munck, ronaldo 1999 'dependency and imperialism in the new times-- a latin american perspective'...

7/27/2019 Munck, Ronaldo 1999 'Dependency and Imperialism in the New Times-- A Latin American Perspective' EJDR, Vol. 1

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Dependency and Imperialism in the NewTimes: A Latin American PerspectiveRONALDO MUNCK

Theories of imperialism and dependency seem to be superseded by anemerging orthodoxy of globalisation as the overarching explanatoryframework for development in the current era. This article charts acritical archaeology of these older approaches to place them in theirhistorical context. It also explores more recent contributions to acritical development theory from feminism, postmodernism and othercurrents. Rather than reassert superseded orthodoxies or uncriticallyembrace the new, this article calls for a renewal ofa certain criticalspirit which w as present in the original dependency approach in LatinAmerica.

The Marxist discourse(s) on imperialism were interrupted, possibly evendiverted from their course, by the Latin American dependency problematic ofthe 1970s. This was probably one of the most significant interventions of a ThirdWorld discourse in a Western paradigm in the wh ole post-colonial era. It is nowcommonplace to assert that the dependency approach reached an impasse in the1980s. It is also seen as uncontroversial to state that the debates on the nature ofimperialism have been replaced by the brave new world of globalisation,whether seen as a panacea or as a new demonisation. This article seeks someclarification of these processes and some rethinking of what dependency andimperialism (particularly in Latin America) might mean in these New Times.This, I believe, should be neither a glib (re)assertion of superseded orthodoxies,or a thoughtless emb race of the latest approach. M uch as Jacques D errida [1994]sees himself writing in a 'certain spirit of Marxism', I see this endeavour inkeeping with a 'certain spirit' of the dependency approach.

ENTRANCEThe first wave of Marxist theorising on imperialism - as a system of unevendevelopment between nation states - occurred in the period leading up to the


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DEPENDENCY AND IMPERIALISM IN THE NEW TIMES 57First World War. Imperialism signified on the whole the aggressive expansionof Europe into Africa and Asia, the division of the world by the great powers,and the rise of inter-imperialist rivalries. For Lenin, imperiaUsm was anintegral part of late capitalism and not a mere policy. However, while he sawit leading inevitably to global conflict, on the wh ole he conceived of capitalismas developing the forces of production everywhere. Rosa Luxemburg, whilemore explicitly concerned with the social impact of capitahsm on non-Westerncountries and societies also saw it as thoroughly expansionist. For L uxem burg,contrary to Lenin, imperialism was not a particular epoch of capitalism, norwas it tied to the development of monopoly or finance capital. She sawimperialism as part of the great drive to expansion which was at the heart ofthe capitalist system. So, while Lenin was eventually to accept the importanceand validity of nationalist revolt against imperialism, Luxemburg consistentlysaw nationalist responses as inappropriate. Neither, ultimately, bad much tosay about what was then considered tbe undeveloped world.

The second wave of imperialism theory took place in the wake of theSecond World War. From a certain interpretation of Lenin's theory, but firmlyagainst Luxem burg's and other marxist interpretations, these theories began tofocus on the unequal relations between the advanced industrial societies as awhole and what was now emerging as the Third World. Imperialism nowalmost universally became seen as a bar to the development of the productiveforces - that is, industrialisation - in the non-West [Brewer, 1980]. The debatesranged over the precise nature of unequal exchange between nations, themethods of surplus extraction and the role of the multinational corporations.They all conceived a growing polarisation between the advanced pole or centreof the world economy and tbe underdeveloped periphery. The language ofnationalism, socialism and anti^mperialist solidarity flowed naturally fromthis analysis. Due to the emergence of the NICs (Newly IndustriahsingCountries) in the 1970s, the discourse began to lose its purchase in analyticalterms. The end result of 'national liberation' in Algeria, Vietnam and, even,Cuba meant that this vocabulary and political orientation also began to lose itsattractiveness in the broad milieux influenced by Western Marxism.The issueof democracy was coming to the fore.

The dependency approach to uneven development between nation-statesem erged in Latin America during the 1960s, at least in part as a response to theperceived Eurocentrism of the Marxist theories of imperialism. Lenin.Luxemburg and the other classical marxist theorists of imperialism seemedinterested in the phenomena only in so far as it impacted on their own countries


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58 THE EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT RESEARCHdevelopment to modernise them, in favour of a conception ofunderdevelopment, actively caused by the process of development in theadvanced industrial societies. Underdevelopment in the non-West (the Southby the 1970s) was simply the other side of the coin of dev elopm ent in the W est.The Cuban Revolution was a powerful radicalising influence on thedependency discourse because it appeared to question the very possibility ofsustained national development under capitalism. So, not only did imperialismconstrain the development of the productive forces but, ultimately, madedevelopment impossible. Development could only be brought about with theoverthrow of capitalism and imperialism.Whereas Marxism was a modernisation theory in the sense that it sawcapitalism developing the forces of production, dependency was stronglystagnationist (although some writers did, of course, recognise the possibility ofdependent development). The diffusion of capital does not lead todevelopment from this perspective but to the stagnation and decapitalisation ofrural areas. The national industrial bourgeoisie is not the dynamic 'bourgeoisieconquerante' of the Communist Manifesto, but, at best, a weak partner ofimperialism, and one subordinated to agrarian interests.Capital and technology from the West do not lead to development but canonly deepen underdevelopment. It is not more capital but a break withinternational capitalism that is seen as a prerequisite of development. Theinternational integration of the West, through the development of imperialismunder US hegemony in the post-war period, was seen to lead to an increase innational disintegration in the Third World. Dependent capitalist developmentwas, in essence, a distorted development, its perverse pattern of growthmaking an organic development towards a reformist or democratic capitalismimpossible. The choice in Latin America (as elsewhere in the Third World)was thus not between variants of capitalism, but between the stark alternativesof fascism or socialism. Quite simply, if socialism could not prevail, the longnight of fascism would descend on the continent. By contrast, in recentdecades most radical analyses see the choice as lying between variants ofcapitalism (US, Japanese, German and Scandinavian models, for example).

D E C O N S T R U C T I N G D E P E N D E N C YThere are now reliable accounts of the rise, fall and possible revival of thedependency approach (see, in particular, Kay [1989]) so that we can afford tofocus on certain salient theoretical aspects here. If we treat dependency as adiscourse it is very significant to examine how it was taken up in various


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DEPEND ENCY AND IMPER IALISM IN THE NEW TIMES 59through the full panoply of quantitative methods. The results wouldsupposedly indicate degrees of dependency, conceived as a simple linearcontinuum between dependency and independence passing throughinterdependence. Early on, Fernando Henrique Cardoso [1977] rejected this^a-historical, formalistic consumption' of the dependency approach in the US.Measuring dependency was never the issue in Latin America, rather, thedependency approach was seen as a critical historical-structural focus on theparticular nature of class conflicts and alliances in those nation-statesdominated by imperialism. Within that problematic there were, of course, awhole range of political positions on the way forward.

Another anomaly in the cultural reception of dependency approach hasbeen the inordinate space given in the English-speaking worid to AndreGunder Frank. This is not to detract from Frank's role as iconoclastic gadfly,consummate synthesiser and someone not afraid to move on to newproblematics. However, the focus on his role has led to a distortedunderstanding of the dependency perspective outside Latin America. Many ofthe criticisms levelled at 'dependency theory" have, in fact, been criticisms ofGunder Frank and do not in the least apply to Latin American writers, sucb asF.H. Cardoso [Palma. 1981 \. A post-colonial analysis of this process wouldsee this as yet another (mis)appropriation of the periphery by the centre.Another effect of the Frank phenomenon has been an excessive personalisationof the dependency debate [Banaji, 1983\. Whether Gunder Frank was right orwrong, or changed his mind or not, sometimes seems more important than theissues at hand . This personalism has even had its effect in Latin Am erica, w itha rather irrelevant debate as to who the real ^founder" of the dependencyapproach was \Dos Santos, 1996: 1998]. These are not really very relevantpolitical issues.

There was, of course, no unified political 'belonging" to the dependencyapproach, being employed as it was by generals and guerillas, nationalists andsocialists. Il is a fluid, labile, concept which can be readily appropriated bydifferent political ideologies. It can mean quite different things to differentpeople and in different contexts. This is not, however, surprising, ornecessarily a problem, if we think of how democracy, socialism or feminismalso have very different meanings and interpellations. The typology I have inmind would distinguish between a reformist, a radical and a methodologicalapproach to dependency. The reformist approach is best exemplified byeconomists such as Celso Fuitado and Osvaido Sunkel who realised thelimitations of the ECLA (Economic Commission for Latin America) approachin the mid-1960s given its reliance on foreign capital inflows. The radical


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60 THE EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT RESEARCHbarbarism and socialism. As Caputo and Pizarro [J974: 51] put it: 'it isimpossible to develop our countries within the capitalist system'. Such was themood of the times (a mood shared by Munck [1984]).The third variant of dependency, which seeks to develop a methodology tounderstand the various situations, is best associated with Fernando HenriqueCardoso. It rejects the formalism of both the empirical measurers ofdependency and those wbo would construct an overarching theory of dependentdevelopment applicable to all situations. The approach is historical anddialectical, recognising that its object of study is simply the particular routes ofcapital accumulation and class struggle in the periphery. For Cardoso andFaletto \1979: x]: 'Historical-structural analysis illuminates the basic trendsthrough which capital expansion occurs and finds its limits as a socio-politicalprocess'. What is particularly interesting about Cardoso's role in the genealogyof the dependency approach is that while it has evolved it has maintained acontinuity since the mid -1960s. N ot only do his more recent writings [Cardoso,J993] seek to redefine dependency in the era of globalisation, but his currentrole as President of Brazil exemplifies his continued belief in the considerableroom for social and political action in dependent societies. This consistency isrecognised even by those who are hostile to what they see as Cardoso'sreformist social democratic project [Cammack, 1997\.

If we now begin to deconstruct dependency theory {taken as a broadparadigm over and above its particular proponents), certain aspects becomeclear. In deconstruction one seeks to reveal the contradictions and theassumptions of a discourse. Unlike the traditional Marxist critique, it does notdo so from the perspective of another, presumed to be correct, discourse orvantage point. The litany of dependency's assumed sins is a long one. Kay[J989: 175] lists, amongst others, economism, utopianism, idealism,structuralism, non-Marxism, eclecticism, nationalism, popuhsm, globalism,determinism. The variants at some time probably shared a few of thesecharacteristics, but this shotgun approach to critique is bound to hit its targetsome of the time. It is probably true to say that, according to the 'positivisthypothetical - deductive methodology' [O'Brien. 1975: 11], which wouldentail measurable evidence to test its rigorous hypothesis, dependency wouldnot make the grade. Nor would it substitute for an adequate Marxist (or other)theory of imperialism which never seemed quite to materialise. Dependencyremains however as a challenge botb to the complacent apologists for globalneo-liberalism wbo believe we live in the best of all possible worlds, and tothose marxists and other radicals who were once enamoured with ThirdWorldism but have since found more fashionable theoretical or political


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DEPENDENCY AND IMPERIA LISM IN THE NBW TIMES 61aspects were not dealt with, but they were largely seen as 'derivative' ofeconomic processes. It was not unique to dependency theory in so far as theorthodox (if disputed) Marxist notion of determination 'in the last instance' bythe economy was still prevalent then. This economism was allied with a certainmechanistic analysis, characteristic of functionalism in which things were, theway they were due to inexorable laws. The question of political agency did notloom large in most dependency analyses and when it did, in political practice,it was usually characterised by extreme voluntarism.

Finally, it can be said, without fear of contradiction, that most dependencyvariants were a form of economic nationalism. It seemed sometimes that theproblem with capitalism was that it was 'foreign" (the evil multinationals) andthat a "nationar development would be inherently more democratic. Again,this is hardly surprising, given the post-colonial situation in which it arose andthe nationalist tinge of Marxism in the Third World at the time. To reassert ametropolitan Marxism oblivious, if not hostile, to the national question[Warren, 1980\, was hardly an adequate response.

Another area where the dependency approach was quite weak was in termsof presenting a viable development alternative. The undoing of dependencywas too often presented in terms of delinking from the world economy, a formof autarchy which could only result in the catastrophe of Cambodia. Therewas, of course, more nuanced work on dependency reversal in terms of theneed for more self-reliance and the quests for "another" development [Muhoz,1981]. In this area of enquiry, the dependency approach was a precursor ofmore recent v/ork on alternative development models and what has becomeknown as posi-development [Rahnema and Bawtree, 1997]. What is probablymost remarkable in going back over the debates and the whole discursiveterrain of the 1970s was the extent to which socialism (not too well defined,although Cuba was clearly the referent) was simply assumed to be the answerlo the problems of dependency. Socialism was the facile, if attractive, solutionto the failures of national development strategies in Latin America. So not onlydid socialism become simply a national necessity and not a strategy for socialtransformation, but those imbued with this spirit (which did not include, ofcourse, Cardoso) seemed oblivious to what was going on in terms of dynam ic,if dependent, capitalist developments.

Standing back from the particular standpoints, the dependency approachesall tended to adopt a totalising approach in typical modernist fashion. Theholistic 'enfoque totahzador" (totalizing perspective) takes as its object ofanalysis the totality and assumes the overdetermination of the parts. As


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62 THE EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT RESEARCHof a totalising perspective which both assumes a totality (society, imperialism,etc.) and self-righteously rejects all other perspectives. It now seems clearerthat no one theoretical perspective can (even should) account for all forms ofsocial relations and political practice in a whole society. The totalisingambitions of dependency theory, which it shared with the marxism at the coreof many of its variants (including Cardoso's), are now more likely to be seenas arrogant, misguided and exclusionary because of what it inevitably did notinclude or even see. This organic unity of the totalising perspective is notnecessarily superseded by a celebration of diversity and fragmentation, so theproblem remains an open one.

If we were to apply Jacques Derrida's concept of logocentrism todevelopment theory we would see how 'even the most radically criticaldiscourse easily shps into the form, the logic, and the implicit postulations ofprecisely what it seeks to contest' [Manzo, 1991: 81]. Logocentric thoughtclaims legitimacy by reference to external, universally truthful propositionsand is grounded in a self-constituting, self-referential, ultimately circularlogic. Dependency theory certainly seems to fit this picture and that is onereason why it never really broke out of the development paradigm. Whatdepende ncy did, on the wh ole, was simply reverse the binary oppositions w ithwhich mainstream development theory operated. Where one said increasedintegration with the world economy, the other said delinking. Modernisationand dependency theories operated very much as binary oppositionsthemselves, inextricably bound up with one another's assumptions, sharingthe same discursive terrain. After all, the two theoretical perspectives sharedthe same aspiration of development as a rational Western model of progress,and shared the national terrain and state intervention as appropriate tools. Thisis probably the main reason for an 'impasse' in development theory, whichwas equally an impasse for the Enlightenment model and the modernistproject.It is now common-place to detect an impasse in development theory in the1980s (see Booth [1985] and, for a critique, Munck [1999]}. To a large extentthis impasse was self-constructed by erstwhile critics of the mainstreamdevelopment model who wished to return to the fold. The widely perceived^crisis of marxism' in the late 1970s and early 1980s led many to abandon theproject of constructing an alternative development theory. Yet there was alsothe very real failure to produce a synthesis between dependency and Marxism[Chilcote, 1981]. There was no 'resolution' of the debate between proponentsof the dependency approach and the more orthodox modes of productionapproach. Dependency remained as a challenge to historical materialism


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DEPENDENCY AND IMPER IALISM IN THE NEW TIMES 63mention, finally, how it was bound up with a particular phase of capitalaccumulation in Latin America, when the old national capitalisms wereentering a period of crisis and many social groups (including enlightenedestablishment elements such as ECLA) were seeking a reorientation. Neo-liberalism was, of course, ultimately to fulfil the role of transcending thisimpasse, outflanking the right, reformist and revolutionary positions alike, infact donning the self-rigbteous mantle of the latter.

G L O B A L ISA T IO N O R T H E N EW IM PE R IA L ISM ?In the era of globalisation, tbe discourse of imperialism has faded from view,but we could argue that globalisation is simply the latest variant ofimperialism. As Bob Sutcliffe puts it:

Globalisation in this account is simply seen as an increase in the powerof tbe countries of the North over those of the South through thepenetration of the multinational corporations and debt dependencysupervised by the IMF and tbe imposition of neo-liberal policies throughthe International Trade Organisation and the Worid Bank [Sutcliffe1999].

Globalisation is thus represented as a culmination of trends already diagnosedby Marx, as capital permeates every corner of the world economy. It is evenpossible to compare the current phase of the world economy with theinternationalisation which occurred around the turn of the last century. PaulHirst and Graham Thompson [1996] have articulated this 'revisionist' casemost cleariy. seeking to relativise the role of the transnational corporations andthe crippling political effect of the idea that there is no alternative toglobalisation. However, their quantitative analysis of intemationaiisation risksobscuring the very real qualitative changes which have occurred over the lasttwo decades. The global reaches of the nineteenth century colonial empires arenot the same as the current international economic order with its 'densenetworks of regional and global economic relations which stretch beyond thecontrol of any single state' [Held 1995: 20]. The somewhat reductionist andeconomistic perspective of the 'revisionists' is politically conservative in thatit tells opposition forces to global neo-liberalism that business-as-usual willsuffice as a strategy. Perhap s globalisation is more tban jus t 'mo re of the sa m e'though.

Indeed, a flourishing literature on globalisation as something completely


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64 THE EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT RESEARCHStandpoint - but its guiding principles are becoming accepted as the newcommon sense for the era we are entering. Globalisation is seen as obvious,inexorable and, basically, 'out there'. Yet this amorphous and labile termprobably conceals more than it reveals. Globalisation is, par excellence, atotalising notion and it is imbued with a deep teleology insofar as itsdestination seems clear. One critical study group on globalisation has arguedpersuasively that it is flawed due to its technolog ical determinism (informationtechnology cannot 'make' a new society), its essentialism (reducing complexsocially constructed events to one issue such as post-Fordism, for example), itsinstrumentalism (conflating the identity of globalisation and the reality ofglobal trends) and its return to the old-fashioned and discredited notion ofconvergence [Amoore et al., 1997: J83-4]. Globalisation, in conflating epochand epistemology, seems a poor guide for critical analysis of the world aroundus. We do not really need to become either propagandists for globalisation oropponents of it, a binary opposition if ever there was one. With care, andsuitable provisos, the new literature on globalisation can provide us with abetter understanding of the current phase of imperialism. We can usefullyfollow Ash Amin in conceptualising globalisation 'in relational terms as theinterdependence and intermingling of global, distant and local logics, resultingin the greater hybridization and perforation of social, economic and politicallife' [Amin, 1997: 133]. In this way we can overcome one of the inherentsimplifications in the globalisation worid-view, that which conceives theglobal as dynamic and fluid, pitted against the local conceived as embedded,static and place bound. It points us, rather, in the direction of hybridity, open,fluid and multi-polar solutions to the old/new social issues arising in the era ofglobalisation. It is also worth developing the notion that while globalisationdisempowers it may also create the conditions for increased democratisation,pluralism and empowerment of opposition forces. If imperialism in its classicguises called forth anti-colonialism, we are perhaps only just beginning to seesome of the myriad forms of resistance to globalisation which might emerge.

We should probably start from the truism that the worid is more complexnow than when either the first or the second wave of debate on imperialismtook place. Manuel Castells has recently completed a three volume study ofwhat he calls the -information society' [Castells, 1996, 1997, 1998]. Asambitious as Marx's three volumes of Capital, it remains to be seen whether itwill be as influential as the back cover endorsements claim. What it doesdemonstrate is the enduring power of materialist (if not Marxist) analysis ofthe worid around us and that we need not take refuge in the dictum that 'all that


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DEPENDENCY AND IMPERIALISM IN THE NEW TIMES 65accept his argument as a starting point for our critical analysis that: 'A newworld is taking shape in this end of millennium' [Castells, 1998: 336]. Hetraces tbis new great transformation to the inter-related processes of tbeinformation technology revolution, the economic crisis of both state socialismand capitalism, and the rise of the 'new' social movements of feminism,ecology and human rights. The new network society which has arisen from therestructuring following these processes is based on a space of flows and a'timeless time' wbere the future is an open one. There are already significantstudies of how this new 'great transformation' is affecting Latin America[Korzeniewicz and Smith, 1997], studies which seem to be renewing thecritical intent of dependency tbeory whilst being more fluid and lessnecessitarian.

If the worid is more complex, it is also more brutal for those living outsidethe golden circle of the West, in the so-called Fourth World. Cardoso [1993]has persuasively called this the 'new dep end enc y'. The new spirit of globalismis not ushering in democratic development for all. Taking Latin America as awhole, we find that while the gap in incomes in relation to the West remainedfairiy steady at 36 per cent of the West's level until the 1970s, this had dropp edto 25 per cent by 1995. Only Chile comes near the 'Asian tigers'(now not sohealthy) in terms of closing the gap with the West. Of course, there are thosecountries which simply do not get onto the globalisation bandwagon at all. Weare witnessing, according to Cardoso, a far crueller phenomenon than theassociated-dependent' development he wrote about in the late 1970s and early1980s: -either the South (or a portion of it) enters the democratic-lechnoiogical-scientific race, invests heavily in R & D, and endures the"information economy" metamorphosis , or i t becomes unimportant,unexploited, and unexploitable' [Cardoso, 1993: 156]. The nationalistresponse of the dependency era is no longer a viable one. If there is one thingworse than exploitation, it is not being exploited at all.

What a nev/ theory of imperialism would definitely need to include, finally,is a better understanding of the cultural dimension. Contemporary debates ondevelopment seem to be at their most critical around issues of culture becausemodernisation and globalisation can no longer be conceived as simpleunreflexive processes. Culture, in this context, relates back to the definition byRaymond Williams of it as 'the signifying system through which necessarily... a social order is communicated, reproduced, experienced and explored'[Williams, 1981: }3\. Culture, in this sense, is not some 'level' in societyseparate from economics or politics, for example, but refers to a 'way of life',


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66 THE EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT RESEARCHimplications of globalisation are seen to be more complex than the rather morenegative reviews coming out of the political economy perspective. It wouldseem that we are not witnessing a simple unidirectional Westernisation of theworid as the old 'cultural imperialism' implicitly believed. Europe is being'provincialised' from a postcolonial perspective, and Islamism is taking up themantle of the old anti-colonial movements. Cultural studies, and the newcultural politics in particular, are helping us regain a critical perspective onhow reality is a social construction and not a natural given. One particular areawhere the study of imperialism has revived is in relation to its ideology whichshows the new imperialism to be as racist and irrationalist as it was a centuryago [Furedi, 1994].

POSTDEPENDENCY?Gunder Frank once wrote an article entitled 'Dependence is dead, long livedependence and the class struggle' [Frank, 1977]. We could, indeed, make thecase that dependency is alive and well in Latin America today. TheWashington consensus underlying the neo-liberal revolution in Latin Americaover the last decade or so has as an article of faith that convergence betweenthe advanced industrial societies and the developing countries will ensue[Edwards, 1995]. However, the 1997 International Monetary Fund report onthe 'opportunities and challenges' of globalisation was frank that 'on averagethere has been no convergence of per capita income levels between the twogroups of countries' [IMF, 1997: 72]. According to the IMF \1997: 77] therehas in fact been a 'sharp decline in upward mobility' of Third World countrieswithin the international economic system and a polarisation between high andlow-income groups of countries. Thus, while in 1965, 52 of the 102 non-oilproducing Third World countries for which data were available were in thelowest-incom e quin tile, this figure had risen to 84 countries in 1995. W hile theIM F [1997: 78] finds this lack of cross-country income convergence'surprising', it is entirely consistent with the basic tenets of dependency theory.Another major issue for Latin American economic structuralism anddependency was the terms of trade between advanced and 'developing'countries. The 1997 Human Development Report found that since the early1970s there has been a cumulative decline of 50 per cent in their terms of trade[UNDP, 1997: 84]. Commodity prices had dropped by 45 per cent between1980 and 1990 alone, just when globalisation was getting into its stride. Nordid the much vaunted industrialisation of some Third Worid countries do muchgood as developing countries' terms of trade for manufactured goods fell by


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DEPENDENC Y AND IMPERIALISM IN THE NEW TIMES 67and growth confirms that in Latin America, average per capita incomes havefallen from over one third of the Northern level in the late 1970s to one quartertoday [UNCTAD, 1997: /J. It was not only the debt crisis of the early 1980sand the ensuing economic slowdown which led to a worsening of incomedistribution m Latin America, as this pattern has subsisted in the subsequentrecovery and even economic 'miracles' of some countries such as Argentina.

While the pressing social issues addressed by dependency still exist, andindeed have worsened, I would argue that we need to move to a post-dependency approach. This is, in part, due to its inherent contradictions whichcannot be simply patched over, although Paul James [1997] does attempt todevelop a coherent post-dependency approach. M y own feeling is that we needto go further than modifying old paradigms. Not only has the world changedsignificantly due to globalisation but critical approaches have beenrevolutionised by post-modernism and post-structuralism. I would argue thatwe are now cleariy living through a time of paradigmatic transition in relationto modernity in general and development in particular. Boaventura de SousaSantos boldly, yet correctly in my view, takes it as a given that 'the paradigmof modernity has exhausted all its possibilities of renovation' [Sousa Santos,1995: ix]. Radical critique of dominant paradigms - and this applies toglobalisation as the new imperialism - will necessarily be from the stance ofthe post-modern, without this implying taking on board all the excessescommitted in the name of post-modernism. To a complacent, conservativepost-modernism which revels in the Northern view of the network or spectaclesociety, we can plausibly counterpose a radical, contestatory and emancipatorypost-modernism.

Fundamental to the post-modern critique of modernist social theory is theundermining of the universalist pretensions of the Enlightenment. The notionthat the whole wodd could be analysed according to objective universalcriteria of truth, jus tice and reason looks particulariy shallow from a ThirdWorid perspective. It is quite symptomatic, I believe, that Habermas, whenasked whether his 'universal' model of discursive rationality could be of usein the Third Worid and whether Third Worid struggles could be of use in theWest, replied: 'I am tempted to say "no" in both cases. I am aware of the factthat this is a Eurocentric limited view. I would rather pass on the question'{Habermas, 1985: 104]. The post-modern social theorists also tended to 'pas s'on the question but they have since been taken up vigorously by Third Woridtheorists themselves. A key post-modernist theme is Lyotard's proclamationthat this movement/theory means essentially 'an incredulity towards


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68 THE EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMEN T RESEARCHlegitimate right to speak for others. Methodologically, the main implication isthat 'there is no single, privileged or uniquely paradigmatic way to think theunthought' [Hoy 1996: 130]. So, the search for the master-key to the secretsof development and the 'expertise' of the development expert must be viewedwith some scepticism.

Michel Foucauit has had an influence on the development of Third Woridstudies, to some extent compensating for his own lack of attention to thesubject. Arturo Escobar, for example, has written an imaginative Foucauldiandeconstruction of the development discourse. A fundamental insight, pursuingFoucault's analysis of power, knowledge and discourse is around 'theextension to the Third Worid of Western disciplinary and normalizingmechanisms ... and the production of discourses by Western countries aboutthe Third World as a means of effecting domination over it' [Escobar, 1984:377]. Development discourse, from this perspective, is about discipliningdifference, establishing what the norm is and what deviance is; indeed,creating 'underdevelopment' as Other to the West's development. Westernforms of rationality and the imbrication of power and knowledge in thedevelopment discourse/industry/practices have sought to normalise the ThirdWorld and its peoples.

Perhaps the most exciting, and far-reaching interaction between theory andpractice has been between feminism, post-modernism and development[Marchand and Parpart, 1995]. Western feminism had for some time beencoming to terms with the vexed question of difference and the Third Worid'Other ' . Chandra Mohanty [1988], amongst others, firmly rejected the imageof Third Wodd women as uniformly poor and powerless in contrast to themodern ideal of western woman. The critique of essentialism in feministtheory represented a genuine methodological breakthrough in relation to bothliberal and Marxist feminisms. For essentialism, a group's characteristics aregiven, they are innate and do not vary historically or across cultures. Againstthe use of essentialist or universalist categories, post-modernism, and somefeminisms, argue that categories such as 'woman' (or 'patriarchy' or 'ThirdWorid' for that matter) must be understood historically and in culturallyspecific terms. When post-modern feminism began to engage with the issue ofdevelopment, Jane Parpart notes how it focused on Ihe connection betweenknowledge, language and power and seeks to understand local knowledge (s)both as sites of resistance and power' [Parpart, 1996: 264]. We now acceptmuch more readily that there are multiple, unstable and re-constructingidentities involved in the development process.It is also clear that the social movements, old and new, across the continent


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DEPHNDENCY AND IMPERIAL ISM IN THH NEW TIMES 69play a not inconsiderable role in demystifying development, a process whichin recent decades in Latin America has spelt exclusion for most. The region'ssocial movements, as Sonia Alvarez and Arturo Escobar argue 'represent atangible hope for imagining and bringing about different means of organizingsocieties in ways more conductive to genuine improvements in livingconditions - both cultural and material' [Alvarez and Escobar, 1992: 329]. Itis from such movements that a genuine alternative development strategy basedon empowerment might materialise. In the most recent debates on tbe 'new'social movements in Latin America, there is a growing emphasis on a 'culturalpolitics' which is neither 'culturalist* or political reductionist. It is not just thesocial movements concerned with identity (indigenous or sexual for example)which have a cultural dimension in this new sense, but also the 'oid' socialmovements such as labour and urban movements. As Sonia Alvarez and co-authors put it: 'For all social movements ... collective identities and strategiesare inevitably bound up with culture' [Alvarez, Dagnino and Escobar, 1998:6]. The way social meaning is constructed is a cultural process and all socialstruggles are about perceptions and interpretation. Culture is political andpolitics are cultural.

The specific Latin American post-colonial situation has thrown upparticularly vibrant and novel challenges to development orthodoxy. The new'Utopian" post-development scenarios have come out of the social movementsand the post-dictatorship and reinvigorated civil society more generally. AsFernando Calderon notes, in a broad synthesis of the literature on socialmovements, democracy and development, there is considerable 'evidence of aprofound transformation of the social logic ... a new form of doing politics anda new form of sociality ... a new form of relating the political and the social,the public and the private' ]Calderdn, 1986: 330]. The social movements aresymptoms of a crisis of development but they have also, al least in pan, led toa new post-development mood in a radical post-modern tradition. A new socialorder and a new mode! of development will not emerge overnight but theirseeds seem present in the complex reality of Latin America today.

In conclusion, if the limitations of modernism cannot be overcome by thebmary opposite counter-modernism, perhaps post-modernism will offer a newhorizon of po ssib ilities '. Certainly this is not a naive chronological conceptionof post-modernism which believes that it comes 'after" modernism, or imphesthat the agenda of modernism has been fulfilled in regions such as LatinAmerica. Certainly Latin American societies remain trapped in the failures ofmodern development and even some 'left over' problems of pre-modernity.


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70 THE EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT RESEARCHmetamorphosis of old forms into new ones, the transposition of universaltheories and concepts into locally relevant forms of understanding and therendering of historical frameworks into concrete forms of explanation'[Calderon, Piscitelli and Reyna, 1992: 35]. This is the type of task we need toembark on to imagine a post-development era.

EXIT AND BEYONDIn the current deba tes on imperialism, as in critical social science generally, wecan detect a 'cultural turn'. Yet this does not mean that political economy nolonger matters. What it calls for is a critique of political economy from a post-structuralist perspective. One of the noticeable things about most radicalpolitical economy is how 'capitalocentric' it is. Radical political economyseems to have constructed a model of capitalism as all-powerful, all-seeing,infinitely expansive and, somehow, self-reproducing. It seems hard to breakout of tbis shell and conceive of an alternative in the here and now which couldgenerate a transformative strategy. Capitalist hegemony seems to be assumedand an alternative unimaginable. J.K. Gibson-Graham [1996] has begun animaginative deconstruction of these debilitating structures, seeking toproblematise 'capitalism' as an economic and social descriptor and helping usto demystify the current infatuation with globalisation. Their discursivist andpluralist vision of contemporary capitalism is potentially destabilising ofcapitalism's hegemony. It is not quite like the old Maoist slogan (long sinceforgotten) that capitalism is 'a paper tig er' but that its identity and relations areonly ever partially fixed and always open to subversion. Latin America, froma position of hybridity, is well placed to rethink capitalism and buildcontestatory social and cultural practices. There is at least the potential tocreate a space of economic difference wherever non-capitalist relations prevailor where they might have cultural resonance.

If we take a broad perspective we can see the 1960s' debates ondependency in Latin America as tied up with the search for identity. It wasabout establishing the essential difference of Latin America. Whereas in the1960s the issue centred around the nature of society and how to change it, inthe 1990s we see a return to the quest for cultural identity. It is no coincidencethat this rethinking is occurring at a time when the project of theEnlightenment seems to be running its course. A crisis in European rationalityhas re-opened the search for an absent identity in Latin America. This is nomere 'culturalism', a distraction from the project of constructing an alternativerationality. Indeed, the cultural element is central to the development and


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DEPENDE NCY AND IMPERIAL ISM IN THE NEW TIMES 71democracy, in institutions that are formed outside or against the state andprivate capital' [Quijano, 1995: 216]. It is in these spaces that alternatives tothe IMF globalisation project are being constructed in practice. This is nosimplistic binary opposition to the dominant project which could only fail. Itis certainly in the same spirit as the dependency debates.

Dependency saw only one enemy: US imperialism. In the post-modern era,in hybrid social formations, under globalisation there is no single enemy.While tbe inequality between North and South, described by dependencytheory, persists and even deepens, the nature of the asymmetry is now morecomplex. Garcia Canclini argues tbat the new cultural reorganisation of powermeans that we need to analyse 'what political consequences follow when wemove from a critical and bipolar conception [of sociopolitical relations] to onewhich is decentred and multidetermined' [Garcia Canclini, 1995: 323]. Whatwe seem to be witnessing in Latin American politics is a paradigmatic shiftwhere the o.(d has not quite died (will it ever?) and the new is only justbeginning, to misquote Gramsci. The mixed up but intertwined temporalities,NAFTA (North American Free Trade Association) as regional project ofglobalisation and the Zapatistas as post-modern or informational guerillas,may not be just a result of structural heterogeneity and hybridity. It may makemore sense to conceive of these symbolic processes as symptoms of atransitional political period. Following Sousa Santos, I would argue that 'oursis a paradigmatic epistemological and, though less visibly or moreembryonically, socio-cultural transition as well' [Sousa Santos, 1995: 445].

The reason why Derrida 1/994; 88] (against the fashion) continues to 'takeinspiration from a certain spirit of Marxism' is to keep faith with tbe notion ofradical critique, a procedure always willing to undertake its own self-critique.That is why the 'spirit of dependency' is also relevant today and why it ispossible for this Latin American tradition of critical theory to renew itscreativity [De la Pena. 1994] as other once dominant paradigms begin tocrumble. Nestor Garcfa Canclini, who has done so much to overcome falseoppositions between a political economy approach and a cultural one in hisanalysis of the hybrid cultures of Latin America, writes in the last sentence ofhis classic book that we need to find ways 'to be radical without beingfundamentalist' [Garcia Canclini, 1995: 348\. I agree.

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