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POEC / GLST / INTR 395: Political Economy of Development: People, Processes, and Policies 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

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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Jerven, Morten. (2014). Measuring African development: Past and present. Introduction to the Special Issue. Canadian Journal of Development Studies, 35(1), 1–8.
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.
Rosling, Hans. (2009). Hans Rosling: Let my dataset change your mindset.
Supplementary Readings
Chang, Ha-Joon. (2011). Institutions and economic development: Theory, policy and history. Journal of Institutional Economics 7(4), 473–498.
Jahan, Sarwat, A. S. Mahmud, & Chris Papageorgiou. (2014). What is Keynesian economics? Finance and Development, 51(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

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.
Pomeranze, Kenneth. (2012). Contemporary development and economic history: How do we know what matters? Economic History of Developing Regions, 27(S1), S136–S148.
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.
Supplementary Readings
Crutzen, P. J. (2002). Geology of mankind. Nature, 415(6867), 23.
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.
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

Reinert, Erik S. (2012). Neo-classical economics: A trail of economic destruction since the 1970s. Real-World Economics Review, 60 (Open source).
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.
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.
Chatterjee, (2022) The New Developmentalism and its discontents: State Activism in Gujarat and Modi’s India.  Development and Change,  53(1), 58–83.  
James, Emily. (2002). The Luckiest Nut.
Supplementary Readings
Cranby, Stephen. (2012). Planet of slums. Geodate, 25(4), 2–5.
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.
Mohan, Rakesh, & Vandana Aggarwal. (1990). Commands and controls: Planning for Indian industrial development. Journal of Comparative Economics, 14(4), 681–712.
Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). (2011). Divided we stand: Why inequality keeps rising.

Unit 4 – International Development Aid: Then and Now

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.
Alesina, Alberto, & David Dollar. (2000). Who gives foreign aid to whom and why? Journal of Economic Growth, 5(1), 33–63.
Six, Clemens. (2009) The rise of postcolonial states as donors: A challenge to the development paradigm? Third World Quarterly, 30(6), 1103–1121.
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). www.ifad.org/en/  
Berger, Hannes. (2021). Dynamics of Global Asymmetries. Third World Quarterly, 42(11).
Rosling, Hans. (2015). Hans Rosling: How to beat Ebola. BBC Magazine.
Supplementary Readings and Websites
Ebrahimzadeh, Christine. (2012). Dutch disease: Wealth managed unwisely. Finance and Development.
Hobbes, Michael. (2014). Stop trying to save the world: Big ideas are destroying international development. New Republic.
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

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.
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.
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.
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.
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. (2021). Forward, State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. Rights to Lands, Territories and Resources (pp. vii–xi). Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
BBC. (2022). Real story: The global debt crisis. [podcast]
Supplementary Readings
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.
Department of Social and Economic Affairs (DESA). (2008). Resource kit on indigenous peoples’ issues. United Nations.
Dobb, Edwin. (2015). Canadian First Nations seek to protect forest homeland: By winning protection for their boreal forest, indigenous peoples help slow global warming. National Geographic.

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

Mitchell, K., & M. Sparke. (2016). The new Washington consensus: Millennial philanthropy and the making of global market subjects. Antipode, 48(3), 724–726.
Domosh, Mona. (2015). Practising development at home: Race, gender, and the ‘development’ of the American South. Antipode, 47(4), 915–941.
Roser, Max. (2016). World poverty. Our World in Data.
Huws, Ursula. (2015). iCapitalism and the cybertariat: Contradictions of the digital economy. Monthly Review, 66(8), 42–57.
Jacobs, M. (2023). Reflections on COP26: International diplomacy, global justice and the greening of capitalism. The Political Quarterly, 93(2), 270–277
Patel, Raj. (2015). The secret ingredient for ending world hunger. TED Conferences.
La Via Campesina. (2012). La Via Campesina in movement: Food sovereignty now.
Supplementary Readings
Poverty – Our world in data
Margulis M. E., Hopewell K. and Qereshniku, E. (2023). Food, famine and the free trade fallacy: the dangers of market fundamentalism in an era of climate emergency. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 50(1), 215–239.
Presenting Doughnut Economics: videos and slides.
Fanning, A., Daniel O’Niell, Jason Hickel, & Nicolas Roux. The social shortfall and ecological overshoot of nations. Nature Sustainability, 5. 26–36.