Describe the meaning and scope of development.

 Development generally refers to progress in all aspects of human beings and society such as social, political and economic. It involves stages of structural change in society from traditional to modern. Generally, this change indicates transformation of a traditional agrarian society to modern industrial society. In social sciences, the concept of development has been viewed differently in sociology and political science on the one hand, and economics on the other. Sociology and political science consider development in terms of transformation which occurs due to the interaction between traditional society and modern political institutions. In this understanding of development, as a result of this interaction both traditional society and modern institutions undergo transformation. 

Thus, society develops from lower lever to higher level of development. This transformation is also seen as modernisation or development. The theories that explain such development are known as modernisation or development theories. The principal pioneers of modernisation or development theories in Political Science were David Easton, Gabriel A. Almond and Colemen, and in Sociology it was Talcott Parsons. Many political scientists and sociologists have attempted to explain politics and social processes in India by using modernisation or development theories. Modernisation or development theories, indeed, represented non-Marxian alternative of development. Indeed, the subtitle of the book The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (1990) of W.W. Rostow, a development theorist indicates the non-Marxian orientation of modernisation or development theories. In Economics, the notion of development has undergone changes over the years. In this discipline, traditionally development denoted growth and distribution. Subsequently, it also came to mean welfare of the people and human development. The welfare notion of development denotes development achieved through the policies meant to provide welfare to people, especially marginalised, in terms of health, education and removal of poverty. In welfare notion of development, the state plays a dominant role in designing and implementing welfare policies. The welfare notion of development was propagated by John Maynard Keynes, the famous British economist in General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1964). He argued that capitalist economies suffer from redistribution failure. This happens due to excessive degree of income concentration in capitalist economies. The excessive concentration might lead to political and social instability in a society. In his opinion, a welfare state or state which could implement policies for achieving full-scale employment and public welfare can lead to development of a society. The focus of development shifted in the late 1970s from welfare state to market. It occurred under Margareta Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the USA. This led to greater interplay of market forces and retreat of state from various social sectors.

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