Development theory in a post-socialist era: competing capitalisms and emancipatory alternatives

Development theory was formerly dominated by claims that poor countries could only modernize by finding a non-capitalist route to development, or by subjecting private firms and markets to rigorous controls. It is now widely seen as the process of building liberal capitalist institutions-pluralist democracy, competitive markets and open and egalitarian civil society institutions. This appears to rule out the need for a distinct body of development theory, thus questioning its whole rationale. The article challenges this view by showing that a general commitment to liberal capitalist institutional arrangements does not preclude the need for a distinct body of theory which deals with the problems of transition to fully developed capitalism. It does so by examining three criticisms commonly advanced against claims that modernization depends on the adoption of Western capitalist institutions. These are that a commitment to liberal capitalist development means that all LDCs must follow a single development trajectory, that its commitment to Western values and models must marginalize local cultures and institutions, and that the many developmental failures in the third world imply that a rapid transition to modernity is objectively impossible in most LDCs. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.