ABSTRACT
Introduction The idea of ‘development’, as it emerged in the post-Second World War era of de-colonization and American hegemony, embodied notions of ‘progress’ and ‘modernity’. Many development theorists have discussed how it came to have these connotations and produced a set of remarkably uniform discourses and practices, which inuenced the economic, political and social policies adopted by both poorer countries and multi-and bilateral development agencies. The body of ideas and practices espoused by ‘mainstream’ development policy has been sustained by geopolitical dynamics, the aspirations of post-colonial governments, the interests vested in the ‘aid business’ and the emergence of development studies as a multidisciplinary eld of study. This is not to say that specic development objectives, the organizational arrangements for regulating relationships between ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries, and development policies and practices have not changed since the 1950s. As the ex-colonies have become more economically dierentiated, authoritarian and democratic regimes have come and gone, alternative theoretical ideas about ‘development’ and ‘underdevelopment’ have asserted their greater explanatory power, and policies have changed in the light of experience, the early certainties have been challenged.
