Values and Development in Southern Africa

3. Cultural Values and Development in Theory and Practice

3 Cultural Values and Development in Theory and Practice Hans Müller (with Tania van Heerden) Introduction: Value, Culture and Development The relationship between values, culture and development is seldom investigated, sometimes argued or assumed, often wholly ignored in development literature (Sen 2004a:35). This is an obvious concern in a context where a hidden popular assumption is that culture and values are the real difference between African development paths and development paths in other parts of the world. From a research perspective it is a concern and an opportunity at the same time. The opportunity lies in dealing with a very complex matter in an adequate manner and opening up a field of research in that way. Our aims are presently more limited and specific in that the objective is to elicit the important concepts that are dealt with in existing literature and to describe the state of empirical research on these concepts in our context. Obviously the field of development draws from almost everything in science that has a bearing on the social and natural features of human existence – which is both commendable and problematic. A most sceptic perspective asks what a field of study aims to achieve if it becomes a site where every concept in social sciences can be deposited and no coherent project can be defined but the nature of the discourses in the field is often such that it is no more than an accumulation of social science sects (Gareau as cited in Hettne 1990:232). Referring back to the Methodenstreit, Hettne responds by organising the development of the field in an interesting and fruitful manner when he distinguishes two axes of difference, Values and Development in Southern Africa 48 namely the positive-normative axis and the formal-substantive axis (even though one may not agree with Hettne’s placement of some theoretical perspectives on these axes) (Hettne 1990). The first axis deals with the position of the theory regarding the desirability of development theory being normative or positive. With Hettne, one has to conclude that all theories depend on certain values, but some theorists do not want to acknowledge that and think of their theories as being objective (Hettne 1990:235236 ; Bernstein 1980). The second axis categorises theories in terms of how they define the goals and indicators of development and a formal approach would then work with abstract and finite indicators and goals while a substantive approach would tend to define development in more holistic and inclusive terms. The difference is not particularism versus universalism but, really an economistic definition versus a more comprehensive social and culturally inclusive approach. Obviously, an attempt to discuss and understand the cultural and social dimension of development will tend to find itself in the substantive half of the four quadrants that Hettne uses to categorise theoretical approaches to development as we also subscribe to Adelman’s denouncement of the fallacy that ‘underdevelopment (or development for that matter) has but a single cause’, whether that be ‘physical capital’, ‘entrepreneurship’, ‘incorrect prices’, ‘international trade’, ‘hyperactive government’, ‘human capital’, or ‘ineffective government’ (Adelman 2001:104-117). Figure 3.1 (adapted from Hettne 1990:240) Positive Normative F o r m a l S u b s t a n t i v e Marxist accumulation model Mode of production model World-system analysis Modernization theory Dependency theory Endogenous development Basic needs approach Structuralist economics Neoclassical growth theory New political economy Westernization studies Müller: Cultural Values and Development in Theory and Practice 49 A full survey of research on attempts to relate values and culture to development is a major task. We limited ourselves to broad theoretical themes, to empirical research in the social sciences, to material directly relevant to African conditions and, mostly, to studies on a larger scale than anthropological and specific studies of particular communities or small groups. The theoretical themes are discussed, firstly, in terms of classic utilitarianism and its most recent and influential critique in capability thought. This provides a useful backdrop for the discussion of alternative views of development that go beyond an economistic approach. Our discussion of utilitarianism and the capability critique will rely significantly on Clark’s interpretation of Rawls, Sen and Nussbaum’s critique of utilitarianism. Our discussion of alternative development theory will range more widely. Where the debate about utilitarianism is a debate about the nature of a universalist view of development, the debate about alternative development...