Owen Barder Response

Answer (How is development defined, and how does it relate to Sen’s theory?):

Owen Barder defines devlopment as “the emergence of self-organizing complexity.” Though, it is critical to notice that he does not focuse on the colletion of successes. In order to have development, Barder stresses the idea that societies need to have settings in which they can adapt, learn, and evolve. For instance, simply puting institutions in a country (ie through aid) is not enough for development. In order to put human development, countries need to take steps toward increasing transparancy and encouraging experimentation. His idea of complexity relates to Sen’s definition of devolpment because promoting peoples abilities to experiment or industries capabilities to fail or prosper goes along side with Sen’s argument that development and freedom strongly relate to free choice. In Barder’s case, people and industries in an adaptive complex setting have the ability to make choices and then thrive or fail based off of them.

Answer (Why does Barder recommend resisting engineering):

Clearly, Barder strongly suggests that people should not attempt to engineer solutions. This is because he believes that we leaving in a complex adaptive society where our lives and future are non-linear. By non-linear, Barder implies that the specifif components of life, such as the economy, politics, etc, do not go about on a straight path, so they are nearly impossible to predict. When Barder discusses iso-morphic mimicry, he focuses on the idea of aid. Generally when large donors creat charities or help build institutions in developing countries, they believe the presence of an institutuion will help increase development and freedom in the given coutnries; however, he states that the mere presence of the institutions to does not inherently increase the development and freedom within those countries because it cannoth change and adapt to the environment around it.