International Development Studies and Ethical Dilemmas in Academia

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International Development Studies andEthical Dilemmas in AcademiaJorge NefPublished online: 15 Feb 2011.

To cite this article: Jorge Nef (2004) International Development Studies and Ethical Dilemmas in Academia,Canadian Journal of Development Studies / Revue canadienne d'études du développement, 25:1, 81-100, DOI:10.1080/02255189.2004.9668961

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International Development Studies and Ethical Dilemmas in Academia

Jorge Nef

ABSTRACT - Since its onset in the early 1960s, Development Studies (and International Development Studies) has been afield in search of a discipline, clearly subordinated to various governmental and internatiot~al agencies' development policies andpractices. Born during the Cold War in a post-colonial setting and under the confinements of a Western academic environment, thefield has also carried some of the peculiar ideological traits of its founding disciplines: economics, political science, sociology, and anthropology. These historical traits have been compounded by a progressive closure of academic debate and critical analysis that have rendered thefield increasingly void of critical content and ethical reflection. The essence of the current crisis of development studies has been the result of the convergence of two factors. One is the hegemony of an almost tautological paradigm: neo-liberal structural adjustment policies. The other is the transformation of academic institutions from a "critical outsider" role to that of bidder for development monies. In this context, the need to reformulate development thinking towards a more holistic, "outside the box," analytical and ethical perspective is both a practical and theoretical imperative.

RESUME - Depuis son apparition au debut des a t~ntes 1960, l'ttude du dtveloppement (et du dtveloppement international) constitue u t ~ domaine en quite d'une discipline, qui est en outre clairement subordont~t auxpolitiques et aux pratiques de dtveloppement des divers organismes gouvernetnentaux et internationaux. Issu de la ptriode de la guerre froide, du contexte postcolonial et des limites ttroites du milieu universitaire occidet~tal, ce domaine emprunte t a l e m e n t certains traits idtologiques propres d ses disciplines fondatrices, soit l'tconomie, la science politique, la sociologie et l'anthropologie. A ces traits historiques s'est ajoutte la restriction progressive des dtbats thtoriques et des analyses critiques qui a peu peu vide le domaine de son contenu critique et de sa reflexion tthique. L'essence de la crise qui secoue actuellement les etudes du dtveloppernent rtsulte ainsi de la convergence de dewr facteurs. Le premier est l'htgtmonie d'un paradigme presque tautologique : les politiques ntolibtrales d'ajusternent structurel. Le second est la transformation des ttablissements d'enseignement, qui sont passb d'un rdle de (< critiques externes w d celui de soumissionnairespour les fonds de dkveloppemerrt. Dans un tel contexte, il devient impbratif; sur les plans pratique et thtorique, de reformuler la rtflexion sur le dtveloppementpour se rapprocher d'uneperspective analytique et tthiqueplusglobale, a l'exttrieur du cadre n.

Ever since its inception on the academic agenda, International Development Studies (IDS) has been riddled with persistent contradictions related to its nature, epistemology, and ethical basis. To begin with, it has lacked a clearly defined conceptual focus as an "object" of study. Moreover, it has been a field locked in an ethnocentric conceptual mindset, while paradoxically still in search of a paradigm. True, these traits present some of the analytical and substantive incongruities common to any emerging intellectual endeavour. Nevertheless, the subject is not "new"; it has been in existence for nearly

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half a century. Rather, it has remained immature and constrained by intellectual and institutional legacies and vogues which have stunted its development.

The purpose of this interpretative essay is not so much to elaborate on the uniqueness of IDS, nor on its theoretical foundations and practice. Rather, it is to explain and understand the historical, cultural, and institutional factors affecting its paradigms (Kuhn 1970,6). In so doing, this chapter will specifically explore the ethical sources and consequences of theory building and discourses in development (Escobar 1984-85; Nef 1982), and their relationship with issues of academic freedom and intellectual integrity. Given the nature of the topic, a great deal of the analysis will be somewhat phenomenological and introspective. It will be grounded on experience, reflection, observation, and interaction with academics, students, and practitioners in the course of four decades of research and practice. It will also be presented from a "standpoint" (Smith 1987, 1) and normative perspective, reflective of the author's personal values and position.

Despite this rather limited goal, to examine the continuities and discontinuities between ethics and international development requires at least a cursory exploration of three main factors. One is the historical roots and evolvement of IDS. Another is the impact of new concepts, challenges, and circumstances. A third query refers to the nature of academia. Three major interrelated theses are presented. 1. The ethical incongruities present in international development theory and praxis are rooted in

the "genealogy" (Escobar 1984-85) of the field itself and its intrinsic ideological foundations. 2. Despite what appear to be significant paradigmatic shifts, the fundamental assumptions and

preconceptions regarding development and "things international" have remained fairly persistent over time.

3. The conservative nature of academia has been a major contributor to both the continuity of the above-mentioned paradigm and the inability to effectively consolidate critical perspectives.

For the purposes of this study a number of terms and assumptions need to be clarified. As articulated in earlier writings, ethics can be understood as a guiding set of basic principles, or value standards, that configure the parameters of behaviour deemed acceptable, appropriate, andlor desirable (Nef 2001, 17). Secondly, development, however defined, is a normative concept. For us, it is a sustained, multi-dimensional, and sustainable process of expanding choices and capabilities (Sen 1993), enhancing the quality of life (Seers 1977) and security of people and their surroundings. In this sense development is different from simple "actuarial" growth of income and from the attain- ment of the benchmarks of "modernity" (Parsons 1967).' Development policies and practices entail the articulation of by no means uncontested normative ideals within a given cultural matrix. These refer to three objects: (1) preferred andlor conversely undesirable states or goals (teleologies, whether utopias or distopias); (2) a hierarchy of values (axiologies) that underpins these objectives; and (3) preferred practices, or means (deontologies) for attaining such objectives. International development can be defined as a process where "external" circumstances intersect with domestic conditions, having not only internal systemic effects and feedbacks but also transnational consequences. Exogenous interventions impact primarily, but not exclusively, those who are more vulnerable and in greater risk. They also have impact on the overall global and regional order and on actors who appear

1. An elaboration o f Talcott Parsons'"pattern variables1'- modernity-tradition, particularism-universalism, adscrip- tion-achievement, etc. - is contained in his Sociological Theory and Modern Society, (New York, Free Press, c.1967).

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INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT STUDIES AND ETHICAL DILEMMAS IN ACADEMIA 83

to be in a less vulnerable or more dominant position. Although politicians, bureaucrats, and practitioners tend to avoid sensitive issues, ethics is always explicitly or implicitly at the centre of development. Inequality, social justice, human rights, and the like are complex, uncomfortable, and inescapable moral questions. Development is of itself an ethical minefield.

Thirdly, irrespective of its seemingly neutral and value-free garments, the institutions of higher learning within which IDS has evolved have always been value-laden. Academia has always been a centrepiece in the construction of the knowledge-power equation in any political and social order. More often than not and throughout history, universities have partaken in the process of manufac- turing hegemony, justification, and quiescence. Occasionally these institutions, or at least part of their membership, have played an important role in building counter-hegemony, arousal, and resist- ance in civil society. This topic will emerge later, when examining the third thesis stated above.

Last, but not least, some observations about theory and paradigm building are in order. A paradigm can be understood here as an "implicit body of intertwined theoretical and methodological belief that permits selection, evaluation, and criticism" (Kuhn 1970,15-17). As a set of hegemonic discourses and ideas, paradigms reflect values, beliefs, and often-implicit ethical codes shared by theorists and practitioners. They are intellectual agendas characteristic of specific correlations of forces in concrete historical contexts, where different influences are dynamically at work.

The cultures, sub-cultures, cleavages, and boundaries of academic communities are largely defined by the adherence or rejection of certain intellectual postulates and assumptions. In this sense, paradigms, in particular those in the social sciences, evoke distinct, though often implicit, ethical choices and value preferences. The intrinsically political nature of academia - its power structure, its systems of governance, its relationship with economic, cultural and political power, the presence of entrenched interests in the pursuit of knowledge, the "proper" role of research, and academic freedom - compounds the ethical riddles mentioned above.

A. Ethical Implications of the Evolution of International Development

The origins of the developmental discourse are found in the experience of post-World War I1 European reconstruction under the Marshall Plan. This type of development was inherently international. Its practice was born under the sign of the Cold War and its subsequent study and theorizing has been the bearer of this legacy ever since. The relationship between development and contain- ment, articulated in President Truman's Point Four Program in the late 1940s (Holsti 1995,183), and in the early 1960s in the Colombo Plan, the Alliance for Progress, and in the "UN development decades," gave development theory and praxis a distinct ideological and controversial flavour. In this sense, development became a surrogate for counterinsurgency, plainly a counter-revolutionary strategy. The underlying reasoning was that social turmoil and revolutionary activity were greatly facilitated by poverty and inequity. Therefore, distributive justice per se was not an ethical imperative, but a means to prevent radical social change. In turn, equity was seen as contingent upon an expansion of capabilities, and growth a fundamental condition to preserve the status quo. As a 1961 book sponsored by the Council for Foreign Relations in the United States put it:

The future of underdeveloped countries in Asia, Africa, and parts of Europe and the Americas is a vital matter for the future of Western civilization, including, of course, the security and the way of life of the American people. Economic development of these areas in cooperation with the West is a necessary part of the conditions for Western survival and for the survival in the

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world of some of the West's most important contributions to human progress [ . . . I . Should the Communist power block, however, succeed in bringing most of the underdeveloped countries into their orbit and cutting their links with us, the effect in our security would be enor- mous (Stanley 1961,3-4).

This same rationale underscored the above-mentioned Colombo Plan, Canada's first large incur- sion into international development, and even more so President Kennedy's 1961 Alliance for Progress (Levinson and De Onis 1970). In turn, the other superpower, the Soviet Union, after chas- tising foreign aid as a form of imperial bribery, had turned actively into financing and providing technology for development in Third World nations. After the Eisenhower administration rebuked Egypt's President Nasser and refused to support the hydroelectric complex in Aswan, Premier Krushev eagerly provided massive assistance (Mason 1997, 167). The aid package, like that of its Western counterparts, was also linked to military assistance in weapons procurement and training. This allowed the Soviet Union to wield considerable influence in the non-aligned movement. Soviet aid to Africa and other Third World nations, such as India, was soon to follow. It culminated with its massive propping up of Cuba, after Premier Castro's confrontation with the United States.

Multilateral development efforts, implemented through the United Nations, its functional agencies (ILO, FAO, WHO, UNESCO), and the UNDP were formally at arm's-length from dominant Western donors. Yet, they carried out programs with a heavy Euro-centric and us-centric conception of development. The same was the case with regional organizations, such as the various development banks in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In turn, the pseudo multilateral agencies, like the World Bank - by and large the most important international source of International Governmental Organization (IGO) finance - and the IMF, pushed unabashedly market-oriented policies under the guise of aid. The very concept of development as a teleology was automatically translated into the deontology (or means) of foreign aid.

Seemingly discontinuous and powerful discourses taking Western orthodoxy to task have emerged since the times of the UN First Development Decade to the present: terms such as "another development:' basic human needs, appropriate technology, gender and development, micro-credit, environmental sustainability, sustainable livelihoods, and, later, human security. However, these challenges to the hegemony of modernity have been time and time again effectively deconstructed, homogenized, and trivialized. In sum, they have been rendered harmless by a bureaucratic and intellectual culture imbedded in the practice of bilateral and multilateral agencies. At present, the resilience of the modernization discourse resides behind the mantra of restructuring, transition, and globalization. IDS today, like Development Administration in the not so distant past, has become largely a "fence around an empty lot" (Dwivedi and Nef 1981).

Even a cursory look at the history of development illustrates the fact that, since the Cold War, the concept had become highly politicized and increasingly devoid of meaning, irrespective of whether a country was a client of the West, the East, or found itself in the increasingly anti-Western, non- aligned movement. Some forms of bilateral aid, as in the case of Sweden, had attempted to remain at the margins of developmental bipolarity. Yet the bulk of bilateral assistance was unequivocally related to the explicit pursuit of one or another socio-economic and political development model: national capitalism, socialism, or a mixed economy.

Undoubtedly, the politicization of development practices has had profound ethical implications. First, any development strategy defined possible allies and opponents, friends and foes, and charted the political alliances that supported and opposed development efforts. The vast majority of people have been held hostage to this Manichean view. Second, the choice of strategy in a sense also

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constructed and predetermined both "winners" and "losers" in the development game. Third, it presupposed the presence of external constituencies (Bensabat 1992; Chalmers 1972; Rice 1986)~ for and against development options. Fourth, these constituencies, beyond their level of contribution, have a controlling interest in the content and course of development projects. Fifth, the external aid package increasingly became a built-in "carrot and stick:' clientelistic device, geared to rewarding or punishing Third Word elites for their compliant or defiant behaviour towards dominant actors. As many critics posited, aid not only was seen as "development:' but it also evolved into a form of imperialism (Goulet and Hudson 1971,73-135; Hawkins 1970,1746; Hayter 1974,1524; Hensman 1975, 233-87; Lappe et al. 1980,9-14 and 158-75).

Besides the experience and praxis of development in defining what was included and excluded from its semantic domain, it is important to ascertain the construed nature of the development discourse. For Escobar, the very notion of development as a Western ideological construct encapsu- lated the purpose, the practices, and the subjects of the process (Escobar 1984-85,370). In so doing, it also defined a dominant-subordinate structure of expert knowledge re-enforcing economic, political, and technological elite control (and clientelism) extant in development practices. This "culture of development" generated its own ethical foundation. It established the predominance of Western values, ideology, religion, language, morals, and standards to which peripheral peoples could aspire but never fully achieve. Moreover, development and development assistance were rewards for good behaviour. In this sense, to use Freire's term, the pedagogy of development was largely one of oppres- sion, not of liberation (Freire 1971,19).

While the discourse of development and development assistance was couched in benign and idealistic terminology, in apparent contrast to the brutal realism of the Cold War, it was essentially the other side of the same coin. In fact, its practical effects were, more often than not, quite the oppo- site of what development theorists and practitioners had promised. The "development of underdevelopment" thesis of those espousing a dependency perspective (Frank 1992) was reified in the foreign aid field even more dramatically than in the realm of foreign investment. This pervasive double standard configured a profound ethical breach as a deceiving practice hiding either strate- giclmilitary goals, or economic gain for the aid-givers, or both. The poor record of development, spanning all the way from the inability to effect change, enrichment at the cost of the poor, the collat- eral damage of modernization, the hypocrisy of foreign assistance, to the absconding of development funding by corrupt and parasitic elites, lies under this contradiction.

The accumulation of "horror stories" regarding development created a predisposition, not only in the public at large, but also among scholars, to perceive it in an increasingly negative light. This attitude became pervasive despite the fact that during the first two development decades some remarkable macro-level achievements took place. These included general income growth, electrifi- cation, communications, literacy, increased food production, the reduction of some epidemic diseases, and longer life expectancy. On the flip side, global inequality worsened, and so did indebt- edness. In addition, technological advances further marginalized and displaced populations, food production went hand-in-hand with growing food insecurity, unemployment increased, new massive health threats emerged, and sub-national violence grew by leaps and bounds, as did environmental deterioration.

Some observers have noticed that throughout the world, human rights are being rolled back.

2. For further elaboration on the ideas of complex dependency, penetrated political systems, and transnationalization of the state, see Nef and Bensabat (1992,77); Chalmers (1972,12-31). Military linkages are explored in Rice (1986).

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Frustration and bitterness are fuelled by economic policies that make the rich richer and the poor poorer (NotiSur 1994; Wolff 2003).~ Structural adjustment packages, attached as conditionalities to debt relief packages have wreaked havoc in poor and transitional societies already affected by economic decline. In fact, these neo-liberal policies, with or without "band-aid:' have substituted for conventional development strategies. In this context, governments with dismal human rights records have turned to more inconspicuous "arm's-length ways of achieving their aims. Others, while paying lip service to such rights, turn a blind eye to repression by their own or government-backed forces (Krenek 1993).

As far as the world scenario is concerned, the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the socialist camp made development assistance less glamorous and development-as-counterinsurgency increasingly irrelevant. With the bulk of the population in the "transitional economies" falling into destitution (Nef 1999; UNDESP 1993)! the "other" world encompasses most of humanity. To this marginal labour reserve, we must add the expanding mass of the unemployed and marginalized in the ~7 and OECD countries (OECD 1991,19921.~ This situation gives underdevelopment a whole new meaning: it makes little sense to talk about developed or underdeveloped nations. Rather, we should be looking at people being underdeveloped by means of elite exploitation and exclusion. The result of these changes has been an ontological and ethical void where buzzwords and conceptual pyrotech- nics have substituted for the quest of real development and human dignity6

IDS is the result of a juxtaposition of several conceptual traditions or "cultures." 1. One is the field of development, where theories of growth (subsequently development

economics and economic development), political development, and modernization prevail. Almost without exception, the intellectual bases of this tradition have been derived from the logical- positivist and highly linear disciplinary tenets in economics, sociology, and political science, all

3. William Robinson, citing the 1993 UNDP Human Development Report, notes that the wealthiest 20% of humanity receives 82.7% of the world's income. They also control 80% of world trade, 95% of all loans, 80% of all domestic savings, 80.5% of world investments. They consume 70% of world energy, 75% of all metals, 85% of its timbers, and 60% of its food supplies. He noted that in this context the middle-classes are tending to shrink considerably, since the 2090 of what could be called the world's middle class only receives 11.7% of the world's wealth. Robinson quoted in NotiSur, 2118/94,7. A us study by the Levy Institute, based on the 1998 Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances, indicated that while the top 1% of the US population controlled 38% of the country's net worth, the poorest 40% controlled 0.26% of it. In the period between 1983 and 1998, the net worth of that top 1% increased 42.3%, while the bottom 40% of the population was 76.5% worse off. See Wolff, (2003, Tables 2 and 3). All indications are that income concentration has worsened since 1998.

4. An analysis of the data contained in the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Development (UNDESP), Report on the World SocialSituation (New York, United Nations, 1993), indicated that the former socialist countries (a.k.a. "transitional economies"), whose rate of GDP growth was between 2.2 and 2.3% per year up to 1989, experienced dramatic declines: -5.0 for 1990, -16% in 1991, and -14.7% in 1992. See our Human Security and Mutual Vulnerability (1999), 4 8 4 9 .

5. According to the OECD Employment Outlook (1991 and 1992, July) the proportion of long-term (structural, as opposed to temporary or seasonal) unemployment changed from the previous decades from 17.8% to 21.6% in Australia; 2.9% to 5.7% in Canada; in France, from 27.1% to 38.3%; in Germany from 28.7% (1980) to 43.3% in 1990; in Japan, from 16% to 19.1%; in the Netherlands, from 35.9% in 1980 to 48.4% in 1990; in Spain, from 28.4% to 54%; in the United Kingdom, from 29.5% (1980) to 36%. Only Canada, Sweden, and the US showed a small and stable proportion of long-term unemployment. This tendency became even more pronounced in the next decade, 1990-2000, when long-term unemployment became a defining trait of most unemployment in the US as well. Ibid. 54-55.

6. The expression has been used to refer to Lasswell's (1950) optimal "shaping and sharing of values."

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hegemonic in Western thinking. References to diffusion, "trickle down:' the particularistic-universal- istic, and agrarian-industrial dichotomies - articulated in "pattern variables" (Parsons 1967) - have been prevalent in this discourse. These tenets are predicated under the assumption of an objective and value-free social science. The fundamental ethical implication of this posture is that the guiding prin- ciple in the study of development is "normative neutrality" That is, theory, research, and findings are to remain detached from "politics" and "ideology." Some critics have characterized this stand as a compelling "ideology of non-ideology" (Loveman 1976,620) whose ultimate political effect is the justification of the status quo. The continuity of a "conservative-liberal" synthesis in political thinking (from Cold War liberalism down to neo-institutionalism and public choice) finds its correlate in the conservative predilections of economic theory (Myrdal1957), and the tendency of contemporary sociology to cast away political sociology, go "micro:' and abandon structural and critical thinking.

In the specific realm of political science, the equation between political development and participatory democracy, a normative ideal of the 1960s, had been displaced by the 1970s by a definition emphasizing order, institutionalization, and authority (O'Brien 1972).' Almond and Coleman's The Politics of Development Areas (1960) had outlined a model of political development reflecting an idealized Western democratic system. Furthermore, the bulk of the political science literature at the time - as well as most social scientists - looked at development as something comparable, but essentially happening in the periphery. The spread of civic culture, pluralist ideas, and the transfer of democratic institutions between North and South could assist this process. Conversely, the more conservative Crisis of Democracy (Huntington et al. 1975) thesis suggested that participation in the "input" side of politics was a major obstacle to "output" side governability, eventually leading to chaos, praetorianism, and mob rule. Machiavellian political realism increasingly replaced the liberal-democratic hybrid of the post-war years. A similar ideological shift took place regarding social mobilization and the thesis that economic growth could bring greater equality. The ethical implications of this definition of political development are quite straightforward. The need for order and the maintenance of property relations both override rights and due process: liberalism and democracy, liberty and equality end up in contradiction. Political development came to mean governable subjects, not mobilized citizens.

This reactionary modernism regarding political development, democracy, and governability has persisted, despite the end of the Cold War, as part of the ideological "toolbox" of neo-liberal thinking. Still, political development is presented as something that is spreading from the "civilized" North into the South and the East, as in Fukuyama's thesis regarding the globalization of democracy (Fukuyama 1991, 660). Moreover, despite a significant volume and sophistication of alternative analyses - including world systems, global theory, and reformulation of theories of imperialism (Chomsky and Iterman 1979; Cox 1983; Galtung 1980; Szymansky 1981; Wallerstein 1979) - the liberal-conservative synthesis has remained the prevailing view (Weiner et al. 1987).

Alleged ethical neutrality aside, development theory and praxis have concurrently exhibited a distinct missionary and moral perspective. Model building and prescription mongering for induced socio-economic change have been its central concern. A most compelling formula repre- senting the marriage between economic science, Western manifest destiny, and militant anti- communism was Walter Rostow's Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (1960),

7. O'Brien's article analyzes the authoritarian shift in US political science, regarding the content of political development from Apter, Almond, and Lipset to Huntington and the "crisis of democracy" thesis.

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for many a cornerstone of development orthodoxy. Rostow was a politically liberal economist, an advisor to President Kennedy and an early architect of the administration's policy in Vietnam: an archetype of a cold war liberal. He was also known to be a highly moralistic man. So was the case with his associate, Robert McNamara in both incarnations, as "hawkish" Secretary of Defence and latter-day "dove," President of the World Bank. What Bodenheimer called the "ideology of developmentalism" (Bodenheimer 1970) was essentially a messianic form of anti-communist social engineering reproducing a post-colonial discourse where the world order and the very ontology of development for poor nations was seen from North-Western eyes (Berger 1995, v-39).

2. Another IDS tradition came from the "international" component of development theory, namely the highly ethnocentric and hard-line perspective of international relations. While most international relations analysts, schooled under the mantle of "realism," ignored the Third World, a few among them saw development primarily both as a goal and tool of foreign policy (Holsti, 1995, 182-87). The latter was perceived as conditioned by the objective parameters of bipolarity and the pursuit of national security. Development policies, in a Cold War context, were equated with bilateral foreign aid. Its role was the spread of modernization in client states, basically as a means to enhance the donor's national interests.

For the more liberal students of the multilateral realm of international organizations, where the more palatable term "cooperation" was widely used, international development was understood primarily as capital and technology transfers from North to South. A most persistent belief in this regard was that of "mutuality" (Brandt 1980,747,1983,l-38; Pearson 1969,3-79), enthusiastically endorsed by Prime Minister Pearson and the framers of the United Nations' First Development Decade. Multilateral and regional agencies ostensibly mediated these centre-periphery interactions. From this perspective, development assistance was simultaneously a moral imperative, a necessity to enhance enlightened self-interest, and a means of peaceful change in peripheral societies.

The involvement of the Soviets in the development assistance game added a centrally planned perspective to an essentially Northern domain. Irrespective as to whether the assistance was bilateral or multilateral, the prevailing view was that the development of the South -alternatively referred to as the Third World, developing, underdeveloped, lesser developed, backward, or poor (Weatherby et a1.1997, ~ i i i - 4 ) ~ - was contingent upon the international system, not the countries themselves. Thus, the periphery was portrayed not only as having the (Northern-defined) problem of underdevelopment, but often as being the problem itself. Conversely, the centre was construed not only as having the solution, but also as itself being the solution. One ethical implication of this view was obvious: to develop, the LDCS had to be westernized. This could be done either by replacing their "traditional" structures and institutions or, more so, by changing their value system and culture away from agrarian "amoral familism" (Banfield 1965; McClelland 1961, 147-61) and into modern industrial achievement. Most important, however, was the self-serving fallacy of equating development with outside assistance. In fact, development funding for most poor countries came mostly from domestic sources. Only a portion originated in bilateral assistance, the largest part of it either in the form of military "aid," or various forms of donor-oriented tied aid.

8. The terminology has changed over the years. So have the numerous labels derived from academic classifications and the nomenclatures of development agencies. These include terms such as: backward countries, poor countries, emerging nations, underdeveloped countries, developing nations, peripheral societies, lesser-developed countries, the South, or the Third World. From my perspective, no term is completely satisfactory as a heuristic device and can be used interchangeably, with the caveat that each term carries with it a theoretical and ideological colouration of its own. Since the 1990s I have increasingly preferred the notion of "other world," coined by Weatherby et al. (1997).

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As the Cold War drew to a close, the realism of the "nuclear theologians" and the National Security doctrine appeared to fade into the background. An integrated consensus theory of international regimes came in the form of Keohane and Nye's "complex interdependence" (1977,23-37). For its followers, global transactions, as in von Hayek's neoclassical notion of "catalaxia" (1985)? constituted a web of essentially cooperative economic relations, heavily centred on trade and elite networks. Trade liberalization and deregulation, and the construction of business-controlled transnational regimes, not so much aid or cooperation, were seen as the engines of development. Admittedly, the notion of complex interdependence, which gave ideological justification to the Trilateralist, or Davos' views of the world (Sklar 1980), was constructed with the explicit purpose of counteracting both conservative realism and "radical" dependency theories (Holsti 1995:lO-14; Keohane and Nye 1977, viii). In this essentially neo-liberal view of world politics, the main historical agent had shifted from the "prince" to the "merchant" (Nerfin 1986), but as its predecessor, at the expense of the citizen and civil society. Ethically, a neo-materialism of the Right has become a dominant discourse. In it the "objective" laws of the market define the logic and preferences for maximiz- ing individual choices. What is real is rational, what is rational is real. Systemic welfare is but a function of the aggregate equilibrium of these rational choices.

3. A third intellectual tradition of IDS came from area studies, more specifically, developing area studies. As in the case of the previous two traditions, the origins of area studies are to be found in post-World War I1 circumstances. For the United States, the "occupation of Germany and especially Japan had forced in banding together of all disciplines and the emergence of interdisciplinary area studies" (Pye 1975, 5). It also led to generous financing of centres of research in universities. Subsequently, private foundations such as Rockefeller and Ford - especially the latter's Foreign Area Studies Fellowship Program, created in 1952 -were instrumental in laying the groundwork. Yet, it was not until the National Defence Education Act (NDEA) of 1958, that area studies finally became institutionalized. Area studies linked the need to know by the defence and security establishments, academia, and the government, all this in a charged bipolar context.

Decolonization conflicts in Africa and turmoil an Asia and Latin America (e.g., Congo, Vietnam, and Cuba) gave impetus to the expansion of these initiatives under the rubric of developing area studies. In line with the logic of the military-industrial complex, academia was to provide sophisti- cated intelligence analysis for the national economic, political, and military elites. This would maxi- mize the pursuit of the national interest, contain Communism and, at the same time, facilitate the development of foreign countries to maintain prosperity and harmony at home. The model of multi- disciplinary centres soon spread throughout North America and Europe. Latin American, Asian, African, and Middle Eastern studies emerged side by side to those for the research and teaching of developed areas, such as European and Eastern European studies.

Over the years, development and area studies programs and centres converged with the developmental dimensions of politics and economics and with the foreign aid policy component of international relations and international studies. The result was international development programs, where the above-mentioned traditions coexisted without a meaningful epistemological or ontological, let alone ethical, synthesis. Governmental financing largely facilitated this convergence. The creation of agencies for international development ( u s AID, CIDA, IDRC, SIDA) came to provide potential sources of project funding and the pervasiveness of the international development idiom to encap- sulate theory and practice overseas.

9. For an elaboration of Friedrich von Hayek's concept of catalaxia as transactions, see Buchanan (1985.19-91).

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In the Canadian context, unlike the United States, these programs have been small, understaffed, and underfinanced. They depend heavily upon the academic and material resources of the consti- tuting disciplines. Moreover, with few exceptions they are generally conceived as a number of development andlor area study related courses, both graduate and undergraduate, offered by different faculty as part of their regular departmental teaching. Broader research agendas, besides the administration of collaborative international projects, are rare. Research per se plays a secondary role; this precludes the consolidation of these undertalungs into "centres of excellence." Thus, these programs and centres generally lack a conceptual focus. Mainly for these reasons, fundamental issues, including ethical questions-with the exception of an occasional colloquium or conference-have been largely left aside their areas of concern. Given the conceptual legacies discussed above, it is hardly surprising that the intellectual convergence discussed here has been unable to generate an integrated ethical matrix to address international development issues.

111. ACADEMY AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF HEGEMONY:

DISCOURSE AND COUNTER-DISCOURSE

This section will briefly address the ethical assumptions and implications of academic culture, structure, and dynamics, especially as they affect IDS. This relates to the role of intellectuals and learned communities in general in the process of paradigm building and paradigm change. In Canada the upsurge of developing area studies did not follow a uniform pattern, but led to a peculiar developmental "mix" in institutions of higher learning. Most important, however, the Canadian experience regarding the early development of area studies (and internationalization in general), though highly fractal, exhibited some marked contrasts with its US counterpart. This is particularly important in order to understand the emergence of a distinctively Canadian critical perspective in the 1970s. A number of general factors seem to account for this difference.

One was state policy. Canadian governments, especially those of Dieffenbaker and Trudeau, had a vested interest in forging a different Canadian intellectual identity vis-a-vis the international community. This search for a "third way" was reflected in the encouragement and sponsorship of debates, round tables, position papers, journals, and learned societies. Another factor was the persistence of a political economy tradition to analyze both Canada and the world, discontinuous with US political science and economics. A third factor was the significant influence that intellectual diasporas and exiles - both from the Third World and from the United States itself - had in development and area studies. A fourth factor was the relative openness of Canadian academics to ideas and concepts originating in the South to interpret Southern (and even Northern) realities. A fifth was the important role that coalitions and networks among academics, human rights organizations, and "ethical communities" (such as churches) played in defining an early "activist" agenda. The mobilizations against the Vietnam War, apartheid in South Africa, and the Latin American national security regimes were for many years paramount in the Canadian intellectual landscape. A sixth factor: the emergence of a counter-discourse was also facilitated by the presence of limited support from development and research institutions in the federal government, such as the IDRC,

or individuals within those agencies. To this, the absence of a large and autonomous military establishment has to be added.

Finally, a most important factor of differentiation, with clear ethical implications, has to be considered as well: the patterns of relationships between academics vis-a-vis the political-military establishment and the private sector. In the words of American sociologist James Petras:

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. . . [the] effects of research for society . . . is an eminently political question which turns on strategies for change. Two political strategies involve research directed at "permeating the elite" or "pressuring from the outside." These political strategies in turn shape the kind of research one engages in. "Permeationists" in search of incremental changes focus on measuring quanti- tative differences while the "outsider" approach examines the organizing principles around which society centers (Petras 1987,99).

During the 1970s and 1980s, the critical outsider mould predominated in Canada, in marked contrast with the pre-Watergate ideological closure in the United States. But this critical stance, while rejecting "nationalist" or "patriotic" alliances with government and business, did not mean the proverbial ivory tower. On the contrary, it was generally characterized by a high degree of social commitment and involvement with human rights organizations and the civil society. As mentioned, Canadian scholars were also epistemologically and politically involved with scholarly communities in the Third World and explored ideas and paradigms generated in the South. Associational and individual representations to Parliament and to various government entities were frequent and (for a while) with some impact on government policy, at times exceeding those of well-funded conservative business lobbies.

From the mid-1970s - the first program was at Trent in 1976 - and for the next two decades, relatively modest international development and development studies programs and centres emerged throughout Canada. There were also a number of Area Studies (African, Asian, and Latin American) programs in several universities. Very few constituted research units, while most took the form of undergraduate or graduate programs. These initiatives were related to one or more learned societies and their respective journals. In this early phase, intellectual autonomy and criticality went hand-in-hand.

Then, increasingly the predominant orientations began to shift. The neo-conservative counter- revolution swept academia, entrenching a blend of neo-classical economics and invigorated political conservatism. In it, development - let alone the Keynesian notion of induced and planned development - was outright anathema. The standard recipe of freeing up market forces through restructuring and massive privatization, to be known in the 1980s as the "Washington Consensus:' became paramount. One very practical policy impact of the economic package in the new conservative agenda was a drastic reduction in the financing of social services, such as education. Under these auspices, the funding of public universities became problematic.

Academic managers, faced with shrinking revenues and trying to enhance their careers by pleas- ing like-minded provincial governments and their business associates, moved from a reactive to a proactive strategy of intellectual closure. With the enthusiastic support of conservative academics,

10. Even a cursory reading of the innumerable cases of censoring, discrimination, and sidelining, based on political and cultural prejudice over the last two decades reported in University Affairs /Affaires universitaires, provides ample evidence of this assertion. My own experience and participant observation with cases of this nature - personal and otherwise - suggests this tendency to have been pervasive and persistent. They range from purposeful exclusion of Third World scholars from academic conferences by top-level management on grounds of "having well-known biases" by having been exposed to Third World issues, or having "liberal biases," to allegations of irrationality and "hot-bloodedness" derived precisely from ethnic origin, to black-balling, to attempts at outright dismissal. Involvement with church, human rights, and civic organizations was increasingly demeritized, as "mainstreaming" began to dominate expert think-tanks and consultancy firms. For an early view of this cleavage see our piece with Liisa North (1982).

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high- and midlevel management effectively sidelined those holding critical views and proceeded to dismantle some of the research and civic networks that had evolved over the years.10 At the same time they sought to provide a business-friendly environment by fostering world views congruent with the new political "realities." Ideological closure also meant that linkages among universities, civil society, and even learned societies networks were actively discouraged.

By the 1990s, the situation in Canadian academia had turned almost 180 degrees." Persuasion, subtle pressures, and, at times, outright harassment were brought to bear upon those holding left-of- centre and/or ethically critical views, creating an institutional environment openly hostile to critical thinking, and threatening career patterns. As mentioned earlier, under the assumed inherent ration- ality and beneficence of the marketplace, substantive ethical issues were seen as largely irrelevant. The collapse of Soviet Communism was automatically translated by the academic-managerial establishment as not only the empirical "proof" of the end of socialism (both Soviet and social-democrat), but also as the end of history (Fukuyama 1989). It also translated into a moral justification to purge non-socialist yet critical political liberals as well. Furthermore, these take-charge administrators actively encouraged the induction of new mainstream "pragmatic" scholars. Growing permeability and circulation among government, business, and upper managerial-academic positions also secured the overwhelming dominance of a business agenda in academic institutions.

This agenda had a significant impact on research, teaching, and university involvement in international and development activities. Retirements, internal marginalization, and careerism went a long way in turning around the imbedded right-wing stereotype of universities being a "hotbed of radicalism" and "political correctness." Academic uniformity, along the lines of the then triumphant neo-liberal paradigm, began to prevail. As neo-liberalism and the cult of the market overshadowed critical analysis, the focus on globalization replaced that of development. Terms such as dependency, centre-periphery, exploitation, liberation theology, human rights, not to mention imperialism and the like, disappeared from the academic lingo. Instead, idioms such as restructuring, public choice, adjustment, transitions, complex interdependency, the end of history, free trade, re-democratization, and other descriptors of the new creed moved into centre stage. Since globalization was often presented in the form of an inevitable and almost providential historical event (i.e., "there is no alternative"), its ethical premises were essentially piecemeal and procedural, rather than structural and substantive.

Interestingly enough, and for comparative purposes, the evolvement of Environmental Studies as an interdisciplinary field since the 1980s has presented some similarities with international development. It was first strenuously resisted by the generally more conservative and ideographic- minded of the natural scientists. It subsequently emerged, presenting a sharp epistemological cleavage between the "hard" realm of the physical and that of the "softer" social sciences. Despite the contributions of the Club of Rome (Meadows et al., 1972), the Brundtland Commission (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987), and numerous international development agencies in providing bridges between ecology and development, cooperation between environmental studies and IDS has been minimal in most academic institutions. This leads to a most unfor- tunate lack of connectivity, compartmentalizing fields that are epistemologically and ethically complementary.

11. The above trends can be seen developing as early as the late 1980s. See my appraisal with Konrad (1987). This analysis of area and development studies on Latin America in Canadian institutions contrasts with my "optimistic" appraisal five years earlier, Nef (1982).

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The upsurge of postmodernism, despite its once critical origins, paradoxically reinforced an anti- structural and anti-critical trend. For all intents and purposes, it strengthened the neo-liberal onslaught. The emphasis on "cultural studies:' a narrow view of gender, ethnicity, "identity," micro- analysis, and non-dialectical phenomenology not only deconstructed conventional development discourse; it had the net effect of substituting politically harmless and less offensive terminology for radical and critical views as the only valid alternative discourse. As critical analysis had been labelled "Marxist" and pushed aside by right-wing ideologues, a cleansed, non-Marxist, postmodernist perspective helps to provide for a semblance of academic pluralism and balance. Escobar's contribution notwithstanding, the range of issues covered by mainstream discourse analysis does not seem to pose a significant challenge to development orthodoxy, as long as the language remains esoteric and narrowly focused. In the rarefied atmosphere of academia, the preference for the aesthetic and the formal over the substantive allows for intellectual navel-gazing and escapism.

A fragmented, issue-centred, and micro-analytical view of development makes epistemologically and ethically possible the coexistence of massive global exploitation with targeted "palliative development." The latter may include well-intentioned (even progressive) discourses and "best practices" related to micro-credit, women in development, sustainable livelihoods, conservation, capacity building, and so on. But these discrete approaches do not connect the general with the specific. Nor do they raise probing questions about the broader effects and consequences of these practices, or about who are the real beneficiaries of development or who are the exploiters. Most importantly, these approaches, by stressing the social "construction" of reality, avoid addressing significant ethical problems.

A radical paradigmatic and organizational restructuring in academia has taken place over the last two decades. This restructuring has had fundamental implications for the ethical assumptions of international development discourses and practices. The emerging paradigm is largely one of "silences" and self-censorship: a new, and this time real, "political correctness" of the Right. In this context, academia and the epistemic communities focusing on international development issues would not raise dissonant voices about development policy and practice. Instead, their role mutated to that of either tackling largely irrelevant issues, or worse, that of partaking willingly or unwillingly in the construction of ideological justifications for the "new world order.""

To understand how this change came about, it is essential to grasp a number of institutional traits that are characteristic of academic institutions, especially Canadian universities (Nef and James 2002):

1. One is the nature of their organizational culture. As complex structures at the apex of the formal educational system, universities perform crucial functions related to the production, reproduction, and diffusion of society's "cultural software." Universities reflect the main societal values, though they are not merely society's mirror image. Despite public images about a culture of dissent and student activism, universities are by-and-large entrenched, inward-looking, and often compla- cent, elitist institutions. They are slow to change when compared with other "conservative" social organizations, such as the civil service, the workplace, the military, or organized religion. More often than not, universities have been reactive and even resistant to changes, including scientific and technological change. Academic culture is shaped by disciplines, with little identification and commitment to more ideal collectivist notions, such as "learning community" or the "common good."

12. The term was used by President George Bush (Sr.) in a speech to Congress on 6 March 1991, with reference to the end of Operation Desert Storm and the defeat of Iraq at the hands of a UN-sponsored coalition, led by the United States. It has also been referred to as a characterization of a unipolar, neo-liberal world, under US hegemony.

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Ethical avoidance and outright conservatism, often masked as "neutrality," scientific "objectivism:' or "apoliticism" prevail.

2. Several tensions or antagonistic traditions coexist in many universities. One is the contradiction between academic and managerial culture. The above-mentioned multiplicity of structurally differentiated, highly specialized, and competing disciplinary fields is accompanied by limited interaction and common ground. A second is the existence of an administrative, political, and bureaucratic mindset heavily geared to systems' maintenance and the preservation of institutional hierarchies, with limited connectivity with substantive academic pursuits. Canadian universities are known for being top-heavy, with an entrenched patrimonial management running the show (Nef and James 2002,135-39). A third cleavage is that between a teaching "college" culture based upon a mixture of participatory and patrimonial values - the latter often disguised as collegiality, convivi- ality, and congeniality - and a "university" culture, with a more research-based, bureaucratic model centred on the idea of productivity and achievement. In either case, and despite the discourse of "academic excellence:' ascription, status (the "old boy" network), and hierarchy prevail over intellectual achievement and material productivity. Lack of real democracy and representation of all strata go hand-in-hand with lack of legitimacy and accountability. Once again, in the above context the ethical default in academic culture is the preservation of the status quo.

3. In highly compartmentalized university cultures with considerable fragmentation and rivalry among academic and professional disciplines, international development is often a disturbing addi- tional turf of organizational dispute. Individual faculty members may be committed to internation- alism within academic units and, perhaps, in upper management, but this orientation is generally at odds with conventional career and reward patterns. Top management not only has great difficulties in communicating with academics, but their roles in the institutional power-game are essentially geared to domestic concerns, occasionally punctuated with visitations and other ritualistic international pursuits. In this sense, things international tend to be cast in one of two moulds. One is mostly ceremonial: an image of globalism where form prevails over substance. The other view is that of international projects as a source of overhead finance to increase general revenue. Either way, ethical questions regarding international development constitute a potential threat to institutional goals and power structures.

4. There is also a profound power imbalance among the major stakeholders - faculty, students and management -the latter concentrating virtually all power and little of the substance, and the former being virtually powerless. The system of governance is marked by the coexistence of "representative" but largely ineffectual collective bodies (academic senates) and more executive but patrimonial boards of governors. This gravitates against the persistence of relevant initiatives in the international realm, and specially against ethical questioning regarding the substance of such projects.

5. The above-mentioned highly antagonistic pattern of interpersonal relations has been compounded in the last decade by a growing resource scarcity. With limited capabilities, conflicts over "territory" are likely to increase. As an academic manager allegedly stated at a meeting of top administrators, "when the watering hole gets smaller, animals begin to look at each other in a different way." With deficits and persistent cuts generating a high degree of programmatic uncertainty and protracted infighting (polite and otherwise), international development programs, like many other non-conventional initiatives, fall victim to internal turmoil. Where administrations are eager to internationalize is in seeking contracts and differential fees, and in selling services and other institutional products. However, unlike consultancy firms and the private sector, universities lack the operational and financial flexibility to easily pursue proactive endeavours.

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Frustration with international activities, cynicism, and lethargy often replaces energetic and hope- ful enthusiasm.

The above dysfunctions become manifest in the actual functioning and operation of academic institutions, where specific protective and antagonistic practices reflect fragmented cultures, patrimonial management13 and limited capabilities. This behaviour tends to shape a pattern of self- perpetuating vicious cycles (Crozier 1969). This "dynamic immobilism" generates low productivity, goal displacement, low morale, and multi-sided confrontation. One effect of these paralyzing and conflictive tendencies is to provide disincentives to innovators and critical thinkers. Yet, without a synergetic involvement of all major stakeholders (especially faculty) in a coherent bottom-up process, the rhetorical goal of researching and teaching international development issues becomes merely globalized parochialism (Shute 2002).

Growing institutional ineffectiveness, however, has not been limited to Canadian institutions. Under similar, and more often than not, worse circumstances, structural disintegration has occurred in academic communities throughout the Third World, compounding pre-existing propensities for immobility and inwardness. This reduced to a minimum the once active pattern of North-South interactions that, in the past, fostered critical perspectives. Furthermore, declining government funding to development education centres and NGOS in Canada contributed to making the networks among academics, civil society organization (churches, labour, human rights groups), and learned societies increasingly inoperative.

A fragmented and antiseptic version of international development, manifested mostly in patch- work teaching and program management, has prevailed. In this new vision, the role of NGOS, once glorified in official discourse as "civil society," has been minimized. In its place, the importance of the business sector and local governments has been enhanced. This rediscovery of elites has been greatly assisted by the myth of "re-democratization" (O'Donnell et al. 1986,11,34,62). From South Africa to Southern Europe, to Latin America, to Eastern Europe, to Central Asia, the cosmetic dismantling of authoritarian regimes created the illusion among many that repression and brutal exploitation had ceased to be global concerns. For this perspective, all that was needed to bring prosperity, equity, and democracy was the implementation of the tenets of the above-mentioned Washington Consensus, combined with formally free elections - all this made governable by pacts of elites (O'Donnell et al. 1986,62,69). In the name of pragmatism, realism, and relativism, ethical "neutrality" has emerged anew, What this constructed objectivism means in practice is hegemony by default. The value assumptions of the new (as well as the "old") "common sense" discourse go unquestioned.

The cultural impact of 9/11 upon academia has compounded the devastating effects of neo- liberal hegemony, bringing back with a vengeance a Cold War type of National Security discourse, re- enforcing the aforementioned trends. Once again, critical analysis and the very essence of ethical questions regarding development and international issues are likely to be pushed aside as "danger- ous" ideology. Worse, the highly charged "anti-terrorist" atmosphere may augur a dark era in research and scholarship about the "other," labelled as radical, or even liberal. As during the Cold War, a synthesis is emerging between aggressive national security practices with post-interventionist development packages (under the label of "peace-building") to reconstruct civil societies shattered by punitive wars. We have seen examples of this in former Yugoslavia, and we may yet see it unfold in Afghanistan and in post-invasion Iraq. Despite these foreboding tendencies, there are some optimists

13. These observations draw upon our essay (with Susan lames) (2002).

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who think that it is not impossible that, in the long run, the extremity, absurdity, and moral bank- ruptcy of the ongoing discursive strictures may backfire. They foresee a breakdown of the culture of silence, a rebirth of critical analysis, and a resurgence of ethical questioning, away from self-imposed, as well as institutionally enforced, censorship. A comparative examination of post-transition Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Latin America, however, gives little room for optimism in this regard.

The examination of the three theses discussed throughout this essay has shed some light on the ethical and normative foundations and incongruities present in the field. To conclude this exploration, two complementary tasks are in order. One is to sketch a synthesis by juxtaposing the historical, epistemological, and institutional lines of inquiry to examine international development ethics in perspective. The other task is to map a possible normative course of action to construct (or perhaps reconstruct) an explicit linkage between ethics, international development, and other related fields.

In hindsight, the common denominator of the intellectual enterprise discussed here, with the sole exception of a period between the 1970s and the late 1980s, has been a persistent absence of critical analysis and consciousness. A reluctance to challenge assumptions, to explore empirically, to raise probing issues related to the context, values, and effects of development, has rendered a "flat" and merely descriptive area of selective interest. As noted, the conservative predilections of its founding disciplines and the latter's propensity to fragmentation have had a profound impact on the field. In turn, structural and cultural dysfunctions in academia have entrenched and exacerbated both these conservative predilections and irrelevance. The crisis of relevance is, at the same time, an ethical crisis and a manifestation of the underdevelopment of international development. On the one hand, the basic multi-disciplinary (not interdisciplinary) nature of its founding academic disciplines has contributed to preventing an integrated treatment of its object, assumptions, and above all, its effects. The basic paradox of IDS is that while the complex nature of its object of study requires an interdisciplinary treatment, its academic institutionalization has meant that it ends up being housed in disciplinary departments, such as economics, political science, or sociology, where academic careers are defined by disciplinary benchmarks. On the other, the predominantly ideographic, acrit- ical, and-interdisciplinary rhetoric notwithstanding-departmentalized nature of academic institutions has encouraged the above situation. These tendencies are explicitly manifested in the nature of current theory, research, teaching, and practice. Once again, by design and default, in the absence of a unified and critical paradigm, the assumptions of modernization theory, even its ethical incon- sistencies and double standards, reign upr re me.'^ The irony is that these assumptions thrive in the very environment that once questioned its intellectual and ethical validity This retreat of institutions of higher learning from social responsibility is alarming, to say the least.

All of this translates into the insufficiency of the prevailing modes of analysis to address in any systematic, systemic, and explicit manner what Goulet has called development ethics (1995, 14). Ethics here does not necessarily mean a litany of prescriptive and lofty concerns. Rather, it is the ability to ask probing conjectures about values, interests, choices, and consequences of development (Goulet 1995,27). Ethics is mainly about the people who partake in the development process - not only decision-makers, intellectuals, national, and international bureaucrats and experts, but also, and especially, those who experience deprivation and are targeted in development schemes. The latter -

14. The most significant of these paradigmatic "splicings" was Weiner et al. (1987).

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those who make history but in whose name history is never written - are the most relevant agents of their own development and should be put at the centre of it.

What I am stressing here is that development has to be seen as a process by and for people; therefore, to be fully understood, it needs to be framed from the actors' perspective. From this vantage point the only possible goal of development is the reduction of risk, insecurity, and uncertainty, and the enhancement of the quality of life of people. In opposition to a view of international development whose prime directives are corporate greed and the arrogance of power,15 the human security (Nef 1991,77) perspective advanced here is centred on two fundamental principles: respect for life and human dignity (Lasswell 1950,3-25). This requires a holistic, multi-layered, and comprehensive approach in which multiple dimensions of development - environmental, economic, social, political, and cultural - can be integrated and analyzed. It also requires a conceptual framework capable of linking the micro with the macro, the historical (diachronic) with the institutional, and the cultural with the structural. In sum, this view of development is synonymous with basic human rights (Nef 2000). In it, the enhancement of being is an end for which having is a means for its attain- ment (Goulet 1995,7-8) These actors, by their very nature, are not simply isolated individuals; they live and have roles in communities, as well as in larger social networks, and exist in various forms of collective associations. They also function in, and are part of, a biophysical environment that consti- tutes their life support system. Thus, in addition to economic capabilities for self-realization, development implies the enrichment and protection of the ecosystem and the social networks to which humans belong. An obvious and perhaps overstated implication of this premise is that development (as well as underdevelopment) and environment are inextricably interconnected.

Furthermore, development for and by people implies an enhancement of choices: the empowering of men and women to enjoy freedom, equality, and protection from violence. Finally, development is essentially about culture, values, and learning. The knowledge, skills, and purposes of development projects are ingrained in the chains of signification of a society's mental "software." Learning and enlightenment involve the ability to gain insight from experience and to modify these chains of cognitive meaning to improve the human condition. In this sense, development is essentially both a learning and empowering process. Central to this learning is the recognition of mutual vulnerability: in an integrated system, the strength of the whole is conditioned by the weakest links of its constituent parts.

There is a sort of ethical algorithm hidden behind the prescriptions and discourses of apparently neutral development interventions and ideas. These algorithms need to be made explicit, revealing the real cost, the real beneficiaries, and the real "losers" in development. A nurturing institutional context is an essential component for both the construction of knowledge and for making ethical codes open to examination. Explicitness and transparency may allow theory and practice to be dialectically and honestly interconnected. This would make it possible for negative feedback to provide some degree of balance between learning objectivity and fundamental decency.

~ ~

15. In 1966, the then Chairman of the Us Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator 1. William Fulbright, in his book The Arrogance of Power stated: "... America is now at that historical point at which a great nation is in danger of losing its perspective in what exactly is within the realm of its power and what is beyond it. Other great nations, reaching this critical conjuncture, have aspired to too much, and by overextension of effort, have declined and then fallen. Gradually but unmis- takably America is showing signs of that arrogance of power which has afflicted, weakened, and in some cases destroyed great nations in the past. In so doing, we are not living up to our capacity and promise as a civilized example for the world; the measure of our falling short is the measure of the patriot's duty to dissent" (1996, back cover).

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Documents

International Development Studies and Ethical Dilemmas in Academia