Annelise Grimm
MA Development Studies
Brown University
THESIS ABSTRACT:
Recent development literature has highlighted the potential role of civil society participation and deliberation in development projects. (Sen, Heller, etc.) As a result, institutions such as the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank have begun to emphasize civil society participation in the design, implementation, and evaluation of development projects. However, participation/deliberation can only be successful when citizens have sufficient political, economic, and social capital to overcome power and resource inequalities at the negotiating table.
I will be using Plan Puebla-Panamá, a regional integration initiative that encompasses South- Southeastern Mexico and Central America, as a case study to examine the difficulties faced by international agencies and various members of civil society as they attempt to deliberate over potential and ongoing development projects. The official discourse that surrounds Plan Puebla-Panamá places an emphasis on the inclusion and participation of marginalized communities, environmental sustainability, and human development. However, I argue that in practice the plan is a neoliberal development intervention based upon conventional definitions of development as modernization/industrialization, and that the vast majority of the plan was designed without the input of key stakeholders.
With this project, I hope to highlight the tensions between what the plan's supporters (international finance institutions and government agencies) claim are their goals, motivations, and official policies throughout the participatory/deliberative process, and what community organizations and NGOs claim to be experiencing on the ground.
