This document defines development and discusses different levels of analysis in development theories. It provides definitions of development from various sources that emphasize factors like increasing incomes, modern production methods, and sustainable human development. The document also outlines different dimensions of development like empowerment, cooperation, equity and sustainability. It then discusses how development theories can be analyzed at the individual, organizational, societal and international levels based on their units of analysis and causal factors. Theories taking structural and holistic approaches view human behavior as influenced more by social forces and institutions, while individualistic theories emphasize individual attributes. The implications of different theoretical approaches for policy are also briefly outlined.

1. MEANING OF DEVELOPMENT AND
LEVELS OF THEORIES
Development Defined:
• Social change in which new ideas are introduced into a social system in order to
produce higher per capita incomes and levels of living through modern production
methods and improved social organization (Rogers et al 1988)
• Any measurable form of progress (GNP which is a measure of the value of goods
and services produced by a nation during the year)
• “Sustainable human development” is pro-people, pro-jobs, and pro-nature. It
gives the highest priority to poverty reduction, productive employment, social
integration, and environmental re-generation. It brings human numbers into
balance with the coping capacities of societies and the carrying capacities of
nature. It also recognizes that much can be achieved without a dramatic
improvement in the status of women and the opening of all opportunities to
women (UNDP Human Development Report 1994, p4)
• Economic growth is a means to achieve human development ends rather the end
itself
• Relationship of higher economic growth and sustainable human development is
not always positive
• Imperatives in the fight against poverty: opportunities for employment and
productivity, growth, fair and equitable access to services; reduce vulnerability of
the poor (World Bank Attacking Poverty 2000)
Dimensions:
• empowerment – expansion of people’s capabilities and choices; ability to
exercise choice based on freedom from hunger, want and deprivation; and the
opportunity to participate in or endorse, decisions that affect their lives
• cooperation – acknowledgement that a sense of belonging is an important
source of personal fulfillment, well-being, enjoyment, purpose and meaning
• equity – capabilities and opportunities and not just in income, e.g., access to
education
• sustainability – meeting the needs of the present generation without
compromising the ability of the future generations to be free from poverty and
deprivation and to exercise their basic capabilities
• security – of livelihood; freedom from threats such as disease, or repression or
from harmful dislocations from their lives
Importance of Theories in Socio-Economic Development Work
• Shapes our interpretation of social events
• Provide a framework for making sense of the world

2. • Simplifies complex processes through concepts, that allow us to select,
categorize, and label various forms of action and change and make inferences
about cause and effects
Social change
- variations overtime in the ecological ordering of population and
communities, in patterns of roles and social interactions, in the structure,
and functioning of institutions and in cultures of the societies (Kornblum
1988)
Individual level: changes in cultural beliefs and attitudes
Organizational level: changes in roles and patterns of interaction
Societal level: changes in the functioning of major institutions and the demographic
processes of rural to urban migration
Theories of Development and Their Level of Analysis
Levels of Analysis and Social Scientific Explanation
- a theory’s level of analysis is based on the units of analysis selected to
explain socio-economic development
- different theories draw attention to particular sets of causal factors
(predictors or independent variables)
Examples:
Individual level
- attitudes and values, motives, attributes and characteristics of individuals,
attachment to modern ideas, and possession of human capital
Organizational level
- focuses on industrial relations; strucutures and practices of work
organization and enterprises and how they determine or influence human
behavior and how the latter contributes to social, economic and political
development. Organizations differ in structures and structural properties,
which could not be reduced at the individual level (attributes of its
members), thus changes need to be analyzed and explained separately.
Societal level (or National)
- logic in the economic systems and policies of the state; directs attention to
the causal role of broader social institutions in the process of development
 how social institutions are organized
 how economic system use, produce and distribute goods
 type of political system
 role of government policies
 links societal characteristics such as institutional political and
economic to the rate of socio-economic development
International level
- subsumes all other levels and not reducible to the properties of the other
levels; forces (political and economic) of the world economy
 countries interact with one another

3.  commodities traded and exchanges
 capital investment flows across national boarders
 nations are subjected to interdependence, domination and
exploitation
Rationale for ‘level of analysis framework”
• Best theories of social change and development integrate and account for different
levels of analysis in an inter-connected social chain
• Primary theoretical variation lies in the causal factors accounted to explain societal
level changes
Kinds of Development Theorists
1. Individualistic explanations view human behavior largely as product of individual
characteristics and personality traits
2. Structuralist/holistic explanations interpret human behavior in a broader social
context as the result of external social forces, structures and institutional
arrangement
Policy Implications as influenced by divergent interpretations
1. Individual interests, motivation and perceptions can never adequately explain
individual behavior. Both organizational and societal factors must be taken into
account in explaining variations in rates of individual behavior occurring in
different types of institutions. But the reverse is not possible – one cannot explain
organizational or societal processes by theorists in individual behavior (Alford
and Friedland 1985)
Note: When level of analysis is of the dependent variable is non-individual level
theories lose their explanatory utility. Organizational and structural factors take
precedence.
2. The Fallacy of Reductionism. This assumes that the structure of any society can
be reduced to the wishes and motivations of its members. Society is more than a
straightforward embodiment of the wills of the people within the society. The
attempt to explain structural phenomena solely in terns of psychological attributes
has been justifiably derided in social science as psychological reductionism.