This document summarizes key points from a class discussing critiques of development approaches. It discusses how the Washington Consensus imposed standardized reforms without consideration for democracy. It also discusses how development projects often fail due to an oversimplified "god-like" view that ignores local contexts and knowledge. Additionally, it notes how development typically incorporates a male bias, privileging men's interests over women. Finally, it examines how development in Lesotho invented narratives to depoliticize its interventions and silence opposition.

1. Hubris of Development 2

2. Today’s Class, 17 April 2013
1. J Williamson on “Democracy and Washington
Consensus”
2. JC Scott on “Seeing Like a State”
3. D Elson on “Male Bias in Development
Process”
4. J Ferguson with L Lohmann on “The Anti-
Politics Machine of ‘Development’ and
Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho”

3. 1. J Williamson on “Democracy and
Washington Consensus”
• “Washington Consensus” a set of “common-
sense” or “wise” reforms for Latin America –
“common sense” and “wise” for whom?
• These reforms also generalized for all
developing countries (3rd world)
• Why is consensus necessary?
– For the sake of economic stability
– For the sake of development
– For Preventing “political mafia” (corruption)
– Because “Continual policy reversals are
disruptive”

4. 1. J Williamson on “Democracy and
Washington Consensus”
• Consensus is the mainstream
– broader societal agreement on, or general
acceptance of, economic principles
– principles not open for debate
• So what are the element of consensus?
1. Fiscal discipline – “budget deficit small enough
to be financed by without recourse to the
inflation tax” (p. 292).
2. Public Expenditure Priorities
3. Tax reform

5. 1. J Williamson on “Democracy and
Washington Consensus”
4. Financial liberalization
5. Exchange rates
6. Trade liberalization
7. Foreign direct investment
8. Privatization
9. Deregulation
10. Property right
Does it sound like structural adjustment
programs imposed on developing countries?

6. 2. JC Scott on “Seeing Like a State”
• The “Modernist Project” or “Modernity”
– Replacing gods with science
• “Disenchantment”, “secularization”, etc.
– Replacing tradition with modernity
– Grand schemes and systems of simplification
• Generalization, totalization, standardization, uniformity
• Erasing the local, the complex, the contingent, the
contextual, etc.
– Triumph of the individual over the collective
• “I think, therefore I am”

7. 2. JC Scott on “Seeing Like a State”
• The failure of high modernist development
– Hubris of intellectuals and planners
• Regarded themselves as far smarter and far-seeing than
the masses than they really were – is this dirigisme?
– Disastrous desire to improve the human condition
• Though genuine and well-intended
• Grand schemes that denied human
contingency
– Artificial predictability; illusion of certainty
– Yet, life is often unpredictable and uncertain
– Failure to factor unpredictability and uncertainty

8. 2. JC Scott on “Seeing Like a State”
• Planning for abstract citizens
– Standardized, uniform, interchangeable citizens
• No context, no gender, no tastes, no traditions, no
history, no values, no opinions or original ideas, no
distinctive personalities – does that sound like you?
• Transformation of qualitative matter in
quantitative entities
– Single number – the bottom line of profit or loss
• Lack of confidence in skills, intelligence,
experience of ordinary people
• Oversimplification, reductionism
– Stripping reality to bear essentials

9. 3. D Elson on Male Bias in Development
• Gender as relational concept
– “Gender relations are socially determined
relations that differentiate male and female
situations” (p. 313)
• Gender is everywhere, ubiquitous, mundane,
conscious and unconscious
• The world, as it is, is gendered
• Hence development is gendered
• Male bias – preferential option for men as
gender over women as gender
– Ill founded and unjustified asymmetry

10. 3. D Elson on Male Bias in Development
• Causes of male bias in development outcomes:
– Male bias in every day attitudes and actions
• Prejudice and discrimination at conscious and
unconscious level (perceptions, habits, oversights, faulty
assumptions, failure to ask questions, etc.)
– Male bias in theoretical reasoning
• Social structures that make gender-asymmetries appear
rational, reasonable, smart… even to those who get the
raw deal as a result.
• The illusion of gender-neutrality in theory (through
abstract concepts – e.g. economy, formal sector, informal
sector, the labour force, the household, etc.).

11. 3. D Elson on Male Bias in Development
– Male bias in public policy
• “I thought I saw two people coming down the road, but
it was only a man and his wife” – old Russian proverb
• Women invisible to policy-makers
• Women’s interests marginalized in the policy-making
process
• Women treated as dependants of men
• At grassroots level, women inhibited from speaking out
in public meetings
• In corridors of power, few women present
• Development objectives defined in ways that are more
beneficial to men than women

12. 4. J Ferguson on The Anti-Politics of
“Development” in Lesotho
• Invention of Lesotho
– Isolated, remote, pristine, peasant, traditional, ignorant,
untouched, untapped
– To justify their interventions there
• Depoliticizing development
– Inventing neutral, unitary and effective government
– Exclusion of the state’s class bias, elites, cliques,
corruption
– Silence about undemocratic nature of government
– Silence about political opposition
– Government failure not political problem but poor
organization and lack of training
• Development naivete led to failure