ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a brief discussion of attempts to theorize the development implications of what appears as an ostensibly new dynamic: globalization. It explores the context of decolonization and particular conjunctures that gave rise to the idea of the national development project. Being able to render visible such struggles as the substantive political dynamics of world historical development relates to the significance of understanding politics and the political in more inclusive terms. Anti-colonial struggles and the subsequent processes of decolonization, which resulted in the universalization of the nation-state system, set in motion a specific and targeted development project. An important contribution to the issue of the problem of sovereignty in international relations was Justin Rosenberg’s Empire of Civil Society, which problematized the idea of autonomous national development. The conventional narratives of development have been very much premised on the cornerstone myths of world historical development, such as development as a progressive process for all.
