The department is a lively community that is recognised internationally as one of the top centres for research and teaching in development studies.

Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
A new article by Associate Professor John Glehdill, DPhil Richard Dolan and Jeremy Snyder of Simon Fraser University explores the impact of globalization on social divides in emerging economies.
Scholars argue that globalization is reconfiguring socio-political cleavages. No longer do class divisions dominate. Rather, the argument goes, societies are increasingly divided between ‘cosmopolitans’ (who welcome globalization) and ‘communitarians’ (who do not).
However, studies generally consider the impact of globalization on cleavages in advanced, rather than emerging, economies. In this article, the authors address the latter context.
By exploring the impact of liberalized healthcare and education on societal structures, they argue that globalization is encouraging social stratification that could underwrite the development of a cosmopolitan/communitarian cleavage in emerging economies. Specifically, they argue that an expansion of trade into new markets is increasing the availability of goods, services, and ideas, but the high cost of new products means that access is often restricted to local elites.
Thus, while elites are connecting to global networks, non-elites are increasingly disconnected – which is an arrangement that could foster a cosmopolitan/communitarian cleavage.
John Gledhill, Richard Dolan and Jeremy Snyder (2018) 'Availability without access? Globalization and socio-political cleavages in emerging economies', Globalizations, DOI: 10.1080/14747731.2018.1529523