By Brendan M. Howe
The contemporary inter-paradigm debate in Development Studies can be characterised as between advocates of a ‘universal’ global development experience (both positive and negative), and those advocating the centrality of discriminatory practices experienced by the Global South as obstacles to development. Aspirations for universality have faced the challenges and charges of neocolonialism, racism, cultural relativism, exceptionalism, Eurocentricism, and exclusion.
My analytical starting point is the importance of recognising that there are, ironically, a variety of universalisms related to Development Studies discourse. The problem with any universalist perspective is a tendency towards hegemony, and, therefore, a rejection by those who feel excluded by the dominant discourse, or who feel that it does not fully express their experiences or perspectives. Instead, I advocate a search for shared concerns that competing theoretical and epistemological perspectives all express. I contend that across the varied epistemological traditions and competing viewpoints, it is possible to identify several nexuses where even antagonistic traditions converge.
Competing Traditional Universalisms
The first instance of universality related to development revolves around the claims of the post-World War II modernisation agenda, often associated with Truman’s Second Inaugural. It has been strongly attacked by post-colonial and critical scholars as imposing a new form of neocolonialism just as the ‘winds of change’ were sweeping away the old forms. As a result of this universalist paradigm, it is claimed, subaltern relationships were maintained, restored, or constructed.
Second, we have (neo)liberal theoretical hegemony represented by the triumphalism of ‘endism’ following the collapse of the second-world socialist alternative. Here, global development governance has historically focused on top-down policy prescription from major international donors and institutions, and aggregate measurements of development success, such as per capita (GDP) and (GDI).
Criticism of the neoliberal form of universalism, has come from structuralists, dependency scholars, and World-Systems analysis, which also represents another form of universalism. Structuralists and their fellow travellers made the case for distinguishing between ‘developing’ and ‘developed’ countries based on the universal subordinate position of ‘developing’ countries within the global political economy. Yet, Global South (or periphery) is not universally challenged, and there is considerable divergence between development experiences and epistemological traditions of governance.
The contemporary universalist perspectives claim to address the problematic language and conceptualisations of the binary categorisations of developing/developed, Global South/Global North, arguing instead for a focus on common problems faced across all societies, including those in the Global North. Hence, global development rather than international development. The drivers for this incarnation of universalism are ‘converging divergence’; increasing convergence between the North and South on ‘universal’ challenges while there is increased evidence of sustained within-country inequalities (divergence). It can also be seen as an attempt to address the phenomenon of the “rising South”.
Critics point to the abandonment of the unique structural disadvantage focus of Development Studies, which remain relevant, and the silencing of subaltern voices. Rather than de-centring the global North–South framework, they suggest that the analytically more useful way forward is to (re)centre the Global South and use Global South theories and lenses to better understand the world economy and the majority world. Furthermore, discussion of a rising South ignores the fact that this has overwhelmingly been skewed first by East Asia, and more recently by China.
Conclusion: Operationalising a Future Overlapping Consensus
I advocate for consideration of nexuses of overlapping consensus where varied and even antagonistic epistemological traditions can agree or at least agree to differ. These fundamental points of convergence include:
- an overriding concern with empowering the most vulnerable, whether individuals, groups, or countries, to achieve their own sustainable pathways to human security through agency, and the importance of giving an audience to subaltern and alternative voices.
- An increasing emphasis on individuals and trans-state development issues, as well as intersectoral issues beyond the traditional development discourse – an expansion of issues as well as referent objects.
- Related to this, bottom-up, alongside top-down approaches, with prioritisation of the former. This leads to a discussion of hybridity as it has been developed within the peacebuilding discourse.
- A recognition of diversity not only between perspectives, but also within them.
- Hence, a plurality of simultaneously valid definitions of concepts.
Through an operationalisation of the overlapping consensus approach, the study of development can be focused on universal concerns while also recognising the continued salience of structural, systemic, and distributive inequalities. Here, Development Studies can perhaps learn from contemporary peacebuilding discourse where hybridity is championed, building on the strengths of different perspectives, and bringing them together so that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
This post is based on the article “Varieties of Universalism and Their Discontents: The Future of Development Studies” in the EJDR special collection: “EADI 50th Anniversary: Development Studies in the mid-2020s”
Note: This article gives the views of the author, not the position of the EADI Debating Development Blog or the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes
Brendan M. Howe is Dean and Professor of the Graduate School of International Studies at Ewha Womans University. He is President of the Asian Political and International Studies Association, and President elect of the World International Studies Committee.