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Repopulating Development: An Agent-Based Approach to Studying Development Interventions

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  • Beck, Erin

Abstract

When analyzing development projects, applied and critical scholars alike often place inordinate emphasis on the outcomes, depicting development projects as happening to people and overlooking the interactional nature of projects. This article offers an agent-based approach as a corrective, drawing on actor-oriented sociology, actor-network theory and alternative theories of power. An agent-based approach views development projects as socially constructed processes constituted by the interactions of policymakers, workers, “beneficiaries,” and their socio-material environments. Such an approach is able to provide a nuanced analysis of power in development projects and generate generalizations about the landscape of development NGOs, which is characterized by two types of tensions: the first deriving from the interactions of various lifeworlds at development interfaces; the second deriving from the conflicting organizational and development goals. The utility of an agent-based approach is then illustrated through a comparative, ethnographic analysis of two microcredit non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Guatemala. While both offer small loans and classes to women, the two NGOs operate according to divergent organizational values, structures, and developmental models. This comparative analysis reveals the interactional origins of organizational characteristics and developmental models across contrasting NGOs and shows that these in turn affect, but do not fully determine what happens on the ground. Even though policymakers exercise disproportionate power, the tensions inherent in both development NGOs ensure significant room for maneuver and negotiation on the part of workers and “beneficiaries.” Thus, the two NGOs’ trajectories and outcomes are products of top-down values, structures and models and the creative, emergent interactions between actors involved at various levels of development.

Suggested Citation

  • Beck, Erin, 2016. "Repopulating Development: An Agent-Based Approach to Studying Development Interventions," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 19-32.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:80:y:2016:i:c:p:19-32
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2015.11.019
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