2006 Handbooks

This unit will examine the treatment of certain countries as "problems". It will also examine the issues ignored by a range of institutions such as the governments of rich countries and international bureaucracies such as the United Nations and the World Bank, as well as voluntary organisations such as Amnesty International and Community Aid Abroad. The unit will consider how changing moral and political discourses and the interests of the intervening agencies and national elites have affected the selection of problems and permissible means to deal with them. It will examine the limits of intervention and under what conditions intervention can achieve sustainable improvement in the lives of disadvantaged people. The unit will focus on aid organisations and their practices, how they relate to developing country government agencies, elites, NGOs and intended beneficiaries.