Paper short abstract:

This paper assesses the literature on a diverse set of actors in international development, highlighting differences within OECD-DAC and South-South cooperation provider groups and the processes of interaction among them to provide a common foundation for the analysis of cooperation approaches.

Paper long abstract:

The rising prominence of new state and non-state actors in international politics has stimulated extensive discussion in the social sciences over the last decade and development cooperation has been a central arena for conceptualizing the encounter between old and new powers. This paper critically reflects on the substantial body of scholarship that seeks to document the characteristics of new actors in international development, identify their influence over development cooperation norms and practices, and chart the consequences of their engagement for global development governance. The review underlines the importance of questioning the homogeneity of actor constellations, relationships and ideas, especially asking to what extent the commonly used binary concepts of development cooperation provider groups adequately capture relevant distinctions among the actors and add analytical value to research on development cooperation. The paper advocates adopting more analytically and conceptually diverse approaches to study the interaction between heterogeneous development actors and homogenizing forces in the field of development cooperation, recognizing the complexity and (dis)continuities of stability and change in this arena. The paper presented will represent the further development of a working paper on this topic published by the Danish Institute for International Studies in April 2016.