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Présentation
The course has been prepared bearing in mind students who have taken courses in political economy or international political economy in the second year at ESPOL. However, in order to make it accessible to exchange students and to ESPOL students who were on exchange last year, some general issues and debates will be repeated in the first part of the course to make sure that nobody is left behind.
Politics of Development (POD)
Academic Year 2020/2021, Autumn Term
Lecturer: Elisa Greco
Seminar Instructor: Sigfrido Ramirez Perez
sigfrido.ramirez@alumni.eui.eu
Office hours: by appointment.
Teaching methods: one weekly lecture and one weekly seminar (travaux dirigées) during the first semester. Due to the adjustments caused by the ongoing COVID19 pandemic, lectures will be online while seminars will be in presence.
Assessment: One seminar presentation (30%); one mid-term test (30%); one final exam at the end of the course (40%).
Course description
This introductory course in development studies is tailored for students of international relations and political science as a broad overview, with the addition of a few selected themes. It offers the theoretical tools to understand the politics of development. A particular emphasis is put on the importance of distinguishing the difference between immanent and intentional development and detecting the divergences between theories and practices of development. At the end of the course, students will have acquired the theoretical foundations to discuss the main issues in development studies.
This is a pluralist module, which discusses and compares different theoretical approaches within development studies with a focus on politics, as distinct from policies. While it includes reading suggestions on development practice, the course is not practice-oriented nor is policy-oriented. It focuses on the politics of development, examining the colonial origins of development theories and their contemporary implications.
The course is structured in two parts. In Part I, we critically discuss the concept of development and its relation to colonialism. The institutionalisation of development as an ideology during the Bretton Woods period and theories of development - economic nationalism - are analysed to explain the methodological nationalism that has marked development studies until very recently. The lost decade of the 1980s is introduced through an analysis of Structural Adjustment Programmes. This historically grounded analysis of the politics of development as they unfolded from the Bretton Woods era onwards offers the foundation for a thematic discussion. In Part II, we reflect on specific themes – development aid and debt; food aid and famines; class and inequality; extractives and development; agriculture and development – that are central to the current conjuncture in development politics.
By the end of the course students should have achieved:
- an understanding of the central concepts in development studies
- competence in thematic areas of contemporary development debates
Students are encouraged to develop their critical thinking skills and enhance their ability to understand international development trends. The theoretical part is especially aimed at enabling students to critically interpret the language deployed by international development institutions with a critical eye. Students will also enhance their critical reading
Modalités
Teaching methods: one weekly lecture and one weekly seminar (travaux dirigées) during the first semester. Due to the adjustments caused by the ongoing COVID19 pandemic, lectures will be online while seminars will be in presence.
Ressources
Development studies is a cross-disciplinary field (anthropology, economics, history, geography, political science, sociology). In the course we will cite different examples of regional areas worldwide. You can read peer-review articles in leading journals cited below to complement the lecture notes. The following textbooks are particularly useful for having a global overlook of the field:|| <b>Handbooks and general readings</b>|| Crush, J. (1995) (eds.) <i>Power of Development</i>, London, Routledge (introduction)|| Bishop, M. (2018), « Croissance et développement », in Hay C., Smith A. (eds.), <i>Dictionnaire d’économie politique. Capitalisme, institutions, pouvoirs</i>, Paris, Presses de Sciences Po. p. 149-162. DOI : 10.3917/scpo.smith.2018.01.0149.|| Desai, V., Potter, R. (eds.) (2014) <i>The companion to development studies</i> (third edition), London, Routledge.|| Escobar, A. (2012), <i>Encountering development: the making and unmaking of the Third World</i>, Princeton, Princeton University Press.|| *Grugel, J., Hammett, D. (2016) (eds.) <i>The Palgrave Handbook of International Development.</i> London, Palgrave Macmillan.|| Kothari, U., Minogue, M. (2002) <i>Development theory and practice. Critical perspectives, </i>New York, Palgrave.|| McMichael, P., Weber, H. (2022), <i>Development and Social Change. A Global Perspective</i> (Seventh ed.), Los Angeles, SAGE.|| *Rist G. (2019), <i>The History of Development. </i><i>From Western origins to Global Faith</i> (Fith ed.), London, ZED Books (en français: <i>Le Développement. Histoire d’une croyance occidentale</i>, Paris : Presses de Sciences Po, available on CAIRN)|| Robinson, J. (2006), <i>Ordinary cities. Between modernity and development</i>, London, Routledge.|| Trigilia, C. (2002), <i>Economic Sociology. State, Market and Society in Contemporary Capitalism</i>, London, Blackwell.|| <b>Academic journals</b>|| Competition & Change|| Critique Internationale|| Development in Practice|| Development and Change|| International Journal of Urban and Regional Research|| Journal of Rural Studies|| New Political Economy|| Regional Studies|| Studies in Comparative International Development|| The Journal of Development Studies|| Third World Quarterly|| World Development||