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ODID to Host 2016 DSA Conference on 'Politics in Development'

ODID is delighted to be hosting this year's Development Studies Association Conference, which will take place 12-14 September.

The keynote speakers are Professor Tania Li of the University of Toronto and Professor James A. Robinson of the University of Chicago.

The call for panels is now open until 29 February; to propose a panel, please visit the conference website: http://www.nomadit.co.uk/dsa/dsa2016/cfpan.shtml

The conference theme is Politics in Development: while it is axiomatic that development is inherently political, 'politics' is conceived in myriad different ways in development studies, policy and practice.

Different disciplines – anthropology, economics, geography, international relations, sociology, political science and others – have adopted different approaches to conceptualising politics. The methods used to analyse political factors vary enormously from detailed case studies to formalised Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to large-N cross-country analysis. Cross-disciplinary approaches weave together very different mixes of these concepts and methods.

Yet, how politics is understood has critical implications for both scholarly analysis and practical intervention. It matters how politics in development is interpreted and analysed, be it in terms of regime type, governance and institutional design; or radical assertion of citizenship; or contestation of dominant development paradigms; or hegemonic discourses driving policy agendas; or corporate interests determining public policy; or exercise of power in social hierarchies; or everyday forms of unequal relationships.

In recent years there are strong indications that development practice, particularly that of aid agencies/development partners, has been shifting from the conveniently fuzzy concept of ‘governance’ to using the more hard-edged concepts of politics, power and political economy.

Bearing in mind such diverse and divergent approaches to politics, and mindful of the ever stronger political nexus between geopolitical security and international development at the present conjuncture, this conference will compare and reflect on a range of different empirical and theoretical perspectives on the interplay of politics and development.