The construction of inequality: United States foreign policy, development discourse, and the postwar expansion of the international system

During the period from the 1950s to the 1990s, decolonization, the extension of nation-state sovereignty, and the expansion of the inter-state system all took place within the context of the project of development, which posited a theory of state/society progression from an "underdeveloped" condition to a condition occupied by the advanced industrial states used as a model and referent. The body of ideas and theories associated with this project have influenced the formation of identity and social status within the international system in two ways. First, ideas associated with development encourage the characterization of states by how they measure up to a set of norms which is self-referential. Secondly, the programs implemented to bring about developmental progress in underdeveloped states structure relationships between rich and poor nations in an hierarchical manner. Thus, a differential between states based on varying material resources and capabilities is parallelled by the creation of a systemic hierarchy based on differing status. This opposes the systemic norm of sovereign equality which lies at the center of the inter-state system and our understanding of it.;This dissertation uses United States Development Assistance Program policy documents and task force reports as the basis for an analysis of the discourse of development that emerged in the United States through these decades. Representations of underdeveloped countries are traced, as are the means by which understandings of the development process have caused a differential "positioning" of the underdeveloped state in an international hierarchy. U.S. Development Assistance policy is used as representative of the global discourse during these decades, and is traced through four definitive periods.;The dissertation addresses the larger issue of the process by which ideas and collective understandings, when channelled through scientific disciplines and international programs, can affect the formation of state identity and position within the inter-state system--identities and positions which are then perceived as social reality.