{"id":2102,"date":"2025-01-07T09:50:25","date_gmt":"2025-01-07T08:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/?p=2102"},"modified":"2026-06-26T12:21:01","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T10:21:01","slug":"in-defense-of-development-studies-why-global-development-falls-short","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/?p=2102","title":{"rendered":"In Defence of Development Studies: Why \u201cGlobal Development\u201d Falls Short"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Alfredo Saad-Filho<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a growing debate in academic circles about the merits of shifting from traditional Development Studies to a broader concept of \u201cGlobal Development\u201d. While proponents argue that this shift would better reflect the interconnected nature of our world, I believe that such a move would be detrimental to our field, our understanding of global differences and inequalities, and our ability to understand the dynamics of development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Development as a discipline<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Firstly, it is crucial to recognise that Development Studies is not a discipline in itself but, rather, a rich and multifaceted field that examines the experiences, challenges, policies, and prospects for development from various perspectives. This diversity is one of the sources of strength to our profession. By abandoning the specificity of developing countries in favour of a more generalised \u201cGlobal Development\u201d approach, we risk delegitimising the field and reverting to siloed disciplines such as economics, geography, sociology, and political science. While these disciplines may use similar labels to discuss issues like employment, health, housing, or economic growth around the world, the features, causes and implications of these issues and phenomena, and the relevant analytical angles of approach, can vary dramatically. A shift towards a globally undifferentiated and, inevitably, more superficial approach from the point of view of developing countries would reduce significantly our ability to explain the systemic differences that structure the global system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGlobal Development\u201d risks denying the significance of colonialism, slavery and imperialism<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Secondly, we must consider the historical context that has shaped current development outcomes. The unequal development we observe today is deeply rooted in historical differences between metropolitan areas and regions that were subordinated to the West through military, commercial, or financial means. By abandoning the specificity of our field, we risk denying in practice, even if not overtly, the significance of colonialism, slavery, and imperialism. This would not only be a historical error; it could also imply complicity with the denialism often exhibited by Western political systems and institutions, including the international financial institutions (IFIs). These entities often suggest that the effects of colonialism and imperialism are no longer relevant and that, several decades after their independence, poor countries must take responsibility for their own predicament. However, we ought to question why it is white people and institutions based in the core countries that get to decide when history is relevant and when it is not: abolishing Development Studies as a separate field would be a misguided bid for neutrality in a context where there is no real middle ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thirdly, while it is true that poverty exists everywhere and that global processes like pandemics, climate change, and international agreements affect all nations, their impacts are felt very differently in the rich and poor countries. Examining these differences reveals that the relationship between the Global North and the Global South remains central to understanding our world, and Development Studies focuses on the causes of these differences and their persistence. Historically, the spread of capitalism has led to the enrichment of a few countries, primarily in Western Europe, and some settler colonies, mostly built on genocide. Over time, other nations have experienced varying degrees of economic success, from the rapid industrialisation of South Korea and Singapore to the \u201cmiddle-income traps\u201d observed in Brazil, Malaysia and Thailand. These development trajectories seem to involve a combination of capitalist transformation, conducive policies, and specific circumstances \u2013 all of which are central to our field of study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Development processes are both uneven and combined<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Development processes are both uneven and combined. This understanding distinguishes heterodox approaches from neoclassical economics, which tends to predict convergence between firms, regions, and countries through competition, while divergence is explained by non-economic processes, especially \u2018bad policies\u2019 and \u2018bad institutions\u2019. In contrast, the neoclassical institutionalists focus on history, but in a one-sided way where the only history that matters is the spread of white Christians, their institutions, and their technologies. It can be difficult to explain, from this approach, why policy wisdom and good institutions have been so concentrated geographically for 250 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The alternative is to recognise that the emergence of capitalism, the industrial revolution, colonialism and imperialism drove a primary process of uneven and combined development that divided the world into an economically dynamic and closely integrated core, and a large non-capitalist periphery that was colonised, subordinated, and forced into adverse trade, financial, political, cultural and institutional relations with the core. The consequence was the emergence of different economic, social and political structures in the core and the periphery, which consolidated global divergence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once countries are capitalist, the combination of domestic policies, market access, technical change, and international competition generates a secondary process of uneven and combined development that is policy-dependent and explains the cycles of convergence and divergence among capitalist countries. The interaction between primary and secondary uneven and combined development suggests a tendency towards convergence among advanced capitalist countries, and a long-term divergence between them and peripheral countries isolated from trade, technology and financial flows. In periods of rapid accumulation, capitalist countries tend to converge more quickly, but developing countries may or may not converge, depending on policies and circumstances. These are core issues for the field of Development Studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We should not renounce our field of study. There is a specificity to the economic, social, and political structures in the Global South, as well as to the challenges to wellbeing, that must be addressed there, and ignoring history would limit our ability to understand change and its drivers. While it is true that neoliberalism has reshaped the geography of development, this has not led to global convergence but rather to new forms of differentiation between societies and economic structures. Given these considerations, the notion of \u201cGlobal Development\u201d does not seem to offer significant advantages for our profession. Instead, we must continue to focus on the unique challenges and historical contexts of developing countries to better understand and address global inequalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note:<\/strong> <\/em><\/strong>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<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alfredo Saad Filho<\/strong> is Professor of International Political Economy, Queen\u2019s University Belfast, UK, Distinguished Visiting Professor, University of Johannesburg, South Africa, and Visiting Professor, LUT University, Finland<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Image<\/strong>: jackmac34<\/a> on Pixabay<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alfredo Saad-Filho There is a growing debate in academic circles about the merits of shifting from traditional Development Studies to a broader concept of \u201cGlobal Development\u201d. While proponents argue that this shift would better reflect the interconnected nature of our world, I believe that such a move would be detrimental to our field, our … <\/p>\n

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