ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the transformations in development discourse which occurred as a reaction to the crisis of development theory in the 1980s and the corresponding rise of new concepts in development policy. The way the objects of development policy are discursively constructed and the rules according to which this is done are certainly relevant to scholars of development studies. Three of these discursive transformations, the rise of concepts like civil society participation, ownership and empowerment, the awareness of ecological questions and the commitment to sustainable development, and the rejection of one-size-fits-all solutions in development policy, are examined in the context of an empirical study of development institutions in the beginning of the 21st century. Similar critiques led to the inclusion of the discourses of empowerment, participation and ownership on the one and women and gender on the other hand into development discourse, as well as to the concept of human development put forward by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
