This chapter considers at greater length an unusual coherence of management ideas that emerged by the mid 1960s and endured for about a decade. It also offers examples to better understand the consequences of such coherence. This was a “conception of the world” in Gramsci's terms, one shared by modernization and dependency theorists. The late 1960s through the 1970s saw an unprecedented and never again repeated coherence in the way management was perceived. It stretched across ideological divides, part of the common sense of the time. Management theorists moved a significant distance toward the ambitions of an administrative science. In doing so, their ideas also legitimized and emboldened authoritarian decisions and policies in different spheres. At its height of influence, international development actors relied on aspects of management thinking, offering the discipline unparalleled levels of visibility and legitimacy. The free-market doctrine of the 1980s marked an end to this taken-for-granted view of management ideas in development. Within MOS, however, this conception remains part of its foundational canon, unchallenged, indeed unremarked, the fabric with which its theories are knitted and the weave of the discipline maintained.

The first section describes this conception, naming it “high management.” The second section discusses the theories that offered “high management” legitimacy and authority, under two broad emphases—“high management form” and “high management style.” The third section illustrates “high management” in international development and civil society reaction. The section's attention is on World Bank projects of the time that adversely affected the status and rights of indigenous communities in the Philippines, Indonesia, Brazil, and India. It also considers the career of a prominent manager of development, Robert Strange McNamara, director of the World Bank from 1968 to 1981. McNamara literally “twinned” notions of development and management.

A shared common sense in international development

From President Truman's inauguration to the first oil shock, 1949 to 1973, dominant views of development emphasized the following: technical knowledge and prowess as a driver of development, state planning to identify and accomplish overarching developmental goals, and close cooperation between donor organizations and state governments. Modernization and dependency theorists, despite differences of how to attain development, shared common sense about the techniques, skills, and knowledge required to achieve international development.