DEMYTHOLOGIZING PLANNED INTERVENTION: AN ACTOR PERSPECTIVE.

The principal aim of this article is to demythologize current notions on planned intervention. It has been assumed that this is indispensable for the development of a critical analysis of policy and intervention practices. It has been argued that it is important to challenge the time-space definitions, normative assumptions and praxeology implied in orthodox intervention models; and the article exposes the limitations of certain theoretical conceptions that underpin them, giving particular attention to the theorization of commoditization, institutional incorporation and the interrelations of state and civil society. As an alternative, an actor-oriented analysis has been proposed that views intervention as a "multiple reality" made up of differing cultural perceptions and social interests, and constituted by the ongoing social and political struggles that take place between the social actors involved. One needs to distinguish between theoretical models aimed at understanding processes of social change and development and policy models which attempt to set out the ways in which development can be promoted. One unresolved issue in this line of reasoning is the question of state autonomy. In order to resolve this, one needs to define more precisely the sets of social forces impinging upon state powerholders and institutions and to determine the means and extent of political control exercised by powerful interest groups, including the dominant national and foreign classes. A conclusion has been drawn that the logic of capital approach to state intervention does not differentiate sufficiently between what one might call the imperatives and the actualities of capitalist development as they work out in differing social contexts.