Author: Marshall WolfePublisher:
ISBN: 9781856493796
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 216
Book Description
This deeply thoughtful book explores some of the very difficult questions thrown up by the development process, Marshall Wolfe reviews what has been said and done in the name of development over four decades. He sees development as 'a Sisyphean task of trying to impose value-oriented rationality on realities that remain permanently recalcitrant to such reality' precisely because its key actors - be they the state, social groups, development agencies, individual 'experts', or the market - cannot be assumed to be either benevolent or consistently rational. He examines competing views of what development can mean; the quest for a unified approach; the crisis of the state and the roles of other actors in the development process; the practical difficulties in prioritizing poverty; the impact of more recent agendas like environmental concerns; and the likelihood in future of development witnessing frequent and traumatic changes as contradictory stimuli from the world's centres and peripheries interact. For students in need of an overview, activists wanting a context for their practical work and specialists wishing to reflect on their own roles, this book is invaluable.