International Development Studies

The overall field of study is relations between rich and poor countries within the global system and the aim is to reach a deeper understanding of developing societies and their cultural, political and social dynamics. In particular, the three-year PhD programme aims at addressing and exploring the theme of political, economic and cultural institutions in development from an interdisciplinary angle, taking up the discussion at local, national and international levels. The term „institution" is understood broadly as enduring patterns of behaviour arising from the way people organise themselves as individuals, groups, genders or classes to utilise and exploit material, social and human resources.

Our interest in institutions is not limited to enduring patterns of behaviour, however. Institutionalisation, the making of rules and social and symbolic order are social activities matched only by the manipulation, circumvention, remaking, replacing and unmaking of institutional orders and of rules and symbols in which people seem almost equally engaged. Processes of institutionalisation are in an inherent tension with processes of resistance to institutionalisation, and institutions may be seen as a kind of social, political and cultural compromise, a result of conflict and struggle.

Institutions are therefore essentially always at stake, constantly re-negotiated, often challenged and struggled over, and not more certain and enduring than the processes of their reproduction allow. This tension calls for special attention to power relations and conflict, to the historical trajectories of institutionalization and to the interconnections between local, national and global dimensions of institution making and unmaking. The term institution further refers to both formal and informal institutions. The state is approached in the broad sense, i.e. comprising also local authorities, legal institutions and the institutional framework for interaction between state and market as well as between state and civil society. In geographical terms, the focus is on the developing societies in Asia, Africa and Latin America, and the transnational dynamics between these societies and the North.

The themes of the Graduate School reflect the research on international development within the department in general. Faculty attached to the Graduate School are primarily associated with three research groups in the department: Development: Globalisation and Local Complexity; Globasia, Global, Regional and Local Development and Politics, Culture and Global Development.