ABSTRACT

Traditions within development thought sceptical of market-led development and which emphasise the unevenness and instabilities of global capitalism are experiencing some renewed interest. One such tradition is dependency studies: a school of thought once prominent in the field of development. We critically review the dependency tradition alongside a more recent branch of critical inquiry into development, namely decoloniality. One of our core contributions is to clarify what makes the decolonial tradition substantially distinct from dependency and other traditions in development thought. We locate decoloniality in the context of the “cultural turn” that swept through social theory from the 1970s. Our paper problematises decoloniality’s critique of Modernity as inherently colonial and oppressive and finds that its core features are idealism and the strong risk of cultural relativism. We assert that the substantive commitments of the dependency tradition are its strength and reject the equivalence drawn by decolonial theorists between “Eurocentrism” and belief in Enlightenment values and methodologies. Drawing on the work of Samir Amin, we emphasise the need for development theory to retain an analytic focus on a materialist analysis of global capitalism; we echo Amin’s critique of culturalism and endorse his defence of universalism.

摘要

发展思想中对市场主导的发展持怀疑态度并强调全球资本主义的不平衡和不稳定的传统正在重新引起人们的兴趣。其中一个传统就是依赖性研究：一种曾经在发展领域占据重要地位的思想流派。我们批判性地回顾了依赖传统，同时对发展进行了批判性探究的最新分支，即非殖民性。我们的核心贡献之一是澄清是什么使非殖民传统与发展思想中的依赖和其他传统本质上不同。我们将非殖民性置于 20 世纪 70 年代席卷社会理论的“文化转向”的背景下。我们的论文质疑非殖民性对现代性的批判，认为其本质上是殖民性和压迫性的，并发现其核心特征是唯心主义和文化相对主义的强烈风险。我们断言，依附传统的实质性承诺是其力量，并拒绝非殖民理论家将“欧洲中心主义”与启蒙价值观和方法论的信仰等同起来。借鉴萨米尔·阿明的著作，我们强调发展理论需要保留对全球资本主义的唯物主义分析的分析重点；我们赞同阿明对文化主义的批评，并支持他对普遍主义的捍卫。我们断言，依附传统的实质性承诺是其力量，并拒绝非殖民理论家将“欧洲中心主义”与启蒙价值观和方法论的信仰等同起来。借鉴萨米尔·阿明的著作，我们强调发展理论需要保留对全球资本主义的唯物主义分析的分析重点；我们赞同阿明对文化主义的批评，并支持他对普遍主义的捍卫。我们断言，依附传统的实质性承诺是其力量，并拒绝非殖民理论家将“欧洲中心主义”与启蒙价值观和方法论的信仰等同起来。借鉴萨米尔·阿明的著作，我们强调发展理论需要保留对全球资本主义的唯物主义分析的分析重点；我们赞同阿明对文化主义的批评，并支持他对普遍主义的捍卫。