2000/04/01 by Jan Nederveen Pieterse · 421 citations
Social Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Youth Education and Societal Dynamics #Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism #Foucault, Power, and Ethics #Epistemology #Sociology #Argument (complex analysis) #Ideology #Politics #Managerialism #Positive economics #Development theory #Post modernism #Development (topology) #Developmentalism #Political science #Social science #Postmodernism #Economics #Law #Economic growth #Philosophy #Public administration
paper · doi:10.1080/01436590050004300
published in Third World Quarterly 21(2), 175-191 (Taylor & Francis)
openalex publication_date 2000/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/08
Along with ‘anti-development’ and ‘beyond development’, post-development is a radical reaction to the dilemmas of development. Post-development focuses on the underlying premises and motives of development; what sets it apart from other critical approaches is that it rejects development. The question is whether this is a tenable and fruitful position. Taken up first in this article are major overt positions of post-development—the problematisation of poverty, the portrayal of development as Westernisation, and the critique of modernism and science. The argument then turns to discourse analysis of development; it is argued that, in post-development, discourse analysis from a methodology turns into an ideology. Next the difference between alternative development and ‘alternatives to development’ is examined. The reasons why this difference is made out to be so large are, in my interpretation, anti-managerialism and dichotomic thinking. The article closes with a discussion of the politics of post-development and a critical assessment.