Snag Your Copy The Globalizers: Development Workers In Action Brought To You By Jeffrey T. Jackson Issued As Manuscript
Honduras as an exemplar, sociologist Jackson takes a devastating look at development workers,
His major thesis is that “development works shows itself to be not about aid but about power.
It is about the benefits the globalizers bring to the donor countries of the world, ”
By looking at the actual development workers mostly of large binational and multinational players, Jackson lays out a fairly strong case that, especially in the cases he studies The El Cajon Dam, the maquillas, and post Hurricane Mitch reconstruction the power is in the hands of the globalizers.
His guiding propositions pp,are:
Global agendas tend to win out over local agendas most of the times,
Local agendas succeed only as they are capable of linking into the global agendas,
Honduran institutions and Honduras as a whole receive some benefits from participating in the globalization agenda,
The negative consequences or potential drawbacks of development projects are downplayed or ignored,
The greater benefits of the activities of the international development profession accrue to the donor countries, and these benefits are largely hidden.
The most obvious case is the El Cajon Dam project which Jackson describes in detail not only the way the dam was pushed by international institutions and development workers but also how the repairs on the project became another way that these workers intensified their control.
In some ways the analysis rings true, but there is something missing,
Using Honduras as a case study, Jeffrey T, Jackson illuminates the processes by which wealthy western countries target countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East for political economic construction, or nation building.
In the process, he draws a provocative connection between the efforts of international development workers and the emergence of global governance.
Jackson examines the significant roles played by international development workers"the globalizers"operating in Honduras over the past thirty years, particularly in the troubled construction of the El Cajón hydroelectric dam, the creation of maquiladoras, and the multinational relief, recovery, and reconstruction efforts following Hurricane Mitch.
He finds in the international development community a closeknit coalition of policy makers who have inserted themselves into the local political process and pushed the Honduran nationstate to conform to international norms
and integrate into a transnational structure of governance.
Jackson examines the mechanisms of power at the disposal of these development organizations, the expertise of those administering development aid, the agency of development workers, and the benefits that accrue to donor countries.
In doing so he makes a persuasive connection between nation building and global governanceraising important questions about whose nations are being built and why.
.