This IDS Bulletin stems from a dissatisfaction with the way in which the idea of 'the market' or 'the free market' is currently used in conventional discourse on developmental issues. More details

The author argues that conventional economics ignores or marginalises the role of power and politics which are crucial factors in conditioning the variable structure and performance of markets. More details

Famine prevention is possible but requires, among other things, a better theoretical basis, building on comparative, interdisciplinary and historical research. Key aspects of that task concern, first, the relationship between starvation, disease and death. More details

The World Bank’s policy statement on good government – Governance and Development (1992) – represents the most thoughtful official contribution to the debate from the aid donors. More details

The ultra-poor – a group of people who eat below 80 per cent of their energy requirements despite spending at least 80 per cent of income on food – are most vulnerable to seasonal fluctuations in food supply and wage employment, and seasonally induced nutrition and health risks. More details

It has become customary to despair at the quality of African public sector management, and to attribute the problem to an inhospitable social and political context. More details

Although Colin Leys argues that redistribution with growth is directed against revolutionary change, this article shows the charge to be unjustified. More details

This article is a selective review and summary of arguments put and points made at the workshop on indigenous technical knowledge for which some of the other articles in this IDS Bulletin were originally written. More details

This article takes as its point of departure an earlier paper which attempted to assess the accuracy of various relatively rapid means of stratifying a rural population in Bangladesh. More details

More and more people recognise that the social scientist has an important role to play in technological change; fewer (outside the academic world) have any very clear idea of what this role should be. More details

Globalisation has become a catchword for the international economy in the late twentieth century. It is a truism that nations have become more interdependent through the flows of goods, services, and financial capital since the 1970s. More details

This article takes complex emergencies and the humanitarian response to them as its point of reference. It provides a critique of relief, development and the linking debate. More details

IDS research has thrown a good deal of light on issues not adequately treated in an earlier attempt to diagnose The Diploma Disease (Dore 1976). More details

The examination system in Sri-Lanka, as in many other countries, provides access to power, prestigue and income in both domestic and international labour markets. More details

Improved capacity to predict drought-induced famines has not led to a concomitant improvement in famine prevention. More details