The new international population movement: a framework for a constructive critique

Abstract

This paper suggests that the old (neo-Malthusian) ideological orthodoxy which informed much of the population policy debate until the mid-1980s is in danger of being replaced by a new orthodoxy which is also unduly one-sided and simplistic. In addition, this new ideology, which received such a boost at the Cairo conference, is under even less pressure to re-evaluate some of its premises because it is motivated by more obviously altruistic and egalitarian concerns, and a challenge to its premises runs the risk of being interpreted as a challenge to these humane goals. However, letting ideology inform research and policy can have self-defeating consequences when it ignores the complexity of the real world, the frequency of trade-offs, and the many ways in which there may be a conflict between policy-relevant empirical findings and these ideological goals. The paper explores some of these issues in the context of Cairo and presents a framework which may be used to develop a constructive critique of the new international population policy agenda.