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GLST 695: Political Economy of Development: People, Processes, and Policies (Rev. 1) Report a Broken Link

This course provides a broad overview of the historical evolution of the dynamic and contested concept of development, its theoretical study, and its application in the domestic and international policy spheres.

Unit 1 – Introduction to Development Studies: Theory and Practice

READING 1: Desai, Radhika. (2009). Theories of development. In Haslam, Paul A. Haslam, Jessica Schafer and Pierre Beaudet (Eds.) Introduction to international development: Approaches, actors, and issues (pp. 45–65). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. 
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READING 2: Jerven, Morten. (2014). Measuring African development: Past and present. Introduction to the Special Issue. Canadian Journal of Development Studies, 35(1), 1–8.
READING 3: White, Linda A., & Martha Friendly. (2012). Public funding, private delivery: States, markets, and early childhood education and care in liberal welfare states—Australia, the UK, Quebec, and New Zealand. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, 14(4), 292–310.
VIDEO: Rosling, Hans. (2009). Hans Rosling: Let my dataset change your mindset.
Additional Required Readings
READING 1: Chang, Ha-Joon. (2011). Institutions and economic development: Theory, policy and history. Journal of Institutional Economics 7(4), 473–498.
READING 2: Jahan, Sarwat, A. S. Mahmud, & Chris Papageorgiou. (2014). What is Keynesian economics? Finance and Development, 51(3).
READING 3: Mosse, David. (2006). Collective action, common property, and social capital in South India: An anthropological commentary. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 54(3), 695–724.

Unit 2 – A long view of economic history: Putting ‘development’ (and the lack of it) into perspective

READING 1: Pomeranze, Kenneth, & Stephen Topik. (2015). Introduction and Chapter 1 (The making of market conventions). In The world that trade created: Society, culture, and the world economy 1400 to the present (pp. ix-xiii, 3–48). New York: Routledge.
READING 2: Pomeranze, Kenneth. (2012). Contemporary development and economic history: How do we know what matters? Economic History of Developing Regions, 27(S1), S136–S148.
READING 3: Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, & James A. Robinson. (2000). The colonial origins of comparative development: An empirical investigation. National Bureau of Economic Research (Cambridge, MA). Working Paper No. 7771, 1–63.
Additional Required Readings
READING 1: Crutzen, P. J. (2002). Geology of mankind. Nature, 415(6867), 23.
READING 2: Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, & James Robinson. (2005). The rise of Europe: Atlantic trade, institutional change, and economic growth. The American Economic Review, 95(3), 546–579.
READING 3: Oxfam Briefing Paper. (2016). An economy for the 1%: How privilege and power in the economy drive extreme inequality and how this can be stopped. Oxfam International, January 18.

Unit 3 – Development as a Domestic Policy Objective: The Role of the State

READING 1: Reinert, Erik S. (2012). Neo-classical economics: A trail of economic destruction since the 1970s. Real-World Economics Review, 60 (Open source).
READING 2: Mkandawire, Thandika. (2010). How the new poverty agenda neglected social and employment policies in Africa. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 11(1), 37–55.
READING 3: Chang, Ha-Joon. (2002). Breaking the mould: An institutionalist political economy alternative to the neoliberal theory of the market and the state. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 26(5), 539–559.
VIDEO: James, Emily. (2002). The Luckiest Nut.
Additional Required Readings
READING 1: Cranby, Stephen. (2012). Planet of slums. Geodate, 25(4), 2–5.
READING 2: Debowicz, Dario, & Paul Segal. (2014). Structural change in Argentina 1935–1960: The role of import substitution and factor endowments. The Journal of Economic History, 74(1), 230–258.
READING 3: Mohan, Rakesh, & Vandana Aggarwal. (1990). Commands and controls: Planning for Indian industrial development. Journal of Comparative Economics, 14(4), 681–712.
READING 4: Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). (2011). Divided we stand: Why inequality keeps rising.

Unit 4 – International Development Aid: Then and Now

READING 1: Doucouliagos, Hristos, & Martin Paldam. (2009). The aid effectiveness literature: The sad results of 40 years of research. Journal of Economic Surveys, 23(3), 433–461.
READING 2: Alesina, Alberto, & David Dollar. (2000). Who gives foreign aid to whom and why? Journal of Economic Growth, 5(1), 33–63.
READING 3: Six, Clemens. (2009) The rise of postcolonial states as donors: A challenge to the development paradigm? Third World Quarterly, 30(6), 1103–1121.
READING 4: Rosling, Hans. (2015). Hans Rosling: How to beat Ebola. BBC Magazine.
Additional Required Readings
READING 1: Ebrahimzadeh, Christine. (2012). Dutch disease: Wealth managed unwisely. Finance and Development.
READING 2: Hobbes, Michael. (2014). Stop trying to save the world: Big ideas are destroying international development. New Republic.
READING 3: Gilbert, Natasha. (2013). International aid projects come under the microscope: Clinical-research techniques deployed to assess effectiveness of aid initiatives. Nature, 493(7433), 462–463.

Unit 5 – Development and Economic Globalization: The Enforcers and the Resisters

READING 1: Brodie, Janine, & Alexa DeGagné. (2014). Neo-liberalism. In Janine Brodie, Sandra Rein, and Malinda Smith (Eds.), Critical concepts: An introduction to politics (pp. 60–76). Toronto: Pearson.
READING 2: Stiglitz, Joseph. (2002). Globalization and the logic of international collective action: Re-examining the Bretton Woods Institutions. In Deepak Nayyar (Ed.), Governing globalization: Issues and institutions (pp. 238–253). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
READING 3: Cornwall, Andrea, & Althea-Maria Rivas. (2015). From ‘gender equality and ‘women’s empowerment’ to global justice: Reclaiming a transformative agenda for gender and development. Third World Quarterly, 36(2), 396–415.
READING 4: Slowey, Gabrielle, & Lorna Stefanick. (2015). Development at what cost? First Nations, ecological integrity, and democracy. In Meenal Shrivastava & Lorna Stefanick (Eds.), Alberta oil and the decline of democracy in Canada (pp. 195–224). Edmonton: Athabasca University Press.
Additional Required Readings
READING 1: Boas, Taylor C. & Jordan Gans-Morse. (2009). Neoliberalism: From new liberal philosophy to anti-liberal slogan. Studies in Comparative International Development (SCID), 44(2), 137–161.
READING 2: Department of Social and Economic Affairs (DESA). (2008). Resource kit on indigenous peoples’ issues. United Nations.
READING 3: Health Canada. 2022. Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples' Health in Canada. National Collaborating Centre for Indigenous Health (NCCIH).

Unit 6 – Challenges of “Development” in the Twenty-First Century: Inequality, iCapitalism, and Climate Change

READING 1: Mitchell, K., & M. Sparke. (2016). The new Washington consensus: Millennial philanthropy and the making of global market subjects. Antipode, 48(3), 724–726.
READING 2: Domosh, Mona. (2015). Practising development at home: Race, gender, and the ‘development’ of the American South. Antipode, 47(4), 915–941.
VIDEO 1: Patel, Raj. (2015). Peter Raj: The secret ingredient for ending world hunger.
VIDEO 2: La Via Campesina. (2012). La Via Campesina in movement: Food sovereignty now.
Additional Required Readings
READING 1: Roser, Max. (2016). World poverty. Our World in Data
READING 2: Huws, Ursula. (2015). iCapitalism and the cybertariat: Contradictions of the digital economy. Monthly Review, 66(8), 42–57.
READING 3: Jaccard, Mark. (2016). Want an effective climate policy? Heed the evidence. Policy Options.  
VIDEO: Survival International. (n.d.). There you go!