Political Power and Socio-Economic Development: Two Polemics
| Author | David Goldsworthy |
| Published date | 01 December 1984 |
| Date | 01 December 1984 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.1984.tb01545.x |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Po/itical
Studies
(1984),
XXXII,
551-569
Political Power and Socio-Economic
Development: Two Polemics
DAVID
GOLDSWORTHY
*
Monash
University, Victoria
However well-intentioned welfarist development programmes in the Third World
may be, there is overwhelming evidence that the actual outcomes typically reflect not
so much patterns of need as patterns
of
political power. Usually the distribution of
power is extremely unequal and development outcomes are correspondingly
inequitable. Two major questions arise.
Is
there something inevitable about this
tendency, or is equitable development possible
in
spite
ofthe unequal distribution
of
power? And is
it
plausible to suppose that a more egalitarian distribution of power
will lead to more equitable development? The article reviews conservative, centrist
and radical positions
on
these issues, together with some empirical evidence, and
suggests that the
onus
now lies heavily
on
proponents
of
‘order’ to justify their
position against proponents of ‘participation’.
Development does require a ‘breakthrough’. But it is a political break-
through that in turn makes possible the far more gradual economic process.
Immanuel Wallerstein’
Introduction
This article seeks to bring out the implications of certain views and arguments
that tend to be left in semi-articulated form in the development studies
literature.2 Its central concern is with the relationships between the distribution
of political power and patterns
of
socio-economic development in Third World
national contexts. The term ‘national context’ is not meant to exclude inter-
national and transnational influences; the national context is an arena which
includes not only domestic actors but relevant foreign ones as well-expatriate
development planners, local representatives
of
foreign firms, and
so
on. ‘Socio-
economic development’ is intended primarily in a welfarist sense, meaning
broad and equitable improvements in the material and social welfare of the
*
I
am grateful to John Ravenhill and Herb Feith for their comments on earlier versions of this
article.
lmmanuel Wallerstein, ‘The State and Social Transformation’,
Politics and Society,
1 (1971),
p.
364.
In
this respect it is an attempt
to
consider more thoroughly some matters mentioned only briefly
in an earlier discussion: David Goldsworthy, ‘Political Analysis and Development Studies’,
Politics,
18 (1983). 36-47.
0032-3217/84/04/055
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1984
Political Studies
552
Political Power
and
Socio-Economic
Development
(mainly rural) masses. It may
or
may not refer to
GNP
growth, depending upon
whether
or
not this factor contributes to actual improvements in mass welfare.
Such
a
notion of development is generalized and unabashedly normative. We
might suppose that if all development policies in the real world were clearly
designed to serve such ends, they would all command general acceptance; for
who could be against such objectives? In practice, development policies, like
any other social
or
economic policies, can never be optimal for all local and
foreign individuals, groups and classes affected by them-at least in terms of
those actors’ own perceptions (rational or otherwise) of their own interests.
Any given scheme is likely to command active or passive support from some
and meet active
or
passive resistance from others. Thus development is
inescapably a political
problem;
a political
issue;
and a political
process.
Reduced to its most elementary terms, the point is that questions about
development are not only questions about what kinds
of
programmes will do
what kinds of good for what kinds of people.
For
questions phrased in such a
way will simply be vitiated by their lack of consonance with reality unless they
are considered in close relationship to questions about the kinds
of
political
power that are likely to be exercised for and against particular programmes.
This point is implicit in much theorizing about development; not often enough,
however, is it given the salience it deserves.
Patterns
of
Power
and Patterns
of
Development
The precise configuration
of
political power in a Third World society cannot be
determined by any a priori rule
of
thumb.
No
society is ever divided simply
between the powerful ‘at the top’ and the weak ‘below’. Rather, in all social
contexts and at all social levels, from macrocosm
to
microcosm, from city to
village, from latifundia to peasant households, the individuals and groups
involved will have varying degrees
of
decision-making authority,
or
of
influence over proximate decision-makers-these being the two basic forms of
political power that are relevant to
our
discussion. Since individuals and
factions located within the same objective socio-economic class can be quite
widely differentiated in ‘power’ terms, the pattern of distribution of political
power is not quite the same thing as the socio-economic class structure
(although there is a broad overall correspondence).
Those who have political power draw it from many sources. These can
include roles in formal representative institutions, the administrative state, the
private economy, the international economy, the technocracy and the
knowledge industry, the armed forces, the patronage system, the cultural
or
communal group, the region, the town, the extended family, and combinations
of these. Nowadays most neo-Marxists and liberals appear to concur on the
need to avoid the reductionist view that political power has only one ‘real’ base,
namely a dominant role in the productive system. Certainly this is one major
kind of base but, especially in a Third World environment, where typically an
attenuated commercial-cum-subsistence economy coexists with a relatively
heavy state apparatus and a variety
of
communal affiliations, it should be seen
as one base among several. It follows that not only may political power rest on
bases other than economic, it may itself help
to
determine the distribution
of
economic power, wealth and income generally.
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