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This article introduces the special issue on Narendra Modi and India’s foreign policy. It observes that there is little consensus about the effectiveness of the Modi government’s management of international relations. Some argue that since it first came to power in May 2014 it has transformed India’s foreign policy and proved far more successful than its predecessors in handling the country’s key relationships and challenges. Others contend that India’s basic strategy is unchanged and that New Delhi’s position is weaker today in important areas, notably regarding China and Pakistan than it was under earlier regimes. This article introduces this debate and the analytical questions addressed in the special issue concerning the extent of prime ministerial autonomy in foreign policymaking, the role of ideas and ideology, and the question of how far India’s agency is constrained by structural impediments, both in its immediate region and further afield.

Voicing criticism seems to be a difficult task for employees in international organisations (IOs), as numerous anecdotes in the literature suggest. This observation is alarming, since internal criticism is an indispensable resource for organisational learning processes. So why are IOs apparently not using this resource to its full potential? The present article is the first to provide a comprehensive answer to this question by combining insights from organisation theory with an empirical case study of the UN Secretariat. My general argument is that 'criticism from within' is ambivalent. It can be a resource for, but also a threat to IOs: internal criticism can endanger an IO's external reputation as well as destabilise the organisation from within. Based on this theoretical understanding, I identify and empirically examine three specific reasons for the UN Secretariat's weak criticism culture: (1) Criticism is suppressed due to a widespread fear of leaks resulting from external pressures. (2) Criticism is avoided as a strategy of self-protection in the face of (inevitable) failures. (3) Constructive criticism is difficult to express in settings where organisational hypocrisy is necessary.

The Gulf is increasingly recognized as one of the most dynamic and unstable regions in the international system. Within the region, the survival of small states can no longer be taken for granted and power relations are conflictual. The hegemonic ambitions of larger regional state actors draw small states into a contested orbit and emphasize the fluidity of pre-existing notions of the balance of power. This has led to forms of fragmentation. Small states can no longer sit comfortably under the shelter of regional and even external super-powers. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on small states like Kuwait and Qatar is a useful prism to examine the ways in which such small states attempt to project power and sovereignty through their diplomatic responses. Our argument, here, is that such discourse is framed as part of an ideational and material construct for state resilience within a regional and international system that is perceived as predatory. Yet pandemic politics reveals both the opportunities and limits of such approaches.

The ongoing covid-19 pandemic has prompted discussions, both politically and analytically, that frame its security problematic as an infrastructural dilemma that unfolds between the public health-related need for interrupting the movement of people and calls to keep economic processes of production, distribution and consumption going. Moving beyond this diagnosis, we argue that infrastructural responses to the crisis in the European Union have resulted in the creation and invocation of economic and socio-material assemblages that are expected to steer societies through the crisis, which we term 'safe assemblages'. In empirical terms, we discuss the cases of the creation of economic emergency funds which we view as economic assemblages that guarantee payment connectivity for struggling businesses, and of the invocation of the 'home' as an assemblage that minimises contagion risks while maintaining social connectivity through digital means. In theoretical terms, we suggest expanding current theorisations of the role of circulation in security infrastructures, referring to Foucault, by a consideration of assemblages as a third component that mediates the relationship between circulation and its interruption.

This study presents a methodology to predict the child poverty impact of COVID-19 that can be readily applied in other country contexts where similar household data are available-and illustrates this case using data from Turkey. Using Household Budget Survey 2018, the microsimulation model estimates the impact of labour income loss on household expenditures, considering that some types of jobs/sectors may be more vulnerable than others to the COVID-19 shock. Labour income loss is estimated to lead to reductions in monthly household expenditure using an income elasticity model, and expenditure-based child poverty is found to increase in Turkey by 4.9-9.3 percentage points (depending on shock severity) from a base level of 15.4%. Among the hypothetical cash transfer scenarios considered, the universal child grant for 0-17 years old children was found to have the highest child poverty reduction impact overall, while schemes targeting the bottom 20-30% of households are more cost-effective in terms of poverty reduction. The microsimulation model set out in this paper can be readily replicated in countries where similar Household Budget Surveys are available.Cette étude présente une méthodologie pour prédire l'impact de la COVID-19 sur la pauvreté infantile et que l’on peut aisément appliquer dans d'autres pays où des données similaires sur les ménages sont disponibles. L’étude illustre ce point en utilisant des données venant de Turquie. À l'aide de l'Enquête sur le budget des ménages de 2018, le modèle de microsimulation estime l'impact de la perte de revenus professionnels sur les dépenses des ménages, en prenant en compte le fait que certains types d'emplois/secteurs peuvent être plus vulnérables que d'autres au choc provoqué par la COVID-19. On estime que la perte de revenus professionnels entraîne des réductions au niveau des dépenses mensuelles des ménages, selon un modèle d'élasticité du revenu, et que la pauvreté infantile – sur la base des dépenses - augmente en Turquie entre 4,9 à 9,3 points de pourcentage (en fonction de la gravité du choc) à partir d'un niveau de base de 15,4 %. Parmi les scénarios hypothétiques de transferts monétaires envisagés, l'allocation universelle pour les enfants de 0 à 17 ans s'est avérée être la mesure qui a l'impact global le plus important sur la réduction de la pauvreté des enfants, tandis que les programmes ciblant les 20 à 30 % des ménages les plus pauvres sont les plus coût-efficaces en terme de réduction de la pauvreté. Le modèle de microsimulation présenté dans cet article peut être facilement reproduit dans les pays où des enquêtes similaires sur le budget des ménages sont disponibles.

Just after a decade of its existence, the BRICS group and the rising powers narrative have lost some of their appeal. The economic growth story has stalled, and domestic political challenges curb the group’s foreign policy potency. In the context of the presumed decline of relevance, the article asks what foreign policy value is BRICS providing for its members? An inner-group perspective is applied. The article argues that BRICS is offering a number of benefits. Namely: indirectly supporting domestic regime stability, protection from unwanted external interferences, flexible alignment in foreign policies and boosting of regional authority. The article goes through the rhetorical codification of BRICS summit documents, traces the uncodified principles of cooperation among its members and illustrates its argument with selected empirical examples. Far from being in decline, BRICS delivers important value added for the group which often goes missing in the literature on regional powers.

In 2019, China emerged prominently on NATO’s agenda, growing more prominent ever since. What accounts for this phenomenon? Is it best explained by Chinese behaviour, changing perceptions of its behaviour, or by an internal Alliance snowball effect resulting from the desire to appear dynamic and relevant, particularly following the Trump administration’s prioritization of China over Russia as the United States’ principal security challenge? To help answer this question, this article provides an historic overview of NATO’s policy approaches towards China. Contrary to the belief of many officials and commentators, China is not a new topic for the Alliance. In fact, China has regularly featured in NATO policies since the early Cold War, alternating between adversary to ally and back again. This article argues that despite recently prioritizing China in its discourse, the historical record provides ample reasons to cast doubt on any expectations this will lead to major substantive changes in NATO’s diplomacy or military posture.

In this paper, we examine Brazil’s international activism and ascent to the status of rising state during the presidencies of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003–2010) and his chosen successor, Dilma Rousseff (2011–2014). We focus on the dissemination of social policies under an innovative model of development that reflected the political and economic context of a developing country. We argue that this activism was framed in terms of Brazil’s socio-economic and cultural peculiarities, whereby these were treated not as obstacles but as positive contributions to developing states’ attempts to reform global governance structures. We argue that this reflects an alternative form of foreign policy politicisation in which the social dilemmas, particularities and contradictions of the Brazilian experience are incorporated in the foreign policy agenda to leverage its international stature as a rising state. We explain how Brazil’s international cooperation through transferring its public policies and development models (policies for fighting hunger and poverty, agrarian development and income generation) to its Southern partners has been discursively articulated as representing Brazil’s normative potential to contribute to political and institutional solutions, and rebuild norms and standards that affect the distribution of international power and wealth.

For the economic recovery in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic, South Africa announced the launch of an ambitious ZAR 2.3 trillion infrastructure investment plan. This paper uses a simplified yet reliable method to analyse the potential growth and employment effects of this stimulus plan. Based on lower and upper bound values of the country's estimated fiscal multipliers, we built a scenario prediction template with which output and employment expansion can be analysed within specified constraints on the fiscal space and the country's economic dynamics. Our estimation model suggests that with a 50% state participation in the recovery investment, the best case scenario of fiscal stimulation would enable the economy to create 2.23 million jobs over the first 5 years of the stimulus investments (of which 1.74 million would be attributed to the stimulus effect), while the more realistic scenario based of the lower bound value of the fiscal multiplier with only 30% state participation predicts the creation of 1.67 million additional jobs, of which 1.18 million would be attributable to the stimulus. Our analysis also suggests that investing in the types of infrastructure that shift the production technology could change the long-term growth trajectory, while focusing on employment-intensive investment may only generate temporary effects.Pour stimuler la reprise économique à la suite des effets de la pandémie de COVID-19, le gouvernement de l'Afrique du Sud a annoncé le lancement d'un plan ambitieux visant à investir 2.300 milliards de rands (ZAR) dans les infrastructures. Cet article utilise une méthode simplifiée mais bien fiable pour analyser les effets potentiels de ce plan de relance sur la croissance économique et la création d'emploi. Sur base des valeurs limites inférieure et supérieure des multiplicateurs budgétaires estimés pour ce pays, nous avons construit un modèle de prévision de scénario avec lequel l’expansion de la production et de l’emploi peut être analysée dans le cadre de contraintes spécifiques sur l’espace budgétaire et la dynamique économique du pays. Notre modèle d'estimation suggère qu'avec une participation de 50% de l'État à ce plan d’investissements, le scénario le plus optimiste de stimulation budgétaire permettrait à l'économie de créer 2,23 millions d'emplois au cours des 5 premières années d’ investissements (dont 1,74 million seraient attribués à l'effet de relance), tandis que le scénario plus réaliste basé sur la valeur limite inférieure du multiplicateur budgétaire avec seulement 30% de participation de l'État prédit la création de 1,67 million d'emplois supplémentaires, dont 1,18 million seraient attribuables à la relance. Notre analyse suggère également qu'investir dans les types d'infrastructure qui modifient la technologie de production pourrait modifier la trajectoire de croissance à long terme, tandis que se focaliser sur les investissements à forte intensité d'emploi ne peut générer que des effets temporaires.

The pandemic of COVID-19 struck the world in early 2020. China, which is regarded as the source of the new disease was also the first one to overcome it. After controlling the outbreak domestically, China started conducting public diplomacy offensive, which we will call ‘coronavirus diplomacy.’ Its main focus is put on assisting other countries that are still struggling with high numbers of infections and many difficulties, such as shortages in medical equipment or medical staff. This article aims to review public diplomacy activities undertaken by China in conjunction with the COVID-19 pandemic in Spring 2020. The goal is to determine what messages the Chinese government has been sending through those activities. The investigation was qualitative and the main research method employed is content analysis. The authors analyzed statements of China’s representatives in search of the messages that were supposed to be communicated.

There is a growing literature on the impact of Covid-19 on commercial and labour conditions at suppliers in apparel global value chains (GVCs). Yet much less is known about the implications for suppliers operating in regional value chains (RVCs) in the global South. In this article, we focus on Eswatini, which has grown to become the largest African manufacturer and exporter of apparel to the region. We draw on a combination of firm-level export data and interviews with stakeholders before and after the Covid-19 lockdown to shed light on the influence of private and public governance on suppliers’ economic and social upgrading and downgrading. We point to the coexistence of two separate private governance structures: the first characterised by direct contracts between South African retailers and large manufacturers (direct suppliers); the second operating through indirect purchasing via intermediaries from relatively smaller producers (indirect suppliers). While direct suppliers enjoyed higher levels of economic and social upgrading than indirect suppliers before Covid-19, the pandemic reinforced this division, with severe price cuts for indirect suppliers. Furthermore, while retailers provided some direct suppliers with support throughout the crisis, this was not the case for indirect suppliers, who remain comparatively more vulnerable. In terms of public governance, the negative consequences of the lockdown on firms’ income and workers’ livelihoods have been compounded by the state’s ineffective response. Our paper contributes to the research on RVCs in the global South, enhancing our understanding of how different governance structures and external shocks affect firms’ and workers’ upgrading and downgrading prospects.

Narendra Modi’s visit to Australia in November 2014 was the first for an Indian Prime Minister in almost three decades and promised much. Modi declared that Australia was no longer on the ‘periphery’ of New Delhi’s ‘vision’, ‘but at the centre of our thoughts’. He pledged to work with Canberra at the G20 and regional multilateral forums, deepen the bilateral security partnership, and conclude a free trade deal. These promises were only partly realised. Progress was made in defence and security cooperation, within and outside the Quad, but a free trade deal proved too hard. Canberra struggled to maintain momentum in improving ties because of leadership challenges in Australian government and New Delhi’s preference for protectionism. This article examines these dynamics, looking back at the drivers of the strategic partnership, as well as at the challenges encountered in the Modi era.

Universal energy access currently looks unachievable according to predictions based on current data. This affects Africa most, as has been observed with the effects of COVID-19 leading to a reversal in gains. The world's ambitious climate goals, which also require the achievement of clean cooking show that there is an opportunity for a shift. Channeling climate finance towards decentralized renewable energy and clean cooking can support achievement of universal energy access through more localized action.

Reviewing selected policy responses in Asia and South America, this paper draws pragmatic lessons for developing countries to better address the COVID-19 pandemic. It argues that not acting quickly and adequately incurs much higher costs. So-called 'best practices', while useful, may be inappropriate, especially if not complemented by effective and suitable socio-economic measures. Public understanding, support and cooperation, not harsh and selective enforcement of draconian measures, are critical for successful implementation of containment strategies. This requires inclusive and transparent policy-making, and well-coordinated and accountable government actions that build and maintain trust between citizens and government. In short, addressing the pandemic crisis needs 'all of government' and 'whole of society' approaches under credible leadership.

The current outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic traces its roots back many decades and is worsened by a number of ill-conceived strategies and policies. The current patent protection regime and its suitability in dealing with the current COVID-19\ud pandemic need to be questioned. Strengthened intellectual property protection manifested by the rise of TRIPS-Plus standards\ud is having a negative impact on the affordability and accessibility of medicines. Dealing with the current pandemic urgently\ud demands serious reform and collective efforts.

Recent years have seen Moscow and Beijing driven closer together as their respective relations with Washington have deteriorated. While a normative convergence between Russia and China appears to be underway, there remains a legacy of historical mistrust in addition to potential irritants that could plague their bilateral relationship. Nonetheless, if Western sanctions against Russia and pressure on China continue unabated, they may have little option but to continue their rapprochement. Against this backdrop, this article will explore whether the two countries currently display a ‘thin’ or ‘thick’ bilateral relationship, making use of an English School theoretical framework. It will do so by exploring established English School concepts such as pluralism and solidarism and discussing notable literature within the School on contestation in order to derive conclusions regarding the potential future shape of international order in Eurasia.

Is Europe headed towards nonpolarity? What would that entail for the future stability and security of the continent? Taking its cue from IR debates about the effects of polarity on international order, the article develops conceptual tools and an analytical narrative concerning Europe during the post-Cold War era. It refines the concept of a Great Power by suggesting the notion of ‘ordering agents’ and ponders whether Europe is in danger of drifting towards a period of nonpolarity with no power being able to shoulder the responsibility of ordering and providing good stewardship over Europe.

The aim of the article is to analyse the way the RIC (Russia, India and China) states understand resilience in the world order. In doing so, the article compares their interpretation to that developed by the European Union (EU). The first part of the article surveys the way the literature has analysed the role of resilience in the foreign policy of the EU. One of the main findings here is that the mainstream interpretation of resilience tends to be rather circular and leads to process of securitisation of the external environment. The second part of the article then presents and applies to the case of the RIC states a more nuanced framework that examines resilience along three complementary dimensions: resilience as ontology (attribute), as process and as outcome (agency and intentionality).

Nothing shapes the morals, values, and folkways in the Global South as much as religion. It is the primary mark of identity and adhered to in an extraordinarily passionate manner. Hence, religion matters deeply and permeates directly or indirectly almost every vestige of life not least on growth and socio-economic development of societies. This article explores how religious thinking affects the cognitive development of people, especially children, which may, in turn, impact upon the variables of a country’s economic growth and development. The working assumption is that a weakness in the former deleteriously affects the latter. This article concludes by arguing that the influence of religion is least in the most advanced countries.

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the English School concept of world society and how it helps to illustrate the role of non-state actors and the promotion of cosmopolitan values. Yet, less attention has been paid to the idea of science and technology as a key feature of solidarist conceptions of justice and as a unifier of humankind, usually expressed in the form of scientific internationalism. The purpose of this article is twofold. First, it suggests that it is important to incorporate the role of scientists and engineers as agents of international society and to assess the significance of scientific internationalism in terms of its impact on facilitating world society. Second, however, it is also necessary to consider how this solidarist conception of science and technology is staged as complementary to a pluralist logic. This is because of the political and social embeddedness of scientists and engineers as actors who also think and act on behalf of the state. I develop this argument by examining two key turning points that paved the way towards the advent of the Space Age: the spaceflight movement of the 1920s and 1930s and the 1957–1958 International Geophysical Year.

Polly Hill, Cambridge-educated economist and anthropologist, was a leading figure in development studies and an outspoken critic of mainstream neoclassical and development economics, whose work traversed disciplinary boundaries between economics, economic and social anthropology, entrepreneurship studies, and development studies. Based on her theory of indigenous entrepreneurial development in a rural setting of migrant cocoa farmers as rural capitalists, Hill made a strong empirical case for the active agency of African farmers, who looked for opportunities and marshalled resources which they did not own to realize their goals. Hill’s fieldwork in diverse contexts, including southern Ghana, Hausaland in northern Nigeria, Sri Lanka, and southern India, led to nine published books and fifty scholarly journal articles in anthropology and economics.

This chapter revisits the basic but fundamental concepts in feminist theories: gender and sexuality. By highlighting the historical and socio-cultural constitution of gender and sexuality, this chapter formulates a local feminist framework to account for the gendered and sexual control and resistance Chinese women experience at the workplace. It brings together Western feminist literature of gender and sexuality at work, discussions around sexuality in development studies, and historical studies of gender and sexuality in China. These are rarely, if ever, brought into dialogue, but have something to offer to our nuanced understandings of the Chinese workplace as well as global feminist theorization of gender, sexuality and power.

In this introduction, we set out the rationale for the Handbook of International Development and provide a brief overview of the evolution of the field of development studies. Through this narrative, we identify areas, both established concerns and newly emergent topics, which require further consideration and research. Underpinning this initial outline, we identify three themes that cut across many of the contributions in this Handbook, namely human rights, participation and sustainability.

The relationship between technology and development is addressed in many development discourses. Framed as an impetus to modernisation, progress and economic development, it has generally been seen from a determinist perspective that overstates the progressive qualities of technological innovation. Technologically determinist notions tend towards a top-down approach that favours the ‘if you build it, they will come’ notion of technology-led policy. The ‘smart city’ discourse has not really been considered in the development studies literature, but provides interesting insights into the relationship between cities, technology and social development. Often these initiatives are associated with other objectives, such as improved and more democratic governance as represented by e-governance initiatives. This chapter considers the trajectory of smart city debates and considers whether its social development promises are merely that, marketing language for city ‘potentials’, or does provide a meaningful frame for empowerment and progress.

Issues of peace and conflict have been fundamental to development studies since the earliest days of the field. Key questions surrounding the relationship between peace and development have related to causality: does under-development threaten peace, or vice versa? Do they affect each other, in which case are some countries doomed to a vicious circle of poverty and conflict? From a different ideological perspective, the peaceful nature of development has been called into question. This chapter will document the different ways in which these questions have been answered, historically and contemporarily, from the field of development studies.

What are the links between sexuality and the development industry? In what different ways does development impact upon sexuality? These two questions are at the heart of the seminal essay written by Andrea Cornwall and Susie Jolly, and entitled ‘Sexuality and the Development Industry’. Published in 2009 in the journal Development, the article highlights key issues emerging from a workshop held in April 2008 that gathered over 70 activists, academics, donors and development practitioners from more than 25 countries. Concretely framing this workshop within the development paradigm, the setting was the Institute of Development Studies, and the co-hosting programmes were both funded by the UK’s Department for International Development. The workshop was groundbreaking because it juxtaposed and linked two hitherto seemingly disparate and unrelated subjects: sexuality and development (Bedford 2005; Kleitz 2000).

Founded 1973. Independent, non-partisan research centre that aims to become a point of reference in the field of international and development studies, generate ideas, undertake activities that increase awareness of belonging to a global community, and foster greater understanding of and between societies. Main thematic areas: security and development; globalization and regionalism; human rights and citizenship.

In 2008 I attended a workshop organized by Andrea Cornwall and Susie Jolly at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) in Brighton, UK. The workshop discussed the links between sexuality and development industry, analysed the impacts of development on sexuality, and looked at how to engage in both fields in more constructive ways. The many activists and academics gathered at the event shared their knowledge, offered their insights and provided analysis. I found it theoretically and practically inspiring and stimulating for my work at Pink Space, a sexual rights NGO in China.

The international community appears to have embraced a new norm - that of universal access to antiretroviral drugs. The process by which this norm has found acceptance raises interesting questions about how norm entrepreneurs frame their arguments, the role of non-state actors in realizing a norm, and the importance of existent complementary norms. To understand the success of the norm of universal antiretroviral access, I examine the failure of an earlier health-related norm - that of universal primary health care. The campaign for universal antiretroviral access points to a need for a more nuanced understanding of norm evolution within the international community and a more holistic vision of which actors can facilitate the realization of a norm.

List Figures List Tables Foreword Claudio Cecchi (PhD, Director of Eurosapienza, Research Center on European International and Development Studies) Preface: Italy in the European context: What has changed pending Horizon 2020 Donatella Strangio and Giuseppe Sancetta PART I: ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL POLICIES 1. The Italian Monetary policy in perspective: lessons from monetary history of Italy before the EMU Mauro Rota and Donatella Strangio 2. Immigration policies in the EU: failure or success? Evidences from Italy Elena Ambrosetti and Angela Paparusso 3. Income inequality in Italy: tendencies and policy implications Maurizio Franzini and Michele Raitano 4. Digital inequality in Italy and Europe Debora Di Gioacchino, Adriana Lotti and Simone Tedeschi PART II: BUSINESS AND ENVIRONMENT 5. Fashion firms and counterfeiting: causes and actions Alberto Pastore and Ludovica Cesareo 6. A bottom up approach to unlevered risk in a financial and managerial perspective Antonio Renzi, Giuseppe Sancetta and Beatrice Orlando 7. European Economic Development and the Environment Luca Mocarelli 8. The multiple effects of energy efficiency on Green Economy Maurizio Boccacci Mariani 9. Climate change and reproductive intentions in Europe Alessandra De Rose and Maria Rita Testa Index

The 2005 UNESCO Convention provides an explicit link between the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions and sustainable development in Article 13 and development cooperation in Articles 14–18. However, the Convention leaves out broader notions of cultural diversity, which include culture as a way of life and cultural rights (for latter, see Donders, Chapter 8). Therefore, we argue, the reductionist understanding of culture does not necessarily or intrinsically have the potential for sustainable development that is claimed in the 2005 Convention. As a result, the link between the diversity of cultural expressions and sustainability has limited potential for transformative action towards sustainable development.

As time marches by, we are occasionally inclined to look back at the trajectory followed and trace the sequence of steps taken so far. Finalization of the present volume seems a suitable moment for such an exercise. After all, a retrospect on successive engagements in development research as reflected in this book must consider the ways in which one’s personal history and interests have shaped one’s scholarly pursuits, and vice versa. However, there is a caveat. If today there is an area broadly identifiable as ‘development studies’, some half-a-century ago, such a field of studies did not exist. At the time there was nothing of the sort that one could go and study, enrol for at universities or other places. In the past 50 years, ‘development studies’ has had a life of its own, coming into existence out of a mixed array of origins and tributaries. These would be mainly from other branches of social sciences which had seen the light before, such as economics, social anthropology and political science with an orientation towards societies and economies in ‘backward’ regions. Notions of ‘development’ were hardly in vogue then, except in some specialized scholarly circles focused on post-World War II rebuilding of the Balkans, for example (Mandelbaum 1945). In a way, the same applies to the students and practitioners of development studies themselves. They too had to be formed and reconstituted out of a mix of different components.

The actor, agent and subject have held a central place in development studies, particularly since the development impasse of the early 1990s. Since then, the effort to ‘illuminate the micro-foundations of macro-processes’ (Booth 1993: 62) has also entailed a focus on the actor embedded within a socio-economic context, in order to reveal the ways localised actions feed into broader processes of development (Cowen and Shenton 1998). Scholars have drawn upon practice theory which places practices at the centre of systems of domination, and potential transformation (Ortner 1984) and post-structuralism (particularly the earlier work of Foucault) to bring together localised actions with explanations of macro-processes, as well as to provide powerful indications of development’s unintended effects (Ferguson 1994; de Haan and Zoomers 2005; Long 2001; Rossi 2004a). Considering these important interventions, why do we need yet another reminder to make the self central in research about and for development? What do we gain from a reconsideration of personhood?

Founded 1973. Independent, non-partisan research centre that aims to become a point of reference in the field of international and development studies, generate ideas, undertake activities that increase awareness of belonging to a global community, and foster greater understanding of and between societies. Main thematic areas: security and development; globalization and regionalism; human rights and citizenship.

Asha Hans explores the impact of new technologies on women with disabilities, with a focus on women from developing countries. For women with disabilities, especially in developing countries, these new advances are critical not only to their future quality of life, but also their identity and very survival. Development (2006) 49, 123–127. doi:10.1057/palgrave.development.1100306

Feminist legal theory has not articulated any particular position concerning development studies or the role of law in development.2 Feminists and gender experts, however, have engaged law as part of development strategies, just as legal scholars have articulated a story about the role that law has been attributed in development.3 The purpose of this chapter is to describe both, showing how activists and experts could profit from the sophisticated understanding of law that feminist legal theory has matured, but also, how the particular pressure that the question of development places on political agendas could be useful for theoretical development. I start with a description of four feminist points of view about the law, then proceed to explain two feminist projects in law and their relationship to development, and finish with some ideas about how setting the two side by side might illuminate avenues of inquiry and critical insights.

If ‘another knowledge is possible’ (de Sousa Santos, 2007) and ‘another world is possible’ (George, 2004), this book argues that other universities and another higher education must be possible, in order to recognize other knowledges and to help pave the way to another globalization that is more egalitarian and inclusive. This final chapter will summarize the rising critique of conventional universities, as well as the features of schools of development studies that resonate with the changes that critics advocate within universities in terms of subject matter, methodologies, student constituencies and global ideologies.

In recent years, the human development and capability approach (HDCA) to development studies has gained increased attention from academics, practitioners and policy-makers. Its freedom-centred view of development, its accounting for interpersonal and intercultural variations, its emphasis on social justice and its stress on public discussion and deliberative democracy have rendered the capability approach (CA) a wider and more comprehensive framework for designing and assessing development policies.

Replication1 is seen as a key characteristic of natural science (Collins, 1985; Jasny et al., 2011); observations, especially those employing complex instruments, and experiments need to be repeated, and statistical analyses be scrutinized, before results gain credibility. This is not the case in social sciences; social science data are seldom re-produced,2 or re-analysed to check the original calculations, or analysed using alternative perspectives or frameworks.3 Hence, it is not clear that quantitative social science can advance in the same way as natural science. Nevertheless, there have often been calls among quantitative social scientists for replication (Frisch, 1933; Dewald et al., 1986; King, 1995; Gleditsch and Metelits, 2003; McCullough and Vinod, 2003; Pesaran, 2003; Bernanke, 2004; Freeze, 2007; McCullough and McKitrick, 2009; Burman et al., 2010), especially of computational4 studies (Peng, 2011). The proposed benefits include: full understanding of the computations5 and estimations, including for pedagogy; credibility; a basis for further work either assessing the robustness of the study to alternative variable constructions, model specifications, estimation methods or software, or extending or building on it; and an audit function — to identify and deter fraud and/or over-interpretation of the data (McCullough et al., 2006).

Being compelled to constantly deconstruct and reconstruct generally used categories, feminist thought provides a major heuristic contribution. This book endeavours to show how the concept of gender2 allows us to revisit development studies and to convey that studying development is not possible without including gender.

The discussion of formal learning in the previous chapter now extends to an examination of universities as sites of informal learning through friendship, as well as places of academic exposure to knowledge.

Do the pressures and competition of high prestige education undermine supportive relations between peers? And, conversely, where qualifications are gained outside the dominant hierarchies of the global university system, does this encourage mutual support, for example at schools of development studies in Europe where relations between peers from developing countries are of interest and value in themselves plus a major source of relevant knowledge about development issues?