Week 2: The white man’s burden
DVST 6901: The global politics of development (Semester 2,
2026)
August 10, 2026
Classical models of development, no matter how they are voiced, are intrinsically ethnocentric because they posit a scale of civilization. Enlightenment concepts of the human pave the way for paternalistic humanitarianism
Main reading: Lorenzini (2019); Pedersen (2015); Lugard (1922)
Other reading: Rist (2014), chap. 3
Notes
Notes to be added later.
Keywords
colonialism, indirect rule, the dual mandate, The League of Nations and the formation of an international system, ethnocentrism, evolutionism
Learning outcomes
- Understand the roots of contemporary approaches to development policy in European colonialism and the early formation of a system of international institutions dominated by colonial powers
- Understand the ethnocentric biases implicit in any notion of progress, modernity, or development, and the connection between this ideology and the unequal rules of the modern international system
References
Lorenzini, Sara. 2019. “Development as an Ideology for
Empire.” In Global Development: A Cold War History,
9–21. Princeton University Press. https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780691185569-003/html?lang=en.
Lugard, F. D. 1922. The Dual Mandate in British Tropical
Africa. Edinburgh, London: W. Blackwood and Sons. http://archive.org/details/cu31924028741175.
Pedersen, Susan. 2015. “Of Covenants and Carve-Ups.” In
The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire,
edited by Susan Pedersen, 0. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199570485.003.0002.
Rist, Gilbert. 2014. The History of Development: From Western
Origins to Global Faith. Translated by Patrick Camiller. 4th ed.
London: Bloomsbury Academic & Professional. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/usyd/detail.action?docID=5915284.