Epistemics of Development Economics


Book Description

The effective use of development economic theories in practice is limited, the authors contend, by the lack of explicit criterion for judging their scientific content. The directional progress of critical research and teaching is also constrained by this deficiency. This study advances a meta-theory designed to assist in evaluating the scientific validity of theories in economic development and how these theories can be improved to assist social practice. Using this model, the study then examines existing theories, dividing them into explanatory and prescriptive theories. The explanatory theories include the stage-based theories of Marx, Schumpeter, and Rostow, and factor-based theories, including capital-based, human-capital-based, and technology-based theories. The prescriptive theories include explanatory-theory-based prescriptions, interventionist prescriptive theories, and theories of economic planning. In conclusion, the authors contend that modern analysis of development economics is plagued with logical ills, misleading notions, and a weak theoretical structure that lacks scientific appeal. Most of the theories, except for those of Marx and Schumpeter, neglect an analysis of the mechanism of change.







World Sustainable Development Outlook 2010


Book Description

"The World Sustainable Development Outlook series has been developed to provide an overview of sustainable development, to discuss why it is important and to provoke forward thinking on the development of a more coherent approach to solving global problems related to sustainability through science and technology. In doing so, a holistic approach is used to critically examine the interrelationship between the natural, governmental, economic and social dimensions of our world and how science and technology can contribute to solutions. This is a truly global source book, which is reflected in the varied national and cultural origins of the contributors, as well as the topics and case studies covered. Each year a different theme will be covered.Outlook 2010 provides the impetus for the cross-fertilization of knowledge – across physical boundaries, cultures and epistemic schools. The main objective is to question the intrinsic ideological value of neoliberal thinking and methodologies; and to assess whether neoliberal approaches to development are appropriate for the socioeconomic challenges that beset Third World nations. The perspectives presented in this volume challenge traditional development thought and seek to present avant-garde ways of thinking about achieving sustainable development (SD), particularly in developing countries (DCs). Outlook 2010 covers a range of topics that ensemble endeavour to address growing concerns about the problems of the third world underdevelopment, even after decades of experimentation with one development strategy or another; all of which failed to deliver the majority of the world’s population from the bowels of poverty.The main topics include: Accounting, economics and business managemen, tDiasporic tourism, migration and brain circulation, Social capital and sustainable development, Changing demography of the world and the implications for policy makingICTs, learning and development, The environment and sustainable development, Transport studies, Public health.It is hoped that this book will help to provide an overview of the latest perspectives on the ways in which we in the Third World can rethink our reality, embrace who we are as a people and leverage our intrinsic strengths upon which the foundation of any development rests."--Provided by publisher.




Institutional Learning and Knowledge Transfer Across Epistemic Communities


Book Description

Over the past several decades, as the pace of globalization has accelerated, operational issues of international coordination have often been overlooked. For example, the global financial crisis that began in 2007 is attributed, in part, to a lack of regulatory oversight. As a result, supranational organizations, such as the G-20, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, have prioritized strengthening of the international financial architecture and providing opportunities for dialogue on national policies, international co-operation, and international financial institutions. Prevailing characteristics of the global economic systems, such as the increasing power of financial institutions, changes in the structure of global production, decline in the authority of nation-states over their national economy, and creation of global institutional setting, e.g., global governance have created the conditions for a naturally evolving process towards enabling national epistemic communities to create institutions that comply with global rules and regulations can control crises. In this context, transfer of technical knowledge from the larger organizations and its global epistemic communities to member communities is becoming a policy tool to “convince” participants in the international system to have similar ideas about which rules will govern their mutual participation. In the realm of finance and banking regulation, the primary focus is on transfer of specialized and procedural knowledge in technical domains (such as accounting procedures, payment systems, and corporate governance principles), thereby promoting institutional learning at national and local levels. In this volume, the authors provide in-depth analysis of initiatives to demonstrate how this type of knowledge generated at the international organization level, is codified into global standards, and disseminated to members, particularly in the developing world, where the legal and regulatory infrastructure is often lacking. They argue that despite the challenges, when a country intends to join the global system, its institutions and economic structures need to move toward the global norms. In so doing, they shed new light on the dynamics of knowledge transfer, financial regulation, economic development, with particular respect to supporting global standards and avoiding future crises.




Dimensions of Poverty


Book Description

This anthology constitutes an important contribution to the interdisciplinary debate on poverty measurement and alleviation. Absolute and relative poverty—both within and across state boundaries—are standardly measured and evaluated in monetary terms. However, poverty researchers have highlighted the shortfalls of one-dimensional monetary metrics. A new consensus is emerging that effectively addressing poverty requires a nuanced understanding of poverty as a relational phenomenon involving deprivations in multiple dimensions, including health, standard of living, education and political participation. This volume advances the debate on poverty by providing a forum for philosophers and empirical researchers. It combines philosophically sound analysis and genuinely global research on poverty's social embeddedness. Next to an introduction to this interdisciplinary field—which links Practical Philosophy, Development Economics, Political Science, and Sociology—it contains articles by leading international experts and early career scholars. The contributors analyse the concept of poverty, detail its multiple dimensions, reveal epistemic injustices in poverty research, and reflect on the challenges of poverty-related social activism. The unifying theme connecting this volume's contributions is that poverty must be understood as a multidimensional and socially relational phenomenon, and that this insight can enhance our efforts to measure and alleviate poverty.




Epistemic Freedom in Africa


Book Description

Epistemic Freedom in Africa is about the struggle for African people to think, theorize, interpret the world and write from where they are located, unencumbered by Eurocentrism. The imperial denial of common humanity to some human beings meant that in turn their knowledges and experiences lost their value, their epistemic virtue. Now, in the twenty-first century, descendants of enslaved, displaced, colonized, and racialized peoples have entered academies across the world, proclaiming loudly that they are human beings, their lives matter and they were born into valid and legitimate knowledge systems that are capable of helping humanity to transcend the current epistemic and systemic crises. Together, they are engaging in diverse struggles for cognitive justice, fighting against the epistemic line which haunts the twenty-first century. The renowned historian and decolonial theorist Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni offers a penetrating and well-argued case for centering Africa as a legitimate historical unit of analysis and epistemic site from which to interpret the world, whilst simultaneously making an equally strong argument for globalizing knowledge from Africa so as to attain ecologies of knowledges. This is a dual process of both deprovincializing Africa, and in turn provincializing Europe. The book highlights how the mental universe of Africa was invaded and colonized, the long-standing struggles for 'an African university', and the trajectories of contemporary decolonial movements such as Rhodes Must Fall and Fees Must Fall in South Africa. This landmark work underscores the fact that only once the problem of epistemic freedom has been addressed can Africa achieve political, cultural, economic and other freedoms. This groundbreaking new book is accessible to students and scholars across Education, History, Philosophy, Ethics, African Studies, Development Studies, Politics, International Relations, Sociology, Postcolonial Studies and the emerging field of Decolonial Studies. The Open Access versions Chapter 1 and Chapter 9, available at https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429492204 have been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.




Epistemic Injustice


Book Description

In this exploration of new territory between ethics and epistemology, Miranda Fricker argues that there is a distinctively epistemic type of injustice, in which someone is wronged specifically in their capacity as a knower. Justice is one of the oldest and most central themes in philosophy, but in order to reveal the ethical dimension of our epistemic practices the focus must shift to injustice. Fricker adjusts the philosophical lens so that we see through to the negative space that is epistemic injustice. The book explores two different types of epistemic injustice, each driven by a form of prejudice, and from this exploration comes a positive account of two corrective ethical-intellectual virtues. The characterization of these phenomena casts light on many issues, such as social power, prejudice, virtue, and the genealogy of knowledge, and it proposes a virtue epistemological account of testimony. In this ground-breaking book, the entanglements of reason and social power are traced in a new way, to reveal the different forms of epistemic injustice and their place in the broad pattern of social injustice.




Development Economics


Book Description

The author exposes the weaknesses of the free market theory but argues that development economics must itself evolve and take on new dimensions which are founded in rational analysis. Comprehensive in scope and lively in style, this book deals with various schools of thought and provides insightful comments on economic thinking relating to development issues.




Science and Technology Policy for Development


Book Description

An inquiry into how social relations make for successful science and technology policies.




After the Digital Tornado


Book Description

Networks powered by algorithms are pervasive. Major contemporary technology trends - Internet of Things, Big Data, Digital Platform Power, Blockchain, and the Algorithmic Society - are manifestations of this phenomenon. The internet, which once seemed an unambiguous benefit to society, is now the basis for invasions of privacy, massive concentrations of power, and wide-scale manipulation. The algorithmic networked world poses deep questions about power, freedom, fairness, and human agency. The influential 1997 Federal Communications Commission whitepaper “Digital Tornado” hailed the “endless spiral of connectivity” that would transform society, and today, little remains untouched by digital connectivity. Yet fundamental questions remain unresolved, and even more serious challenges have emerged. This important collection, which offers a reckoning and a foretelling, features leading technology scholars who explain the legal, business, ethical, technical, and public policy challenges of building pervasive networks and algorithms for the benefit of humanity. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.