In the Archipelago, there lives a Barbie who likes to observe the world and tell a story. She begins her story with, "Welcome to Barbie's World, where dreams come to life and possibilities are endless! Under the shadow of 'The Face Saviour', he decided to invest in IKN, not because he believed in the project, but because he wanted to save 'Prabu Petruk Surogendelo' from another awkward press conference. When 'Prabu Petruk Surogendelo' announced his 'Partai Perseorangan,' 'The Face Saviour' couldn't help but chuckle, thinking, 'Well, at least he's consistent with his solo performances.' 'The Face Saviour' joked that the only groundbreaking happening at IKN was 'Prabu Petruk Surogendelo's' groundbreaking ability to dodge direct answers. 'Prabu Petruk Surogendelo' forming 'Partai Perseorangan' is like 'The Face Saviour' investing in IKN—both are solo acts trying to save face.
Just like in Aqua's song, 'Barbie Girl,' life in plastic is fantastic, I wonder and always want the answer, 'Why should a nation develop?'. Now, let's dive into the real world and see how development shapes our lives and our nations."
In Barbie's World, everything starts with a vision. Imagine a world where cities are vibrant, communities are thriving, and opportunities are abundant. National development begins with a dream, just like when I dream of my next adventure in my Dreamhouse. It's all about setting goals and working together to achieve them.
A nation should strive for development to ensure the well-being of its citizens and secure its place in a rapidly changing world. The first reason why national development is crucial is to improve the quality of life. Development ensures better healthcare, education, housing, and access to clean water and sanitation. Economic growth translates into better income, reducing poverty and improving living standards. For instance, when a nation invests in education, literacy rates rise, and individuals can access better job opportunities.
Amartya Sen, in his influential book "Development as Freedom", presents a compelling and transformative view of development, emphasizing that it is fundamentally about expanding the real freedoms that individuals enjoy. His approach moves beyond traditional economic measures like GDP growth and income levels to focus on the enhancement of human capabilities and opportunities.
Sen defines development as the process of expanding the freedoms that people value and have reason to value. Freedom, in his view, is both the means and the end of development. By this, he argues that economic growth is not an end in itself but a tool to enhance individual freedoms, enabling people to live the lives they have reason to choose and value.
Sen identifies five interrelated categories of freedom that are crucial for development:
- Political Freedoms: The ability to participate in democratic processes and express opinions without fear.
- Economic Facilities: Access to economic resources and opportunities, like employment and income.
- Social Opportunities: Access to education, healthcare, and other social services.
- Transparency Guarantees: The presence of trust, openness, and mechanisms to prevent corruption in governance.
- Protective Security: Social safety nets to protect people from extreme deprivation during crises.
- Freedom is not just the ultimate goal of development; it is also a critical driver of development processes. For instance, educated individuals are better equipped to make informed choices, while healthy individuals are more productive and capable of engaging in economic activities.
Sen underscores that improved healthcare, education, and living standards are both tools and outcomes of expanding freedoms. Access to healthcare improves individual capabilities, enabling people to live longer, healthier lives. This increased well-being allows individuals to participate more actively in economic, social, and political life. For example, reducing child mortality or combating diseases like malaria directly enhances people’s ability to live fulfilling lives and contributes to broader societal productivity.
Education empowers individuals with the knowledge and skills necessary to make informed decisions and pursue meaningful opportunities. For Sen, literacy and basic education are not just means to economic productivity but also essential for political participation and social inclusion.
Improving living conditions—such as access to clean water, nutritious food, and adequate housing—directly combats unfreedoms like poverty and ill health, which constrain individuals’ choices and agency.
Poverty, according to Sen, is not just low income; it is a deprivation of basic capabilities. A poor person may lack the freedom to access education, healthcare, or clean water, which restricts their ability to lead a flourishing life.
Investments in healthcare and education are crucial for breaking the cycle of poverty. For example, a country that provides universal primary education enables its citizens to become informed voters, innovative workers, and effective participants in society.
Sen highlights cases like Kerala, India, where investments in education and healthcare have led to high literacy rates, better health outcomes, and reduced poverty despite low per capita income. This contrasts with wealthier nations with greater income disparities and lower social development metrics.
Sen critiques traditional development models that focus solely on economic growth, arguing that such models overlook inequality, social exclusion, and political oppression. For example, a country might experience high GDP growth while significant portions of its population remain deprived of basic healthcare or education. In such cases, economic progress does not translate into genuine development.
Amartya Sen’s concept of development as freedom revolutionizes our understanding of what it means to develop. By focusing on expanding people’s real opportunities to lead meaningful lives, his approach emphasizes the importance of healthcare, education, and living standards as central to development. These are not merely ancillary goals but intrinsic aspects of human freedom, underscoring that true progress lies in empowering individuals and enhancing their capabilities to make choices about their lives.
In The End of Poverty (2005, the Penguin Press), Jeffrey Sachs emphasizes the crucial role that targeted development initiatives play in lifting communities out of extreme poverty and improving human welfare. His argument revolves around the idea that poverty can be overcome through strategic, focused interventions that address specific barriers preventing people from achieving sustainable economic growth and better living conditions.
Sachs explains that people in extreme poverty are often caught in "poverty traps" where they lack the basic resources and opportunities needed to improve their circumstances. For example, without access to clean water, healthcare, or education, communities cannot escape the cycles of disease, illiteracy, and unemployment. Targeted development initiatives—such as providing bed nets to combat malaria, improving agricultural productivity, or investing in basic infrastructure—can break these traps and set the stage for sustainable growth.
Sachs argues that small, focused investments in healthcare, education, agriculture, infrastructure, and technology yield disproportionate improvements in human welfare. For instance, in Healthcare, providing vaccines and treatments for preventable diseases reduces mortality and improves productivity. Education, ensuring access to primary education helps individuals develop skills that can increase their earning potential. Agriculture, supporting farmers with better seeds, tools, and knowledge can increase food security and incomes.
A key theme in Sachs' work is the need to scale up development efforts through coordinated action by governments, non-profits, and international organizations. He argues that when development initiatives are implemented comprehensively and at scale, they produce synergistic effects. For example, better health leads to increased school attendance, which in turn leads to higher productivity and income, creating a virtuous cycle of development.
Sachs highlights that the ultimate goal of development is to improve human welfare, which he defines broadly to include health, education, and overall quality of life. He draws attention to historical success stories—such as the Green Revolution and disease eradication campaigns—as evidence that targeted efforts can achieve dramatic results in reducing human suffering and fostering progress.
Sachs also argues that wealthy nations have a moral and practical responsibility to assist developing countries through financial aid and expertise. He believes that targeted aid can be catalytic, enabling countries to reach a "tipping point" where they can sustain growth without further external support.
In summary, Sachs presents targeted development initiatives as a highly effective way to address specific obstacles to human welfare. By breaking down complex problems into manageable interventions and scaling them up with global cooperation, he argues, extreme poverty can be eradicated, and human welfare significantly enhanced.
The second reason why national development is crucial is to ensure National Security. A strong economy supports a robust defence infrastructure, advanced technologies, and resource self-sufficiency. Development reduces the likelihood of internal strife caused by inequality and poverty, both of which can fuel instability. Paul Collier’s The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It (2007, Oxford University Press) examines the plight of the world’s poorest nations and explores how economic underdevelopment contributes to instability, civil war, and weakened national security. Collier identifies four key 'traps' that keep these nations impoverished and vulnerable to internal and external conflicts.
Collier explains that civil wars are both a cause and a consequence of poverty. Countries with low income levels and stagnant economic growth are more likely to experience internal conflicts, which then further devastate their economies. He notes Civil wars destroy infrastructure, reduce productivity, and create long-term instability. They also scare away foreign investors, which exacerbates underdevelopment. Once a country experiences a civil war, it becomes more likely to fall into conflict again due to weakened institutions and economic instability. This self-reinforcing cycle is called the "conflict trap.". For example, Collier’s research shows that a country with a civil war has a nearly 50% chance of relapsing into conflict within five years.
Collier highlights how nations rich in natural resources often suffer from what is known as the "resource curse." While resource wealth might seem like a boon, in underdeveloped nations, it often leads to corruption, poor governance, and internal strife. Key points include: control over valuable resources like oil, diamonds, or minerals becomes a point of contention, sparking internal rebellions or violent power struggles; resource wealth can lead to an overreliance on a single sector, neglecting other areas of the economy. This lack of diversification can make a nation vulnerable to price shocks and exacerbate inequality; resource wealth often reduces the need for taxation, which weakens the accountability of governments to their citizens. Collier shows how nations with large resource endowments and weak institutions are prone to instability and violence.
Geography plays a crucial role in development. Collier argues that landlocked countries surrounded by unstable or poorly governed neighbours face unique challenges. These nations rely on their neighbours for access to ports and international markets. If neighbouring countries are embroiled in conflict or suffer from corruption, it limits the landlocked nation's ability to grow economically. Conflicts in neighbouring countries can spill over borders, destabilizing otherwise peaceful nations. Refugee crises, cross-border insurgencies, and economic disruptions are common. For example, many African nations face this problem due to their geographic realities and weak regional cooperation.
Paul Collier’s The Bottom Billion illustrates how economic underdevelopment is deeply intertwined with civil wars and insecurity. Poor nations trapped in cycles of conflict, bad governance, and geographic disadvantages face immense barriers to growth. Addressing these challenges requires a combination of internal reforms and external support, with a focus on breaking the traps that keep these nations impoverished and unstable.
Barry Buzan’s work, People, States, and Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations (1983, Wheatsheaf Books), presents a comprehensive analysis of the concept of security, arguing that it extends beyond military threats to include political, economic, societal, and environmental dimensions. His analysis highlights the interconnectedness of national security with political and economic stability.
Buzan argues that national security should not be narrowly defined as the protection of a state from external military threats. Instead, it is a multi-dimensional concept that includes: Political security: The stability of a state’s governmental systems, institutions, and ideology; and Economic security: The capacity of a state to maintain a robust and self-sustaining economy.
These dimensions, according to Buzan, are foundational because vulnerabilities in the political or economic realms can directly translate into threats to national security.
Political stability is essential for national security. A state with stable political institutions and widely accepted governance mechanisms is less vulnerable to internal dissent, rebellion, or external manipulation. Stable political systems ensure continuity and effectiveness in responding to security threats. Weak or fractured political systems struggle to coordinate defence, diplomacy, and internal security measures.
Political instability, such as contested authority or ideological rifts, can invite external interference or exploitation by adversaries. For example, states experiencing civil wars or political turmoil often face challenges in maintaining sovereignty and territorial integrity, as in Syria or Somalia.
Economic stability is intertwined with national security. A stable economy ensures adequate funding for defence and security infrastructure. Economic crises can lead to reduced military budgets and a weakened defence posture. Economic well-being reduces internal discontent, which could manifest as unrest, radicalisation, or separatist movements. Economic security is crucial in an interconnected world. Dependence on foreign resources or supply chains can create vulnerabilities, such as during economic sanctions or trade disruptions. Economic crises like the Great Depression or financial collapses have historically led to widespread political instability, often precipitating security concerns, as seen in pre-World War II Europe.
Buzan highlights that political and economic stability are mutually reinforcing. Political instability can deter foreign investment, disrupt markets, and lead to economic stagnation. Economic hardship can exacerbate political tensions, fuel populism, or empower extremist ideologies. This cyclical relationship means that weaknesses in either domain can have cascading effects on national security. The 2008 global financial crisis triggered economic instability that contributed to political upheaval in various regions, including the Arab Spring.
In today’s interconnected world, Buzan’s insights are even more relevant. National security is shaped not only by internal factors but also by global dynamics, such as Global financial crises and Political ideologies. States are vulnerable to transnational economic shocks that destabilise local economies and societies. The rise of authoritarianism or liberal democratic challenges globally can affect the political stability of neighbouring or allied states.
Buzan’s work implies that states should adopt a holistic approach to national security, addressing political and economic vulnerabilities alongside military readiness. Some key takeaways for policymakers include prioritising political reforms that enhance institutional resilience and legitimacy; investing in economic diversification and self-reliance to reduce vulnerabilities to external shocks; recognizing the socio-political impacts of economic decisions and ensuring equitable development to prevent unrest.
The third reason is global competitiveness. Development allows a nation to innovate, produce competitive goods and services, and attract foreign investment. In a globalised world, staying competitive ensures economic resilience and influence in international affairs."
