Development

Abstract

Abstract This chapter brings together the fields of international development and International Relations. It traces the ways in which notions of development have evolved over the course of the twentieth century and how they have informed the use of development assistance as a foreign policy tool by a variety of actors under different political, economic, and ideological conditions. The chapter argues that development policies reflect contemporary understandings of modernity and that therefore it is important to look at the specific contexts out of which development approaches emerged. Ranging from imperial and colonial development practices to the Cold War competition over the most successful model of modernization to the critique of development in the 1970s, the chapter shows how International Relations and international development have been entangled with each other and have contributed to shaping global structures and practices that still exist today.