Aims

The work of the seminar will enable students to verify their personal reappropriation of courses completed at the DES, and to demonstrate their ablity to understand a specific theme associated with development studies.

Main themes

Since the 1980s, the weakening of African states as a result of externally imposed adjustment policies has altered relations between these countries and their peoples. New actors have emerged, and new societal dynamics have appeared in the midst of a general context of crisis. The theme of local governance, which has been largely inspired by external actors, proposes a new institutional framework for relations between the state and rural and urban populations. The key issue at the moment is whether this new institutional framework can help to consolidate local development initiatives, or whether it is no more than a new variant of an exogenous development model that is alien to development practices and demands in rural and urban environments.

Content and teaching methods

To analyse this theme, the seminar will use an approach that is both historico-systemic and comparative.
Attendance at sessions that form part of the seminar is compulsory.
The seminar will be in two parts:
1) the first part will consist of a number of introductory talks to the general theme, and to a definition of the subjects that will be addressed by participants;
2) the second part will involve an oral presentation of summarised research on subjects chosen by each participant.
A written report will be handed in by each participant for the final assessment.

Other credits in programs