World Orders, Development Discourse and Coloniality

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the constitutive elements of two hegemonic development discourses that have emerged in the context of shifts in world orders: modernization and neo-liberalism. The analysis demonstrates the influence of shifts in world orders in the post World War II period on the emergence and nature of these discourses. The chapter has five sections. The first section focuses on two key features of the world order that emerged following World War II. The second section discusses core elements of modernization development discourse while the next one provides highlights of the rise of a self-regulating market doctrine as a constitutive feature in the making of a neo-liberal world order from the 1970s onwards. The fourth section shows the influence of this doctrine on shifts in development discourse. The last section, discuses the politico-economic effects of hegemonic development discourses. Such an approach to the study of these discourses challenges their technocratic and ahistorical representation for, at minimum, its signals the covert, overt and structural forms of power underlying them.