Aims

The course aims to show how a study of development policies requires an interdisciplinary analysis framework that matches the complex nature of the realities of economic and social development in the north and the south. These policies derive from structural constraints inherited from the past, and their implementation is linked to development projects drawn up by coalitions of actors. These coalitions may try and direct the structural changes in the light of their interests and a kind of view of development. The implementation of the policies involves institutional means, which in particular define the ways in which the resources are mobilised and used, and whose nature helps to define the positions of the various categories of actor in the development process.

Main themes

This course aims to exploit the "real" issues of development policies, that is to say the objectives and practices of the main development actors. Using a historical approach, the course will show how development policies are dominated by attempts at an early stage at rapid industrialisation in predominantly agricultural societies. This aspect also links up with one of the main theoretical concerns in development thinking (e.g. dualist theories). That is why the course will present the main problems of relationships between agriculture and industry, and the impact of the policies on the development of relations between the countryside and urbanisation.

Content and teaching methods

Introduction: Dimensions of the analysis of development policies, and issues of the linkage between agriculture and industry in development.
Part I: Problems of the linkage between agriculture and industry in national modernisation policies in the south and the north between 1945 and 1965.
Part II: The crisis in national modernisation policies, and the impact of the crisis on the agriculture-industry linkage between 1965 and 1973.
Part III: The effects of trends towards the internationalisation of the world economy on the agriculture-industry linkage in development policies between 1973 and 1982.
Part IV: The effects of adjustment policies and of trends towards globalisation on development policies and the relationship between agriculture and industry between 1980 and 1990.
Conclusions: The new directions taken by development thinking and the search for a new agriculture-industry and countryside-towns and cities linkage in development policies.
The course will offer a historico-systemic perspective. Historically, development policies have sought initially to transform predominantly agricultural societies into predominantly industrial societies. This modernising vision of development has particularly influenced all experiences of development in countries in the south since the Second World War, but it is also to be found in experiences in the north, and especially in Europe.
The course will pursue a comparative approach to experiences in different regions (i.e. Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe) from the point of view of the linkage between agriculture and industry. It will also show how the shift towards the growing internationalisation of economies and the increasing importance of "services" has made this linkage problematic, while at the same time leaving untouched the great challenges of the search for a sustainable development policy in the north and the south.
Methodology
This is a course of lectures and complementary reading.

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

There will be a written examination focusing on the course and the reading.

Programmes in which this activity is taught

Other credits in programs