Sunday, August 18, 2002		Books

Globalisation rules development studies?
K.B.S. Sidhu

Globalization and Development Studies: Challenges for the 21st Century,
edited by Frans J. Schuurman. Vistaar Publications. New Delhi. Pages 212. Rs 275.

THERE are a number of competing, often conflicting, definitions of development, a term which has been almost universally proclaimed to be one of the prime objectives of the nation-state as well as multi-lateral agencies in the post-World War II era, especially with reference to the Third World. This has lead to the origin and growth of the curriculum of development studies, dedicated exclusively to the study of inter-disciplinary models of development that link economic growth with social, cultural and political institutions.

With incredible progress in communication technology, exceedingly fast means of transport and the exponentially increasing international trade and commerce, globalisation is being accepted, almost axiomatically, as the all-pervasive order of the day.

However, there is no unanimously accepted definition of the term globalisation and it has been used, even in the most rigorous of academic works, to convey a wide variety of connotations. It has been used to describe the creation of a single world market, a world wide network of computers, or even a kind of cultural imperialism, revisited in its new avatar, or "McDonaldisation (fads, tastes and cults that grow in demographic proportions across diverse societies in different nations)."

This book, a collection of 12 papers in two parts, with an introductory chapter by the editor, is, however, not about globalisation per se. It rather explores the position of globalisation vis-à-vis the current status of development studies. The core debate is whether globalisation has emerged as the reigning paradigm in development studies and whether it has displaced, or even overthrown, the latest concepts like modernisation and post-modernism in this discipline.

Part I of the book, "The Challenges and their Limits," has five papers, including an introductory chapter by the editor, which provides the conceptual framework to understand and analyse the remaining four papers. Two papers are devoted to globalisation as a "new paradigm for development studies" as well as challenges it throws up to this discipline. The vicious and benign forms of universalism, a manifestation of globalisation, are discussed in a separate paper. The last paper of this part deals with the declining relative influence of the importance and effectiveness of the nation-state in the context of the globalising world.

Part II deals with the impact of globalisation on some of the "central issues in development studies." This part too has an introductory paper by the editor. The next two papers examine the impact of globalisation on human rights and the role of multinational companies in development. A separate paper discusses whether globalisation and sustainable development are mutually contradictory processes. There are two papers that highlight two different perspectives on gender issues relating to globalisation. The last paper deals with a global urban development policy. The book, however, omits any discussion on the still serious bottlenecks hampering free flow of labour in the modern world, although all economic arguments arrayed in favour of free flow of capital apply equally to the former. Similarly, an analysis of the World Trade Organisation in the context of globalisation is conspicuously absent. The book doesn’t attempt to highlight the dynamics of power equations in the globalising world: who are the gainers and the losers? The likely trends for the future have also not been discussed.

As a whole the book is a useful compilation of rigorous academic papers. The contributions by the editor have woven these into an organic whole, rather than being a conglomerate of uncorrelated works on a common theme.