1 - History

Summary

In this chapter we trace the history of national development planning, explaining how and why it has emerged as a global institution during the course of this century. Ideological and other differences have disguised the increasing similarities of planning: it has grown up amid international competition and conflict, yet it has common origins in both the socialist and capitalist states. We discuss the diffusion of the organisation and techniques of planning to the poor countries of the Third World, and consider how social science has helped to shape – and how it has been shaped by – changing ideas about the organisation of development.

Introduction

The theory of development planning as applied to the poor countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America derived from Soviet centralized planning procedures reinterpreted, via Keynesian macroeconomics, to fit the circumstances of the mixed economy. Theories of development converged and crystallized into a single model – national comprehensive planning – which despite setbacks, varying degrees of sophistication, reinterpretation, modification, and doubt, still remains the model of choice.

(Caiden & Wildavsky 1974: 169)

Since the Second World War almost every country in the world, from Britain and Bolivia to Finland and Fiji, has had a national development plan. Why this should be so is one of the intriguing questions of the twentieth century. Indeed, it may be no less interesting to ask why a curious handful of countries (Hong Kong, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, the USA) have not had national plans.