ABSTRACT
Reflecting on the philosophical assumptions that sustain the development debate, Rabbani analyzes how the modern project of development and the antidevelopment discourse reduce the human condition to a struggle for self-preservation and, likewise, social and international cooperation to a strategic and self-defeating process. The book centers on core inconsistencies in the rationale of both discourses as they stand for individual autonomy, collective self-determination and mutual respect. Building these social goals around the requirement of ’non-interference’ in individual or collective affairs, neither discourse can practically enhance nor coherently sustain respect to people’s freedom and diversity. The author argues that any real alternative to the normative reductions and actual destructions carried on by international development theory and practice would have to recover the non-contingent solidarity implied in people’s search for self-understanding. Awareness of this human condition, in its turn, actively fosters relations of universal inclusion and global friendship. Instructors and graduate and undergraduate students in the fields of peace studies, development studies, political sciences and political philosophy; professionals and volunteers working in governmental and non-governmental organizations and development agencies will find this volume ideally fit for purpose.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |61 pages
Grounding the Development Debate
chapter |7 pages
Introduction to Part I
chapter Chapter 1|9 pages
The Debate and its Claims: Oppression, Value and Poverty
chapter Chapter 2|14 pages
The Condition Beneath the Claims: Understanding Human Unity
chapter Chapter 3|29 pages
Beyond Dependency: A Recognition Approach to the Development Debate
part |33 pages
Truth and Power in the Development Debate
chapter |3 pages
Introduction to Part II
chapter Chapter 4|12 pages
The Truth of Development
chapter Chapter 5|17 pages
Overcoming the Power of Development
part |70 pages
Redefining Development