Contemporary  development  views

Without going into detail with the various different alternative approaches to development, it is worthwhile to discuss them since mainstream development has gradually moved away from the economic-centered view towards a more people-centered approach and the effect of alternative development thinking on the UN development agenda has been considerable from 1990s onwards.

Alternative approaches are generally more normative than mainstream theories. They are thus concerned with not only the causal relationships but also with what kind of development is preferable, specifically according to various social groups and the civil society. Structuralist approaches such as dependency theory emphasize macroeconomic change whereas alternative development is more interested in agency and people’s capacity to bring about social change. There are specifically two main categories within alternative development: people-centered and participatory/civil society practices. The first

one rejects economic growth as an end goal in itself and looks towards goals of welfare and human development. The second type is more focused on civil society and considers the strengthening of local communities as both a means to promote human well-being and as an end in itself. (Martinussen 2004, 289, 291.) The modern conceptions of civil society are central to neo-Gramscian view. They comprehend civil society as a more complex and powerful concept than all that is outside the domain of the state. They concentrate more on the shared notions of social relations, state-civil society complexes and social forces that have power to reinforce transformations in forms of state or world order. (Morton 2007, 114-115.)

Alternative development approach developed simultaneously with the dependency paradigm. Towards 1970s alternative development approaches started to stand out from mainstream development and research findings underlined social inequality in contrast to purely economic-centered views. Particularly Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation’s report

‘What Now, Another Development’ affected on the popularization of alternative views.

The report was concerned with ‘endogenous and self-reliant development’ and ‘harmony with the environment’. Whether the report was meant to distinguish between mainstream and alternative development or not, it generated a variety of alternative development approaches in the coming years such as anti-capitalism, green thinking and feminism.

(Nederveen 1998, 346.) In the mid-1970s also the formulation of basic needs strategy by the International Labor Organization (ILO) directed attention to the fact that economic growth alone did not generate employment or increase incomes of the poor. Generally these basic needs encompass need for food, shelter and other necessities, access to public services such as sanitation, health and education and thirdly, access to participate in and influence on decision making. Several international organizations have included this approach in their strategies although often additional to their fundamentally growth-oriented strategies. (Martinussen 2004, 298.)

Ever since the alternative development approaches caught wider attention it has been questioned whether they share the same goals as mainstream development, only using different means. Even when the end goals are more normative, alternative development models have been criticized for lacking a clear theoretical position. Towards 21^st century the discussion on alternative development and the antidevelopment cluster of theories was seen as only another form of Eurocentric paternalism. It was claimed that theories that do

not solve the problem of material scarcity have no practical value. Dissatisfaction with business-as-usual and standard development rhetoric and practice as well as disappointment with alternative development drove many to think so. (Munck & O’Hearn 1999, 203.) One may also ask, whether it is necessary or politically sensible to make a division between mainstream and alternative development. Development is becoming ever more multipolar in terms of division of economic growth and market dynamism as well as global power balance. Simultaneously, the boundaries between conventional and alternative development are mingled. (McEwan & Mawdsley 2012, 1185.) Starting from 1990s the division between alternative and mainstream was rather between human development and structural adjustment, between the UN and the Washington consensus. In many respects the alternative development approaches resemble post-developmentalism in the sense that they easily simplify mainstream development as a homogenous unit. As Nederveen notes, to discuss alternative development only as a narrative of anti-capitalism is not fruitful. This opposition may prevent one from seeing how mainstream and alternative shape and redefine each other’s. (Nederveen 1998, 345.) This view is central also in this research as the aim is not to create a dualistic division between mainstream and alternative discourses but rather study dialectics of transformation as they appear.

Table 1. Overview of Development Approaches (based on author’s summary of Chapter 2)

Time period Hegemonic approach Content

1950-> Modernization Economic growth,

state-directed modernization

1960-> Dependency, Neo-Marxism Third World nationalism,

capacity building, powerful state, socialism

1970-> Alternative development Basic-needs approach, civil society

1980-> Neoliberalism Economic growth, structural

adjustment programs, privatization, globalization

1980-> Human development Social and community

development, capabilities,

2015-> Post-2015 agenda Transformative,

participatory, sustainable?

As the table 1 depicts, clearly, the field of development studies has gone through a substantial change. Yet, apparent traces of the main approaches of modernization theory, dependency theory and post-developmentalism are present in today’s development discourses - the mainstream strand of development thought still conceptualizes development as a linear process of economic transformation, social modernization and technological progress. Even though well-being is the ultimate goal, it is assumed that economic growth is the necessary condition for achieving this. (Fukuda-Parr 2011, 124.) The UN of the 21^st century aligns itself with this thinking. This prevailing hegemony as well as the post-2015 agenda’s potential to bring about transformative change will be discussed in the next chapter.

3. UNITED NATION’S ROLE IN THE CONTINUATION OF