Forum for Development Studies [1]

Introduction
Several contributions in this issue of Forum for Development Studies focus on the issue of ethics and development. The drafts of the first three articles were discussed at the Annual Conference of the Norwegian Association for Development Research (NFU) in September last year, which had ethics and development as its main theme.1

 

Ethics and development was also the main theme of an earlier issue of this journal (FDS 1-1999). Des Gasper was among the main contributors then, too, in an article focusing on ethics and development co-operation.2 In the fi rst article of the present issue, he takes on the ambitious task of identifying and discussing the relationships between the discourses on human rights, human needs, human development and human security. His point of departure is that although ethical discourses may carry great infl uence in national and international affairs, this will not necessarily be the case. We should therefore consider closely under which conditions and by which modalities which type of ethical discourse may exert which type of infl uence.

 

Human rights, human development and human security form increasingly important – partly interconnected and partly competitive
and misunderstood – ethical and policy discourses. Each tries to humanise a pre-existing and unavoidable major discourse of everyday life, policy and politics, each has emerged within the United Nations, each relies implicitly on a conceptualisation of human need, and each has specifi c strengths, Gasper observes. Yet mutual communication, understanding and co-operation are deficient, especially between human rights and the other discourses. He endeavours to identify the respective strengths, weaknesses, and potential complementarity of these discourses, suggesting that the human security discourse may offer a working alliance between humanised discourses of rights, development and need.

 

In the following article, Sturla Stålsett discusses the ethical implications of three inter-related concepts in contemporary development
discourse: namely, vulnerability, social inclusion and social capital. In order to counter a widespread discourse on vulnerability built on an illusion of invulnerability, which undermines basic human values, he proposes a twofold understanding of human vulnerability as a fundamental human condition that both calls for an ethical response and enables moral agency. In this way he seeks to counter a possible return of paternalistic, passivity-inducing and purely ‘instrumental’ approaches to development.

 

The emphasis on the moral and political agency of ‘the vulnerable’ or ‘the excluded’ themselves, leads to a renewed consideration of the role of social movements in constructing more inclusive and participatory societies. Building on Dussel’s ‘ethics of liberation’, which sees these movements as forming ‘anti-hegemonic communities of communication’ and vehicles of ‘concientização’(Freire), Stålsett argues that what could be called a ‘social intrusion’ by these groups is an important contribution to the development of sustainable
societies. An ethical appraisal of the political mobilisation coming to expression through such movements in civil society leads, in
turn, to a critique of a depoliticised understanding of ‘social capital’ (Putnam). To increase the level of trust, the state should provide
meeting points between groups in society that enable a constructive articulation of the mutual vulnerability between citizens and
groups rather than allowing for violent defences against it, Stålsett concludes.

 

In the third article, Benedicte Bull focuses on contradictory political trends in Latin America today, namely, on the one hand, the rise of a number of strong social movements and the election of governments that have their support and, on the other, increasing fragmentation and lack of cohesion. The fi rst of these trends has given rise to hopes for the emergence of more inclusive political
systems and stable democracies. However, many of the new regimes either show limited ability to create signifi cant change in policies or practices for ensuring social inclusion, or have produced new forms of fragmentation and social confl ict. Against this background, Bull sets out to address the long-term prospects for democratic inclusion by the social movements.

 

This question is addressed through a comparison of the experience of three current social movements in Latin America – the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) in Brazil, the coca growers’ movement in Bolivia and the movement of the unemployed (the piqueteros) in Argentina – with the experience of the Norwegian labour movement of the early 20th century. The inclusion of social movements depends on their own internal structure and strategies as well as the state’s institutional capacity and the global politicaleconomy
context, she concludes, arguing that comparison across time and space may be useful.

 

In the article that follows, the perspective moves from Latin America to the politics of decentralisation and the prospects for local democracy in one African country. Øivind Hetland examines how the demands for decentralisation that surfaced during the democratic transition in Mali in the early 1990s were appropriated by the Konaré regime and came to constitute a major component in the post-transition democratisation project. The introduction of the decentralisation reform in 1999 shifted the balance of power locally away from state-appointed bureaucrats towards elected municipal councillors, he argues.

 

Today, some 15 years after this democratic transition, there are signs that the reform has entered an impasse, Hetland argues. Institutional bottlenecks within the state threaten to undermine any real devolution to local governments. Furthermore, the increased
political struggles over access to and control over the decentralised institutions have strengthened local elite control of the decentralised
institutions and led to the exclusion of the poorest segments of the population. These developments undermine local democracy in a long-term perspective. They may lead to a dislocation of the centre of power away from the municipal institutions towards the state
administration and groups outside the formal political arena, Hetland argues. Even with the problems the reform has met, the current
decentralised system is better than the previous local government system dominated by the state administration, he concludes.

 

 

In the next article, Reginald Cline-Cole directs our attention towards the existing tension between the need for accessible and
affordable energy – for the functioning of urban and rural, national and regional economies and societies – and the environmental impacts caused by the production, distribution and consumption of this energy, ranging from global climate change to local impacts on air, land and water. He refl ects on discourses surrounding woodfuel production, use and change, describing three woodfuel discourses,
namely forestry, (energy) conservation and sustainability, within the context of changing global–local political economies of energy and
development. He explores the conceptual underpinnings of these discourses, highlighting their policy implications, explaining the circumstances surrounding their emergence and their multiple and overlapping nature. He explores the ongoing conceptual and policy
reframing of the nature and role of wood energy.

 

Cline-Cole illustrates the multiple, complex, dynamic and contested forms which the woodfuel discourse takes. He points to the increasing mainstreaming of such ‘energy talk’ within wider neo-liberal political economies and ecologies, and cautions against
allowing the dominant discourses to crowd out alternative ‘popular’ discourses and their differing trajectories of woodfuel experience
and understanding. Such ‘popular’ discourses need to be explored, not only because they underscore the real multiplicity of woodfuel
‘talk’ but also because to do otherwise would be to deny them equal standing with their counterpart, he concludes.

 

In the previous issue (FDS 2-2006), Terje Tvedt discussed what he described as a mismatch between the signifi cant role that religious NGOs have played for decades in international development co-operation in general and in the Norwegian policy towards developing countries in particular, and what he claimed to be an almost complete neglect of these NGOs by the development research community, again with particular reference to the Norwegian research community. He explored the reasons for this silence and suggested some analytical distinctions between religious NGOs and other NGOs and between the aid system and globalisation processes in general. He started out by reconstructing and discussing some basic concepts and approaches that had dominated the field up to the present (Tvedt, 2006).

 

In the Debates column, Hans Morten Haugen responds. An analysis of religiously based development NGOs must start from a real understanding of the rationale of these NGOs, he argues. The rationale and purpose of such organisations are far more complex than
just to promote their ‘particular missions’ by means of development assistance, or to identify ‘God’s will’ as their primary value. Haugen
introduces the term ‘diaconia’, understood as Christian service for the sole purpose of serving, and not infl uencing the values or faiths of others. International diaconical work must be conducted nondiscriminatorily and with the aim of empowering individuals and communities within existing traditions and structures. A missionary organisation can also work diaconically, he argues. Nevertheless, it
is possible to undertake a general categorisation of religious NGOs based on ‘value particularism’. He fi nds the main distinction to be
between humanitarian-based and mission-based NGOs, with subcategories under the overall ‘mission-based’ category.

 

Naturally, Terje Tvedt has been given the opportunity to respond in this issue.

 

The role of religious organisations in international development co-operation – and in the development co-operation policy of Norway and the other Nordic countries – constitutes an important theme that deserves further debate. So does the other main issue raised by Terje Tvedt, namely the role of development research vis-à-vis the development policy pursued. FDS will invite further debate on these themes!

 

These debates are by no means new; as indicated above (footnote 2), they have long traditions in this journal, too. The broader issues
involved – the multifaceted, complex role of development research in forming and evaluating the actual policy pursued by governments
and other actors on the scene, including NGOs and international and multilateral organisations, and in bringing forward broader and alternative development perspectives to those pursued by these governments and organisations – have also been under continuous
debate in this forum.3 Nevertheless, these are debates that should be continued – related to our ever-changing political, economic and
research environments.
O.S.

Footnotes

1. The NFU 2006 Annual Conference had Ethics, Human Rights and Development as its main theme. It took place in Oslo, 13–15 September 2006, and was organised by the Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM). The conference attracted close to 250 participants from all over the world, and more than 130 papers were presented at plenary and parallel sessions and at roundtables.

 

2. See Forum for Development Studies, No. 1, 1999, articles by Andreas Føllesdal (1999), Des Gasper (1999) and Desmond McNeill (1999), the discussion between Arne Tostensen (1999) and Terje Tvedt (1999) on development research and ethics, and the debate between Sigurd N. Skirbekk (1999a, b)

 

 

3. For some recent contributions on development research in FDS, see, inter alia, Gornitzka (2003a,b) Helland (2001), Løvbræk (2003), Marcussen (2002a,b), Marcussen and Bergendorff (2003), McNeill (2003), Mentha, Haug and Haddad (2006), Molteberg, Bergstrøm and Haug (2000), Sørbø (2001, 2002), Tvedt (1998), Tønnesson (2001, 2002) and Törnquist (2002a,b).

 

References

Bell, Wendell, 1999, ‘What Ought We Do to Construct a Good Fortune? Response to Sigurd N. Skirbekk’, Forum for Development Studies, No. 1.
Føllesdal, Andreas, 1999, ‘Global Ethics, Culture and Ethics’, Forum for Development Studies, No. 1.
Gasper, Des, 1999, ‘Ethics and the Conduct of International Development Aid: Charity and Obligation’, Forum for Development Studies, No. 1.
Gornitzka, Nina, 2003a, ‘New Realities, New Strategies’, Forum for Development Studies, No. 2.
Gornitzka, Nina, 2003b, ‘Interdisciplinarity: Still a Challenge in Development Research’, Forum for Development Studies, No. 2.
Helland, Johan, 2001, ‘Development Research in Norway’, Forum for Development Studies, No. 2.
Løvbræk, Asbjørn, 2003, ‘Research Priority No. One: Fighting Poverty’, Forum for Development Studies, No. 2.
Marcussen, Henrik Secher, 2002a, ‘The Aid and Academia Controversy: Lessons Learned from Recent Evaluations, Forum for Development Studies, No. 1.
Marcussen, Henrik Secher, 2002b, ‘Rejoinder to Gunnar M. Sørbø’, Forum for Development Studies, No. 1.
Marcussen, Henrik Secher and Steen Bergendorff, 2003, ‘The Mythology of Aid: Catchwords, Empty Phrases and Tautological Reasoning’, Forum for Development Studies, No. 2.
Mentha, Lyla, Ruth Haug and Lawrence Haddad, 2006, ‘Reinventing Development Research’, Forum for Development Studies, No. 1.
Molteberg, Elisabeth, Cassandra Bergstrøm and Ruth Haug, ‘Interdisciplinarity in Development Studies: Myths and Realities’, Forum for Development Studies, No. 2.
McNeill, Desmond, 1999, ‘Market Ethics and Global Ethics’, Forum for Development Studies, No. 1.
McNeill, Desmond, 2003, ‘The Critical Role of Development Research’, Forum for Development Studies, No. 2.
Skirbekk, Sigurd N., 1999a, ‘Future Predictions – Human Rights’, Forum for Development Studies, No. 1.
Skirbekk, Sigurd N., 1999b, ‘Rejoinder to Wendell Bell’, Forum for Development
Studies, No. 1.
Sørbø, Gunnar M., 2001, ‘Aid and Academia: An Uneasy Relationship’, Forum for Development Studies, No. 2.
Sørbø, Gunnar M., 2002, ‘Confusion and Ambiguity: A response to Henrik Secher Marcussen’, Forum for Development Studies, No. 1.
Tostensen, Arne, 1999, ‘Fact or Fiction? A Response to Terje Tvedt’, Forum for Development Studies, No. 1.
Tvedt, Terje, 1998, ‘Some Notes on Development Research and Ethics’, Forum for Development Studies, No. 1.
Tvedt, Terje, 1999, ‘Social Engineering and Self-refl exivity, Rejoinder to Arne Tostensen’, Forum for Development Studies, No. 1.
Tvedt, Terje, 2006, ‘Understanding the History of the International Aid System and the Development Research Tradition: The Case of the Disappearing Religious NGOs’, Forum for Development Studies, No. 2.
Tønnesson, Stein, 2001, ‘Norwegian Research on Development: A Comment on Johan Helland’s Article’, Forum for Development Studies, No. 2.
Tønnesson, Stein, 2002, ‘Studies of Development: No Impasse, But a Long Way to Go’, Forum for Development Studies, No. 1.
Törnquist, Olle, 2002a, ‘Development Studies between Fashion and Reality: Reflections on a Norwegian Impasse’, Forum for Development Studies, No. 1.
Törnquist, Olle, 2002b, ‘Rejoinder to Stein Tønnesson’, Forum for Development Studies, No. 1.