Development and Civilisation

This article discusses different phases of development discourse at the global level which was dominated by Eurocentricism for a long time. While offering a critique of Eurocentric discourse, this article argues that successive crises in world capitalism, especially the east Asian crisis in 1997 and the world economic crisis in 2008, mark the breakdown of the Washington consensus which had spurred the trend of globalisation. This led many developing countries to a debt trap, consequently squeezing public resources for people’s welfare. The recent years have witnessed the emergence of the Beijing consensus taking into account the rise of new economic forces. At this juncture, the third world is raising long neglected civilisational issues which could shape the development discourse in the coming years.