The International Politics of Economic Development

Adam B. Lerner
Level: Mid-Level Undergraduate
Seminar-style (approximately 15-20 students)

INTRODUCTION

According to the World Bank, in 1981 nearly half of the world's citizens were living on less than
$1.25 a day. By 2013, that had dropped to less than one-fifth of the global population. Even when
considered alongside global population growth, this economic development caused a roughly 40
percent drop in the absolute number of impoverished people living across the world, from around 2
billion individuals in 1981 to less than 1.2 billion people now. And this growth was not an isolated
phenomenon—though perhaps driven by China and India’s high growth rates, nations across Asia,
Latin America and Africa have seen development and technology change livelihoods and save lives.

But despite certain clear benefits, development policy and its consequences are still hotly debated by
academics, policymakers and activists alike. Economic development is never a purely apolitical,
technocratic process. Policies and programs encouraging or inhibiting economic development
always create winners and losers and are always politically-mediated. And because of the massive
international consequences of development policies—including migration, insecurity, trade and
technology flows and capital transfers—development frequently spills over into the international
arena. The Cold War demonstrated this dynamic clearly. Pitting two powerful nation-states (the U.S.
and U.S.S.R) with two radically-different economic theories (capitalism and Marxism) against one
another, the Cold War resulted in the informal delineation of the international system into two
blocs. Underdeveloped countries across the globe learned that the development policies they
adopted at home would have significant international political costs and benefits, in addition to their
economic outcomes.

This course deals broadly with the nexus of international politics and economic development,
examining how and why goods and ideas spread across borders and the oftentimes uneven
geopolitical results they create. The course surveys the international political backdrop to different
development theories and regimes, as well as the historical results of various changes. It endeavors
to bring various debates in international political economy, international politics and development
economics into dialogue and leave students with a better understanding of the stakes involved in
development processes. To test students’ growth, the course finishes with an in-depth 3-dimensional
case study of the international politics of India’s Green Revolution in which students will be
challenged to draw on the theoretical and empirical examples they learned in class to analyze a
pivotal international development issue.

ASSESSMENT

This class is discussion-based and a large portion of students’ grades will be based on their
preparedness and participation in class. Additionally, students will be expected to submit three short
essay (2,000-3,000 words) and one longer final essay (4,000-5,000 words), which will be
accompanied by a brief (5-7 minute) presentation. These presentations will take up the final week’s
class sessions and thus students will not be required to complete any readings for the final week.
Each essay will be due in class on the first meeting of the weeks indicated below. Late essay
submissions will be penalized two points per day until one week after the deadline, at which point
they will not be accepted. Deadlines will be extended only in exceptional circumstances.

The student’s final grade will be determined as follows:

• Class participation: 20 %
• First Essay: 15 %
• Second Essay: 15 %
• Third Essay: 15 %
• Final Presentation: 5 %
• Final Essay: 30 %
READINGS

Students are expected to read all required readings, as they form the basis for class discussions.
Electronic versions of these readings will be available in advance on the course website. Optional
readings can be found via the university library services. These readings are not required, but will
facilitate students’ understanding of complex topics. They offer valuable additional material on each
week’s subject and are a suitable place to start research for presentations and essays.

Week 1: An Introduction to the Problem of International Development

Required Readings

• Escobar, Arturo. Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World.
Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1995: chapters 1-2
• Sachs, Jeffrey. The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time. New York: Penguin Press,
2005: chapters 1-3

Optional Readings

• Sen, Amartya. Development as Freedom. New York: Anchor Books, 2000.

• Kingsbury, Damien, John McKay, Janet Hunt, Mark McGillivray, and Matthew Clarke.
International Development: Issues and Challenges. Third edition. London: Macmillan Education,
Palgrave, 2016.
• Handelman, Howard. Challenges of the Developing World. Eighth edition. Lanham: Rowman &
Littlefield, 2017.

Week 2: Theories of Development Part I (Capitalism and Marxism)

Required Readings

• Larraín, Jorge. Theories of Development: Capitalism, Colonialism, and Dependency. Cambridge, UK:
Polity, 1989: chapters 1-3
• Lenin, Vladimir. “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.” Accessed September 26,
2018. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/.
Optional Readings

• Martinussen, John. Society, State, and Market: A Guide to Competing Theories of Development.
London: Zed Books. 1997: chapter 7 (“Neo-Marxist theories of underdevelopment and
dependency”)
• Peet, Richard, and Elaine R. Hartwick. Theories of Development: Contentions, Arguments,
Alternatives. Third edition. New York ; London: Guilford Press, 2015: chapters 2, 5
(“Classical and Neoclassical Economics,” “Marxism, Socialism, and Development”)

Week 3: Theories of Development Part II (Dependency, World-Systems Theory, ISI and

Export-Led Growth) (FIRST ESSAY DUE IN CLASS)

Required Readings

• Santos, Theotonio Dos. “The Structure of Dependence.” The American Economic Review 60,
no. 2 (1970): 231–36.
• Wallerstein, Immanuel. The Capitalist World-Economy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 1979: Section I, chapters on “The Present State of the Debate on World Inequality” to
“A World System Perspective on the Social Sciences”
• Haggard, Stephan. Pathways from the Periphery: The Politics of Growth in the Newly Industrializing
Countries. Cornell Studies in Political Economy. Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press, 1990:
chapter 2.

Optional Readings

• Prebisch, Raúl. The Economic Development of Latin American and Its Principal Problems. New York:
United Nations, 1950.
• Haggard, Stephan. Pathways from the Periphery: The Politics of Growth in the Newly Industrializing
Countries. Cornell Studies in Political Economy. Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press, 1990:
chapter 1, 3-7.

Week 4: Historical Legacies of the International Slave Trade, War and Colonialism

Required Readings

• Rodney, Walter. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Washington, DC: Howard University
Press, 1974: chapters 1, 5-6
• Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, and James A Robinson. “The Colonial Origins of
Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation.” American Economic Review 91, no. 5
(December 2001): 1369–1401. (focus on introduction, discussion and conclusion)
 • Tharoor, Shashi. “‘But What about the Railways ...?’ The Myth of Britain’s Gifts to India.”
The Guardian, March 8, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/08/india-
britain-empire-railways-myths-gifts.
o (Also watch Tharoor’s speech at the Oxford Union: Oxford Union. Dr Shashi Tharoor
MP - Britain Does Owe Reparations, 2015.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7CW7S0zxv4.)

Optional Readings

• Martinussen, John. Society, State, and Market: A Guide to Competing Theories of Development.
London: Zed Books. 1997: chapter 13 (“The political heritage and forms of regime”)
• Wallerstein, Immanuel. The Capitalist World-Economy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 1979: chapters 12-13.
• Nunn, Nathan. “The Long-Term Effects of Africa’s Slave Trades.” Quarterly Journal of
Economics 123, no. 1 (February 2008): 139–76. https://doi.org/10.1162/qjec.2008.123.1.139.
• Nunn, Nathan, and Leonard Wantchekon. "The Slave Trade and the Origins of Mistrust in
Africa." American Economic Review, 101, no. 7 (2011): 3221-52.
https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.101.7.3221
• Acemoglu, Daron, and James A. Robinson. Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
• Acemoglu, Daron, and James A. Robinson Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and
Poverty. New York: Crown Publishers, 2012. (especially chapter 1)

Week 5: The Bretton Woods System and the Unholy Trinity

Required Readings

• Peet, Richard. Unholy Trinity: The IMF, World Bank, and WTO. 2nd ed. London: Zed Books,
2009: chapters 1-5.
• Einhorn, Jessica. “The World Bank’s Mission Creep.” Foreign Affairs, 2001, 22–35.
• Rodrik, Dani. The Globalization Paradox: Why Global Markets, States, and Democracy Can’t Coexist.
Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2011: chapter 4.

Optional Readings

• Barnett, Michael N., and Martha Finnemore. “The Politics, Power, and Pathologies of
International Organizations.” International Organization 53, no. 4 (1999): 699–732.
• Peet, Richard, and Elaine R. Hartwick. Theories of Development: Contentions, Arguments,
Alternatives. Third edition. New York ; London: Guilford Press, 2015: Chapter 3 “From
Keynesian Economics to Neoliberalism.”
• Easterly, William. “What Did Structural Adjustment Adjust?” Journal of Development Economics
76, no. 1 (February 2005): 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2003.11.005.
 • Bordo, Michael D. "The Bretton Woods international monetary system: a historical
overview." In A retrospective on the Bretton Woods system: Lessons for international monetary reform,
pp. 3-108. University of Chicago Press, 1993.
• Helleiner, G.K. “The IMF, the World Bank and Africa’s Adjustment and External Debt
Problems: An Unofficial View.” World Development 20, no. 6 (June 1992): 779–92.
https://doi.org/10.1016/0305-750X(92)90051-V.
• Jolly, Richard, ed. UN Contributions to Development Thinking and Practice. United Nations
Intellectual History Project. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.
• Shah, “Structural Adjustment: A Major Cause of Poverty”
http://www.globalissues.org/article/3/structural-adjustment-a-major-cause-ofpoverty

Week 6: Decolonization and Post(-)Colonial Thought (SECOND ESSAY DUE IN CLASS)

Required Readings

• Shohat, Ella. “Notes on the ‘Post-Colonial.’” Social Text, no. 31/32 (1992): 99.
https://doi.org/10.2307/466220.
• Sylvester, Christine. “Development Studies and Postcolonial Studies: Disparate Tales of the
‘Third World.’” Third World Quarterly 20, no. 4 (1999): 703–21.
• Alavi, Hamza (1972) ‘The State in Post-Colonial Societies: Pakistan and Bangladesh’ New Left
Review 74: 59-82

Optional Readings

• Mamdani, Mahmood. Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018.
• Roy, Ananya. “Who’s Afraid of Postcolonial Theory?: Debates and Developments.”
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 40, no. 1 (January 2016): 200–209.
https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12274.

Week 7: Institutions

Required Reading
• Chang, Ha‐Joon. “Breaking the Mould: An Institutionalist Political Economy Alternative to
the Neo‐liberal Theory of the Market and the State.” Cambridge Journal of Economics 26, no. 5
(2002): 539–59.
• North, Douglas C. “The New Institutional Economics and Third World Development” in
Harriss, John C., Janet Hunter, and Colin M. Lewis, eds. The New Institutional Economics and
Third World Development. London: Routledge, 2000.
• Evans, Peter. “Extending the ‘Institutional’ Turn: Property, Politics and Development
Trajectories.” In Institutional Change and Economic Development, edited by Ha-Joon Chang.
Tokyo: United Nations Univ. Press, 2007.

Optional Readings
 • Chang, Ha‐Joon. “Understanding the Relationship between Institutions and Economic
Development - Some Key Theoretical Issues.” In Institutional Change and Economic Development,
edited by Ha-Joon Chang. Tokyo: United Nations Univ. Press, 2007.
• North, Douglass C. Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance. The Political
Economy of Institutions and Decisions. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1990.
• Haggard, Stephan. “Institutions and Growth in East Asia.” Studies in Comparative International
Development 38, no. 4 (December 1, 2004): 53–81. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02686328.

Week 8: Foreign Aid and Aid Regimes (THIRD ESSAY DUE IN CLASS)

Required Readings

• Easterly, William. The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So
Much Ill and so Little Good. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007: chapter 1.
• Jaishankar, Dhruva, and Shruti Godbole. “Aid Wars: U.S.-Soviet Competition in India.”
Brookings (blog), March 1, 2018. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-
front/2018/03/01/aid-wars-u-s-soviet-competition-in-india/.
• Moyo, Dambisa. Dead aid: why aid makes things worse and how there is another way for Africa.
Nachdr. Penguin Politics. London: Penguin Books, 2010: chapters 1-4.

Optional Readings

• Engerman, David C. The Price of Aid: The Economic Cold War in India. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2018.
• Ahlberg, Kristin L. Transplanting the Great Society: Lyndon Johnson and Food for Peace. Columbia:
University of Missouri Press, 2008.
• Sachs, Jeffrey. The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time. New York: Penguin Press,
2005: “Can the rich afford to help the poor?”

Week 9: Globalization and Technological Change

Required Readings

• Rodrik, Dani. The Globalization Paradox: Why Global Markets, States, and Democracy Can’t Coexist.
Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2011: introduction, chapter 5, chapter 12.
• Wolf, Martin. Why Globalization Works. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004: chapters 1-
2.

Optional Readings
 • Castells, Manuel. “Globalisation, Networking, Urbanisation: Reflections on the Spatial
Dynamics of the Information Age.” Edited by Géraldine Pflieger and Céline Rozenblat.
Urban Studies 47, no. 13 (November 2010): 2737–45.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098010377365.
• Glover, Dominic. “Is BT Cotton a Pro-Poor Technology? A Review and Critique of the
Empirical Record” Journal of Agrarian Change 10, no. 4 (September 16, 2010): 482–509.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-0366.2010.00283.x.

Week 10: Three-Dimensional Case Study: India’s Green Revolution

Required Readings

• Lerner, Adam B. “Political Neo-Malthusianism and the Progression of India’s Green

Revolution.” Journal of Contemporary Asia 48, no. 3 (May 27, 2018): 485–507.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00472336.2017.1422187.
• Frankel, Francine R. India’s Political Economy, 1947-1977: The Gradual Revolution. Princeton,
N.J: Princeton University Press, 1978: introduction.
• Seshia, Shaila, and Ian Scoones. “Tracing Policy Connections: The Politics of Knowledge in
the Green Revolution and Biotechnology Eras in India.” IDS Working Paper 188. Institute
of Development Studies, 2003.
• Shiva, Vandana. The Violence of the Green Revolution: Third World Agriculture, Ecology, and Politics.
University Press of Kentucky, 2016: introduction.

Optional Readings

• Gupta, Akhil. Postcolonial Developments: Agriculture in the Making of Modern India. Duke
University Press, 1998: introduction.
• Siegel, Benjamin. “‘Self-Help Which Ennobles a Nation’: Development, Citizenship, and the
Obligations of Eating in India’s Austerity Years.” Modern Asian Studies 50, no. 3 (May 2016):
975–1018. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X14000493.
• Johl, S. S. “Gains of the Green Revolution : How They Have Been Shared in Punjab.” The
Journal of Development Studies 11, no. 3 (April 1975): 178–89.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00220387508421536.

Week 11: Final Presentations

• FINAL ESSAY DUE IN CLASS

• FINAL PRESENTATIONS IN CLASS