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Developmentalism is an economic theory which states that the best way for less developed economies to develop is through fostering a strong and varied internal market and imposing high tariffs on imported goods.
Developmentalism is a cross-disciplinary school of thoughtSmith, Tony "Requiem or New Agenda for Third World Studies?" World Politics, Vol. 37, No. 4 (July 1985), pp. 533–534 that gave way to an ideology of development as the key strategy towards economic prosperity. The school of thought was, in part, a reaction to the United States’ efforts to oppose national independence movements throughout Asia and Africa, which it framed as communist. Developmentalism in the international economic context can be understood as consisting of a set of ideas which converge to place economic development at the center of political endeavors and institutions and also as a means through which to establish legitimacy in the political sphere. Adherents to the theory of developmentalism hold that the sustained economic progress grants legitimate leadership to political figures, especially in developing nations (in Latin America and East Asia) who would otherwise not have the benefit of a unanimous social consensus for their leadership or their international policy with regard to industrialized countries. Developmentalists believe that national autonomy for 'Third World' countries can be achieved and maintained through the utilization of external resources by those countries in a capitalist system. To those professed ends, developmentalism was the paradigm used in an attempt to reverse the negative impact that the international economy was having on developing countries in the 1950s–60s, at the time during which Latin American countries had begun to implement import substitution strategies. Using this theory, economic development was framed by modern-day Western criteria: economic success is gauged in terms of capitalistic notions of what it means for a country to become developed, autonomous, and legitimate.Yü, Bin, Yu, Bin, and Chung, Tsungting "Dynamics and Dilemma: Mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong in a Changing World", Nova Publishers, Taiwan, 1996, pp. 22–24
The theory is based on the assumption that not only are there similar stages to development for all countries but also that there is a linear movement from one stage to another that goes from traditional or primitive to modern or industrialized.Smith, Tony "Requiem or New Agenda for Third World Studies?" World Politics, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Jul., 1985), pp.537
Though initially the preserve of emerging markets in the Asia Pacific area, Latin America and Africa, the notion of developmentalism has resurfaced more recently in the developed world – notably in the economic planks of 'unorthodox' policy makers such as Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in the United States.Nicolas J. Firzli, The End of ‘Globalization’? Economic Policy in the Post-Neocon Age, Revue Analyse Financière (July 12, 2016).
The ensuing 'Golden Age' of the developmentalist school began after 1945 and extended into the late 1960s. During the 1970s, however, the popularity and prevalence of developmentalism flickered and decreased.
During the 1950s and 1960s, developmentalism in practice did much to promote prosperity in the Southern Cone (comprising parts of Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay) and the Andean country of Chile. As noted by Naomi Klein, “during this dizzying period of expansion, the Southern Cone began to look more like Europe and North America than the rest of Latin America or other parts of the Third World.” Workers in new factories formed strong unions that negotiated middle-class salaries, and their children were sent off to study at newly constructed public universities. By the Fifties, Argentina had the largest middle class in South America, while Uruguay had a literacy rate of 95% and provided free health care to all its citizens.
These problems eventually marked the decline of school of developmentalist theory in the late 1970s. Some scholars (such as Samuel Huntington and Jorge Domínguez) contend that this rise and fall is a predictable phenomenon that typifies the introduction of any theoretical paradigm to the trial phase: a surge in popularity is likely with such theories, followed by various stages of pausing and surging in their prevalence in international economies and politics. It is also a possibility that the failures of developmentalism in the 1970s resulted from a realization that, after twenty-five years, 'Third World' countries were still in the 'Third World,' despite efforts towards economic gain characterized by developmentalism. This view is elaborated on by Gabriel Almond, who asserts that the increasing number of developing countries that had turned to authoritarian regimes negated the optimism with which developmentalism had been embraced. The US policies, which incorporated the tenets of developmentalism, were, in the 1970s, increasingly being seen as harmful to the Third World in imperialistic ways, and thus the school entered into crisis.Smith, Tony "Requiem or New Agenda for Third World Studies?" World Politics, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Jul., 1985) pp. 545–547
This unconventional use of the term is used to justify some degree of protectionism and industrial dirigisme e.g. in the context of in the United States:
"That ideological bravado endeared Donald Trump to millions of disenfranchised lower-middle-class voters across the Rust Belt and proved instrumental to his electoral victory in the fall ... He to create 'millions of jobs' in America in the coming quarters. Not coincidentally, when it comes to investment destination, the president seems to have a preference for Pennsylvania, Upstate New York, Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana: a new kind of capital stewardship for the era of self-seeking capitalism..." M. Nicolas J. Firzli : 'Understanding Trumponomics', Revue Analyse Financière, 26 January 2017 – Supplement to Issue N°62
These policies shifted focus from reconstruction to development to poverty reduction, created a demand for global development intervention and shift from exploitation to development U.S. aid programme, and created norms and statistics for international donors.
Developmentalism is often accused by the left (though not only by the left) of having an ideology of neocolonialism at its root. Developmentalist strategies use a Eurocentric viewpoint of development, a viewpoint that often goes hand in hand with the implication that non-European societies are underdeveloped. As such, it gives way for the perpetuation of Western dominance over such underdeveloped nations, in a neocolonialist fashion.M. Haque, Shamsul “Restructuring Development Theories and Policies: A Critical Study” SUNY Press, New York, 1999 Developed nations such as the United States have been accused of seizing opportunities of disaster for their own benefit in what is known as disaster capitalism. Disaster capitalism, a term used by Naomi Klein, describes the process in which situations of financial crisis are used in order to force an emergency opening of the free market in order to regain economic stability. This happened in the examples of Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, and post-Katrina New Orleans, among others.Klein, Naomi "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism." Metropolitan Books, 2007. Developmentalist ideas also portray the Western ideal of development and democracy as an evolutionary course of history. In Eric Wolf’s book, Europe and the People without History, Wolf shows, through a long history of examples, that the Western world is only one of many visions of the world, and to view it as the pinnacle of a linear world evolutionary chain would be inaccurate.Wolf, Eric “Europe and the People Without History.” University of California Press, San Diego, 1982. Developmentalist strategies often implicate that history is on a unilateral path of evolution towards development, and that cultural derivations have little implication in the final product.
From the right, critics say that developmentalist strategies deny the free market its autonomy. By creating a state controlled market economy, it takes away the organic nature in which a market is meant to be created. They argue that developmentalist strategies have not generally worked in the past, leaving many countries, in fact, worse off than they were before they began state-controlled development. This is due to a lack of freedom in the free market and its constrictive nature. In turn, it is argued, reactive totalitarian forces take hold of the government in response to Western intervention, such as Chávez's Venezuela and Daniel Ortega’s Nicaragua, creating even more complex problems for the Western vision of development.Easterly, William. “The Ideology of Development.” Foreign Policy July/August 2007 pp. 30–35
Socio-anthropologists criticize the developmentalism as a form of social change implemented by an exogenous party. This creates what is called the developmentalist configuration.Olivier de Sardan, Jean-Pierre 2005, Anthropology and Development: Understanding Contemporary Social Change, Zed Books Ltd, New York NY, page 25
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