Opening Up Possibilities: Limiting Particularism and Welcoming Convergence on Socially Progressive Goals

Abstract

:This article argues the importance of reconsidering the way that institutionalist-heterodox development discourse has essentialized culture at the expense of acknowledging the need for generalization-based theories of economic development. It points out that such a state of affairs obscures the purposive function of socio-economic development, which is to create or radically reconfigure existing national institutions in order to fit the intended goals of social progress and the universal protection of human rights. In light of this necessity, a convergence hypothesis—whose significance lies in its emphasis on the common humanity and universally shared values in different socio-economic systems— deserves re-reading and re-interpretation.