This Special Issue comes from the Development Studies Association (DSA) 30th Anniversary conference in 2008. The theme was 'Development's Invisible Hands', focusing on the forces likely to influence global change and re-shape development agendas over the next 30 years. The first section...

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As we enter the 21st century, a dominant trend in development thinking makes it refer specifically to the practice of development agencies. However, to accept this as the main meaning of development would carry the dangers of losing the complexity and ambiguity of development, of underplaying...

This paper analyses the NGO campaign against the proposed development of the Okavango Delta in 1990, and the subsequent policy change by the Botswana government. Four explanatory factors are explored: the democratic attributes of the domestic political context; the internationalisation of the...

What is distinctive about development management? This paper first discusses different views of development and management separately, and goes on to characterize development management both as management in the context of development as a long-term historical process and as the management of...

Values and multi-organization partnerships are two crucial aspects of the contested field of development management. Their management crucially involves questions of authority, accountability, agency and validity. This Policy Arena includes two pairs of papers, one addressing the management of...