ABSTRACT
The justificatory function of Development studies has been indispensable in providing a theoretical mask for the support of authoritarian views of social and political change in the Third World. An exploration of the roots of Political Development doctrine, for one, demonstrates the series of interconnected relationships—intellectual, political, ideological—that constitute an integral part of the discourse on Development. The sequence has intellectual as well as political implications. Among other things, it serves as a reminder that Development doctrine is deeply rooted in contemporary political thinking and that it is more revealing of a particular dimension of American political thinking than it is of Third World societies in transition. From this perspective, then, those who have relied on the paradigms of Development studies to understand the nature of Third World societies will have learned something of their own political tradition instead. Development doctrine reproduces and amplifies the inconsistencies at the source of contemporary liberal democratic theories.
