Introduction to International Development Fall 2013

1 Introduction

Why does development occur in one place but not another? This introductory course fosters the cognitive tools and concrete knowledge needed to consider an answer to this question. The course structures readings from multiple disciplines into four modules. The first module explores the conventional economic theories of development, exploring the foundations of contemporary understandings of development. The second module explores development as political and economic modernization. The third module questions the assumptions of the authors examined previously, offering a critical, alternative approach to conceiving development. This module also traces the history of the world economy, including colonialism and contemporary globalization, to better understand both examples of development and the context within which contemporary development takes place. This semester the fourth module shifts focus to poststructuralist understandings of development and development discourse.

2 Objectives

By the end of this course, students will be knowledgeable on:

1. A broad range of theoretical perspectives on development, including both those that are widely accepted and those that are contentious.
2. Selected foundational readings that inform contemporary theories of development.

3 Course Requirements

• Great consideration has been given to what readings are assigned. As such, you are expected to have completed all the readings assigned prior to our class meetings. Do not expect that you can complete the readings assigned in one night simply because there are only two chapters or a few articles to read. The readings can be dense and take time to get through.
• A one-page Reaction Paper (RP) is due electronically by 12pm MONDAY each week for 10 out of the 13 weeks for which there are readings. This allows you to choose which weeks to write a reflection paper. If you write more than ten, your grade will be determined by the top ten. The papers will not be graded with a letter grade, but will be allocated zero, one, two, three, or four points depending on how actively your paper engages the material. Late papers will receive zero points, as the purpose of this assignment is to ensure that you have something to contribute in class.
  

  The paper should usually be 350—500 words (about one page single-spaced). These brief papers are intended to facilitate class discussion. You can use the Reaction Paper (RP) to ask for clarification about any aspect of the readings you did not fully understand or to express an opinion about one or more of the readings. In general, I would advise you to focus the RP on only one of the readings assigned for each week. RPs should be clearly written, spell-checked, and grammatically correct.

• While attendance will be documented, it will not affect your grade. However, you will be responsible for all material in the readings and the lectures. And there will be material unique to the lectures.
• There will be midterm and final examinations.

4 Grading

5 Required texts

There is one required text for this course. We will read it in its entirety.

• Arturo Escobar. Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1995.

You may consider purchasing the following book, as it informs the basic structure of the course.

• Richard Peet and Elaine Hartwick. Theories of Development: Contentions, Arguments, Alternatives. The Guilford Press, New York, second edition, 2009.

All other readings will be available as a reader at . All readings but Escobar’s Encountering Development will also be available online, either through Google Books or cuzproduces.com.

6 Schedule of Topics and Reading

Please note that this schedule may be subject to minor alterations.

Module 1: Conventional theories of development

Suggested reading: Peet and Hartwick, part one.

Week 1 (September 3 and 5): Introduction

Week 2 (September 10 and 12): Measuring development

1. Jeremy Bentham. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Batoche Books, Kitchener, 2000, p. 14—60.

Week 3 (September 17): Roots of capitalism and global trade

1. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Adam and Charles Black, Edinburgh, 1863, Book 1, chapters 1 through 3. Available through Google Books.
2. David Ricardo. On the Priniciples of Political Economy and Taxation. John Murray, London, third edition, 1821, pages 131—149. Available through Google Books.

Week 4 (September 24 and 26): Neoliberal economics

1. Milton Friedman. Capitalism and Freedom. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2002, introduction and chapters 1, 2, 10, 12, and 13.

Week 5 (October 1): Balanced growth

1. Ragnar Nurkse. Some international aspects of the problem of economic development. The American Economic Review, 42(2):571—583, 1952.

Week 6 (October 8 and 10): Cyclical and unbalanced growth

1. Albert O. Hirschman. The Strategy of Economic Development. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1958, p. 83—97, TBA.
2. Albert O. Hirschman. The principle of the hiding hand. National Affairs, 6:10—23, 1967.

Week 7 (October 15 and 17): The developmental state

1. Atul Kohli. Where do high-growth political economies come from? The Japanese lineage of Korea’s “developmental state”. In Meredith Woo-Cumings, editor, The Developmental State, pages 93—136. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y., 1999.

Week 8: (October 22): Midterm exam

Module 2: Development as modernization

Suggested reading: Peet and Hartwick, chapter 4.

Week 9 (October 29 and 31): Stages of growth

1. W.W. Rostow. The takeoff into self-sustained growth. In Amitai Etzioni and Eva Etzioni, editors, Social Change: Sources, Patterns, and Consequences, pages 275—290. Basic Books, New York, 1964.
2. Jeffrey D. Sachs. The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time. Penguin Books, New York, 2005, chapters 2 and 3.

Module 3: Critical Theories of Development

Suggested reading: Peet and Hartwick, chapter 5.

Week 10 (November 5 and 7): Marxism

1. Frederick Engels. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. International Publishers, New York, 2004, p. 54—75.

Week 11 (November 12 and 14): Imperialism and colonialism

1. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Selected Works, chapter Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, pages 667—766. Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1963, chapters 4 through 7. Available through the Marxists Internet Archive.

Week 12 (November 19 and 21): Underdevelopment

1. Andre Gunder Frank. The development of underdevelopment. Monthly Review, 18(4):17—31, September 1966.
2. Walter Rodney. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Howard University Press, Washington, DC, 1982, p. 1—31.

Module 4: Postdevelopment

Suggested reading: Peet and Hartwick, chapter 6.

Week 13 (November 26 and 28): Postdevelopment I

1. Escobar, chapters 1 and 2.

Week 14 (December 3 and 5): Postdevelopment II

1. Escobar, chapters 3 and 4.

Week 15 (December 10 and 12): Postdevelopment III

1. Escobar, chapters 5 and 6.

Week 16 (December 17): Final exam