Somehow related to Spencer Banzhaf's post, I cannot help thinking that the etymology of the term is not innocent here. Both the etym and the usages listed by the Oxford English Dictionary incorporate the idea of an unfolding of something that is already fully inscribed (even if only implicitly) into the object or process under consideration.

The implication is that the process of development has a specific teleology: developed countries are more advanced along the traced way, while underdeveloped (or, more charitably, developing) countires are bound to follow (some faster, some slower) that same route. The teleology is fully contained within the premises: history has already ended.

(I am not, of course, claiming that all, or even most, writers on development shared this perspective. Some writers, however, and some politicaly bodies, surely do)

Below a transcription of the definitions given by the OED.

Daniele Besomi



Etymology:  < French développe-r, Old French (12–13th cent.) desvoleper, -volosper, -voloper, 14th cent. desvelopper (whence an earlier English form disvelop v.), = Provençaldesvolopar, -volupar, Italian sviluppare ‘to unwrap, to disentangle, to rid free’ (Florio), <des-, Latin dis- + the Romance verb which appears in modern Italian as viluppare ‘to enwrap, to bundle, to folde, to roll up, to entangle, to trusse up, to heape up’, viluppo ‘an enwrapping, a bundle, a fardle, a trusse, an enfolding’ (Florio).

The process or fact of developing; the concrete result of this process:

 1. A gradual unfolding, a bringing into fuller view; a fuller disclosure or working out of the details of anything, as a plan, a scheme, the plot of a novel. Also quasi-concr. that in which the fuller unfolding is embodied or realized.

2. Evolution or bringing out from a latent or elementary condition; the production of a natural force, energy, or new form of matter.

3. The growth and unfolding of what is in the germ; the condition of that which is developed:
a. of organs and organisms.
b. Of races of plants and animals: The same asevolution n.; the evolutionary process and its result.development theory or development hypothesis(Biol.): the doctrine of Evolution; applied especially to that form of the doctrine taught by Lamarck (died 1829).
c. The bringing out of the latent capabilities (of anything); the fuller expansion (of any principle or activity).
d. The act or process of developing (see develop v. 3f) a mine, site, estate, property, or the like; also, a developed tract of land. Freq. attrib., esp. indevelopment work (see also sense 11 below). Cf.ribbon development n. at ribbon n. Compounds 3.
e. The economic advancement of a region or people, esp. one currently under-developed (sense 3b). [the earlies example cited of usage in this sense is dated 1902

4. Gradual advancement through progressive stages, growth from within.

5. A developed or well-grown condition; a state in which anything is in vigorous life or action.

6. The developed result or product; a developed form of some earlier and more rudimentary organism, structure, or system.