The Determinants of Arab Economic Development (RLE Economy of Middle East) by Yusuf A. Sayigh

Author:Yusuf A. Sayigh [Sayigh, Yusuf A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9781317598589
Google: QHAhBQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-10-30T05:58:23+00:00

Another illustration can be taken from the area of social institutions and organisation. This is the size of family, and the argument that the nuclear family is more suited than the extended family for the requirements of a developing country. The argument is heavily qualified today, as the functions of the extended family still make it an institution of service to most Third World societies. Finally, social mobility, with all the power it has in helping promote development through strengthening motivation, is none the less vulnerable in its Western context to serious criticism from the viewpoint of Third World societies.64 Social mobility, as understood in the context of the Western world, emphasises and relates to individual mobility along the vertical ladder of economic wealth and social influence. Essentially, it is individual-oriented. One can at least question the relevance of this force in the Third World context, where what is needed is group orientation to halt, or at least retard, the pursuit of individual power and wealth materialising at the expense of the bulk of the community – with ambitious individuals callously climbing on the backs of the many in their eagerness for vertical mobility.

A different problem, but one which strongly beclouds the observer’s vision, is the slowness of change in socio-cultural forces, institutions and values, which also makes for their slow operation in society as determinants of development. They are more slow-moving than political determinants, if only because the latter can be shaped almost suddenly, particularly when political institutions and forces make a sharp departure from one course, or from one modality, to another. While political change is change in society and therefore occurs slowly, it can also be willed by a determined group taking over power and bringing the change about by decree, drawing legitimacy from force or violence.65 Obviously, change thus effected is change in institutions (in the sense of organisations), and in the restructuring and relocating of power. Yet this type of change should not be underestimated; it can be so designed and steered as to bring about the slower type of change in society at large: in its political attitudes, values and objectives.

This comparison apart, there is no doubt that the social framework is slow-changing, and to that extent its transformation which necessarily spans over a long period of time can well witness many economic, technological and political changes. But within a narrow time span, socio-cultural factors seem to be unchanging; in contrast, economic and political factors are distinctly less ‘stable’ or sticky. This disparity in pace of movement complicates the assessment of socio-cultural change and the attribution of socio-cultural factors to developmental change. That socio-cultural transformation looks minimal or even absent over the short run is at the same time deceptive and grossly underestimates the power of socio-cultural factors to influence the course, intensity and content of development. The necessity of recognising that development is a slow process itself thus looms larger, since the transformation which constitutes development includes as part of its fabric socio-cultural transformation.

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