Die Ironie der Entwicklungstheorie

Abstract

This paper develops an immanent critique of the global development apparatus. It identifies the inherent crisis of development in its ironic and dialectic tension between the moral high ground of its claims and the effects of its failures. This irony is manifest in a manipulative reason (Musto) that attempts to make people happy agains their own will and that is institutionalized in a global gift economy. I distinguish two different critical approaches to study this „systemic“ irony: external critique practices a distanciating ironic habitus that can only see the purported malignty of a global development apparatus. This habitus is well established in the deconstructionist critique of post-development theory. In contrast, an immanent critique propagates a more empathic ironic habitus of critique, which accepts a productive hermeneutic tension between critique and moral engagement.

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