Aims

This course is intended to enable students to adopt an approach to the field of development based on a multidimensional and interdisciplinary analytical framework with particular attention given to the analysis of the key players and their strategies.

Main themes

The course analyses the evolution of thinking on development policy from the end of the Second World War. It shows how the concept of development has been enhanced and become increasingly complex in accordance with the evolution of the real world and conflicts between those attempting to determine the direction of social change.

Content and teaching methods

Taking a historical and systemic approach, the course analyses a series of historical periods which show the major phases in the development of thinking on development policy and the factors determining it. After demonstrating the absence of conceptual distance between development and economic growth at the beginning of the 1950s, the course analyses how and why the concept of development gradually opened up to include issues of environment, genre, basic needs, the unofficial economy, productive employment, participation and poverty alleviation. Particular attention is paid to concepts of human and sustainable development.

Lectures supplemented by course notes and some compulsory reading.

Other credits in programs