The Return of Large Dams to the Development Agenda: A Post-Development Critique

Abstract

Large dams are making a comeback. However, large dams reflect an outdated development paradigm narrowly focused on economic growth through modernization. This article employs a post-development lens to highlight three biases of the narrow development perspective that underlies large dams. First, it views rivers, and nature more generally, as an unrealized source of economic growth and an input to production. Second, it is blind to distributional impacts and is resultantly inequitable: The benefits of large dams are concentrated in the hands of the wealthy, while conditions for the poor worsen or do not improve. Third, it disempowers its supposed beneficiaries by de-politicizing the development decisions to pursue large dam projects. Each of these biases is illustrated in reference to the Mekong River Basin’s experience with large dam development. It is alarming, therefore, that large dams seem to be making a resurgence in Asia, Africa and South America, and are once again receiving World Bank support. This article serves as a reminder of why large dams do not deliver equitable development and why they thus faded from the development agenda at the turn of the century. Author’s Note Scott Pearse-Smith is a research affiliate of the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Otago, New Zealand. Scott’s research interests lie in development geography and political ecology. He is particularly interested in the role of the natural environment in development.