Week 5: Whither development?: The crossroads at the end of history
DVST 6901: The global politics of development (Semester 2,
2026)
August 31, 2026
At the end of the 20th century, the ironies and contradictions baked into the classical Cold War idea of development could no longer be avoided. Do we reject development itself or redefine it?
Main reading: Escobar ([1995] 2012), intro. and chap. 3; Sen (1999), intro. and chap. 4
Other reading: Rist (2014), chap. 11
Notes
Notes to be added later.
Keywords
capabilities approach, postdevelopment
Learning outcomes
- Understand the critical rethinking of development theory in the late 20th century
- Be able to compare and evaluate new definitions of development as freedom and the idea of postdevelopment
References
Escobar, Arturo. (1995) 2012. Encountering Development: The Making
and Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb31025.0001.001.
Rist, Gilbert. 2014. The History of Development: From Western
Origins to Global Faith. Translated by Patrick Camiller. 4th ed.
London: Bloomsbury Academic & Professional. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/usyd/detail.action?docID=5915284.
Sen, Amartya. 1999. Development as Freedom. Oxford University
Press.