Post-Development: New Perspective in Development Discourse

During the past forty years, international political economy has emerged as one of the most prominent and remarkable field of study in the discipline of International Relations which has turned the attention of scholars to a number of new frontiers of research such as financial markets, global governance, international organizations, global firms and production, economic regionalism, the North-South divide and most significantly the issue of development. The issue of development is one of those issues which have increasingly gained the attention of the researchers and academicians due to the emergence of international political economy.

Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to understand the issues and debates which are centered around the development discourse of last two or three decades especially because now development has become one of the prevalent factor which driven the contemporary world politics. It could be also argue that without taking development into account, the study and understanding of international political economy including domestic and international political events will be incomplete, limited or partial. Apart from that, this paper aims to offer critical perspectives on the development thinking of present time. This paper starts with the general understanding of development and the problems which emerged from this understanding. The paper also provides a brief summary of different meanings of development and the fundamental critiques of mainstream development from the perspective known as post-structuralism. Furthermore, this paper intends to explore the ways in which post-development critique can offer insights into alternatives to development.