Development Discourse and Global History

Front matter

Development Discourse and Global History

From colonialism to the sustainable development goals

Aram Ziai

Contents

Acknowledgements vii 1 Introduction: the discourse of ‘development’ 1 PARTI Theory 5 2 Poststructuralism, discourse and power 1 PART II Archaeology 25 3 From ‘civilising mission’ to ‘development’ 27 4 An archaeology of development knowledge 38

5 The concept of ‘development’ and why it should be abandoned 54

6 Development discourse: appropriation and tactical polyvalence 70

Part I Theory

No one, not even a social scientist, has an unmediated access to social reality. All of us are influenced by socialisation, experience, assumptions, cultural conventions, a certain knowledge interest, etc. — you could say we perceive reality from a certain perspective constituted in this manner, through a pair of glasses. A theory is nothing more than a deliberately crafted pair of glasses which should provide us with a more systematic or thorough view on reality, a perspective on our topic which makes sense for us.! This chapter is concerned with clarifying and justifying the glasses that are being used in this book: the epistemological and theoretical foundation and the central concepts and methods built on this foundation. This foundation can be described as social science informed by poststructuralism, the central concepts (inspired by Michel Foucault) are discourse and power, and the method is archaeology and genealogy.

Epistemological and theoretical foundations: structuralism, poststructuralism and social science

In order to argue why precisely this epistemological foundation was chosen, it is necessary to clarify what is meant by structuralism, poststructuralism and poststructuralist social science.

Structuralism

Structuralism, at least in the meaning used in the arts and humanities, is based on the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure (see for the following Saussure 1983a, 1983b, Miinker/Roesler 2000, Stäheli 2000). Its objective was the description of the general structures of language. Saussure differentiated between langage (the universal ability to speak), langue (a certain language system) and parole (an applied language). According to him, the sign, defined as the smallest unit of a linguistic structure carrying meaning, is composed of signifier and signified — e.g. in the English language the word ‘bread’ and the concomitant concept of a loaf of bread. Saussure highlights the arbitrariness of the sign, i.e. he emphasises the arbitrariness of the relation between signifier and signified: there is no natural connection between the word ‘bread’ (or Brot or pain in other language systems)

and the thing it designates, it is an arbitrary convention. However, if there is no inherent relation between the level of signifiers and the level of signifieds, linguistic meaning cannot be constructed with reference to something beyond language, but only within language. The meaning of the signs is thus the results of differences within the language system: only because the word ‘bread’ differs from the words ‘bed’ and ‘head’ (or ‘cake’ and ‘cookie’) can it fulfil the function of designating a certain thing (bread). ‘What counts is not the signs’ reference to something beyond language, but their relation, to be precise: the mutual difference of the signs’ (Münker/Roesler 2000: 4, translation AZ). According to Saussure, the sign is social by nature, i.e. it is independent of the individual’s will, as the linguistic structures predate each individual act of endowing something with meaning. Thus an objective, scientific analysis of language systems is possible.

A central legacy of Saussure’s structural linguistics is the focus on the relation of the elements of a structure. Saussure’s thought was universalised beyond the horizon of linguistics. The ‘linguistic turn’, maybe the most important paradigm change in 20th century philosophy (see Rorty 1967), can basically be seen as the application of Saussure’s ideas to other areas and systems of meaning.’ Its starting point is the assumption that these other systems are (just like language) structured as systems of difference and that they exhibit certain laws or principles. Meaning is produced by the relation of the elements of the structure and can thus objectively be identified. Thus the subject is seen in structuralism not as the agent who endows things with meaning, but rather as an effect of these structures — which is why sometimes the ‘disappearance’ or even the ‘death of the subject’ was proclaimed. The universal structures of the human mind thus constitute structuralism’s object of inquiry, and questioning this claim became the starting point for poststructuralism.

Poststructuralism

Poststructuralism? is best portrayed not as a coherent school of theory, but rather as a philosophical current that emerged from the critique of structuralism — which came in part from the structuralists themselves (on the following see Miinker/ Roesler 2000, Stäheli 2000, Belsey 2002).* It criticised the idea of a closed system of language structures, of a rigid order which assigns one signified to each signifier, and the claim of complete scientific explanation. Instead, the poststructuralists describe the incompleteness of language structures which allows for ever new meanings through contextual or historical shifts of the unstable relation between signifier and signified and reveals the idea of discrete, orderly systems as imprecise. In contrast to structuralism, the relations between signifiers and signifieds do not constitute a rigid structure, this structure exists only insofar as it is reproduced continuously and is thus (at least potentially) characterised by constant change. For poststructuralists, the structure of language not only precedes individual speech acts, but is impossible to catch up with for theory, it is not organised around a centre and can never be described completely and unambiguously, which renders the theoretical claims of structuralism illusory. Furthermore, this claim results in the systematic exclusion of that which cannot be grasped by the method, the structure’s Other. To capture meaning and create an orderly system of signifiers and signifieds, other possible meanings have to be excluded.

Thus poststructuralist philosophy is a ‘vindication of difference’ (Münker/Roesler 2000), for engaging with the excluded Other to counter the totalising tendencies of structuralism. Still, poststructuralism is based on some central theoretical tenets of structuralism and examines structures which produce meaning, so it should not be seen as the abandonment of structuralism, but its radicalisation and reflexive continuation. Poststructuralism’s important assumptions can be described as follows:

e Reality can only be perceived through language structures or other systems of representation producing meaning in which reality is constructed. Language is not merely the description of reality, but the means by which it is created.

e The smallest units of these structures are signs comprising signifiers and signifieds, their relation is arbitrary and unstable (but usually temporarily and contextually fixed, which enables communication).

e Meaning and knowledge are thus effects produced by differential relations within these structures, they cannot be based on nonlinguistic objective foundations (such as religion, rationality, science, the knowing subject, etc.).°

e In each structure there is something which cannot be grasped by this structure and is excluded.

e The subject is the effect of the structures constituting it. Our subjectivity is the product of different discourses that shaped it. However, unlike in structuralism, subjects are not merely determined by these structures. As there are competing discourses, there is agency in following one discourse instead of another.

These characteristics have consequences for a social science informed by poststructuralism.

Social science informed by poststructuralism

The concept of poststructuralist social science seems imprecise on a closer look because social science is usually linked with the claim to a truthful description of social reality — a claim rejected by poststructuralist philosophy. Social science which still clings to the claim of correctly describing social reality (though without an objective claim to truth) and which bases itself on the assumptions described above can be called inspired or informed by poststructuralism.°

According to its philosophical orientation, social science informed by poststructuralism can be described as constructivist and anti-essentialist, i.e. it regards reality as socially constructed and declines to attribute a specific nature to social actors and phenomena (‘democracy is . . .’; ‘women are... .’, ‘African culture implies . . .’). Furthermore, it exhibits the following traits:

e It regards society in analogy to language as a system of differences in which the identity of actors and phenomena is described through the opposition to others, through their position within a structure.

e It does not base itself on a foundation which exists beyond any systems of representation. Thus there are no laws determining the relation between elements of society,’ merely by definition limited and unstable relations. So in poststructuralist terminology, the field of the social is one of undecidability, or more precisely, one of contingency.®

e The subject is not the origin of social relations, but is constituted by them. The plurality of social structures intersecting in the subject produces a plurality of possible identities or subject positions (Laclau/Mouffe 2001: 114ff). The subject can thus be seen as the difference between the possible and the actual positions, the difference between undecidability and decision.

e Meanings, i.e. relations between signifiers and signifieds, are never stable and unchanging, but are temporarily fixed, otherwise communication and society would not be possible.? While it is possible to prove regularities within society, they are 1) merely immanent and not the manifestation of a determinant external to the structure (e.g. the walk of history or human nature) and 2) they are (in contrast to natural laws) limited and subject to change. Still, the elements of society are not linked merely by coincidence, certain logics can be observed. And a temporarily coherent system of elements thus linked can be called a social formation (Laclau/Mouffe 2001: 136).

e In such a paradigm truth cannot be conceived as correspondence between statement and reality, because there is no perception beyond systems of meaning. Truth can only be analysed as produced within a structure, as socially produced.!°

Why should we base research on such an admittedly complex and problematic epistemological foundation? My proposition is: because only this foundation is able to adequately accommodate the construction, complexity and historicity of social reality. Essentialisms reducing the complexity of reality are not accepted as explanations in the perspective of poststructuralism. As identities are constructed through difference, this shall be illustrated by some examples of different theoretical foundations.!!

A central premise of liberal economic theories is the assumption of Homo oeconomicus: human beings are naturally inclined to further their own (above all material) interests. So the empirical observation that many people act according to this pattern is explained by reference to a prediscursive human nature, instead of examining, in which societies, in which groups or at which points in time this kind of behaviour was less or not at all dominant, and which social circumstances have supported the spread of this behaviour (Etzioni 1990, Habermann 2008).

In realist theory of international relations, an image of human society based on Thomas Hobbes plays a similar role. The absence of an institutional order endowed with a monopoly of violence on the international level is assumed to lead to a security dilemma: allegedly the security of actors (states) is principally endangered through the existence and there is a situation of threat and rivalry which renders stable international cooperation nearly impossible (Ashley 1986, Wendt 1992).

In Marxist theory there are similar essentialisms, above all in the conception of the economy as a social mechanism functioning according to objective laws independent of human behaviour and in the category of objective (class) interest, which assumes a logical - instead of a political - link between a certain position in the process of production and the mentality of the people (Laclau/Mouffe 2001).

In all three examples there is reference to some knowledge on society or human beings which renders a detailed engagement of specific social phenomena and their historical transformations superfluous and can serve as a legitimating ideology for certain types of domination. This kind of knowledge about reality constitutes a foundation which is beyond theoretical and political contestation — and beyond the historical and contextual shifts of the relation between signifier and signified. A sceptical posture towards this type of knowledge, however, leads to a social science informed by poststructuralism.

Yet the poststructuralist foundation also has its problematic aspects, which need to be dealt with. The most important of these are the methodological exclusion of the referent, the neglect of the subject and its agency and the focus on difference and microstructures.

The methodological exclusion of the referent results from the insight that in the perception of reality we cannot do without systems of meaning. From the perspective of poststructuralism statements on reality are strictly speaking not possible, merely on the representation of reality. This confinement, however, is ultimately not acceptable for a social science. A possible way out of this dilemma, marking the difference between poststructuralism and social science informed by poststructuralism, is to be aware of the perspectivity of any and all statements on reality, and to present one’s own theoretical and normative glasses as the result of (hopefully) well-founded but always contingent decisions — and not as universally valid. This is the purpose of this section.

The exclusion of the subject in the poststructuralist perspective seems almost equally problematic in the light of the object of social science, as subjects do seem to play a role in society. Yet in order to remain theoretically coherent, neither the existence nor the influence of the individual actions of individual actors must be disputed. It is however of central importance to analyse subjects as products of structures and not idealise them as the origin of these structures.

Another problematic aspect is the focus on singularity, difference and microstructures. The omnipresent suspicion derived from poststructuralist philosophy that theoretical constructs homogenise differences and flatten discontinuities, in order to appear as a coherent explanation of reality, renders its usefulness as a theoretical foundation for the analysis of society’s macrostructures rather doubtful. Nevertheless, even with a microsociological theory there is always an even more differentiated view on social and political phenomena, and the ever more detailed description of an infinity of singular phenomena does not seem to be a reasonable objective of theory. The construction of coherence (which is to a certain extent always arbitrary),'? the ordering of the empirical material, is a condition of theory-building in social science.” Again, the point is to be aware of this construction and ordering and to give reasons for its underlying contingent decisions.

12 Theory Analytical categories: discourse and power

In a poststructuralist perspective on society, language, or more general representation, is ineluctable: only through systems of language or representation do we have access to reality. Discourse, preliminarily defined as a system of meaning, in which relations between signifiers and signifieds are fixed, is thus one of the central theoretical categories of this study. The second category is a result of poststructuralism's effect to demonstrate the contingency and historicity of seemingly self-evident categories as well as their exclusions — in a more political view: their involvement with relations of power. Power is thus the second central theoretical category. The two concepts are being defined in this section based on the work of Michel Foucault.!* My proposition is that an analytics of discourse and power based on Foucault is able to illuminate relations of power invisible to other theoretical approaches,” primarily those that result from discursive structures or that are not repressive but productive.

Analysis of discourse following Foucault

Discourse theory following Foucault is confronted with the question which works exactly to follow. A closer look reveals certain differences between his original methodology of discourse analysis in the archaeology of knowledge, the shorter and more accessible order of discourse, and his usage of the term discourse in the context of his analyses of power in later works.

The discourse analysis in the archaeology of knowledge is strongly influenced by structural linguistics and can be sketched as follows: discourse is defined as ‘a group of statements in so far as they belong to the same discursive formation’ (Foucault 1972: 117). According to Foucault, these discursive formations are not necessarily characterised by a common topic or common concepts, but by regularities in the formation of objects, types of statements and concepts, by common rules of formation:

Whenever one can describe, between a number of statements, such a system of dispersion, whenever, between objects, types of statement, concepts, or thematic choices, one can define a regularity (an order, correlations, positions and functionings, transformations), we will say . . . that we are dealing with a discursive formation. . . . The conditions to which the elements of this division (objects, mode of statement, concepts, thematic choices) are subjected we shall call the rules of formation. (Foucault 1972: 38, emphasis in the original)

‘System of dispersion’ means that there may be deviance from the norm and yet a systematic regularity of the discursive dispersion, so rules must not be conceived as determinants in the structuralist sense. The unity of a discourse is thus not given through a common topic, but ‘a group of rules that are immanent in a practice, and define it in its specificity’ (ibid.: 46, emphasis in the original) and which order the relations between statements and groups of statements (29). Archaeology is thus defined as the systematic description of

‘the regularity of a discursive practice’ (145), which does not, in contrast to the history of ideas, try to find the notions ‘behind’ the discourses, but merely analyses the set of conditions of the existence of statements, their linkages and accumulations (125, 145).'°

These discourses constitute ‘practices which systematically form the objects of which they speak’ (Foucault 1972: 49), which reveals the constructivist perspective: Discourses are not representations of an objective reality, but the bricks with which we build social reality. Foucault emphasises, however, that he does not want to treat discourses as ‘groups of signs (signifying elements referring to contents or representations)’ (ibid.), i.e. as systems of relations between signifiers and signifieds. Not because this would be wrong, but because he is interested in something else: ‘Of course, discourses are composed of signs, but what they do is more than use these signs to designate things . . . It is this “more” that we must reveal and describe’ (ibid.). This ‘more’ is the rules of the discourses.

Although Foucault occasionally mentions societal influence on discourse — he writes about specific ‘forms of articulation’ ‘between discursive formations and non-discursive domains’ (162) and that theoretical choices of a discourse are dependent of its function in a ‘field of non-discursive practices’ (68) — he usually conceives of discourses as anonymous, subjectless and autonomous entities (62f, 86f, 117, 121f, 169). Their rules of formation are according to him ‘not the result, laid down in history and deposited in the depth of collective customs, of operations carried out by individuals’ (63). In the archaeology of knowledge, ‘the rules of formation operate not only in the mind or consciousness if individuals, but in discourse itself; they operate, therefore, according to a sort of uniform anonymity, on all individuals who undertake to speak in this discursive field’ (ibid.).

Thus Foucault assumes discourses to be entities that are autonomous regarding societal influence and individual actions and defined by certain regularities, the rules of formation. They construct the objects of which they speak and should not be analysed as systems of representation, but merely as positive realities. In this, he neglects that their constructive operations are possible only because they are systems of meaning and their linking of signifiers and signifieds is crucial for analysis. Further, the positive and objective description of discursive reality he envisions is not possible: even the discourse of discourse analysis constructs its objects and is unable to ‘say it like it is’. Finally, his concept of discourses as autonomous is theoretically and politically problematic. If the rules of the discourse actually were entirely independent of individual practices, they would have to originate in some other, metaphysical level — which would of course be opposed to Foucault’s philosophical location. And this concept is unable to focus on the doubtlessly existing and most asymmetrical influence of social actors on discourses. Dreyfus and Rabinow thus criticise Foucault’s ‘illusion of autonomous discourse’ with good reason (1983, Part I).

Already two years after the publication of the archaeology of knowledge, in his popular inaugural lecture ‘ordre du discourse’ (English as ‘The Discourse on Language’ in Foucault 1972: 215-237), a shift in Foucault’s concept of discourse can be observed. Here, he describes rules of exclusion, systems for the control and delimitation of discourse and procedures for the rarefaction among speaking subjects. This means for each discourse only certain objects, statements and speakers are allowed as legitimate. Not only the opposition between reason and madness, but also that between true and false operates in this perspective as rules of exclusion which change in the course of history. Foucault illustrates this point with the example of 19th-century biologist Gregor Mendel, whose hypotheses are true from the perspective of today’s biology, “but he was not dans le vrai (within the true) of contemporary biological discourse: it simply was not along such lines that objects and biological concepts were formed’ (224) — Mendel did not obey ‘the rules of some discursive “policy”’ (ibid.). Scientific disciplines are defined by ‘groups of objects, methods, their corpus of propositions considered to be true, the interplay of rules and definitions, of techniques and tools’ (222).!’ According to Foucault, religious, political or philosophical doctrines function in a similar manner: they are also defined by the recognition of the same truths while at the same time they indicate the adherence to a certain group (class, nationality or party): ‘Doctrine effects a dual subjection, that of speaking subjects to discourse, and that of discourse to the group, at least virtually, of speakers’ (226).

In statements like these, the social character of discourses is being recognised, their entanglement with social (and economic and political) relations of power, in contrast to his earlier work they are ‘the very object of man’s conflicts’ (216). Yet Foucault still criticises that in Western thought, discourse was merely seen as ‘thought, clad in its signs and rendered visible by words’ or as ‘structures of language . . . producing a certain effect of meaning’ (227). The justified critique that language is not an innocent representation of objective reality again turns into a rejection of a theoretical and methodological perspective which examines the production of meaning through the interplay between signifiers and signifieds. One can only wonder why.!*

The motive of the entanglement of discourse and social relations of power (and the corresponding abandonment of the ‘illusion of autonomous discourse’ (Dreyfus/Rabinow 1983) is dominant in the following works of Foucault. He stresses the close relation between knowledge and power, that: ‘power and knowledge directly imply one another; that there is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations’ (Foucault 1977a: 27). Certain relations of power render possible certain discourses and discourses engender and support relations of power (1978: 97). Thus: ‘Each society has its régime of truth, its “general politics” of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true’ (1980: 131) and truth is ‘linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it, and to effects of power which it induces and which extend it’ (133). Therefore Foucault is not concerned with revealing ideology and promoting nonideological truths (a ‘battle on behalf of truth’) and with ‘changing people’s consciousness’, but with the ‘political, economic and institutional régime of the production of truth’ (132f). In line with the assumption of a close relation between knowledge and power, he does not any longer claim objectivity, but is aware of the perspectivity of the knowledge he produces (‘affirmation of knowledge as perspective’, 1977b: 156). And although he no longer perceives discourses as completely autonomous, he still perceives them (and not knowing subjects) as the main actors and thus maintains that the ‘subjects of knowledge’ are merely ‘effects of these fundamental implications of power-knowledge and their historical transformations’ (1977a: 28) — of discourses.

So in contrast to his earlier work, the social character of discourses and the relations of power in their production become the central focus of Foucault’s analyses. However, he mentions that these entanglements are sometimes not straightforward, emphasising what he calls the ‘tactical polyvalence of discourses’ (1978: 102): the same discourses can be employed in different political strategies: ‘we must not imagine a world of discourse divided between accepted discourse and excluded discourse, or between the dominant discourse and the dominated one; but as a multiplicity of discursive elements that can come into play in various strategies’ (ibid.).

To productively use Foucault’s heterogeneous theory of discourse for social science, we have to carefully reflect which elements we refer to and which others should rather be neglected. In doing so, I would argue that for social science informed by poststructuralism: 1) a perspective which stresses the social character of discourses and their entanglement with power is more useful than the concept of autonomous discourses; 2) acknowledging the perspectivity of one’s own knowledge is more useful than the positivist claim of merely describing reality; 3) locating the theory in poststructuralist reflections on the constitution of meaning is more useful than rejecting this connection.

In this context Foucault’s category of the ‘non-discursive’ needs to be discussed. In the light of poststructuralist reflections on the constitution of reality through discourses as systems of representations (which can also be found in Foucault’s work)!” it is strictly speaking not possible to designate a nondiscursive area of reality: we perceive reality only mediated by discourses. What Foucault refers to as nondiscursive, buildings, institutions, physical practices, are rather nonlinguistic phenomena which are perceived to have a different materiality than texts or utterances.?

So, taking all of the above into account, we can define discourse — partly building on Foucault’s work, partly modifying or rejecting it — as follows: discourses are systems of meaning, in which certain relations between signifiers and signifieds are fixed, certain assumptions are considered true, certain mechanisms for the production of truth are accepted, certain elements are linked and in which certain rules guide the formation of objects, statements, enunciative modalities and topics. They constitute identities by providing the subjects with certain concepts and ways of speaking, certain types of constructing reality and producing statements. Discourses are open systems constituted by regularities, there are manifold overlaps between them and their number is limitless. Discourses are the result of individual and collective practices and thereby unstable and subject to historical change.

16 Theory Analysis of power following Foucault

In the area of power we have to similarly clarify which elements of Foucault’s theory can be usefully taken up, because differences and contradictions can be found here as well. In his most explicit presentation of his analytical method regarding power (1978: 81-102), Foucault describes power as relational, decentered, ubiquitous, intentional, nonsubjective and above all productive, all in all as a ‘multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which they operate’ (92). Following Foucault, power must not be conceived as something that powerful persons or institutions possess. Rather, they are nodes in a web of power relations. The powerful state does not possess a monopoly of violence, but power manifests itself in social relations at the microlevel which lead to a situation in which the state appears to have this monopoly - or in which it does not, depending on whether individuals accept this claim. So in this perspective, state apparatuses and hegemonies are ‘institutional crystallization[s]’ (93) of decentered power relations and thus their effects, not their origins.”!

The ubiquity of power is already a result of its close relation to knowledge. As mentioned, there is no relation of power without corresponding knowledge and no field of knowledge which does not presuppose and constitute relations of power (Foucault 1977a: 27). So there are no spaces ‘outside’ of power (1980: 141). However, this does neither mean that power is always negative (there is no normative judgment involved) nor that there is no possibility for individual action.

The description of relations of power as simultaneously intentional and nonsubjective implies that these relations correspond to a certain observable logic and rationality. So an objective or even an intentionality can be presumed (actually the latter term may be misleading) which cannot be traced back to ‘the choice or decision of an individual subject’ (1978: 95). An example which illustrates this quality of power (which does not come from Foucault though) can be seen in the economic relations in capitalism, which take place according to a certain rationality and lead to certain results, but without anyone planning or coordinating these relations.

Relations of power are productive, according to Foucault, because they are not confined to a repressive function (e.g. limiting what can be said, outlawing practices, censoring truths) — they are generating or giving rise to fields of knowledge and types of practices: ‘power produces; it produces reality; it produces domains of objects and rituals of truth’ (1977a: 194). This productive function does not only refer to the mind. Through the disciplinary techniques of surveillance (which renders visible) and normalisation (which controls, sanctions and homogenises) (170, 183f), power influences the body of the individual or, through the control of birth rates or the health system, the whole population. Foucault refers to these techniques for disciplining bodies and regulating populations as bio-power, as power which is directed at biological processes of life (1978: 139).

In his later works Foucault thus demonstrates the shortcomings of juridical, repressive concepts of power operating with the categories of sovereignty, law and prohibition (see also Rehmann 2003). According to him, these are not only unable to grasp the modern, productive and disciplinary operations of power (1978:

89f). Linked with the discourse and techniques of right, they have ‘efface[d] the domination intrinsic to power in order to present the latter at the level of appearance under two different aspects: on the one hand as the legitimate rights of sovereignty, and on the other, as the legal obligation to obey it’ (1980: 95). Thus domination appears as a stabilisation of power relations trying to appear legitimate by legal claims. In contrast to this, Foucault suggests a strategic concept of power, which conceives ‘politics as war pursued by other means’ (1978: 93), and which — as a ‘micro-physics of power’ (1977a: 26ff, 138ff) — describes the manifold, unstable, productive relations of power tied with fields of knowledge which together constitute a ‘complex strategical situation’ in a particular society (1978: 93).