Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective
Philip McMichael – Cornell University, USA
Heloise Weber – University of Queensland, Australia
This eighth edition has been revised to address the increasing world disorder as a historic moment in the trajectory of ‘development.’ It includes four essential and interconnected changes: (1) the long world history of the rise of the West with its roots in colonialism, now becoming increasingly apparent with rising debt and austerity regimes across the global South, deepening extraction of natural ‘resources’ and related labor regimes, and rising streams of immigration met with northern racial hostility and violence; (2) the decline of the US-centered world-order, expressed in multi-polarity politics as southern states in particular (eg BRICS+) draw on the earlier Bandung experience of Third World solidarity, and increasingly embrace South-South cooperation encouraged by the rise of China; (3) the crisis of globalization in undermining economic stability (eg, de-industrialization, offshore private land enclosure for global food supply chains threatening domestic farming systems), precipitating urban unrest and farmer rebellions, and also expressed in the demise of multilateralism; and (4) dramatic transformations with the rise of the ‘fourth industrial revolution’ (4IR) in robotization, automation, and artificial intelligence, as well as a deepening climatic emergencies – addressed in attempts at ‘green transition,’ and proliferating resistances against environmental injustice, including ‘green colonialism’ in countries in the global South with precious metals and minerals for the 4IR.