Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective

by Philip McMichael, Heloise Weber

Overview

Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective explains how development thinking and practice have shaped our world. It introduces students to four interconnected projects, and how their dynamics, contradictions, and controversies have influenced development trajectories: colonialism, the development era, the neoliberal globalization project, and sustainable development. Authors Philip McMichael and Heloise Weber use case studies and examples to help describe a complex world in transition. Students are encouraged to see global development as a contested historical project. By showing how development stems from unequal power relationships between and among peoples and states, often with planet-threatening environmental outcomes, this book enables readers to reflect on the possibilities for more just social, ecological, and political relations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781544305363
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	01/25/2021
Edition description:	Seventh Edition
Pages:	464
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Philip Mc Michael grew up in Adelaide, South Australia, completing undergraduate degrees in economics and in political science at the University of Adelaide. After traveling in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan and doing community work in Papua New Guinea, he pursued his doctorate in sociology at the State University of New York at Binghamton. He has taught at the University of New England (New South Wales), Swarthmore College, and the University of Georgia, and he is presently Emeritus Professor of Global Development at Cornell University, in Ithaca, NY. Other appointments include Visiting Senior Research Scholar in International Development at the University of Oxford (Wolfson College) and Visiting Scholar, School of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Queensland.

His book Settlers and the Agrarian Question: Foundations of Capitalism in Colonial Australia (1984) won the Social Science History Association’s Allan Sharlin Memorial Award in 1985. In addition to authoring Food Regimes and Agrarian Questions (2013), Mc Michael edited The Global Restructuring of Agro-Food Systems (1994), Food and Agrarian Orders in the World Economy (1995), New Directions in the Sociology of Global Development (2005) with Frederick H. Buttel, Contesting Development: Critical Struggles for Social Change (2010), The Politics of Biofuels, Land and Agrarian Change (2011) with Jun Borras and Ian Scoones, and Finance or Food? The Role of Cultures, Values and Ethics in Land Use Negotiations, with Hilde Bjørkhaug and Bruce Muirhead (2020).

He has served twice as chair of his department, as director of Cornell University’s International Political Economy Program, as chair of the American Sociological Association’s Political Economy of the World-System Section, as president of the Research Committee on Agriculture and Food for the International Sociological Association. He is also an active member of the International Studies Association. He has also worked with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Civil Society Mechanism of the FAO’s Committee on World Food Security (CFS), the UN Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), the international peasant coalition Via Campesina, and the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty.

Table of Contents

About the Authors xiii

Preface to the Seventh Edition xv

A Timeline of Development xxi

Acknowledgments xxiii

Abbreviations xxv

Chapter 1 Development 1

What Is the World Coming To? 6

Development: History and Politics 9

Development Theory 11

Naturalizing Development 11

Global Context 13

Agrarian Questions 14

Ecological Questions 15

Social Change 17

The Projects as Historical Framework 19

The Development Experience 20

Summary 23

Further Reading 24

Select Websites 25

Part I The Development Project (Late 1940s to Early 1970s) 27

Chapter 2 Instituting the Development Project: Colonialism, Anticolonial Struggles, and Decolonization 29

Colonialism 30

The Colonial Division of Labor 34

Social Reorganization Under Colonialism 35

Decolonization 41

Anticolonial Struggle 42

Decolonization and Development 46

Postwar Decolonization and the Rise of the Third World 47

Ingredients of the Development Project 50

The Nation-State 51

Economic Growth 52

Framing the Development Project 53

National Industrialization: Ideal and Reality 54

Economic Nationalism 55

Import-Substitution Industrialization 55

Summary 57

Further Reading 58

Chapter 3 The Development Project: An International Framework in Global Context 59

The International Framework of National Development Projects 62

U.S. Bilateralism: The Marshall Plan (Reconstructing the "First World") 62

Multilateralism: The Bretton Woods System 63

Politics of the Postwar World Order and Development 66

Foreign Aid 66

The Non-Aligned Movement 67

The Group of 77 68

The Group of 7: The Capitalist Bloc and the Globalization Project 70

Remaking the International Division of Labor 74

The Newly Industrializing Countries (NICs) 74

The Food Aid Regime 78

The Public Law 480 Program 79

Food Dependency 79

Remaking Third World Agricultures 82

The Global Livestock Complex 82

The Green Revolution 83

Anti-Rural Biases of the Development Project and Peasant Struggles 87

Summary 89

Further Reading 90

Select Websites 91

Part II The Globalization Project (1980s to 2000s) 93

Chapter 4 Instituting the Globalization Project 95

The Debt Crisis and Structural Adjustment Programs: Organizing Neoliberal Development 98

Debt Management 99

Structural Adjustment Programs and Austerity 100

Organizing Neoliberal Development 105

The Globalization Project 108

Global Governance 110

Liberalization, Privatization, and the Reformulation of Development 113

The Making of a Free Trade Regime 118

The World Trade Organization 119

The Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) 120

Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMs) 121

Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) 124

General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) 127

Summary 130

Further Reading 131

Select Websites 132

Chapter 5 The Globalization Project: Processes, Experiences, and Implications 133

Neoliberal Governance of Development and Poverty: IFIs and the WTO 134

Outsourcing and the (New) Global Division of Labor 137

The World Factory 138

The Export Processing Zone 139

Global Labor-Sourcing Politics and Migration 146

Displacement 147

Migrant Labor: The New Export 149

Informalization 152

Neoliberal Development and Extractivism: Reconfiguring International Relations 159

The Global Land Grab 160

Agricultural Globalization 162

Summary 164

Further Reading 165

Select Websites 165

Chapter 6 Global Countermovements 167

Environmentalism 170

Valuing Environments 173

Environmental Countermovement Principles 178

Feminisms 181

"Modern" Feminisms 182

Feminist Formulations 184

The Question of Empowerment 188

Gender, Poverty, and Fertility 188

Women's Rights Trajectory 191

New Sovereignty Struggles: Food Sovereignty 193

Summary 198

Further Reading 199

Select Websites 199

Part III Millennial Reckonings (2000s to Present) 201

Chapter 7 The Globalization Project in Crisis 203

Social Crisis 205

Legitimacy Crisis 211

Geopolitical Transitions 213

Neo-Illiberalism and the Changing of the Guard 218

The Chinese Renaissance 222

Digital Futures 224

Deglobalization 226

Ecological Crisis 230

Nutrition/Health Crisis 231

Development and the Externalization of Nature 234

Summary 237

Further Reading 237

Chapter 8 Development Climate, or The Nature of Development 239

Life-Worlds at Odds 240

The Challenge of Climate Change 244

Business as Usual? 249

Sustainable Intensification Proposals 254

Sustainable Intensification at Work 258

Renewable Energy 267

Conclusion: Ecosystem Priority 269

Further Reading 270

Select Websites 270

Chapter 9 Public and Local Green Initiatives 271

Public Greening Initiatives 273

Urban Initiatives 277

Circular Economy 279

Transition Towns 280

The Commons 281

Rural Initiatives 283

Agroecology 286

Conclusion 296

Further Reading 297

Select Websites 297

Chapter 10 Toward Sustainable Development 299

Ingredients of Project Coherence 300

The Double Movement of Our Era of Global Development 302

What Is Appropriate to These Times? 303

Degrowth Economics 305

Sustainable Development Project Implementation 309

Paradigmatic Alternatives 310

Retheorizing Economics 311

Green New Dealism 315

Development Multilateralism 322

Sustainable Development Goals 324

Subsidiarity 329

Conclusion 332

Further Reading 333

Select Websites 334

Notes 335

References 351

Index 391

Editorial Reviews

"This text would be useful for a Social Change class. Mc Michael does a brilliant job of explaining to students how the modern world system changed during the 20th and 21st centuries. He provides a conceptual architecture to understand those changes, and he also provides empirical examples to illustrate concretely how social change in the world system happens."

Dr. Steven Panageotou

"I like it because it has a strong narrative and is readable rather than trying to be a comprehensive textbook. It works best for upper-level students and even then you have to spend a bit of time covering concepts, but the students seem to get more out of it because most of the material is well
contextualized and emphasizes a few critical themes. Easy to combine with other materials."

Carolyn Bassett

"Good book for challenging students conceptually- sets up a nice framework for development studies, globalization, and food governance."

Gustavo Setrini

"The book is very comprehensive, and uses multiple lenses to help students understand the multi-faceted aspects of development."

Jaita Talukdar

"This book has a strong theoretical basis. It is focused on the developing world, so if you intend for the focus of your class to be international, it would be an excellent book to use."

Rachel Core

"Students find the text engaging and relevant."

Alexandra Springer

"Students find it accessible and it is a good starting point to have discussions about colonialism and development..."

Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern

"I like this book a great deal. It is well-organized and the author writes in a style that works well for students that are not sociology majors and perhaps are starting their undergraduate careers."

Syndee Knight

The book is very well structured. Difficult concepts are well explained. Mc Michael makes it very clear what the stages of development are, and brings examples that help students recognize those stages in their own social environment. While reading, students easily find connections between the theory and their observations.

Olena Leipnik

The book does a fantastic job of laying out the history of development, and does so by dividing up different development eras into projects. It is packed with excellent and important information. The "case studies" in the book bring occasionally dry issues to life. And I value the book's overarching attention to inequality at all levels as a way to understand the world.

Leif Jensen

I'm highly impressed with the author's breadth of knowledge. And my students love this book.

Julie Guthman

I wanted one book that contained everything that I want my students to know. This book contains it all. The historical continuity woven across chapters allows me to teach development exactly like I want to…I like the emphasis on the environment and climate change, and land grabs / land-based investment.

Cynthia Caron