The Underdevelopment of Development

With the immense push for development projects in poor/ developing nations, many organisations and developed countries were of the mindset that after numerous years of work, many of these poor-performing countries would we well off. Unfortunately though, that has not been the case. Many of these nations still suffer from poor governance, inefficient economies and horrible living standards. This has led to many wondering why, despite the immense amount of resources that have been utilized to improve circumstances in these nations, they still under perform. What is it about nations in the 'Global South" that causes them to have such poor institutions? Is it because of their geographic locations? Is it because of their cultures and backwards practices? These are some of the questions and sentiments that people often pose when trying to understand this issue.

There are those who instantly jump towards the problem of culture and claim that  'backwardness' of some of these states is what limits their ability to improve. This mentality goes in line with those who propagate modernization theory. Modernization theory upholds that if societies began to modernize(become like Western nation) in regards to mentality, culture and methods of operation, their overall livelihoods would improve. Modernizing would bring about good governance, effective institutions, a growing economy, etc.

Moore's paper "Political Underdevelopment: What Causes Bad Governance", explains that the cause of the global south's problems stems from the abundance of bad governance which stems from a host of other problems. His main claim is that political underdevelopment of poor questions results from their interactions with rich countries as well as the way in which authority in the south is/was constructed. Alongside this, he mentions that the policies and practices of Northern governments is what helps sustain poor governance. While some might find this surprising and obnoxious, the arguments that Moore presents are quite convincing and accurate especially when related to the context of international aid. Aid agencies have classified bad governance as an obstacle to improved welfare and economic growth and therefore put in place conditions that are related to governance issues in order for a state to receive aid. The problem with this approach is that 1- Some leaders of poor countries are fine with not receiving aid due to the fact that their personal wealth would be more negatively affected if they met the conditions and 2-the conditions are not chosen in the context of the specific country but simply what Western nations believe is good.

Besides poor governance some other reasons behind underdevelopment lies in the way these nations were formed. As a result of colonization, most of these countries have unnatural births, incomplete state formation and a history of external control.

Western/Northern nations also affect the development of poor nations through the manner in which they plunder the resources that these nations have and their mismanagement while extracting these resources. This can be seen in regards to the actions of Shell in Nigeria. While extracting oil in the Ogoni area, Shell completely devastated the area, ruining the soil, contaminating the water and in essence making it uninhabitable. The Ogoni people in the area as a result suffered further poverty. Similar situations can be witnessed in other nations.

Overall, the cause of underdevelopment does not stem from the geographical locality of the nation nor from its culture and nor was it predetermined. Poor development is a result of bad governance, mismanagement and irregular relationships with Western nations.

Acemoglu, D. & Robinson, J. A., 2013. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty. Croydon: CPI Group (UK).

Moore, M., 2001. Political Underdevelopment: What Causes ‘Bad Governance’. Public Management Review, 3(3), pp. 385-418.