The many ideas and opportunities include: narrowing the gaps between words and actions; reducing demands on administrative capacity; using minimum rules, non-negotiables and downward accountability to transform power relations; finding new potentials for participation; improving scaling up; critical reflection and experiential learning; complementing rights-based with obligations-based approaches; pro-poor realism; and responsible well-being."

A collection of international case studies that demonstrate the importance of ideas to urban political development Ideas, interests, and institutions are the "holy trinity" of the study of politics. Of the three, ideas are arguably the hardest with which to grapple and, despite a generally broad agreement concerning their fundamental importance, the most often neglected. Nowhere is this more evident than in the study of urban politics and urban political development. The essays in How Ideas Shape Urban Political Development argue that ideas have been the real drivers behind urban political development and offer as evidence national and international examples—some unique to specific cities, regions, and countries, and some of global impact. Within the United States, contributors examine the idea of "blight" and how it became a powerful metaphor in city planning; the identification of racially-defined spaces, especially black cities and city neighborhoods, as specific targets of neoliberal disciplinary practices; the paradox of members of Congress who were active supporters of civil rights legislation in the 1950s and 1960s but enjoyed the support of big-city political machines that were hardly liberal when it came to questions of race in their home districts; and the intersection of national education policy, local school politics, and the politics of immigration. Essays compare the ways in which national urban policies have taken different shapes in countries similar to the United States, namely, Canada and the United Kingdom. The volume also presents case studies of city-based political development in Chile, China, India, and Africa—areas of the world that have experienced a more recent form of urbanization that feature deep and intimate ties and similarities to urban political development in the Global North, but which have occurred on a broader scale. Contributors: Daniel Béland, Debjani Bhattacharyya, Robert Henry Cox, Richardson Dilworth, Jason Hackworth, Marcus Anthony Hunter, William Hurst, Sally Ford Lawton, Thomas Ogorzalek, Eleonora Pasotti, Joel Rast, Douglas S. Reed, Mara Sidney, Lester K. Spence, Vanessa Watson, Timothy P. R. Weaver, Amy Widestrom.

In this book Ian Goldin shows how the understanding of how nations escape poverty and achieve economic and social progress has changed as the pendulum has swung from arguments for state-led development to a preoccupation with market forces.

An engaging history of how the idea of development has shaped Africa's past and present encounters with the West.

The interplay of ideas and policies is central to understanding the historical evolution of economies. Ideas shape economic institutions and real economic constraints are the source of new economic ideas. The history of economic ideas, both those that are fairly recent and those that are considerably older, may provide a fertile ground for new appr

This edited volume examines the relationship between economic ideas, economic policies and development institutions, analysing the cases of 11 peripheral countries in Europe, Latin America and Asia across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It sheds light on the obstacles that have prevented the sustained economic growth of these countries and examines the origins of national and regional approaches to development. The chapters present a fascinating insight into the ideas and visions in the different locations, with the overarching categories of economic nationalism and economic liberalism and how they have influenced development outcomes. This book will be valuable reading for advanced students and researchers of development economics, the history of economic thought and economic history.

A central premise is that an objective and universally‐accepted measure of “success” in development and paths to it does not exist.

The book aims to provide a process-philosophical perspective philosophizing itself. It employs the perspectives of process philosophy for elucidating the historical development of philosophical ideas. The doctrine of historicism in the history of ideas has it that each era and perhaps even each thinker employs philosophical ideas in such a user-idiosyncratic way that there is no continuity and indeed no connectivity of public access across the divides of space, time, and culture. In opposition to such a view, the present processist deliberations see the development of ideas as a matter of generic processes that have ample room for connectivity and recurrence, permitting the very self-same conception to be shared by philosophers of different settings. Beyond arguing this histico-processism on general principles, the book presents a series of case studies of significant philosophical topics that illustrate and elaborate upon the developmental connectivities at issue.

This book is an introduction to the long history of human learning, the environment and sustainable development – about our struggles with the natural world: first for survival, then for dominance, currently for self-preservation, and in future perhaps, even for long-term, mutually beneficial co-existence. It charts the long arc of human–environment relationships through the specific lens of human learning, putting on record many of the people, ideas and events that have contributed, often unwittingly, to the global movement for sustainable development. Human learning has always had a focus on the environment. It’s something we’ve been engaged in ever since we began interacting with our surroundings and thinking about the impacts, outcomes and consequences of our actions and interactions. This unique story told by the authors is episodic rather than a connected, linear account; it probes, questions and re-examines familiar issues from novel perspectives, and looks ahead. The book is of particular interest to those studying (and teaching) courses with a focus on socio-economic and environmental sustainability, and non-governmental organisations whose work brings them face-to-face with the general public and social enterprises.

Heralded as a success that mobilized support for development, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) ushered in an era of setting development agendas by setting global goals. This book critically evaluates the MDG experience from the capabilities and human rights perspectives, and questions the use of quantitative targets as an instrument of global governance. It provides an account of their origins, trajectory and influence in shaping the policy agenda, and ideas about international development during the first 15 years of the 21st century. The chapters explore: • whether the goals are adequate as benchmarks for the transformative vision of the Millennium Declaration; • how the goals came to be formulated the way they were, drawing on interviews with key actors who were involved in the process; • how the goals exercised influence through framing to shape policy agendas on the part of both developing countries and the international community; • the political economy that drove the formulation of the goals and their consequences on the agendas of the South and the North; • the effects of quantification and indicators on ideas and action; and • the lessons to be drawn for using numeric goals to promote global priorities. Representing a significant body of work on the MDGs in its multiple dimensions, compiled here for the first time as a single collection that tells the whole definitive story, this book provides a comprehensive resource. It will be of great interest to students, researchers and policymakers in the fields of development, human rights, international political economy, and governance by numeric indicators.