Integrating contested aspirations, processes and policy: development as hanging in, stepping up and stepping out

Dorward, Andrew

Abstract

There are continuing disagreements regarding aspirations and processes in development and appropriate policies for promoting these. This paper proposes a dialogue around a conceptualisation of development as involving three complementary processes: ‘hanging in’, ‘stepping up’ and ‘stepping out’. It argues that these can describe different types of structural change operating at different scales and affecting national and sub-national societies and economies, different sectors within these economies, and people’s evolving livelihoods. The simplicity of this conceptualisation and its strong theoretical, empirical and experiential content make it a powerful framework both for inter-disciplinary, inter-sectoral, multi-scale analysis of dynamic development processes, and for structuring dialogue about contested aspirations, assumptions, modalities and constraints among development analysts and stakeholders with different interests and paradigms.

Citation

Dorward, A. (2009). Integrating contested aspirations, processes and policy: development as hanging in, stepping up and stepping out. Development Policy Review, 27(2), 131-146. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7679.2009.00439.x

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Mar 1, 2009
• Deposit Date: Jan 20, 2009
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 20, 2009
• Journal: Development Policy Review
• Print ISSN: 0950-6764
• Electronic ISSN: 1467-7679
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 27
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 131-146
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7679.2009.00439.x
• Keywords: development policy, disagreement, paradigms, livelihoods, poverty, economic growth