DV501 Half Unit
Development History, Theory and Policy for Research Students
This information is for the 2025/26 session.
Course Convenor
Prof James Putzel
Availability
This course is compulsory on the MRes in International Development. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.
Available with the permission of the teacher responsible.
Course content
The course integrates the concepts and perspectives of a range of disciplines to consider: major trends of development and change in modern history and interpretations of them in the social sciences and contemporary economic and social theory and their bearing on the policy and practice of development. The course critically discusses concepts of 'development' and the historical evolution of paradigms of development thinking and policy. With reference to comparative historical experience, we explore the role of states and markets in development and/underdevelopment, colonial legacies and path dependencies, and developmental states in comparative perspective. We examine the impact of pro-market reforms, globalisation and financialisation, as well as patterns of agricultural and industrial transformation and international trade in an era of global value chains and radical changes.
Teaching
15 hours of seminars and 20 hours of lectures in the Autumn Term.
This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.
This course is delivered through a combination of lectures and seminars in the Autumn Term. Students attend the lectures and seminars of DV468.
Formative assessment
Students will be expected to make one presentation, usually jointly with another student, and to submit a formative essay of no more than 3000 words by the first day of Week 7.
Indicative reading
The following are recommended basic readings for the course:
A Kohli, State-Directed Development: Political Power and Industrialization in the Global Periphery (Cambridge, 2004).
A Sen, Development as Freedom (Anchor, 1999).
HJ Chang, Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective(Anthem, 2002).
HJ Chang, Economics: The User's Guide (Penguin, 2014)
K Gardner and D Lewis, Anthropology and Development: Challenges for the Twenty-First Century (Pluto, 2015)
D Rodrik, One Economics, Many Recipes: Globalization, Institutions, and Economic Growth (Princeton University Press, 2008)
J Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine: 'Development', Depoliticisation and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho (Cambridge, 1990).
M Jerven, Poor Numbers: How we are misled about African development statistics and what to do about it (Cornell, 2013).
T. Mkandawire, Social Policy in a Development Context (Palgrave 2004).
United Nations, “Transforming Our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” (SDGs) A/RES/70/1 (25 September 2015).
Assessment
Essay (100%, 5000 words)
One 5,000 word essay, submitted in Autumn Term.
Key facts
Department: International Development
Course Study Period: Autumn Term
Unit value: Half unit
FHEQ Level: Level 8
CEFR Level: Null
Total students 2024/25: 4
Average class size 2024/25: 1
Controlled access 2024/25: YesCourse selection videos
Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.
Personal development skills
- Problem solving
- Application of information skills
- Communication