This blog isn’t intended as a personal space for the most part. Consider this post a vote of confidence that this blog will be around in some form decades from now when the promises below can be appraised.

Development studies as a field has undergone a fundamental change of subject matter since its inception in the first half of 20th century. An earlier post on this blog described the critiques that necessitated a reformulation of the goals of and techniques employed by development studies scholars. This post addresses...

Douglass C North’s new institutional economics and development is a classic introduction to the field of New Institutional Economics (NIE). NIE is a family of economic theories. In order to understand NIE, we must first consider what constitutes and economic theory.

James D. Sidaway’s essay on post-development included in the the companion to development studies is another challenge to the intellectual pursuit of development studies. In an earlier review I discussed how Shuurman summarizes the various critiques of the paradigms followed in development studies and questions the underlying assumptions behind the...

Schuurman’s essay categorizes the main criticism faced by development studies into three major themes and critically examines each of them elucidating the flaws in the theoretical framework of the field that opened it to each of these criticisms. He refutes some aspects of the criticism and internalizes some, discussing their...