Denis Goulet, in The Social Dimensions of Globalization, ed. Louis Sabourin (Vatican City: Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, 2000, 26-46)

As the UNDP notes, economic development is a means to a broader end: qualitative human development. Pursuing economic development as an end leads to serious distortions. Correction requires using market competition as a social mechanism, not as an operating principle. Globalization produces good and bad effects. The entry into arenas of development decision-making of new actors — NGOs and other agents of civil society — reframes the terms of development debates. There are growing demands from affected populations and institutional actors in civil society to define their own development. This challenges elite decision-making of dominant international financial institutions, great power governments, and large international business firms.

Top of Page

Home > Publications > Peace Colloquy > Issue 1 (Spring 2002)