What is Development? Theoretical and Conceptual Approaches by Ines Renique 

It is fascinating to look at all of the interpretations of development and how each theory can be applied in the short and long run. Some of these theories have been around for years and are still used as a point of reference today. Such as Freire’s, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

Freire highlights the importance of education. He says transformation comes from work, and that work comes from education. These are the true routes to development, more so than throwing money at whatever situation. Merely handing over cash aid to other governments, does not guarantee anything. I think that years after publishing, this is a theory that still holds.

Development is very closely associated to economics as well. And while I know that undoubtedly economic factors are fundamental when analyzing development, I tend to agree with Amartya Sen when he focuses on freedom being the primary factor in whether or not a nation continues to develop.

Sen argues that people are at the core of development. The members of society are not a passive audience member when it comes to the development of their nation. As said in Sen’s own words: “Development consists of the removal of various types of unfreedoms that leave people with little choice and little opportunity of exercising their reasoned agency. The removal of substantial unfreedoms, it is argued here, is constitutive of development.”

This is not to say that Sen disregards organizations and governments as key to development. But he does highlight the importance of inclusion and of representation more than anything. That stakeholder groups be represented on a greater platform, giving them the freedom to make whatever decisions and changes it is they want to be made.

In Amartya Sen’s book Development as Freedom he discusses the theory behind development on a global scale. Sen concludes that freedom and development are intertwined. Development can only be achieved by expanding the true freedoms that people experience. Freedom for Sen depends on a number of factors. Freedom means opening up social and economic opportunities for people, ensuring the preservation or granting of political and civil rights, and depends in large part on industrialization and technological progress.  Development requires removing the “unfreedoms” the people are subjected to. These unfreedoms include poverty, lack of economic opportunities, systematic social deprivation, lack of participation and representation in governance, and lack of access to health and education. These unfreedoms hinder development and as long as they are perpetuated sustainable development will be impossible.

A lack of access to health resources is essential because is people cannot meet their basic needs for survival than any sort of progress in other areas is unachievable. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs illustrates it perfectly in that if one cannot meet their needs at one level it is impossible to advance to the next level. Education is also essential to increasing literacy rates as well as economic opportunities. The freedoms being outlined are not separate freedoms but are interconnected at many levels. Education leads to literacy and literacy can give people the opportunity to increase their participation in political and civil matters. Education can create better economic opportunities for people which in turn can better the social conditions and access to resources. Social and political freedoms often give rise to economic freedoms. The various freedoms strengthen one another and create a network of freedoms that hold one another up and allow the country to develop.

Furthering sustainable development requires participation by multiple actors. First and arguably the most crucial is state level action. The state is essential to creating policy that will further development for its people. But states alone cannot pull themselves into a developed nation. Economic opportunities require input from industry and corporations to provide jobs and to bring capital into the country. A country cannot be considered developed without the political participation of the citizens of the state. Fair and equal voting free from tampering is one of the signifying features of a developed state.

What is “development”? How do we know if a country is “developed”? Who decides that a country is “underdeveloped”? Is development a short term or a long term process? All of these questions are difficult to answer in simple, clean, and concise answers. However, there are leaders in the field – such as Amartya Sen – who offer valuable and irreplaceable insights into the field that build on and move past traditional conceptions of development.

If we look at history, development as a field of practice has gone through cycles. Post-World War II, development was seen as a long-term process with emphasis on economic institutions and having nation’s shift from agrarian economies to industrial economies (Sumner). Since the 1990s, development has taken a much shorter-term view focusing on policy objectives and performance indicators (Sumner). In addition, the scope of development work has shifted from just focusing on “Third World” nations to focusing on newly industrialized countries (NICs), middle income countries (MICs) and low income countries under stress (LICUS) (Sumner). In short, as time has progressed development has become broader in scope and has grown from the traditional view of only looking at economic growth.

Development scholar Amartya Sen fits in nicely with the post-1990s, broader, more diverse view of development. Sen departs from the traditional notion that development should be entirely economic in nature in his book Development as Freedom published in 1999. Sen posits that development must remove “unfreedoms” that prevent people from having access to crucial freedoms, including economic opportunities, political freedoms, social facilities, transparency guarantees, and protective security (Sen). This shift from the economic prosperity, GDP model is huge. With Sen development became much more focused on the individual and their capacity to access freedoms.

I’ve personally had the privilege of interning with an organization that takes the “freedom” approach to international development. I worked for the International Foundation of Electoral Systems (IFES) for about six months and was amazed at how inclusive IFES is when creating programs to increase participation globally in elections and democratic processes. In addition, IFES has a publication, in partnership with the National Democratic Institute (NDI), titled “Equal Access: How to Include Persons with Disabilities in Elections and Political Processes.” By ensuring that PWDs are not excluded from exercising Sen’s political freedom, IFES is actively working to push this post-1990s, human oriented view of development that is so crucial moving forward.

My previous understanding of development has been rather limited because most of the discussions and research in my other development courses have been in reference to a states’ GDP and economic factors. I now know that development can actually mean much more, and I personally find Amartya Sen’s definition of development the most compelling.

Sen explains that human freedom is both the main object and the primary means of development. Therefore, development is seen as the expansion of everyone’s opportunities and freedoms. Sen realizes that development is a crucial element in determining people’s quality of life and not just state capacities (Development as Freedom).

At its core, Sen views development as the difference in what people can and can’t do – the freedoms they have versus those that they lack. People are greatly hindered by insufficient support and resources from their economic, political, and social institutions. Institutions also intersect and depend on one another, which means they impact those beyond their direct work. For example, it is the political institutions and their politics that determine what economic institutions a country has or doesn’t (Why Nations Fail). Vulnerable groups are then further marginalized when these institutions don’t meet their needs because their opportunities and prospects critically depend on whether these institutions exist and how they function. Moreover, people need the freedom of choice within institutional frameworks in order to have personal development within their state’s development.

The shift from the MDGs to the SDGs is so significant because it takes development beyond its predetermined economic relevance and incorporates it into political, social, and environmental institutions and indicators. As we move forward, smart cities are going to become particularly necessary in achieving true inclusive, sustainable development. This makes local and municipal leaders the main actors of development rather than just high-state officials. Development has to be rooted in local needs and innovation. From an international perspective, it is then important to determine and understand how these issues and actions permeate outward. Clearly, development is not just a term but a discourse as it is incorporates ideas and processes that shape real situations (Class). It is now up to us to reconsider how our previous notions of development have hindered true inclusivity and how we can use Sen’s definition of development to provide real opportunities with long-lasting impact throughout the world.

In our second session we opened up the discussion by looking at three different approaches to development. The long-term process of structural change in the international system, the short to medium-term poverty reduction and MDGs and lastly development as discourse or a set of ideas that shapes and frames reality. The idea of development as discourse and ideas that frame reality seemed to be most related to our Amartya Sen reading, as well as to the philosophy behind the work of our guest speaker, Nay Lin Soe.

Sen wrote about the role of freedoms of different kinds in countering  afflictions imposed upon us, and how fostering greater individual agency is central to addressing these deprivations in our lives. Mr. Soe’s organization, the Myanmar Independent Living Initiative -MILI, is a nongovernment organization that works for equal rights, inclusion and independent living of  people with disability in Myanmar.  Mr. Soe’s organization seems to adopt this philosophy in their organization, which  promotes the individual agency of persons with disabilities in all aspects of life, and to work as agents of change in their own lives. Sen explains that one of the impediments to development is that our individual agency is inescapably qualified and constrained by the social, political and economic opportunities (or lack thereof)  that are available to us. Mr. Soe explains that many of the impediments he and his organization face stem from the legal, cultural, and religious barriers imposed by his country. He spoke about the absence of funding in Myanmar’s government for disability organizations, discrimination that disabled persons face in the professional sphere as well as negative stigma against disabled persons stemming from some of the country’s religious traditions.

Sen expresses that the expansion of freedom should viewed as the primary and principal means of development, consisting of the removal of various types of unfreedoms that leave people with little choice and little opportunity of exercising their reasoned agency. This is exactly what Mr. Soe and his organization have taken upon themselves to do. One of the organization’s major achievements include the creation of accessible and disability friendly polling stations that were implemented at four locations in the country, to serve as models moving forward. They have made remarkable progress in removing unfreedoms in the electoral sphere, by increasing disability access in Myanmar’s elections, thus giving disabled people the agency to cast their own private  and secure votes and a voice in their countries elections.

There are different ways that people view development, different measures to go about it, and different definitions used to reach sustainable development goals. Many times people are faced with limitations and unfreedoms that block agendas and treaties from being implemented or pursued (Class Lecture). The class discussions and readings allowed me to better understand why it is that we are faced with obstacles when trying to further positive political, socio-economic and environment agendas.

Amartya Sen, who redefined development, mentions that there are no limitations to development; however, when closely viewing a society’s terms of living, there are a number of restrictions that hinder the community from being able to continue with its development. Participation is an important part of development, but it becomes difficult to do so when a community must conform to the established regulations and norms that take away the majority of their freedom. This form of unfreedom hinders many societies from being able to develop as a society (Sen). Why is it that it has been established that there aren’t any limitations on how to measure development but limitations on how to implement such measures so that a society can prosper?

Other than the concept of freedom to develop, I was aware that markets play a major role on how a country and its people can develop.  Inclusive economic institutions play a key role in encouraging development, but when countries decide to focus on a more “extractive economic institutions”, this can actually lead to poverty in the long-run even if this was used for short-term purposes (Why Nations Fail). Developed countries should continue to focus in creating inclusive economic institutions that underdeveloped countries should follow as well. This can then be able to create “increasing incentives for entrepreneurialism and economic growth in the long run (Why Nations Fail).

All the research that has been compiled is to be able to create a better understanding of development and its studies. In many different ways, we are all affected by developments and many researchers within the field of development theories are very much interested in making sure that their research turns into policy to aid in inclusive sustainable developments (Development Studies). Gaining more knowledge in this topic will help everyone better understand how to manage development and the different obstacles that come with it. Different disciplines should be used to advance the number of sustainable development ideas and goals.

Development is a broad, vague term that is comprised of a myriad of actors, institutions and a plethora of theoretical approaches. Development all too often renders images of post-earthquake Haiti or starving children in a continent that has been simplified into a country. However, as both “Development As Freedom” author Amartya Sen and “Why Nations Fail” writers Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson argue, development is much more complicated than the images that often surround us. According to Sen, development hinges on the individual capabilities, or freedoms, of a person to access a live that they have reason to value (18). This definition challenges the perceptions that development, and development theory, should focus solely on one indicator to measure development. Instead, development is a culmination of many factors working together to create a holistic system that allows individuals the right to access many capabilities and freedoms.

The right to access these freedoms is dependent upon the institutional foundations of countries during colonial periods (Acemoglu and Robinson, 9). While scholars have suggested a variety of other explanations for varying development levels across the globe, like the Geography Hypothesis, Culture Hypothesis and the Ignorance Hypothesis (48-67), Acemoglu and Robinson argue that the differences in a country’s level of development are heavily reliant on the political structures that formed the nation (9). During their in-depth analysis of Mexican and American political differences, they assert that it is the inclusive or extractive nature of the political, and consequently economic, institutions that set the neighbors on two drastically different development paths (74-81). One country was founded on the principals of citizen participation, land ownership and innovation, while the other was plagued with dictators, monopolies and inequality (30-37). While the citizens of Mexico are by no means helpless, their freedoms are severely trampled on by a government structure that does not allow full citizen participation in political decisions.

The importance of political structures is highlighted in both Sen and Acemoglu and Robinson’s work. They all recognize the fundamental importance of citizen participation as the cornerstone of development. If citizens cannot enjoy the benefits of inclusive political institutions, then their hopes of attaining economic or social freedoms are severely inhibited. Issues that haunt development workers, like poverty, access to markets and equal opportunities for education and healthcare are deprivations of basic capabilities that can begin to dissolve as political institutions start to structure themselves around citizens. As citizens gain a forum for discussion, communities can begin to enact policies that will positively influence their lives. This political freedom gives communities the agency they need to create a life they see value in.

Development is one of those international relations topics that can be viewed through a variety of lenses. Ultimately, development looks at change in the human condition, but this change can be observed, measured and explained in multiple ways (Sumner, Andrew, and Michael Tribe A. “What Is Development”). Some attempts at explaining the gap between developing and developed countries include the geography, culture and ignorance hypotheses, but these proposed explanations do not have much support and in general do not show a concrete connection to the problem (Acemoglu, Daron, and James Robinson A. “Theories That Don’t Work”). The most common view that most people tend to gravitate to when they hear the term development is the economic perspective of development. Under this approach, a country is seen as developed or not based on their economic and infrastructure capabilities. While this view has its merits and serves as a reasonable model for looking at development levels of countries, it leaves out a whole other set of factors that play a crucial road. Money alone does not determine or assure that a country is properly developed. Brazil, while not an extreme example, suffers from major economic inequality. The country itself is not poor, but the wealth of the nation is highly concentrated in the upper 1% of the population. Therefore, the majority of the country is still underdeveloped compared to the small pockets of success and the majority of the population does not have access to the resources and services of a developed country. So, is Brazil truly developed beyond just the economic perspective?

Others have noticed this gap in the economic view of development and among them is economist and philosopher Amartya Sen, who has truly re-conceptualized how we look at development and has taken a more holistic approach beyond just GDP. Amartya Sen’s work focuses on the quality of life of people and their substantive freedoms, because the way he see’s it, there are many limits to the material world (Sen, “The Perspective of Freedom”). Development as freedom is a capabilities approach that tries to ensure people have the freedom to make any choice and more importantly have access to these choices. This approach has gained a lot of momentum in the development field and it looks promising for the future. Personally, I used to tend to focus more on development as making sure societies had the necessary resources, but with time and especially after reading Amartya Sen’s work, I have grown to see how crucial it is that the sources also be equally accessible to everyone because that is the only way true development will take place.

One last thing I came across in the readings, which I have never put much thought into, is the issue of “over-development” (Sumner, Andrew, and Michael Tribe A. “What Is Development”). One always thinks of development as a positive thing, but it does not often cross people’s minds that too much of a good thing can be bad. I think now more than ever we are feeling the effects of over-development. Things such as obesity, terrorism and pandemics are very real challenges that are posing many issues to society. It is interesting to observe how today not only development is a focus but that now we have to also learn to handle issues of too much development, or at least find ways to counteract the problems that might arise from developing too quickly.