PLT2470

Politics of development

Proposed to be offered next in 1999

Susan Blackburn and David Goldsworthy

8 points
* 3 hours per week
* Clayton

Objectives On successful completion of this subject students should have an understanding of the ways in which policies to combat world poverty have been theorised, devised and applied, with particular reference to the politics of these endeavours.

Synopsis This subject works from the premise that in order to grasp and cope with the problems of development and change in poor countries, it is important to be strongly aware of their political dimensions. Thus it considers development issues in relation to such questions as: What ideologies are involved? What interests are at stake? Who has political power, and how is it used? What are the interacting roles of the state, elites and classes in development? What are the relationships between development and such political values as freedom, equality and participation? In dealing with these questions the subject ranges across the major conservative, liberal and radical traditions in postwar development theory, and seeks to relate movements in ideas to their real-world context.

Assessment Essay (3000 words): 50%
* Examination (3 hours): 50%

Prescribed texts

Allen T and Thomas A (eds) Poverty and development in the 1990s OUP, 1992

Recommended texts

Hettne B Development theory and the three worlds 2nd edn, Longman, 1995
Schuurman F (ed.) Beyond the impasse Zed, 1993