Postdevelopment theory (also post-development or anti-development or development criticism) is a critique of the concept and practice of modernization and development as promoted by Western political powers in the Third World. Postdevelopment thought arose in the 1990s as a set of criticisms against development projects led by Western nations and legitimized under development theory. For postdevelopment theorists, "development" is an ideological concept that works to preserve the hegemony of the Global North while increasing the dependency of the Global South. Thus, postdevelopment theory argues for "alternatives to development" or "bottom-up" approaches to development, as determined by the peoples in the Third World.
Development as ideology The postdevelopment critique holds that modern development theory is a creation of academia in tandem with an underlying political and economic ideology. The academic, political, and economic nature of development means it tends to be policy oriented, problem-driven, and therefore effective only in terms of and in relation to a particular, pre-existing social theory. The actual development projects thus initiated, by both governments and NGOs, are directed in accordance with this development theory. Development theory itself, however, assumes a framework already set in place by government and political culture in order to implement it. The development process is therefore socially constructed; Western interests are guiding its direction and outcome, and so development itself fundamentally reflects the pattern of Western hegemony. Development as an ideology and a social vision is ingrained in the ideals of modernization, which holds Western economic structure and society as a universal model for others to follow and emulate. Rooted in Western influence, the developmental discourse reflects the unequal power relations between the West and the rest of the world, whereby the Western knowledge of development, approach toward development, and conception of what development entails, as well as perceptions of progress, directs the course for the rest of the world. Looking back on the circumstances of this paradigm's creation within the broader context of the material changes accompanying it, the scholar Nick Cullather frames development as "history." He sees it as a perspective on where the world has come from and where the places in it are going—as well as a period in time. He would have it that the concepts of modernization and development fused after 1945. Cullather notes that many historicists who study or promote development construed as history think of the entries in its unfolding through this era in term of a discourse of signifiers. They do this rather than focusing on it as ideology, which to them brings to mind ideas fixed across time. He does, however, point in his research to many scholars who do engage with the idea that it is ideology, such as Michael Latham and Michael Hunt.
Reviewing development Influenced by Ivan Illich and other critics of colonialism and postcolonialism, a number of postdevelopment theorists like Arturo Escobar and Gustavo Esteva have challenged the very meaning of development. According to them, the way development is understood is rooted in the earlier colonial discourse that depicts the North as "advanced" and "progressive", and the South as "backward", "degenerate" and "primitive". They point out that a new way of thinking about development began in 1949 with President Harry Truman's declaration: "The old imperialism—exploitation for foreign profit—has no place in our plans. What we envisage is a program of development based on the concepts of democratic fair dealings." While claiming that the "era of development" began at this point, postdevelopment theorists do not suggest that the concept of development was new. What was new was the definition of development in terms of an escape from underdevelopment. Since the latter referred to two-thirds of the world, this meant that most societies were made to see themselves as having fallen into the undignified condition of "underdevelopment", and thus to look outside of their own cultures for salvation. Development, according to these critics, was now a euphemism for post-war American hegemony; it was the ideals and development programs of the United States and its (Western) European allies that would form the basis of development everywhere else.
Postdevelopment theory Postdevelopment theory arose in the 1980s and 1990s through the works of scholars like Escobar, Esteva, Majid Rahnema, Wolfgang Sachs, James Ferguson, Serge Latouche, and Gilbert Rist. Leading members of the postdevelopment school argue that development was always unjust, never worked, and at this point has clearly failed. According to Sachs, a leading member of the postdevelopment school, "the idea of development stands like a ruin in the intellectual landscape" and "it is time to dismantle this mental structure." To cite an example of this "mental structure", development theorists point out how the concept of development has resulted in the hierarchy of developed and underdeveloped nations, where the developed nations are seen as more advanced and superior to the underdeveloped nations that are conceived of as inferior, in need of help from the developed nations, and desiring to be like the developed nations. The postdevelopment school of thought points out that the models of development are often ethnocentric (in this case Eurocentric), universalist, and based on Western models of industrialization that are unsustainable in this world of limited resources and ineffective for their ignorance of the local, cultural and historical contexts of the peoples to which they are applied. In essence, the problem postdevelopment theorists see in development and its practice is an imbalance of influence or domination by the West. Postdevelopment theorists promote more pluralism in ideas about development.
Critique of ethnocentrism and universalism
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