No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Abstract
Post-development theory usually engages with examples from Latin America and India and investigates alternative concepts and practices by progressive social movements. This article addresses a post-development concept which originates in Iran, Gharbzadegi or occidentosis, which after the Islamic revolution in 1979 was promoted by the anti-Western Iranian government. It argues that the instrumentalization by right-wing governments should not distract from the emancipatory potential of post-development concepts.
... Thus, it can be World 2022, 3 147 indicated that the present paper is a conceptual and theoretical attempt to analyze the inner workings of rural entrepreneurship as a development strategy in the form of the discourse of so-called development (3) [10] and to disintegrate the three-dimensional paradigm of rural prosperity. In the present work, Campbell Jones and André Spicer's critical perspective on entrepreneurship [11] is used, accompanied by Aram Ziai's skeptical post-development theory [12,13] and Rosenqvist's hermeneutical realism [14]. To investigate and analyze entrepreneurship from a new perspective, this paper first creates the necessary context and concepts and then outlines future prospects or perspectives by explaining what is called the paradigm of rural prosperity. ...
... Based on Ziai's view, skeptical post-development has the following characteristics: (a) analysis and scrutiny of previous traditions, not a complete rejection or glorification of them, (b) appropriation of modernity, not an unreasonable rejection of it, (c) establishment of a social relationship that is fundamentally different in nature, instead of adhering to a political ideology, (d) reliance on a constructivist and dynamic rather than on an essentialist concept of culture, and (e) reliance on the internal relations of social power, while emphasizing the international relations of such power. Comparison of Jones and Spicer's theory as well as Ziai's skeptical post-development theory [12,13] reveals common conceptual points, including (a) rejection of the idea of discursive unity and regularities and emphasizing non-monolithic development of a construct (in other words, genealogical discourse analysis should not be turned into a kind of ideological platform), (b) rejection of the idea of victimization of development by the stakeholders and the fact that they have a false awareness, (c) emphasis on semantic multiplicity in relation to the concept of "development", and finally (d) emphasis on hierarchical, colonial, and hegemonic dual constructs. The existence of such commonalities implies that by combining these two theories, a critical and unmasking approach can be achieved to rural entrepreneurship. ...
... All of these features can be outlined to some degree in Iran's economy. For example, Ziai [13] mentions the destructive impact of foundations on Iran's economy, giving a demagogic and reactionary character to the development discourse of the country, while most of these foundations control a significant part of Iran's economy and attempt to escape the tax. Earlier in this regard, we mentioned the prevalence of corruption in the lending discourse of entrepreneurship policies in Iran. ...
Each practical action in rural areas should be based on a comprehensive, new, and innovative theoretical paradigm. For nearly three decades, the global economic system has embraced rural entrepreneurship as a “productive” and innovative strategy in rural development in many countries, including both underdeveloped and developed countries. At present, we have large companies, which due to government development interventions, are replaced with small- and medium-sized businesses under inflexible and extreme entrepreneurialism. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to shed light on the prevailing entrepreneurship practice and discourse, criticize them, and finally introduce a new paradigm known as “paradigm of rural prosperity” (PRP). In this work, Aram Ziai’s theory of skeptical post-development was used, along with Campbell Jones and André Spicer’s critical theory of entrepreneurship and Rosenqvist’s theory of the conceptualization of rurality and rural environment called “hermeneutical realism”. The present paper attempts to base the paradigm of rural prosperity on three pillars of analysis and explanation: (a) rural embodiment, (b) neoliberalism, and (c) concept of sustainability. Although some case studies in Iran have been used as empirical evidence, this paper argues that the paradigm of rural prosperity is universal in nature and can be used in any geographical and cultural context to provide new rural development.
... Iran, for example, opposes modernization and offers a post-development discourse which is better known as the concept of Gharbzadegi. "The Gharbzadegi discourse has been very influential in modern Iranian history and is seen as a 'manifesto of anti-westernization' [33]. ...
This conceptual and theoretical research argues about some implications of the post-development era for rural entrepreneurship as a new developmental strategy and approach. This paper tries to remind us that the entrepreneurship is not an easy ride and has some dark sides; therefore, there is a pressing need to make entrepreneurship more welcoming to criticism and to clarify its common sense ways of thinking and practicing. From the methodological point of view, this study is some sort of an explanatory and instrumental case study and its focus is on the process of rural development in Iran as a specific event or phenomenon. The paper draws on Campbell Jones and André Spicer’s critical theory and approach and is inspired by Aram Ziai’s skeptical post-development in order to unmask the mainstream entrepreneurship discourse and practice in Iran. The paper claims that although rural entrepreneurship is not a deceitful mirage or malignant myth, its current situation in Iran is definitely a sharp deviance from the classic development goals, and therefore the deconstruction of its mainstream discourse and practices is an urgent need. As the main propose of the paper, this deconstruction should be based on a skeptical and critical unmasking theoretical framework. Through answering some important questions, one of the main arguments of the paper is that now it is time to return to the classical goals of development, but after exercising some radical discursive and practical entrepreneurial policy changes.
Sixty years after the original publication of Gharbzadegi (1962) by dissident Iranian writer Jalal Ale Ahmad, the controversial book remains an important marker in the formation of the mid-and late-twentieth century perceptions of Iranian intellectuals about the relationship between their country's past, present, and future. Building on the recent scholarship which considers Gharbzadegi as an alternative vision of the future rather than a nostalgic call for a return to the past, this article situates the book's piercing critique of the Pahlavi state's modernization and development agenda in a decolonial register. This is done through a reading of Gharbzadegi against the background, on the one hand, of the 1955 Bandung Conference at which representatives from various Asian and African nations gathered to discuss the futures of their countries after colonialism, and on the other hand, of the local experiences of semi-coloniality and dependent development. This reading helps to foreground an alternative conception of modernity in Gharbzadegi, and a decolonial vision in the book of development through delinking from Eurocentric designs. Reading it against the background of the Bandung Conference further helps to situate Gharbzadegi's engagements with the Islamic tradition in the wider context of a postcolonial turn to religion. The article thus argues that Ale Ahmad's turn to Islam reflects a postcolonial sentiment that in developing alternatives to Europe's colonial modernity the peoples of the Third World ought to reengage with the ways of life and modes of knowledge and norm production which were dismissed and suppressed by the dominating colonial structures and knowledge systems.
Whatever their underlying causes, social upheavals and revolutions represent violent and often anarchic manifestations of the masses' frustrations and unfulfilled aspirations in the face of nonresponsive despotic rulers with an autocratic and suppressive bureaucratic machinery. Iran's revolution of February 1979 was first and foremost a popular uprising against the dictatorial rule of the Shah. The millions of people who throughout 1978–1979 joined street demonstrations were united in what they wanted to dispose of and whom they were fighting against. Mobilized under the tactical tripartite alliance of the ulama (men of religion), the bazaris (merchants, small traders, and shopkeepers), and the intelligentsia (secular liberal reformists and leftist revolutionaries), the masses were determined to topple the Shah's rule. The demise of the old regime seemed to be the only obstacle to a promising future. Beyond this immediate aim there was, and still is, no agreement as to the root causes of the February revolution and its ultimate objectives.
The alternative approaches to development considered are alternative development, emerging from 'another development' in the 1970s, and the more recent position of 'post development', or alternatives to development. Alternative development has been concerned with redefining the goals of development and with introducing alternative practices of development - participatory and people- centred. Post-development is interpreted as a neotraditionalist reaction against modernity. More enablig as a perspective, it is argued, is reflexive development, in which critique of science is viewed as part of development politics.
During the course of the 1990s, the Post-Development school emerged as an innovative though controversial approach in development studies. The article examines its critical reception in the textbooks and the extent to which its authors and arguments have become influential. It argues that the relationship between development studies and Post-Development is characterised simultaneously by (sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit) rejection and integration. Examining a number of current development studies textbooks, it illustrates the growing influence of Post-Development arguments and how they have been tacitly or consciously taken up while often rejecting Post-Development per se.
There are two periods in modern Iranian history in which the terms of the ‘woman question’ (mas’ale-ye zan) have been shaped as a central part of an emerging climate of political ideas and social concerns. The first, in the late-nineteenth/early-twentieth century, ushered in the era of ‘modernity’ and ‘progress’, an era during which, despite an underlying animosity towards European intrusion, Europe’s social and political achievements provided the model for modernity and progress. It was generally thought the intrusion itself could be resisted through becoming like the European Other. The ‘woman question’, meaning the now problematic place of women in a modern society, was for the first time posed in that context. The second period, from the mid-1960s to the present time, marks the rejection of the previous paradigm and the creation, reappropriation, and redefinition of a new Islamic political alternative.1
The Islamic ideology regards women with a mixture of fear and paternalism, and sees them both as the source of all evil and as the most vulnerable member of the household, in need of constant surveillance and protection. The policies of the majority of Muslim States are framed accordingly, often equating women with children and the insane.
Im Zentrum steht die Genese einer sich im 20. Jahrhundert zunehmend ideologisierenden Schia, deren wachsende diskursive Macht sich mit der Iranischen Revolution von 1979 durch die Schaffung realpolitischer Strukturen in Form der velayāt-e faqih niederzuschlagen vermag. Untersucht wird, unter welchen Bedingungen der gesellschaftspolitische Entwurf des schiitischen Klerus sich auch im Hinblick auf existierende nicht-religiöse Gegendiskurse seiner Zeit – etwa aus der staatlichen Bürokratie, Intellektuellenzirkeln oder aus linken und nationalen Bewegungen – wandelte. Wie begegnete der Klerus den drängenden gesellschaftlichen Fragen der Moderne und wie wird der politische Diskurs heute geführt?
The author begins by defining what is to be understood by the word 'development', and then moves to the colonial period to show that the practices presently claimed as new have in fact a long history. Traces President Truman's concept of underdevelopment leading to the invention of development and the prinicples of cooperation formulated by Third World countries and international organisations. Following the work of Rostow, and the proclamation of the new international economic order, it was thought that all nations would share the promise of abundance and inequalities would be reduced. However, the debt problems and the environmental crisis came to the fore, particularly because they affected the finance and supply systems of the North. Being unable to solve them, every one joined in hoping that 'development' would be durable and humane - such was the justification in both North and South for perpetuating a system which maintains and reinforces exclusion while claiming to eliminate it. Concludes by showing why development has gradually been drained of content so that it is now a residue used to justify the process of globalisation.
This paper seeks to examine how the recent critiques of modern science as Eurocentric, patriarchal and neo-colonial knowledge are actually informing the agenda of new social movements in non-Western, postcolonial societies. Using the farmers' movements in India as an example, this paper explores how the discourses of 'difference' and 'local knowledges' can come to serve as a mobilizing ideology of the traditional rural elite. The paper argues that the radical critiques of science need to be rethought in order to protect the relative autonomy of scientific knowledge, which can be hydridized with local knowledges to improve the latter's ability to meet the unmet needs of Third World people in a sustainable manner.
How did the industrialized nations of North America and Europe come to be seen as the appropriate models for post-World War II societies in Asia, Africa, and Latin America? How did the postwar discourse on development actually create the so-called Third World? And what will happen when development ideology collapses? To answer these questions, Arturo Escobar shows how development policies became mechanisms of control that were just as pervasive and effective as their colonial counterparts. The development apparatus generated categories powerful enough to shape the thinking even of its occasional critics while poverty and hunger became widespread. "Development" was not even partially "deconstructed" until the 1980s, when new tools for analyzing the representation of social reality were applied to specific "Third World" cases. Here Escobar deploys these new techniques in a provocative analysis of development discourse and practice in general, concluding with a discussion of alternative visions for a postdevelopment era. Escobar emphasizes the role of economists in development discourse--his case study of Colombia demonstrates that the economization of food resulted in ambitious plans, and more hunger. To depict the production of knowledge and power in other development fields, the author shows how peasants, women, and nature became objects of knowledge and targets of power under the "gaze of experts." In a substantial new introduction, Escobar reviews debates on globalization and postdevelopment since the book's original publication in 1995 and argues that the concept of postdevelopment needs to be redefined to meet today's significantly new conditions. He then calls for the development of a field of "pluriversal studies," which he illustrates with examples from recent Latin American movements. © 1995 by Princeton University Press. 1995 by Princeton University Press.
While the Post-Development school in development theory tried to bury the concept of ‘development’, this attempt turned out to be unsuccessful. A closer investigation reveals that different post-development texts reproduce the polysemy of ‘development’ in their criticism of it, attacking different phenomena subsumed under this heading. Development theory, on the other hand, was also premature in declaring post-development obsolete fifteen years ago. By examining the works of two prominent authors, this contribution shows that the critics of post-development have adopted central arguments of that approach. It concludes by identifying some points of convergence between post-development and its (progressive) critics in development theory.
Samad Behrangi (1939–1968), Jalāl Āl-e Ahmad (1923–1969), and ⊂Ali Shari⊂ati (1933–1977) were perhaps the three most influential lay Iranian intellectuals among dissatisfied, anti-regime Iranians during the 1960s and the 1970s. Each hailed from a different province of Iran: Behrangi from Azerbaijan, Āl-e Ahmad from Tehran, and Shari⊂ati from Khorasan. Each developed loyal followings during his lifetime. Each became a “martyr” to his devotees and developed a wider popularity after death than he had enjoyed in his lifetime. And each formulated an extensive societal critique fortifying, inspiring, and galvanizing adherents for the final assault on the shah's regime.
The History of Development: From Western Origins to Global Faith. By Gilbert Rist. London: Zed Books, 1997. Pp.vi + 276. £42.50/25. ISBN 1 85649 491 8 and 492 6Grassroots Post‐Modernism: Remaking the Soil of Cultures. By Gustavo Esteva and Madhu Suri Prakash. London: Zed Books, 1998. Pp.223. £45/22.50. ISBN 1 85649 545 0 and 546 9The Post‐Development Reader. Edited by Majid Rahnema with Victoria Bawtree. London: Zed Books, 1997. £45.00/25. ISBN 1 85649 473 X and 474International Development and the Social Sciences: Essays on the History and Politics of Knowledge. Edited by Frederick Cooper and Randall Packard. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997. Pp.xii + 361. £40/20. ISBN 0 520 20956 7
The most ostensibly radical response to the crisis in development theory has been to reject outright the idea of development. Theories of post‐development argue that all ideas of development imply the exercise of power over subject peoples in the so‐called Third World. Some writers argue that the idea of development therefore constitutes a new form of colonialism. This article questions such views, by suggesting that not all theories of development can be tarred with the same brush. Post‐development theory is guilty of homogenising the idea of development, thereby conflating all theories of development with the outmoded (and long discredited) theory of modernisation. Moreover, post‐development theory is reluctant to suggest concrete political alternatives, arguing the post‐structuralist position that to do so implies ‘capture’ by the development discourse. But this view similarly homogenises the development discourse, and leads to an alternative politics that uncritically celebrates resistance without analysing its differing political implications. When more concrete alternatives are suggested (as for example by ecofeminism), the result is an uncritical, romantic celebration of the local which can have reactionary political implications. Finally, an alternative, dialectical approach is suggested, which seeks to combine deconstruction with reconstruction, and which stresses the contradictory unity of development.
The post‐development critique of development discourse has by now been widely discussed and criticised. Post‐development texts have been interpreted as a cynical legitimation of neoliberalism or a futile romanticisation of premodern times; more sympathetic critics have at least acknowledged its potential to criticise the shortcomings of development theory and policy. There is, however, widespread agreement on the assumptions that post‐development can be seen as a Foucaultian critique of development and that it forms a sort of theoretical school. This article is concerned with challenging these assumptions by showing that 1) post‐development only employs (if at all) a rather impoverished version of Foucault's discourse analysis; 2) there are in fact two variants to be found under the heading post‐development—a sceptical and a neo‐populist one—and most of the criticisms are only valid for the latter. Whereas neo‐populist post‐development has reactionary political consequences, sceptical post‐development uses elements of postmodern and post‐Marxist theory and can best be described as a manifesto of radical democracy in the field of development studies. For scholars interested in emancipation, the point is to identify the crucial differences between post‐development sliding into (sometimes reactionary) neo‐populism and post‐development converging with theories of radical democracy.
The Iranian Revolution of 1979 saw the mobilization and cooperation of a variety of groupings that were brought together by their shared determination to overthrow the Shah. However, it was not only opposition to the Pahlavi regime, but also suspicion of and disdain for that regime's Western backers that united these revolutionary groups. Religious leaders (ulama), merchants (bazaaris), intellectuals and students alike all espoused the strong anti-Western sentiments that had been developing in Iran over the previous two decades. But what particular factors can be seen to have encouraged the adoption of these sentiments in the lead-up to the revolution, and in what ways were they articulated and subsequently put into practice by the leaders of the new regime? This article suggests that various domestic and international influences can be seen to have shaped the emergence of Iran's revolutionary discourse of “economic independence.” In particular, the paper argues that a peculiar blend of Shi'i concepts of social justice and Marxist-Leninist discourses of class struggle and anti-imperialism not only informed the economic outlook of Iran's burgeoning revolutionary movement during the period 1953–79, but was also enshrined in the Constitution of the Islamic Republic.
The notion and practice of development have been severely critiqued from both modernist and postmodernist perspectives, yet the global development industry flourishes. The latter have afforded important insights, but also suffer from unexamined ideological agendas, a disinclination to undertake detailed research into development processes and policy, a preoccupation with texts and representations by the development industry, and from perpetuating an indulgent and agenda-less academic cul-de-sac. Instead, the postmodern critique of development could lead to a more politically astute and practical reconstruction of certain aspects of 'development', particularly in the neopopulist mode of developmentalism. Three powerful development paradigms are identified, and the ways in which they are constructed, promoted, and adapted are discussed in the light of conflicting modernist and postmodern accounts.
Verwestlichung versus Modernsierung: Gegenwärtige Diskurs im Iran
- Soussan Sarkhosh
Islamic Republic of) 1989: Constitution of 1979 with Amendments through 1989
- Iran
Development and the People’s Immune System: The Story of another Variety of AIDS
- Majid Rahnema
The Iranian Constitution: An Exercise in Contradictions
- S Hasib
- Waqar
Das ‘Buen Vivir’. Die Schaffung einer Utopie
- Alberto Acosta
Verwestlichung versus Modernsierung: Gegenwärtige Diskurs im Iran
- Soussan Sarkhosh
- Günter Best
- Reinhart Kößler
Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Survival in India. London: Zed Books
- Vandana Shiva