DEVELOPMENT IN UNITY

A comprehensive survey of the history of theories surrounding global development, including a new perspective that emphasizes community participation and local solutions. 

In the late 1960s, there was a watershed shift in development theory that ushered in radical reconsiderations of the field’s fundamental ideas, especially regarding free market, catalyzed economic growth and top-down governmental intervention. Boateng (Development in Unity: Volume II, 2015, etc.), the chancellor of All Nations University College in Ghana and an emeritus professor of statistics, furnishes a magisterial synopsis of this academic movement as well as a concise, scholarly overview of its history. He lucidly articulates the virtues and vices of the major theoretical paradigms, including the largely neoliberal Washington Consensus of 1989 and the New Washington Consensus that replaced it after the 2008 financial crisis, which focused more on inequality. Boateng proposes his own theoretical innovation—a “root-based sustainable development model” that aims at a more holistic measure of success—one that not only includes economic stimulus, but also the establishment of democratic institutions, the mitigation of socio-economic inequality, and the empowerment of the local, active population. He also addresses the “poverty-disaster nexus,” the correlation between economic blight and the ascendancy of violent extremism and crime. At the heart of Boateng’s view is a trust in and respect for locals’ ability to achieve self-governance: “despite the constraints they often face, the local people are knowledgeable and skilful managers of their own environments.” Boateng’s own theoretical contributions are provocatively original and even radical in their advocacy of local participation, placing “lived experience and evidence-based folk knowledge” on a par with scholarly expertise. Also, he soberly recommends a multivalent approach that combines the public and private sectors with representative community councils. However, the author includes a series of scholarly articles—for example, an essay on inflation in Ghana—that will only appeal to those with a professional interest in those particular subjects. Further, Boateng’s prose can be verbose at times; in one sentence, for instance, he describes the same phenomenon as a “footprint,” a “missing chain,” and a “bridge.” However, the overall study remains as insightful as it is rigorous. 

A valuable contribution to a vital economic debate.