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.”
The paper adopts a more expansive definition of Human Development than that encompassed by the Human Development Index and explores alternative patterns of country behavior in terms of this broader definition. We categorize countries according to their behavior on basic human development, and economic, social and political dimensions, and then examine their performance relative to one another and across categories. We identify countries which seem to do particularly well on one dimension and less well on others, or particularly badly on one dimension and better on others, as well as managing to do well on all, or failing to do well on any. The analysis reveals that not all good things go together, i.e., only seven out of 130 countries with data for all four categories were categorized in the same way across categories - while half of the sample exhibited deficiency or superiority in a particular category. The many patterns of behavior indicate that while countries are constrained by history, culture and initial conditions, they also have choices. Even low income countries can achieve well in all categories, and high income countries, poorly.