This book debunks the foundations of contemporary government-led development policy. The author questions the predictability of success when using mainstream development doctrines and its underlying assumptions, approaching development from a sceptical standpoint, as opposed to the more common optimistic view. The book uses international development and aid as a case study of how rich countries define how change should happen. Further, it suggests alternative ways of thinking about and organizing social change.
Reinventing Development: The Sceptical Change Agent
1.Introduction
Part I: Development and Its Facts
2. Development Today: Its Facts
3. Development in the Early Years and the Facts of Underdevelopment Since WWII
4. The Facts behind Development's Facts: The Epistemological Assumptions of Mainstream Development
Part II: Development and Its Meanings
5. Christendom, Its Companions and the Question of Knowability: The Flaw at the Core of Classic Epistemology
6. Contesting Classical Development Doctrines: Explaining the Movement Away from Them
Part III: The Reinvention of Development: Managing Ignorance and Diversity
7. Option 1: Reconstructivist Development Doctrines
8. Option 2: Sceptical Development Doctrines
Part IV: Conclusion
9. The Reinvention of Development