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Human Rights and Development: Complementary or Competing Concerns?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Jack Donnelly
Jack Donnelly
Affiliation:
the College of the Holy Cross
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Extract

The conventional wisdom of the sixties and early seventies held that, except in the very long run, rapid development and human rights are competing concerns. Needs satisfaction, income equality, and civil and political rights were regularly held to be luxury goods. An examination of the development experiences of Brazil and South Korea, however, shows much of this conventional wisdom to have been mistaken. Rapid growth and development can be achieved without sacrificing social and economic equity. Furthermore, theoretical considerations suggest that even civil and political rights are more compatible with sustained rapid development than is frequently recognized.

Type
Review Articles
Information
World Politics , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , January 1984 , pp. 255 - 283
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1984

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References

1 For simplicity, I shall take as authoritative the list of human rights in the so-called International Bill of Human Rights—i.e., the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The status of economic and social rights has been challenged on philosophical grounds. See, for example, Cranston, Maurice, What Are Human Rights? (London: The Bodley Head, 1973)Google Scholar; Frankel, Charles, Human Rights and Foreign Policy (New York: Foreign Policy Association, 1978, Headlines Series No. 241), 38–41ff.Google Scholar; and Melden, A. I., “Are There Welfare Rights?,” in Brown, Peter G., Johnson, Conrad, and Vernier, Paul, eds., Income Support: Conceptual and Policy Issues (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1982), 259–78.Google Scholar Such arguments, however, have been subjected to trenchant criticism; see esp. Shue, Henry, Basic Rights: Subsistence and Affluence in U. S. Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980).Google Scholar In any case, they are of little relevance to international action, since they have been officially rejected by virtually all countries, developed and developing alike.

2 “An autonomous reduction in consumption … is the human price that must be paid for a rapidly growing domestic national product.” Enke, Stephen, Economics for Development (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963), 181.Google Scholar “A conscious effort must be made to increase savings, either from existing incomes or by capturing a major share of the rising incomes that result from inducing greater effort and productivity.” Morris, Bruce R., Economic Growth and Development (New York: Pitman Publishing Corporation, 1967), 306.Google Scholar

3 “Equality, in other words, is a luxury of rich countries. If a poor society is to achieve anything at all it must develop a high degree of inequality—the small economic surplus must be concentrated in a few hands if any high-level achievements are to be made.” Boulding, Kenneth E., Principles of Economic Policy (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968), 94Google Scholar (emphasis in original). “There is likely to be a conflict between rapid growth and an equitable distribution of income; and a poor country anxious to develop would probably be well advised not to worry too much about the distribution of income.” Johnson, Harry G., Money, Trade and Economic Growth (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962), 153.Google Scholar In contrast to Johnson and others, I use “equity” to refer to a combination of needs and equality. Thus, I will speak of an “equality tradeoff,” reserving the term “equitable development” for development with minimal needs and equality tradeoffs.

4 Kuznets, Simon, “Economic Growth and Income Inequality,” American Economic Review 45 (March 1955), 1–28.Google Scholar

5 See, for example, Apter, David E., The Politics of Modernization (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965)Google Scholar; Huntington, Samuel P., Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968)Google Scholar; Bayley, David H., Public Liberties in the New States (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1964)Google Scholar; Heilbroner, Robert, The Great Ascent (New York: Harper & Row, 1963)Google Scholar; Bhagwati, Jagdish, The Economics of Underdeveloped Countries (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966)Google Scholar; and Lipset, Seymour Martin, “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy,” American Political Science Review 53 (March 1959), 69–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a critical discussion of this literature, in the context of an intellectual history of postwar social and political development theory, see Higgott, Richard A., Political Development Theory: The Contemporary Debate (London and Canberra: Croom Helm, 1983)Google Scholar, chap. 2.

6 The seminal studies include International Labour Office, Employment, Incomes and Equality: A Strategy for Increasing Productive Employment in Kenya (Geneva: ILO, 1972)Google Scholar; Chenery, Hollis B. and others, Redistribution with Growth (London: Oxford University Press, 1974)Google Scholar; and Adelman, Irma and Morris, Cynthia Taft, Economic Growth and Social Equity in Developing Countries (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1973).Google Scholar One of the best short summaries is Stewart, Frances and Streeten, Paul, “New Strategies for Development: Poverty, Income Distribution and Growth,” Oxford Economic Papers 28 (November 1976), 381–405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The journal World Development is particularly closely associated with these new trends.

7 Fields, Gary, Equality, Poverty and Development (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 218.Google Scholar

8 World Bank, World Development Report, 1981 (New York: Oxford University Press, for the World Bank, 1981)Google Scholar, Table 21; Taylor, Lance, Bacha, Edmar L., Cardoso, Eliana, and Lysy, Frank J., Models of Growth and Distribution for Brazil (New York: Oxford University Press, for the World Bank, 1980)Google Scholar, Tables 10–11.

9 World Bank (fn. 8), Table 22.

10 See, for example, Rajaraman, Indira, “Data Sources on Income Distribution in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka: An Evaluation,” Review of Income and Wealth 22 (September 1976), 223–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; White, Benjamin, “Political Aspects of Poverty, Income Distribution, and Their Management: Some Examples from Rural Java,” Development and Change 10 (January 1979), 91–114CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rogers, Gerry B., “Demographic Determinants of the Distribution of Income,” World Development 6 (March 1978), 305–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nugent, Jeffrey B. and Walther, Robin, “Short-Run Changes in Rural Income Inequality: A Decomposition Analysis,” Journal of Development Studies 18 (January 1982), 239–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Fields (fn. 7), chap. 3.

11 World Bank (fn. 8), Table 25. Much of the recent debate in the English-language literature on Brazil centers on Fields, Gary, “Who Benefits from Economic Development?—A Reexamination of Brazilian Growth in the 1960s,” American Economic Review 67 (September 1977), 570–82Google Scholar, in which he re-analyzes the data underlying Albert Fishlow's seminal 1972 study, “Brazilian Size Distribution of Income,” American Economic Review 62 (May 1972), 391–402. Comments on Fields's paper, plus his reply, are in American Economic Review 70 (March 1980), 242–62. For a good review of the now voluminous literature on Brazilian income distribution, see Edmar L. Bacha and Lance Taylor, “Brazilian Income Distribution in the 1960s: ‘Facts,’ Model Results and the Controversy,” in Taylor and others (fn. 8), chap. 10.

12 The recent “abertura,” symbolized in particular by the November 1982 elections, may mark the beginning of a welcome change—or it may be just another short-term, almost cyclical, swing toward the center. A sound assessment of the breadth, depth, and sincerity of these new overtures to political liberty must wait a few more years, and until at least one major systemic crisis has been experienced.

13 Compare, however, Chase-Dunn, Christopher, “The Effects of International Economic Dependence on Development and Income Inequality: A Cross-National Study,” American Sociological Review 40 (December 1975),720–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rubinson, Richard, “The World Economy and the Distribution of Income within States: A Cross-National Study,” American Sociological Review 41 (August 1976), 638–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Bornschier, Volker, Chase-Dunn, Christopher, and Rubinson, Richard, “Cross-National Evidence of the Effects of Foreign Investment and Aid on Economic Growth and Inequality: A Survey of Findings and a Reanalysis,” American Journal of Sociology 84 (November 1978), 651–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Hewlett, Table 13. Compare Foxley, Alejandro, “Stabilization Policies and Their Effect on Employment and Income Distribution: A Latin American Perspective,” in Cline, William R. and Weintraub, Sidney, eds., Economic Stabilization in Developing Countries (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 1981), chap. 6.Google Scholar

15 World Bank (fn. 8), Table 5. For an account of savings which suggests that a higher marginal propensity to save on the part of the rich may be as much a consequence of unequal growth as a natural tendency, see Krzyzaniak, Marian, “Savings Behavior of Poor and Rich in Taiwan,” Journal of Developing Areas 11 (July 1977), 447–64.Google Scholar

16 World Bank (fn. 8), Table 2.

17 Ibid.

18 This argument has been developed most forcefully by Irma Adelman and her colleagues. See Adelman and Morris (fn. 6); Adelman, Irma, “Economic Development and Political Change in Developing Countries,” Social Research 47 (Summer 1980)Google Scholar; Adelman, Irma, “Growth, Income Distribution and Equity-Oriented Development Strategies,” World Development 3 (February-March 1975), 67–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Adelman, Irma, Morris, Cynthia Taft, and Robinson, Sherman, “Policies for Equitable Growth,” World Development 4 (July 1976), 561–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Compare also Griffin, Keith, “An Assessment of Development in Taiwan,” World Development 1 (June 1973), 31–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kuo, Shirley W. Y., Ranis, Gustav, and Fei, John C. H., The Taiwan Success Story: Rapid Growth with Improved Distribution in the Republic of China (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1981)Google Scholar; and Kelley, Allen C. and Williamson, Jeffrey G., Lessons from Japanese Economic Development (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974).Google Scholar

19 South Korean income distribution data, like such data for virtually all Third World countries (cf. fn. 10), are questionable in their details, at least because of the method of collection. However, as rough estimates, they do seem to present a relatively accurate picture which is probably no more distorted than is normal for countries at a similar level of development. For a fairly thorough discussion of income distribution in Korea, see Mason, Edward S., Kim, Mahn Je, Perkins, Dwight H., Kim, Kwang Suk, and Cole, David C., The Economic and Social Modernization of the Republic of Korea, (Cambridge: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chap. 12. See also Lee, Eddy, “Egalitarian Peasant Farming and Rural Development: The Case of South Korea,” World Development 7 (April-May 1979), 493–517CrossRefGoogle Scholar; income distribution is discussed at pp. 497–505.

20 Ahluwalia, Montek S., Carter, Nicholas G., and Chenery, Hollis B., “Growth and Poverty in Developing Countries,” Journal of Development Economics 5 (1979), 299–341CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 322–23. While Kuznets himself is quite sensitive to the crucial role of policy (fn. 4, pp. 9–10, 17, 24), many later advocates of the U-hypothesis are not. See, for example, Paukert, Felix, “Income Distribution at Different Levels of Development: A Survey of Evidence,” International Labor Review 108 (August-September 1973), 99–125.Google Scholar In general, recent studies tend to disconfirm the U-hypothesis. See especially Wright, Charles L., “Income Inequality and Economic Growth: Examining the Evidence,” Journal of Developing Areas 13 (October 1978), 49–66.Google Scholar Cf. also Fields (fn. 7), 78–84; Beckerman, Wilfred, “Some Reflections on ‘Redistribution with Growth’,” World Development 5 (August 1977), 665–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 670–74; and Felix, David, “Income Distribution Trends in Mexico and the Kuznets Curve,” in Hewlett, Sylvia Ann and Weinert, Richard S., eds., Brazil and Mexico: Patterns in Late Development (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Humane Issues, 1982), 265–315.Google Scholar The remaining weak correlation is almost certainly better explained by political variables-particularly similarities in development strategy—than by the level or process of growth per se. Cline, William R., “Distribution and Development: A Survey of the Literature,” Journal of Development Economics 1 (1975), 359–400CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 369–74, goes so far as to dismiss all economic theoretical explanations of income inequality. However, cf. Weede, Erich and Tiefenbach, Horst, “Some Recent Explanations of Income Inequality: An Evaluation and Critique,” International Studies Quarterly 25 (June 1982), 255–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 See Hasan and Rao, pp. 4 and 23; World Bank (fn. 8), Table 22; Lee (fn. 19), 501–05; Ghose, Ajit and Griffin, Keith, “Rural Poverty and Development Alternatives in South and Southeast Asia: Some Policy Issues,” Development and Change 11 (October 1980), 545–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Table 10; Kihl, Young Whan and Bark, Dong Suh, “Food Policies in a Rapidly Developing Country: The Case of South Korea, 1960–1978,” Journal of Developing Areas 16 (October 1981), 47–70Google Scholar, Table 1; and Rao, D. C., “Economic Growth and Equity in the Republic of Korea,” World Development 6 (March 1978), 383–96, at 389.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 World Bank (fn. 8), Tables 21 and 22; see also Hasan and Rao, Table 5.5 and pp. 73–74; Rao (fn. 21), 384, 389.

23 Lee (fn. 19), 493–94, 507–8; Ban, Sung Hwan, Moon, Pal Yong, and Perkins, Dwight H., Rural Development (Cambridge: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1980)Google Scholar, chap. 10; Mason and others (fn. 19), chap. 7; Tolley, George S., Thomas, Vinod, and Wong, Chung Ming, Agricultural Price Policies and the Developing Countries (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, for the World Bank, 1982)Google Scholar, chap. 2.

24 For example, enforcing the 3-hectare limit on holdings has prevented the development of a free market in land, thus providing very important protection to small farmers. In 1975, only 1.5% of all holdings (1.2% in 1965), encompassing only 7% of the total cultivated area, exceeded the limit; fewer than 8% of rural households were tenants. Lee (fn. 19), 508–9; Hasan and Rao, 205.

25 Lee (fn. 19), 496; Ban and others (fn. 23), Tables 112 and 115.

26 Sources differ on precise figures, but there is a clear consensus on the basic trend. Compare Hasan and Rao, 39–40 and Tables 1.13 and D.44; Lee (fn. 19), 510–12; Rao (fn. 21), 387; Ban and others (fn. 23), Tables 108–110; Kim, Kwang Suk and Roemer, Michael, Growth and Structural Transformation (Cambridge: Council on East Asian Relations, Harvard University, 1979)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Table 37; and Hasan, Parvez, Korea: Problems and Issues in a Rapidly Growing Economy (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, for the World Bank, 1976), 22Google Scholar, 45–46, and Table 12.

27 See Frank, Charles R. Jr, Kim, Kwang Suk, and Westphal, Larry E., Foreign Trade Regimes and Economic Development: South Korea (New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1975)Google Scholar, and Hong, Wantack, “Export Promotion and Employment Growth in South Korea,” in Krueger, Anne O. and others, Trade and Employment in Developing Countries, Vol. I: Individual Studies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, for the National Bureau of Economie Research, 1981).Google Scholar For an interesting account of the positive consequences of the Brazilian shift toward export promotion, see José L. Carvalho and Claudio L. S. Haddad, “Foreign Trade Strategy and Employment in Brazil,” ibid.

28 For a fascinating case study (of clothing) see Morawetz, David, Why the Emperor's New Clothes Are Not Made in Colombia: A Case Study of Latin American and East Asian Manufactured Exports (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1980Google Scholar, World Bank Staff Working Paper No. 368), esp. 194–97. See also Krueger, Anne O., The Developmental Role of the Foreign Sector and Aid (Cambridge: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1979), 92–99, 172–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 See, for example, Blaug, Mark, “The Empirical Status of Human Capital Theory: A Slightly Jaundiced View,” Journal of Economic Literature 14 (1976), 827–55Google Scholar; Bhagwati, Jagdish, “Education, Class Structure and Income Inequality,” World Development 1 (May 1973), 21–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jallade, Jean-Pierre, “Basic Education and Income Inequality in Brazil,” World Development 10 (March 1982), 187–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Weis, Lois, “The Reproduction of Social Inequality: Closure in the Ghanaian University,” Journal of Developing Areas 16 (October 1981), 17–30.Google Scholar

30 Colclough, Christopher, “The Impact of Primary Schooling on Economic Development: A Review of the Evidence,” World Development 10 (March 1982), 167–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 South Korean dependence seems to have been relatively well managed, thus minimizing its costs. For example, labor- and skill-intensive production have kept capital needs relatively low, and the heavy reliance on foreign aid in the fifties and sixties allowed for industrial investment without squeezing farmers and workers too severely. Economic dependence, as measured by trade-partner concentration, debt-service load, product diversification, and industrial deepening, seems even to have declined with growth. See Hasan and Rao, Tables 1.6, 1.8, 3.1, D.13, and pp. 78–80, 251–53, 276–80, 431–35; Hasan (fn. 26), 117–20 and 130–38, Appendices C, D, and E, and Tables SA14 and SA15.

32 See, for example, Froebel, Folker, Heinriks, Jürgen, and Kreye, Otto, The New International Division of Labor (London: Cambridge University Press, 1980)Google Scholar; Belassa, Bela, The Changing International Division of Labor in Manufactured Goods (Washington, D.C.; World Bank, World Bank Staff Working Paper No. 329, 1979)Google Scholar; Tomassini, Luciano, “Industrialization, Trade and the International Division of Labor,” Journal of International Affairs 34 (Spring 1980), 137–52Google Scholar; and Caporaso, James A., “Industrialization in the Periphery: The Evolving Global Division of Labor,” International Studies Quarterly 25 (September 1981), 347–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33 Higgott (Murdoch University, Australia), “Africa, the New International Division of Labor and the Corporate State,” paper presented at the 24th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, Mexico City, April 1983.

34 For the beginnings of such efforts, see Kim and Roemer (fn. 26), chaps. 1 and 2, and pp. 75–79; Mason and others (fn. 19), chap. 5; and Wade, L. L. and Kim, B. S., Economic Development of South Korea: The Political Economy of Success (New York: Praeger, 1978)Google Scholar, chap. 6. More generally, see Higgott, Richard and Robison, Dick, eds., Southeast Asia: Essays in the Political Economy of Structural Change (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, forthcoming)Google Scholar; Cline, William R., “Can the East Asian Model of Development Be Generalized?” World Development 10 (February 1982), 81–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Ranis, Gustav, “Equity with Growth in Taiwan: How ‘Special’ is the ‘Special Case’?” World Development 6 (March 1978), 397–409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35 Among academic economists, this strategy is particularly associated with the work of Irma Adelman and her colleagues (fns. 6 and 18). The so-called basic human needs strategy, as I see it, takes no stand on the timing of redistribution, and thus does not represent a distinctive approach to this issue.

36 See especially Adelman, Irma and Robinson, Sherman, Income Distribution Policy in Developing Countries: A Case Study of Korea (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, for the World Bank, 1978).Google Scholar Compare also Adelman, Irma, Hopkins, Mike, Robinson, Sherman, Rogers, Gerry B., and Wery, R., The Political Economy of Egalitarian Growth (Geneva: International Labour Office, 1976)Google Scholar, and the studies cited in Cline (fn. 20), 378–87.

37 One very rough way to incorporate such considerations into cost-benefit planning is through the use of “poverty weights,” which assign different utilities to the same increment of income, depending on the group that receives it. See, for example, Chenery and others (fn. 6), chap. 2.

38 See, for example, Cohen, Jerome A., “Arms Sales and Human Rights: The Case of South Korea,” in Brown, Peter G. and MacLean, Douglas eds., Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1979)Google Scholar, and Amnesty International Report 1982 (London: Amnesty International Publications, 1982), 209–13.

39 The most important exceptions include Howard, Rhoda, “The ‘Full-Belly’ Thesis: Should Economic Rights Take Priority Over Civil and Political Rights? Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa,” Human Rights Quarterly 5 (Winter 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; International Commission of Jurists, Development, Human Rights and the Rule of Law (Elmsford, N.Y.: Pergamon Press, 1981)Google Scholar, especially the discussion paper by Philip Alston; and Goodin, Robert E., “The Development-Rights Tradeoff: Some Unwarranted Economic and Political Assumptions,” Universal Human Rights 1 (April 1979), 31–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Howard's article is particularly noteworthy for its strong arguments that civil and political rights are necessary for development, equity, and social order, and that their denial has been a major contributor to economic failure in Africa.

40 Cf. Goodin (fn. 39).