2020-2021 Global Development Studies Senior Thesis Projects
Jose Sebastian Linares '21
Project Title: How Corrupt, Incompetent, and Insular Leadership, Hinders Global Development in Latin America, Specifically Chile, Peru, and Venezuela.
Summary: Global Development is a process with the goal of creating growth, progress and positive change through the addition of needed economic, political, and social components. However, development, no matter how well intentioned and designed, has a habit of collapsing under bad leadership. Corrupt, incompetent, and insular leaders pose a threat to development progress as a whole. Bad leadership, however, is not simply the result of corrupt, insular, or incompetent individuals gaining power, but also by the history of development, and the path it has taken, which can lead to the creation of a system that enables these individuals to take control. Through the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the UN provides a guide to develop sustainably, which inevitably means without corrupt, incompetent, and insular leadership. Without active efforts to stop bad leadership, there will be a stagnation in the development process, and progress made by the SDGs will be lost.