THE "DEVELOPMENT" TURN

• Main Author: Hemer, Oscar
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Malmö universitet, Master program in Communication for Development 2008
• Subjects: North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://ojs.mau.se/index.php/glocaltimes/article/view/165

The rise of the rest was the witty title of a book by political economist Alice Amsden that already in 2001 –and before 9/11– described the imminent emergence of a handful of countries outside the West (or more precisely, outside the North Atlantic) as increasingly determinant players in the world economy. Amsden mentioned most notably China and India, but also for example Turkey and Brazil. Jan Nederveen Pieterse, one of the keynote speakers at the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) congress held in Stockholm in July 2008, took the rising rest as the starting point for his reflections on the congress theme “Media and the Global Divides” and discussed Western media’s reaction to the changing world order. According to Pieterse, there are three forms of response: to ignore it, to represent it as a threat, and to celebrate it as a triumph of the marketplace. The first form is still the dominant one. Western media coverage remains unashamedly Eurocentric. The third is the liberal response, represented by for example Thomas L. Friedman1 and his much-acclaimed “Flat world” theory. An optimistic pro-globalization response, according to which the expanding world market in the long run will bring prosperity to us all, Friedman's theory misses Amsden’s point. Namely, that the key element in the emerging new economies is the strong state and government intervention, which marks a rupture with the neoliberal paradigm that has been dominating world affairs for the last two or three decades. In fact, the "Flat world" theory is being proved wrong, according to Pieterse. What we are witnessing now is the implosion of the neoliberal Anglo-American model and the return of the development state (and not necessarily a democratic one). Pieterse even suggested 2008, when the financial crisis in the USA has propelled calls for state and government intervention in the heart of the world capitalist system, as a historical Uturn. (In view of what has happened since his presentation at the IAMCR ...