturgeon, Timothy, 656, 657, 658 subnational development: conclusions, 284–86; defined, 286n1; market and state processes, 278–81; overview, 265–68; political processes, 281–84; regional differentiation, 275–76; research commonalities, 268–70; sociological theory, 270–75; spatial inequality, 277–78 subordination theories, 23, 24, 38 Subramanian, Arvind, 113 subsidized inputs, 179n33, 402, 403 subsistence economy: and GDP statistics, 10; omissions in analysis, 10; and population, 50; subsistence agriculture, 10; subsistence basket, 601fig.25.2; subsistence ratios, 601fig.25.2 Sugar, Serap, 28 Sugur, Nadir, 28 Suharto government, 98, 648 Sukarno government, 99 superpowers, 506–7 sustainability, 10, 57, 64, 73, 74, 84–85 sustainable development, 72, 208, 429n15 sustainable growth prospects, 497–99 sustained slow growth pattern, 53 Swanstrom, Todd, 281 Swaziland, 159 synergy bonus, 161–62
Syria, 166, 173 Szelényi, Iván, 580, 590 Szirmai, Adam, 95–126 Szreter, Simon, 234 Taiwan: and brain drain labor migration, 326; catch-up growth, 116, 118; as classic developmental state, 401, 402, 404, 441, 446–47; and commodity chains, 649; comparisons to, 486, 487, 489, 490; as East Asian Tiger, 536; economic growth, 95, 96, 97fig.4.1, 98, 116, 118; economic performance divergence, 95, 96, 97fig.4.1; and militarism, 5, 448–49; national innovation system of, 353; natural resources, 98; and neoliberalism, 472;
technological inventions, and Industrial Revolution, 624 technological knowledge: advances in, 120n10; and capital, 105, 107, 120n10; development in China, 638n21; disembodied change defined, 120n10; and follower countries, 108 teenagers, 169–70, 449 Teignier, Marc, 158 Teitelbaum, Michael, 56 temporal failure, 401, 402–3 terms of trade, 109 tertiary education: conclusions, 356–57; defined, 357n2; demand and supply trends, 342–45; donor assistance, 357n1; endogenous tertiary capacity, 349–56; enrollment in, 343–44fig.14.1,14.2; international student
postwar era, 536; and universities, 347; universities, 358n7 Talbot, John, 647 Tanaka, Kazuko, 25 Tanzania, 535; economic performance divergence, 96, 97fig.4.1 Tapper, Nancy, 166 Tarzi, Shah M., 561 Tawney, Richard Henry, 637n16 technological backwardness theory, advantages of, 115–17 technological change: and economic growth, 107–8; as proximate source of growth and development, 105–6, 107–8, 114–15, 118; Schumpeterian view, 607–8; and war/ armed conflict, 443 technological development: in China, 625; and China/Middle East dominance, 621; and globalization, 554; and migration, 363; and scientific advances, 638n23; and transnational projects, 373 technological factors, of Great Divergence, 629 technological innovation: and environmental reforms, 70–72; and globalization, 30; and intermediate sources, 110; and intermediate sources of growth, 109; and Jevons Paradox, 76; and knowledge economy, 30; and proximate sources of growth, 108; Schumpeterian, 614; and sustainability, 71; and treadmill of destruction, 78, 81; and ultimate sources of growth, 111, 113; and war/armed conflict, 443–44, 446
mobility trends, 345–48, 346fig.14.3, 348fig.14.4; nationals return programs, 353–55; nonstandardization of, 357n6; overview, 340–42; partnerships, 349–53; scholarship support, 355–56 Tewari, Meenu, 650 textiles. See clothing production Thailand: economic performance divergence, 95; life expectancy, 141; paper mill industry, 72; rapid growth in, 98; rural insurrections in, 200; women’s economic power, 175 Thatcher, Margaret, 467; speeches, links to, 481n1 Thatcher administration, 57, 465, 467, 470–71, 507, 558 theft, resource appropriation, 105 theoretical fragmentation, 56–57 Third World: Cold War era importance, 53–54; debt dynamics of, 9; development costs, 55; and development theory approaches, 22–23, 36; informal economy sector, 25; Mississippi comparison, 131; outsourcing of production, 11; studies, 3–6; and superpowers, 506–7; “Third World America” (online photographic gallery) (Wright), 131; women in, 22, 24 Thomas, Duncan, 179n25 Thomas, Robert, 114 Thomas, Robert Paul, 582–83, 610 Thompson, Warren, 52, 53 Thompson’s theory of population and development, 52–53
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Thorn, Kristian, 353 Thunen, Johann-Friedrich von, 192, 193 Tiano, Susan, 25 Tickamyer, Ann R., 268, 293–310 Tienda, Marta, 380 Tilly, Charles, 441, 443 Timberlake, Michael, 560 Tolbert, Charles, 273 Tolnay, Stewart, 284 trade balance, 30, 50, 637n14 trade unions: and female productive labor growth, 39n4; social power decline, 26 trading/farming activities, male seizure of previous female, 10, 11 traditional development critique, 14 traditional family, 28; women’s break from, 31 traditional feminine image use, 429n10 traditional kin/property systems: in East Asia, 164, 178n18; in Southeast Asia, 164, 178n18 traditional/open society dichotomy, and opposition of limited/open access orders, 120n6 training: and technological knowledge, 120n10. See also education transition overview, capitalism, 577–78 transition theories. See demographic transition theory; capitalism, 578–82 transnational corporations, 14 transnational feminist activism, 38 treadmill theories, 70, 74–78, 81–86 Trebbi, Francesco, 113 Trefzer, Annette, 129–52 Tremblay, Karine, 347 triangulation, 180n35 Tribbia, John, 73 The Triumph of the City (Glaeser), 235 tropical economies, 98 Truman, Harry S., 54, 506 Tsai, Kellee, 587 Tsutsui, Kiyoteru, 565 tuberculosis, 224, 231, 232, 233–34 Tunisia, 428n7 Turkey: catch-up growth, 118; economic performance divergence, 95; as G20 member, 357n5; household gender relations in, 35; manufacturing sector, 535; patriarchy/capitalism conflicts, 28; privatization, 472; and women’s dress conformity, 29
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Uganda, 175, 352, 514–16, 518–19, 535; research methodology in, 180n35 The Ultimate Resource (Simon), 212 ultimate sources of growth and development: debates on, 112–15; framework structure, 99–102, 100fig.4.2; and intermediate sources, 108; postwar era studies, 102–3; and research literature, 110–11; of socioeconomic development, 111–15; socioeconomic outcomes, 104; summary of, 111–12 UNAIDS, 168 U.N. Commission of Population and Development, 49, 213 underdevelopment theory: in Appalachian, 294, 304–5; comprador state, 397–99; developmentalist state theory, 400–404; and development narrative, 14; emergence of, 317; and female exclusions from labor market, 11; further observations, 409; hard-bargaining state, 399–400; as historical materialist critique, 7–9; internal/external factors, 102; and Marxian theories, 298; and modernization theory, 7, 8; O’Connor model, 405–7; protectionism, 404–5; and resource-based economies, 302; social democratic models, 407–8; and surplus labor for low wages, 11; traditions derived from, 395–96 UN Development Program, 166–67, 429n15; Gender and Development Index, 32; and gender equality/women’s empowerment, 429n15; Human Development Report data, 13, 39n11 UNDP (U.N. Development Program), 166–67 unemployment: urban slum dwellers, 10; and women, 27, 31–32 UNESCO: tertiary education data, 357n2; and women, 23; and women’s rights, 39n2 uneven development: analytical approach to region, 296–99; Appalachia, 304–6; conclusions, 306–7; macro-level analyses, 299–300; networked spaces of production, 300–303; overview, 293–94; region defined, 294–96; subnational perspective, 303–4 UN Human Development Index: as engendered index, 32; and FDI link, 561; and Global
South countries, 130, 137; life expectancy component, 62, 64; and structural adjustment data, 507 UNICEF, 168, 511 UNIFEM, 167 unified growth theory, 606, 609, 612 unilineal-patriarchy systems, 178n18 United Nations: and capability approach, 13; census data, 53; and family planning, 53; international datasets, 32; population conferences, 55, 64; and women’s equality, 23 United Nations Population Division, 53 United States: 9/11 terrorist attacks, 453, 467, 512, 518; child migration crisis of 2014, 331n1; colonialism, 103; as core country,
Urry, John, 271 U.S. National Research Council, 58
136; death rate comparisons, 220n3; declining hegemony, 36; economic disparity in, 277–78; effects of eugenics movement on, 52; as G20 member, 357n5; as Global North country, 134; and health initiatives, 237n4; and higher education, 252; income levels, 159; international armed conflicts, 178n19; international trade expansion, 200; invasions by, 453; and labor migration, 324, 325; natural resources, 98; poverty, 129–33, 141; public health, 229, 231; replacement fertility, 220n2; women in labor force, 178n19; world market factories, 25; as world productivity leader, 99 unit-of-analysis problem, 661n3 universal theories, 52, 62 UN population conferences, 55, 63–64 urban areas: agglomeration effects, 105; conditions in, 237n2; urban industrial bias, 7 urbanization: acceleration of, 298, 377, 530; California school on, 601; and capitalism, 271; change caused by, 35; in China, 620; Clark on, 608; and education, 242–43; and emissions, 83; in England, 604; forest transitions and, 194–95; future trends, 236; and migration, 60, 63; and modernization, 209; in Nairobi, 224; overurbanization, 565; and population, 50, 63, 191; problems of, 56; and public health, 235–36; urban labor markets, 11; and women, 35; and workers, 536
Vietnam, 95, 195, 535 Villermé, Louis-René, 228 violence: on the decline, 449–54; of destitution, 521–22; domestic violence, 167, 176n5; effects of, 12–13, 174; increases in, 9 Virchow, Rudolf, 228 virtuous cycle, 219, 320–24 Viterna, Jocelyn, 414–39 Vonada, Dorian, 562 von Thunen, Johann-Friedrich, 192, 193 von Thunen theory, 193 Vries, Peer, 622
Vance, Rupert, 295 van der Woude, Ad, 606 Van Doosselaere, Quentin, 584 Van Dyke, Nella, 284 VanLandingham, Mark, 224–40 van Leeuwen, Bas, 606, 607 van Zanden, Jan, 606, 607 Vearey, Jo, 377 Veblen, Thorstein, 75, 118, 120n14 Vedantam, Shankar, 172–73 Venezuela, 98, 130, 134 viability, developmental, 12, 13 vicious cycle, 219, 324–27
WAD (women and development). See women and development (WAD) wages, 11, 27, 51, 600fig.25.1 Walby, Sylvia, 28, 36 Walder, Andrew, 409 Wallace, Michael, 273 Wallace, Robert, 51 Wallerstein, Immanuel, 5, 8, 23, 114, 300, 468, 555, 582, 586, 602, 612, 646, 648, 661n1 Wallis, John, 111, 112, 117 Wanchu, Ajay, 178n22 Wang Yangming, 631–32, 633 war: civil war onset, 455tab.18.1; conclusions, 458–59; decline possibility, 449–54; and development in Europe, 443–46; and female labor force participation, 11; and growth of developmental states, 446–49; overview, 440–42; postwar reconstruction periods, 636n5; as reverse of development,
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war (continued) 454–58; in sub-Saharan Africa, 509; war/ armed conflict and women’s disempowerment, 165–68 Warner, Mildred, 218 Washington Consensus, 558–60 water and sanitation, 232–33 Watkins, Susan, 226 Weale, Martin, 248 Webb, Beatrice, 407–8 Webb, Sydney, 407–8 Weber, Max, 5, 7, 98, 191, 265, 270–71, 364, 531, 577, 578, 579, 580, 586, 609, 636n6, 637n11, 637n13 Weberian tradition, 281 Wegren, Stephen, 590 Weingast, Barry, 111, 112, 117 Weisdorf, J. L., 607 Weiss, Anita, 28 Weldon, Laurel, 425 welfare states, 7, 27, 51, 416–17, 428n4 Weller, Robert, 160 Welzel, Christian, 209, 220n1 Wendt, Heather, 274 Wen Jiabao, 485 Wheeler, Christopher, 257 Wherry, Frederick, 565 WHO, 168 Wickham-Crowley, Timothy, 531 WID (women in development) approach or strategy. See women in development (WID) Williamson, Jeffrey, 109, 405 Wimmer, Andreas, 452 Wolchik, Sharon, 429n9 Wolfe, Donald, 159 Woman’s Role in Economic Development (Boserup), 23 WomanStats database, 33 women: access to work outside the home and micro-enterprise, 13; and capitalism, 24; CCTs, 176n4; contraception access/use, 177n7; disempowerment, 153; and dress conformity, 29, 178n20; and education, 166, 167, 226–27; entrepreneurship, 11; female mobilizations, 21, 429nn10–12; female seclusion (purdah), 155; feminist sociologists, 21; and formal sector jobs, 28, 179n30; and gendered relations, 27; and
7 10
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global care chain, 31; and HIV/AIDS, 168; in households/communities, 36; in labor markets, 11, 26; marginalization of, 23; and MFIs loans, 173, 179n33; and micro-enterprise, 13; in patriarchal societies, 166–67, 178n14; in political structures, 21, 35, 38, 166–67, 428n8, 429n10; poverty of, 27; segregation of, 29; self-empowerment of, 34; and small-scale entrepreneurship, 35; status gains, loss of, 32, 35; subordination of, 23, 24, 38; and United Nations programs, 23; and violence, 167. See also economic power, women’s; female productive labor; feminist development sociology; women and democracy; women/ gender and development field women and democracy: conclusions, 425–27; developing countries, 419–21; Eastern Europe, 418–19; gender and the state, 415–16; optimist outcomes, 424–25; overview, 414–15; pessimist outcomes, 421–23; Western welfare states, 416–17 women and development (WAD), 22, 24, 26, 29–30, 32, 33, 36, 39n1 women/gender and development field: and advocacy, 39n1; early history, 22–24; and feminist development sociology, 21; intersect/parallel with development sociology, 21; issues and debates, 25–29; and neoliberalism, 29–33; overview, 21–22; research agendas, 36–38; women’s economic power, 33–36 women in development (WID), 22, 23, 24, 29, 32, 36, 39n1 Women’s Economic Opportunity index, 32 Women’s National Coalition, 428n8 women’s rights: and international agenda, 32; in Middle East, 429n9; organizations, 35; promotions of, 39n2; women’s movements, 21, 428n2 women’s status concept, 11, 23, 24 Wong, Bin, 637n8 workers: households, 35; preconditions, 178n15; studies on, 543n1; and technological knowledge, 120n10; underachieving, 258n7; use this or laborers?, 120n10 working conditions, 26, 31, 35 World Bank, 29–30, 32, 54
World Economic Forum, 32 world economy, 24, 25, 27, 636n5 World Health Organization, 237n2 world market factories, 25, 31 World Population Conference, 52 World Population Conference (1974 Bucharest), 55, 64 World Population Conference (1984 Mexico City), 64 World Population Conference (1994 Cairo), 64 world population growth, 605fig.25.3, 613fig.25.5 World Social Forum, 38 world systems theory: Bonini’s application of, 274; and capitalism, 22, 24, 582; and commodity chains, 645–49, 659–60; core/ periphery models, 135–38, 142; and dependency theory, 135; and FDI, 560, 567; and feminist development sociology, 36; and global crisis, 611; and global inequality, 147; and globalization, 4; and household roles, 27; and late industrialization, 557; and Marxian theories, 7, 55, 297–98; and migration, 364; and neoliberalism, 268; and regional development, 301; and socialist countries, 587; and traditions, 395; and underdevelopment, 8; and uneven development, 300; and upgrading, 655; vicious cycle arguments and evidence, 317, 324; and women, 302
World Values Survey, 33, 39n10, 245 Wright, Alison, 131 Wrigley, Edward Anthony, 604 Xu Xiaonian, 501n10 Yamamura, Kozo, 408 Yates, Julian, 474 Yeltsin, Boris, 467 Yemen, 35, 134, 424, 479 Yongzheng (Chinese emperor), 637n9 York, Richard, 82–83, 85, 87n5 Young, Ralph, 539 Yunus, Muhammad, 155, 179n30 Zajicek, Miroslav, 243, 257n1 Zambia, 178n22 Zeledón, Benjamín, 544n2 Zelnet, Bennet, 565 Zenka, Jan, 653 Zhao, Dingxin, 620–44 Zheng He, 630 Zhou, Min, 371, 376 Zhu Xi, 631, 632, 633, 634 Zikhali, Precious, 245 Zimbabwe, 35, 99 Zinovyeva, Natalia, 253 Zmolek, Mike, 584 Zúñiga, Victor, 379
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71 1