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Uncovering Complexity in the Policy Mix for Sustainability Transitions

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The Political Economy of Neo-modernisation

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Abstract

The primary purpose of this introductory chapter is to raise a question about why the development of the Third World has evolved over the past five decades in a direction that deviates from the developmental path assumed by the orthodox economic schools of thought. The underlying background to this question is that economic growth; normative ideas of equitable, inclusive, and sustainable development; and technological innovation are interacted to jointly shape a country’s process of development, which can be contextualised under three broad problems: (1) complexity of the inequality and growth interactions, (2) normative force of sustainability for national development, and (3) radical technological progress in linking between the two development dimensions mentioned in (1) and (2). Synthesising the aforementioned into one core overarching framework, this book employs a mixed methods approach to benefit from greater scope from a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods in the context of a single study—through linking economic growth, inequality, sustainability, and technological innovation in a historical and normative process of development.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    According to data from the UNCTAD (2018), the aggregated real GDP volume is estimated at US$19 trillion (at constant prices in 2010) for 1970 and US$77 trillion for 2016. On the basis of these two estimated volumes, the size of the world economy has expanded by 408 per cent and compound annual growth rate is 3.04 per cent over the fourth seven years period. Same data source is used for the following analysis on developed versus developing economies.

  2. 2.

    Narrative analysis for these influential theorists is conducted throughout the book (particularly in Chap. 2)—for example, Nurkse (1953), Lewis (1954), Solow (1956), Hirschman (1958), Prebisch (1959), Rostow (1960), Kuznets (1955/1973), Romer (1990), Giddens (1991), Aghion and Bolton (1992), Stiglitz (1996), Aghion and Howitt (1998), Sachs (2006), Lin (2012), Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2012), Piketty (2013), Milanovic (2016). References are listed throughout the book.

  3. 3.

    As there is no established convention for the designation of ‘developed countries’ versus ‘developing countries’, a simple comparison analysis for this paragraph is based on the UNCTAD’s dataset and its classification for economic groups.

  4. 4.

    This dominant economic ideology has received widespread support by policymakers (initially championed by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan) of most world economies, which has been endorsed especially since the 1980s as a common policymaking framework that was mostly designed for privatisation and deregulation to raise efficiency of business and productivity of labour.

  5. 5.

    Milanovic employed the scattergram analysis of a Gini of disposable per capita income and per capita GDP (PCGDP) in the US and the UK. The scattergram shows that in the US , a Gini index has increased constantly from 33 to 43 since 1960s as PCGDP grows, while in the UK, the index has also gone up from 27 to 38 since 1978.

  6. 6.

    More specifically, they proposed three areas of interventions (i.e., health programmes, government investment, and renewable energy) to generate synergies with other goals. They also warned that economic growth-prioritised strategies and consumption as a means for development underlie the inconsistency.

  7. 7.

    Depending on the degree of economic performance, which is the most important objective factor, countries around the world are compared and evaluated in a clear and easy way, and the per capita output becomes the central subject and an important starting point of the development model.

  8. 8.

    Using PCGDP still remains controversial. It would only provide limited information since going to war increases GDP and destroying infrastructure and re-building it increases also GDP. Therefore, there are a number of indicators proposed to measure to fill such gap such as the Genuine Progress Indicator and ‘Beyond GDP’ under the System of Environmental-Economic Accounts.

  9. 9.

    This is mainly because income data are relatively easier accessible for inequality analysis than others. Even the Gini coefficient, which is empirically derived from the Lorenz curve and several other similar measures (e.g., UNU-WIDER, LIS, and SWIID ) are publicly available for a researcher for comparisons of income inequality across various countries.

  10. 10.

    The level of household’s income tends to indirectly correlate, to some extent, with other dimensions of inequality such as education attainments, socio-economic status, political influence, living standards, and even the level of happiness (Graham and Felton 2006). However, this income indicator can never be enough in directly linking to multidimensional inequality.

  11. 11.

    Agriculture land remains a critical endowment that is environmentally sensitive in a sense that environmental conservation policies strictly prohibiting the discharge of industrial waste would lead to more arable land. Also, reduced forest cover compromises the planet’s carbon sinks and undermines adaptation to climate change (Foody 2003). As such, maintaining forest area is essential in sustaining earth’s ecosystem that affects the dynamics of species diversity, genetic diversity, biodiversity, and others. Furthermore, floods and drought frequently caused by extreme climate condition influence access to improved water sources (Zander and Kächeleb 1999).

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  1. United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, Beirut, Lebanon

    Seung Jin Baek

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Baek, S.J. (2018). Uncovering Complexity in the Policy Mix for Sustainability Transitions. In: The Political Economy of Neo-modernisation. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91394-0_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91394-0_1

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