International Baccalaureate IB Global politics

Contested meanings of development

Factors that may promote or inhibit development

Pathways towards development

Debates surrounding development: challenges of globalization, inequality and sustainability

- Different definitions of development, including sustainable development and well‑being
- concepts such as economic growth, fairer income distribution, poverty reduction, meeting basic needs, improved capabilities, political and social freedoms, well‑functioning institutions, lifestyles respecting ecological constraints.

Measuring development
- Gross national product (GNP), Human Development Index (HDI), Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), Inclusive Wealth Index (IWI), Happy Planet Index (also HPI), corruption indices, trust indices

Political factors
- Ideologies, history of and persistence of confict, stability, accountability, transparency, legal frameworks, political consequences of diferent development paths, decisions about the allocation of aid, political culture, culture of bureaucracy, vested interests

Access to resources, increasing resource constraints, infrastructure, debt, access to capital and credit, aid, trade, foreign direct investment (FDI), income distribution, informal economy, vested interests.

Values, cultures, traditions, gender relations, migration.

Institutional factors
- The UN, IMF, World Bank, WTO, partnerships between developing countries, efcacy of national and local institutions

Environmental factors influencing development
- Geography, resource endowment, consequences of climate change on peoples’ lives.

Models of development
- Neoliberal theories (eg Washington Consensus), state capitalism (eg China, Russia), capability theories (eg Sen, Nussbaum)

Approaches for developing the economy
- Trade liberalization, export orientation, commodity-led growth, tourism, entrepreneurship, knowledge economy, circular economy, complementary currencies

Citizenship skills and engagement, improving education and health care, changing roles of women, ecological living, indigenous revitalisation movements.

Globalization: wins and losses
- Facts about development of standard of living and assessment of realization of human rights, well‑being and opportunity for diferent groups of people within and between societies
- Environmental impacts of globalization
- Various perspectives, eg North, South, rising powers

Inequality and development: role of politics
- Opportunities for and limits of state, IGO and NGO action, eg global regulation of MNCs and cross-border fnancial fows, role of local regulation of conditions of work, power of lobbies

Sustainable development: role of politics
- Opportunities for and limits of state, IGO and NGO action, eg progress in global climate change negotiations, role of regional, national and local policies for sustainable development