What does the fact that we use gross domestic product as a primary indicator of progress say about how we think about economic development? Why do we not use life expectancy instead? Or literacy or numeracy rates?

It is this sort of questioning that Andrew Schrank wants to inspire in his book The Economic Sociology of Development. This line of questioning ultimately boils down to: “Why does economics take precedence in our study and appreciation of the ‘development’ of any given society?”

Sociology is concerned with patterns of human behaviour, as opposed to the production and distribution of goods and services studied in economics. This book therefore looks at the sociocultural processes underpinning economic development, particularly in the global south.

Mr Schrank, a professor of sociology and international and public affairs at Brown University in the US state of Rhode Island, takes the time to explain how the term ‘development’ can be understood before bouncing around several ideas relating to development theory and their various academic proponents.

Broadly tethered to chronology, Mr Schrank takes the reader on a journey through the decades of the 20th century, and the contemporary theories accompanying the economic and social changes that took place in developing and developed countries alike.

There ensues an explanation of the scholarly debate on development from a sociological perspective — on the one hand, modernisation theory from the 1950s and 1960s expounded that spreading industrialisation and consumption could only lead to prosperity; on the other, neo-Marxism from the 1960s and 1970s argued that the laws of economics ensured that international inequality would be the ultimate outcome of this. Mr Schrank does well both to sketch out broad theories, challenge them, back them up and then challenge them again. 

The Economic Sociology of Development is, by turns, heavy and stimulating. There are moments where one feels mired in discursive discussion and others where comparisons between different contexts or countries are quite thought-provoking. For instance, at one point Mr Schrank discusses the growth in per capita income among the so-called “high performing Asian economies” of the late 20th century and adds that life expectancy rates were comparable in countries that weren’t experiencing high levels of economic growth at the time, like Costa Rica and Cuba.  

There are some great recurrent analogies too. To illustrate the two main diverging attitudes towards development, he invokes the contrast between a race and a football game. In one, all participants pass the finish line eventually; in the other, a zero-sum contest crowns a winner and a loser.

Elsewhere in the book, Mr Schrank briefly addresses more contemporary problems such as political populism, the question of more public ownership during times of climate change and why so often institutional reform leads to yet more institutions.

As much as it is rich with academic debate, there’s a certain playfulness in Mr Schrank’s writing, both in the language used and the structure of the book itself. The concluding chapter is entitled ‘What if sociologists were in charge?’.

Overall, it is tightly written and packed with detail — for anyone without a background in sociology it is indeed worth picking up, even if it is targeted at undergraduate and graduate sociology students. It does feel, however, that by the time one reaches the end — and after such a rollicking ride through theories, typologies and histories — there’s further to go. But as Mr Schrank says, the conclusions on offer are merely a “useful starting point”.

This article first appeared in the December 2023/January 2024 print edition of fDi Intelligence

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