SOSC 102U

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SOSC 102U

• Lecture Note 9
• Alternative Development Frameworks

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Main Issues

• The definition and meaning of development
• Major theories on East Asian development
• Feminist critiques of development theories
• From Gender and Development Studies to the
  Global South Feminist Perspectives

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The definition and meaning of development (1)

• The conventional definition of development is
  in terms of economic expansion, industrial
  productivity, and income in a nation
• Indicators of development
• A. World Bank use Gross National Product (GNP)
  per capita to classify economies as low-income,
  middle-income, or high-income
• GNP the total value of final goods and services
  sold to customers but not other manufacturers
  produced in a year by domestically owned factors
  of production
• B. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and
  Development (OECD) defines a developing country
  as a newly industrialized economy (NIE) by using
  industrial employment, world export of
  manufactures, and real per capita of gross
  domestic product (GDP)
• GDP the total value of final goods and services
  produced within a countrys borders in a year
• C. The United Nations a set of economic and
  population characteristics to assess the relative
  level of development--High developed countries or
  low developed countries

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The definition and meaning of development (2)

• In the above indicators, overall economic growth
  and productivity are emphasized. But whether the
  economic prosperity really improve the living
  standard of all people is neglected
• New indicator to measure development
• The Human Development Index (HDI) compare
  average achievements in meeting the basic human
  needs (choices, self-determination, and the human
  ability to influence and control the environment,
  natural or social, as well as the process of
  change, in accordance with a given societys
  historical conditions, priorities, and
  capabilities)
• One important account of the HDI is how economic
  growth can help both men and women live better.
  Traditional development analysis neglects womens
  issues
• Sustainable development is more important than
  economic growth

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HDI and Real GDP Per Capita in Six Asian States
(1997)
Based on Chow Ngai-ling and Deanna M. Lyter,
2002 27.
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Major Theories on East Asian Development

• Four major theories of development related to
  East Asia
• 1. Neoclassical Economy/Modernization Theories
• 2. The Cultural Perspective
• 3. The Statist Perspective
• 4. Dependency/World System Theories

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1. Neoclassical Economy/Modernization Theories

• A. All societies eventually develop through a
  linear and progressive series of complex social
  processes as they move from industrialization to
  urbanization, and, finally, to modernization
• B. Traditional institutions, values, and
  practices inhibit economic development
• C. The less developed countries should follow the
  industrialized West to transform their economic,
  political, social, and cultural institutions,
  values, and practices, expecting the potential of
  the free market economy to raise living standards
  in poor countries and to modernize their states
• D. Through foreign direct investment (FDI),
  production, marketing, and trade on a global
  scale, the economy will experience a takeoff
  stage, and people will share in this growth and
  reap the benefits of development

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2. The Cultural Perspective

• A. Values, ideology, attitudes, and practices
  influence development policy, institutional
  arrangements, and the states role in
  implementing policytradition and modernity
  coexist and intermingle
• B. All the economically high-performing countries
  in East Asia share the same Confucian values
• C. How does Confucianism become a positive factor
  for East Asian development? (based on Alvin So
  and Stephan Chius research)
• C-1 Confucian values have promoted education and
  self-improvement through deferred gratification,
  intensive study, and the internalization of
  ethical principles
• C-2 Confucianism endorsed the collective
  orientation and familialism that gave rise to
  entrepreneurial spirit and skills, the backbone
  of East Asian economic success

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3. The Statist Perspective

• Emerging as a critique of modernization
  perspective
• Economic power cannot function effectively
  outside of the framework of politics provided by
  the state
• Because the strong state is politically
  autonomous from partisan domestic interests, it
  can provide economic leadership and
  administrative guidance for market decisions in
  the private sector. Strong state can also
  facilitate global opportunities for economic
  expansion
• Advocates of statist perspective also justify
  authoritative regimes and ignore the adverse
  effects of their governance (i. e., inefficiency,
  corruption, and militarization) and
  industrialization (i. e., repression of organized
  labor, human rights violations, and environmental
  degradation)

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4. Dependency/ World System Theories

• Dependency Theory unequal exchange between the
  powerful core nations (developed countries) and
  the developing countries such as those in Latin
  America and Africa
• World System Theory the world system was
  developed from 16th. Century Western Europe. It
  gradually expanded to the global scale through
  incorporating the rest of the world into its
  economic and political system
• Classification of economies in world system
  theory core, semiperiphery and periphery
• Countries at core determine its terms of trade
  with countries at periphery
• Countries at periphery provide raw materials to
  and purchase imported goods and technology
  know-how from the core countries
• Countries at semiperiphery serve as buffers
  between the core and the periphery
• East Asian four tigers are classified as
  semiperiphery

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Feminist critiques of development theories

• 1. the persistence of gender inequality is
  unrecognized and untouched by developmental
  theories and analysts, especially considering the
  East Asian region
• Gender-related Development Index (GDI) the
  closer a countrys GDI is to its HDI, the lesser
  gender disparity in a country
• Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) measure gender
  inequality in the areas of economic and political
  participation and decision making, focusing on
  womens opportunities (such as seats in
  parliament held by women, female administrators
  and managers, etc.)

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Gender-Related Development Index (GDI) and Gender
Empowerment Measure (GEM)
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Feminist critiques of development theories

• 2. the extent to which East Asian development is
  now being and can be sustained
• During the 1997 financial crisis, the evidence
  shows that women, especially the youngest and
  oldest, were more severely affected than men,
  with a greater percentage of women experiencing
  layoffs, unemployment, falling wages, and poverty
• In South Korea, the crisis-induced job losses
  caused the employment fell 3.8 for men, but 7.1
  for women

Impacts of 1997 Financial Crisis on men and women
employment in S. Korea
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Feminist critiques of development theories

• 3. Theories and empirical studies of East Asias
  development primarily reflect mens standpoints.
  No explicit reference to gender as a fundamental
  category of analysis. The centrality of womens
  labor to development is mostly neglected
• studies tend to assume that womens primary
  contribution is in the sphere of reproduction but
  not production. Household labor, home-based
  production, and the informal labor market in
  which women make significant contributions are
  neglected
• 4. In the internal operation of the national
  economy, the statist perspective fails to
  acknowledge that the state is a gendered
  institution based on unequal power relationships.
  
• The state give men authority and control over
  women. In the name of development, the state and
  its ruling class can impose laws and policies,
  taking responsibility for affirming the positive
  human rights of women (e. g. property rights,
  labors rights to organize) and preventing their
  violation (e. g. gender-based violence and the
  trafficking of women)

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Feminist critiques of development theories

• 5. On cultural perspectives, feminist scholars
  question whether the Confucian cultural tradition
  has been used to justify the male status quo,
  womens subordination, and the gendered division
  of labor
• For example, filial piety as a patriarchal script
  has been used to glorify the principle of womens
  obedienceobey ones father before marriage, obey
  ones husband after marriage, and obey ones son
  while growing old. It affects the degree to which
  women have access to and control over resources
  to engage in economic activities (e. g. getting
  credit for enterprises and saving money for
  investment) and the extent to which they can
  bargain with patriarchy

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Feminist critiques of development theories

• 6. A Western-centric view of the dichotomy
  between public and private sectors. Along the
  dualist view, women are portrayed as homemakers
  inhabiting the private domain of the household
  and engaging in reproductive work, while men are
  assumed to be the breadwinners, occupying the
  public domain of the economy and politics and
  doing productive work
• In East Asia, work and family are intertwined in
  the lives of women and men, from those laboring
  in the subsistence and cash-cropping economies in
  rural areas to urban dwellers working for pay in
  various industrial sectors
• As East Asian women actively increase their
  participation in the labor force, work and family
  in their lives impinge on each other

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Feminist critiques of development theories

• 7. Asian women workers as social agents in
  development Conventional theories of development
  generally fail to see either women or workers as
  social, independent actors and as being capable
  of resisting blatant discriminatory treatments,
  negotiating with unfair employers, and bargaining
  with patriarchy
• A false impression is that Asian women workers
  are passive, obedient, mindless victims of
  mistreatments
• Asian women workers are notable for their low
  unionization. But union strikes had occurred.
• Only labor movements in South Korea are noted. To
  be sure, in Hong Kong, the early 1950s and the
  late 1980s had witnessed a series of union
  strikes (Chow Ngai-Lings personal observation).
  In Taiwan, union strikes also took place in the
  late 1980s

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From Gender and Development Studies to the
Global South Feminist Perspectives

• Mainstream feminist debates and discourses on
  development consists of three perspectives
• 1. Women in Development modernization had not
  trickled down to benefit women
• Modern societies as egalitarian and democratic
  and traditional societies as male-dominated and
  authoritarian ones that discriminate against
  women
• 2. Women and Development the above perspective
  neglect the fact that women have always been part
  of development. Womens problems are part and
  parcel of the fundamental inequality of the
  current capitalist system.
• In the course of modernization, the production of
  goods for direct use was replaced by production
  for exchange. This shift tends to benefit men
  (especially male capitalists) more than women.
  Gender inequality is part of class inequality

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From Gender and Development Studies to the
Global South Feminist Perspectives

• 3. Gender and Development gender as a set of
  social relationships between women and men in
  both the production of the labor market and the
  reproduction of the household
• This perspective deconstructs the public/private
  dichotomy, uncovering womens oppression in the
  family (the dichotomy is regarded as a
  Western-centric view here)
• Seeing women as agents of social change rather
  than as recipients of development programs

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Global South Feminist Perspectives

• Along the Gender and Development perspective, a
  research networks called Development Alternatives
  with Women for a New Era was formed in 1984
• Their position during the years between 1976 and
  1985 (the U. N. decade for women), the great
  majority of Third World women had worsened
• The classification of world nations used in the
  cold war era the First World (Western countries
  such as Western Europe, U. S. and Japan), the
  Second World (the communist blocks including
  Soviet Union and China), and the Third World (the
  rest)

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Global South Feminist Perspectives

• Global South consists of a variety of feminisms
  and discourses on development of which East Asia
  is a constitutive part
• Western and white liberal feminist scholars often
  describe Third World women in conjunction with
  backwardness, underdevelopment, oppressive
  traditions, high illiteracy, rural and urban
  poverty, religious fanaticism, and overpopulation
• The concern In the words of Gita Sen and Caren
  Grown Our vision of feminism has its very core
  a process of economic and social development
  geared to human needs through wider control over
  and access to economic and political power.
• To develop and advocate alternative development
  frameworks, methods, and processes to follow this
  vision of economic and social developmentboth
  practical and strategic gender needs and
  interests are emphasized

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Which of the following might be strategies
proposed by scholars of the Global South
Perspectives?

• 1. Protecting environment is related to womens
  well beings

• 2. The structural transformation of an oppressive
  society by eliminating gender subordination and
  all forms of oppression is important

3. To enhance womens opportunities and
participation by increasing their share in
resources, land, employment, and income relative
to men
4. An increase in womens control over economic
decisions, a guarantee that womens voices are
entered into the definition of development and
the making of policy choices, a cut in military
expenditures, demilitarization, control over
transnational corporations, and land reforms in
rural areas