27 May 2015

Call for papers for the international workshop: New actors in development cooperation: Contested hegemonies and heterogeneous agendas

The Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), Copenhagen, September 16-17

The aim of this interdisciplinary workshop is to explore changes in global development cooperation where emerging economic powers and non-state development organizations (religious organizations, philanthropists, social enterprises and corporations) challenge more traditional North-South aid paradigms. Traditional donors and new development actors all carry with them particular organizational cultures, contexts, histories and assumptions influencing the way they work and act. As such the powers, principles and practices governing development organizations are highly debated.

We invite scholars in political science, anthropology, international relations, sociology, organizational studies and adjacent disciplines to present papers focussing on methodological and theoretical issues in relation to studying changing dynamics of international development cooperation, considering questions such as:

  • How do development organizations establish and/or undermine systems of authority, interaction, and accountability in the field of development cooperation?
  • What drives and shapes meaning-making inside development organizations?
  • How do ideas spread across development organizations influencing policies and practices?
  • How do we study bureaucratized and often highly hierarchical development organizations?

For the workshop we have invited three prominent scholars in the field to give keynote presentations:

  • David Lewis, Professor in Social Policy and Development and Head of Department London School of Economics
  • Dr Emma Mawdsley, PhD Reader, University of Cambridge with expertise in the rising powers and the changing politics of development
  • Elizabeth Sidiropolous Chief director of South Africa’s Institute of International Affairs with expertise in international development cooperation of emerging powers

Please send an abstract (max 250 words) to smr@diis.dk before June 15, 2015. Papers will be circulated to the participants well in advance of the workshop.

Please also visit our website www.glono.org