Who Develops and Transforms the World, and in Who's Interests? Faith Based Initiatives in Development Policy and Transformation Processes

Abstract

Fields like development policy, transformation studies, or democratization operate with a prospect of progress. Until recently religion has been seen as a regressive force or at least one of the status quo. The result is that faith-based initiatives and actors were overlooked and their capacity to organize change was underrated. This is still the case in so far as Western donor governments and the development industry still try to use religious actors, but to achieve their own objectives. However, theoretically it can be asked how the idea of progress has lost its religious roots in development and IR discourse, and how development and IR could reconnect with this legacy in productive ways. Could it not be argued that religious people are more progressive if ‘world community’ is the normative goal that defines the direction of progress? Critically, it can be asked what interests are served by the secular bias of progress? Is the Malthusian-emancipatory coalition of birth control in the interest of the Global South? Are religious traditions an obstacle for development or are they helpful to avoid unsustainable ideologies - in the North as well as the South? Are the current consumption and lifestyle patterns in the North, for example, compatible with sustainable development for all? Empirically, it can be asked what faith based initiatives or religious actors had an impact on change, and which religious traditions and semantics helped them to bring these changes about? What faith-based initiatives dominate the praxis of international development? Who are the big actors and what impacts have grassroots initiatives? What faith based initiatives and religious leaders are among the key actors in the transformation democratization processes of the late 20th and early 21st century from the revolutions of 1989, Huntington’s third wave of democratization, to the Arab Spring of 2011?

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