Perspectives in Sociology of Development
Olayinka Akanle and Adedeji Oluwasem Adewusi
Department of Sociology,
University of Ibadan,
Ibadan, Oyo State
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you would be able to
• Clarify the concept of development and sustainable development
• Known the characteristics of development
• Explain theories of development
• Discus issues of concern in Nigeria's development
Introduction
Prior to the 1960s, the chunk of available texts that were produced within the field of Journalism,
Political science, Geography, Economics, to mention but few, were mainly produced by amateur
sociologist (Haubert, 1991). These texts were purposely written to proffer answers to two major
questions: Why are some countries poor while others are rich and, what action plan can be
executed to raise the standard of living for everyone? Although, these questions were political or
economic in nature rather than been sociological. At the end of World War II, scholars and
policymakers became thirstily focused on answering these questions, they believed that finding
answers to them would help to arrest prospective wars and stop the spread of communism-a
philosophy that was attractive among the poorest of the world's citizens (Viterna and Robertson,
2015). In addition, the decolonization experiences and the establishment of 'new states' propelled
a chunk of committed publications that sought to grasp and shape the direction of change in
Third World societies, and which were thus somewhat sociological contextually (Giddens, 19913.
Also, the pronunciation of the 1960s as the Development decade by the United Nations led to an
increasing literature on the concept. All these events propelled the emergence of the field of
development.
From the forgoing, it should be noted that development emerged along two paths (Viterna and
Robertson, 2015). On one hand, scholars aimed at proffering scientific explanations for social
change, especially at the macro level of societies Correspondingly, 'development' became a
critical subfield across the majority of social science disciplines, as well as a crucial part of
several schools of public policy (Portes, 2006, Rodrik, 2008, Mahoney, 2010). On the other hand,
informed politicians and citizens begin the movement to positively alter the then status quo
through action, especially by refurbishing war-torn Europe and reducing human misery in
developing nations (Kamus, 2003, Akanle 2013). Several notable actors operating along this
second path such are the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund
and massive international nongovernmental development organizations such as World Vision,
Oxfam, and CARE, were established during this same postwar period (Viterna and Robertson,
2015). Therefore, development thus emerged with a distinctly dual character. It is both
something that academics study and something that practitioners do.
These aforementioned actors have continuously make a fashionable talk about such things as
social planning development and the sociological contribution to planning and development
(Gore, 2000; Kharas, 2007; Evans, 2010). While this might look recent, it is in a sense not new
(Rodrik, 2008). This is because the early studies of Booth and Rowntree in the United Kingdom
and that of the Chicago School of Sociology in the 1920s and the 1930s respectively reflected a
considerable interest in what we would probably now call social planning for development
(Vitema and Robertson, 2015). But examining the phenomenon from another point of view
reveals that it is quite new in the context of development planning, where the overriding
considerations until very recently have been economic ones, a systematic consideration of
sociological variables has taken place only recently. This is the mason scholarly theories varied
in their assessments of whether and how practitioners could shape the development process.
Specifically, while some scholars argued that interventions were futile, others believed
intervention is an integral aspect of societal development but disagreed on the kinds of
interventions that should be made and which actors should make them. Still, others paid more
attention to describing development quagmire of nations without prescribing solutions (Viterna
and Robertson, 2015)
The main objective of this chapter is to examine the perspectives in the sociology of
development. In achieving this, the second section proffered various definitions to clarify the
concept of development and characterized developmental phenomenon as well. In addition, this
chapter examined the core interest of any Development Sociologist. However, the chapter would
have been incomplete if the concept of sustainable development is not examined; it emergence,
definition, and goals were of interest in this chapter. Of utmost importance is the examination of
selected theories of development in the third section. The fourth section discussed the problems
associated with Nigeria's development with a special focus on the specific factors that are
affecting the social, economic and political prosperities of the country. All these were done to
ensure that readers understand the foundational strands of the sociology of development,
especially within the contest of Nigeria.
Therefore, at the end of this chapter, it is expected that readers would have had a sound
sociological knowledge on the concept of 'development as they differ from 'economic growth',
'economic development', 'human development' and 'political development' among others and its
measurable indicators. It is also expected that readers understand the reason Development
Sociologists are referred as Academic Harlots vis-à-vis the roles and modus operandi of these
social science experts. Headers are also expected to understand what makes a development to be
a sustainable one and to also familiarize themselves with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs). Also, readers are expected to understand the thesis, antithesis and the synthetic
theoretical orientations in development narratives. Lastly, readers are expected to gather an
untiring knowledge on the Nigerian development quagmire by examining the factors responsible
for the country's poor level of development,
Conceptual Clarification Development
The concept 'development' has been filled with raging debates and controversies. This is due to
the fact that certain scholars attempted to give a global definition and measures of development,
while others defined the concept based on their field of endeavours. For instance, economists,
psychologists, political scientists, and historians prefer to use the concept of economic
development, psychological development, political development and historical development
respectively. Whatever the preference might be, sociologically, the concept of development
though was not peculiarly used, but can be traced to: August Comte's Law of Three Stages,
Herbert Spencer's Evolutionary theory, Emils Durkheim's ideas on society transition from
mechanical to organic solidarity, Karl Marx's thought on the progress of societies through
different epochs and Mas Weber's ideas on the growth of modern capitalism. However, while
these notable Sociologists adopted a functionalist/holistic approach to the definition of
development, contemporary development experts have settled for a mote individualistic
approach (see Olutayo, 2012, Akanle and Adesina, 2018)
The word 'develop was coined from an Italian word 'Voluper', meaning 'to unwrap' or 'unfold
(Word Reference, 2018), However, as stated earlier, the concept of development within the
scholarly discourse is a controversial one. This statement was buttressed by Thomas (1999:3)
who argued that development as a concept is 'contested, complex, and ambiguous. In general
term, 'development means a social event constituting a new epoch. When referring to a society or
m a social system, development usually means a state where things got improved, either
experienced holistically or partly by a social system. Therefore, to a layman, development
describes a process constituting advancement, or of causing somebody or something to change in
this way from a simple stage to a more advanced level. Nonetheless, an analysis of several kinds
of literature have proved that the term "development was first used by one of the past presidents
of the United State of America, Harry Truman, to describe the movement of the USA from the
position of less developed to a more developed state in 1949.
...We mast embark on a bold new programme for making the benefits of our scientific
advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of
underdeveloped area... the old imperialism and exploitation for foreign profit have no
place in our plans. What we envisage is a programme of development based on the
concepts of democratic fair dealing (Alien and Thomas, 1992:06).
However, to Sen (1990), development connotes capacity expansion, that is, adequate
empowerment of the state and the society such that they can sufficiently execute the
responsibilities they are saddled with. However, Sen (1990) favoured political development.
While political sufficiency forma part of a holistic development, it will be out of place to accord
the meaning of "development' to political advancement only. Also, Nnoli’s (1981) viewed
development is when a country achieves certain economic artefacts such as industrialization,
economic affluence, advanced technology, urbanization, and a parliamentary political process.
However, what constitutes 'development' goes beyond economic prosperity. Some scholars have
also favoured Human development when they argued that development is a model that is about
the rise or fall of national incomes (Allen and Thomas, 1992). They submitted that development
is about creating an environment in which people can develop their full potential and lead
productive, creative lives in accordance with their needs and interests, thus bringing the focus
back to people. Though initially, development was conceived to be a human, economic and
political term. But soon it was felt, development cannot be thought of in a one-dimensional
phenomenon. Therefore, it when all other dimensions of the society are considered that the
concept of 'development becomes a sociological lexicon.
It was based on the foregoing that development has been conceived as a collective socio-
economic, political as well as religious advancement of a country (Lawal and Oluwatoyin, 2011).
Todaro (1989) conceptualized development as a multidimensional process involving major
changes in social structures, popular attitudes, and national institutions, as well as the
acceleration of economic growth, the reduction of inequality and the eradication of absolute
poverty. Rodney (1972) sees development, whether economic, political or social, to imply both
increases in output and changes in the technical and institutional arrangement by which it is
produced. In other words, and more importantly, development is a multi-dimensional concept
and in spite of the various conceptions, development is basically about the process of changes
which lies around the spheres of societal life (Olutayo, 2012; Akanle and Adesina, 2018). Hence,
development can be conceived as a conscious acceleration of economic, political, social,
educational and technological growth of a society through effecting consistent, progressive and
enduring policies of the government.
Furthermore, Akanle and Abayomi (2013) viewed development from the perspective of those
facing developmental issues. They claimed that any issue that negatively impacts the quality of
life and human fulfilment is a development threat and manifestation of an underdevelopment and
people will do anything to avoid it. Development involves the reorganization and reorientation of
the whole social systems and institutions in such a way that the social structures become
development compliant (Akanle and Abayomi, 2013). Therefore, development can be defined as
that social, economic, political, religious, the educational progress that is achieved not only after
a society defines its needs, but also creates institutions in achieving those needs. This was further
buttressed by Akanle (2013), who argued that development has to do with the desirable structural
changes in law, family, security, economy, health, education, media, technology, environment
and life expectancy with consequences that are positive in the life of the people.
From the foregoing, it is convenient to state here that development is a multi-dimensional
concept which cuts across all sectors or social institutions of the society. Development is the
ability of a country or countries to improve the social welfare of the people, namely, by
providing social amenities like good education, pipe-borne water, etc., (National Development,
2010). This may be linked to the reason the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP,
2006) defined development as to lead long and healthy lives, to be knowledgeable, to have
access to the resources needed for a decent standard of living and to be able to participate in the
life of the community. More so, Obono (2012) conceived the concept as the improvement and
attainment of the core value of sustenance, self-esteem, and freedom from servitude.
Development is therefore conceptualized at the levels of the individual, social group, and society
(Iornumbe, 2005). Similarly, a number of scholars argue that development must take into
account the qualitative improvement in employment, social justice, and equality. It is in this
opinion that Seer (1990) argued that the state of development of a society can be ascertained by
asking three major questions: what has been happening to unemployment? What has been
happening to equality and what has been happening to social justice? Development is therefore
viewed principally from the perspectives of how well the collective resources of a nation are
used to better the lives of its citizenry. Implicit in every use of the term, however, is the notion
that some countries and regions of the world are extremely poor whereas others are very
prosperous. For instance, one would agree that citizens of developed countries such as the West
enjoy more desirable life while the citizens of the developing countries and Nigeria, in particular,
languished in poverty evidenced by the high prevalence of famine, disease, war, and ignorance in
spite the plentiful economic resources (Matunhu, 2011).
Nevertheless, scholarly articles to date often choose to operationalize the concept rather than
proffering a definition. Nations are ranked as more or less developed according to any of several
common measures, including GDP per capita, child mortality levels, average life expectancy,
average educational attainment, or the United Nation's Human Development Index, among
others (Lawal and Oluwatoyin, 2011). The unit of analysis is almost always the nation-state, but
especially within area studies, subnational data are sometimes utilized. Although how well these
measures reflect the developmental levels of nations is yet to be well established, their use
suggests that development scholarship is in spirit fundamentally concerned with explaining the
cross-societal, and sometimes intra-societal variation in either economic growth or human
quality of life and especially how that variation changes over time. Therefore, comprehensive
indices of development as itemized by Filani (2000) to include increase in per capita income
more even distribution of income, reduction in the level of unemployment, diversification of the
economy, increase the supply of high-level manpower (education), balanced development,
Indigenization of economic activity, good health and standard nutrition, and acquisition of
technology. While the combination of the aforementioned indices connotes development, a
possession of one or more of these indicators denotes that a society is developing.
Characteristic of Development
Listed and discussed below are the characteristic of development.
1. Development is a multidimensional phenomenon: The conventional notion of
development among social scientists, Economists for example, always insisted upon the uni-
dimensionality of the concept of development focusing on economic growth and economic
development. However, the prevalence of economic prosperity only does not fulfil the necessary
requirement for a society to be sociologically developed. It is at this juncture that social scientists
and development practitioners felt that development has to be multidimensional, touching
various aspects of the society (Akanle and Adesina, 2018). It should not confine itself to the
economic dimension but should have its political, economic, human, cultural and social
dimensions too. The totality of these dimensions forms what sociologist can refer to as
'development’.
2. Development is a continuous process: The process of development continues from the
moment of inception of the society (i.e., the manifestation of any of the earlier stated
development dimensions). However, the process of development can be faster and slow in some
situations. While the former is called evolutionary development, the latter is revolutionary in
nature. Hence, it is important to note here that development does not witness a complete halting
point. Aside from this, what constitutes development in a society may not be a yardstick to be
adopted by others. This is the mason development sociologists disagree with the use of the
concept such as developing (as used for African countries) or developed (as used for European
and North American countries). Hence, societies are best described either by referring to them as
Less Developed Countries (LDC) or More Developed Countries (MDC).
3. Development is universal, but not uniform: Development is a common process
witnessed by every society no matter how primitive or modern it is. Every society witnesses the
process of development in some form or the other. Time and space cannot arrest it. The rich and
the poor societies, the most developed and the most underdeveloped societies too experience it.
In some societies, it is faster while in some societies it is slow. In some societies, the yields of
development are more remarkable than other societies. So, the process is universal, but the
outcome is not uniform.
4. Development stands for dynamism: Development as a process is driven by societal
needs Human needs change with the changing time and situations. The process of development
demands the existing institutions to change and adapt to the upcoming demands to fulfil the
emerging needs of the individuals. For example: with the process of industrialization there was
increased migration which required the institution of joint family to disintegrate structurally.
Therefore, development necessarily entails change. It brings changes to the status quo of a
society. No development process can be imagined without bringing subsequent changes. Thus,
the concept of development is against the notion of static.
5. Development always has positive yields: The outcomes of development are always
positive. It is for the betterment of the society. Development, thus, is progressive. But sometimes
when development outcomes are used by human beings in a negative way its consequences
become disastrous. For example, development of technology necessarily improves human's
quality of life, but when men blindly use it for a destructive purpose, the outcomes become
sorrowful. Sociology of Development is a subfield of sociology that is aimed at proffering
solutions to developmental issues faced by different societies. Development Sociologists employ
scientific tools to the developmental inquiry of nations. They can also be referred to as change
agents due to their ability to diagnose and proffer long-lasting solutions to issues bordering on
the development of countries, without ignoring any aspect of the society. This is because
development sociologists believe that the neglected aspect of the society has a way of affecting
the developmental potentials of societies. This is the reason development sociologists are usually
interested in diverse issues that may be connected to health, economy, migration, security,
education, gender, politics, and history among others. No wonder academicians and researchers
within the field of sociology of development m sometimes regarded as Academic Harlot', due to
their ability to conduct researches and publish articles on various aspects of the society.
However, the world's population stands at 7 billion people out of which the United Nations data
pinpointed that about 3 billion people live in urban areas (UNCHS, 2007). However, about 66 pe
cent of the entire world's population lived in the non-urban areas in the early 1950s (World Bank,
2000, IMF, 2006), current estimates reveal that by 2030, about 61 per cent of the total world
population will be living in cities; and that all the world's increase in population in theme
decades to come will occur in low and middle-income countries (UNFPA, 2007). In view of the
implications of the increasing rural urban drift for development, the 2002 Johannesburg's World
Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) called on all governments to address the
overwhelming challenge of provision of urban basic services especially decent houses, water and
sanitation for the seeming people in slums where the quality of life is appalling Hence, the need
to minimize the use of exhaustible resources to create a constant flow of it across generations,
and making an appropriate use of renewable resources cannot be emphasized. This gave birth to
the concept of Sustainable Development.
Sustainable Development
The concept of sustainable development was first introduced by Brundtland, who defined
development as 'sustainable if and only if it meets the needs of the present without compromising
the ability of future generations to meet their own needs' (WCED, 1987:43). The aforementioned
definition contains within it two key concepts (1) Needs, which pertains to the essential needs of
the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given, and (2) Compromise(ing), which
constitute the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on
the environment's ability to meet present and future needs. These literarily suggest that the
principal gool of sustainable development is meeting present human needs in such a way that
will not jeopardize the potential of meeting their needs. Similarly, Orboi, et al (2010) defined
sustainable development as involving meeting the necessities of the current generations without
compromising the capacity of the coming generations to satisfy their own needs. Therefore,
sustainable development is a "development that lasts." That is a path along which the
maximization of human well-being for today's generation does not lead to declines in future
well-being Human well-being (included) not only the satisfaction of economic needs, but also
aspirations for a clean and healthy environment, and preferences in terms of social development.
According to the United Nations, the key Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were
enumerated in table 1.0
As stated earlier, sustainable development entails reducing to the latest minimum the use of
exhaustible resources to ensure a consistent supply of it to generations to come and making an
appropriate use of renewable resources, especially through recycling. This applies to all resource
extracted from the forests, water, land, sod air. The concept of sustainability has also been
extended beyond environmental concerns, to include social sustainability, te long-term
acceptance and ownership of development changes by the citizens, their organizations and
associations (civil society), and financial and economic sustainability. Thus, sustainable
development recognizes that growth must be both inclusive and environmentally sound to reduce
poverty and build shared prosperity for today's population and to continue to meet the needs of
future generations. It is efficient with resources and carefully planned to deliver both immediate
and long-term benefits for people, planet, and prosperity. The three pillars
