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Paper short abstract

We reconsider the notion of ‘global development’ in light of geopolitical shifts in the international political economy.

Paper long abstract

Authors: Jessica DiCarlo, Jack Taggart, Ilias Alami, Meredith DeBoom, Shahar Hameiri, Lee Jones, Emma Mawdsley, Marcus Power, Seth Schindler

Abstract: Is development dying, again? This article interrogates what comes after ‘global development’ by examining how geopolitical competition is reconfiguring the geographical focus, spatial nomenclatures, core meanings, and underlying morality and actors of contemporary ‘Big D’ Development. We contend that what is unraveling today is not development itself, but a historically specific, post-Cold War vision of global development as universal, multilateral, market-oriented, and depoliticised. What follows, however, is not a repetition of earlier Cold War-era configurations but a qualitatively new and incipient paradigm we conceptualize as inter/nationalism, characterized by distinct policies, practices, and paradigms (e.g., South-South cooperation, US-China competition, resurgent state capitalisms) that signal a reordering of development toward nationally driven, security-inflected, and strategically leveraged development agendas for both donor and recipient states. These dynamics have fractured the institutional and discursive formation of global development and re-politicized development across multiple scales.