What makes a classic IDS Bulletin article? Wandering through almost 40 years and 140 issues of the IDS Bulletin, some common features can be discerned. The most memorable IDS Bulletin articles challenge orthodoxy and present alternative perspectives on development issues.
They also reflect the spirit of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) as both an eclectic bunch of opinionated individuals and a community of thinking – but not necessarily a unanimity of views – and showcase the various contributions of IDS and its partners to development thinking and practice. Almost as important as content is writing style. The most widely cited articles are accessible to a wide readership (they avoid technical jargon, even if they convey specialist knowledge), and they are written in a deceptively informal style – yet beneath the easy narrative and occasional polemical flourishes is an authority that comes from deep knowledge of the subject area, often inflected with an urgency driven by a conviction that this matters! What’s changed and what hasn’t?
Table of contents
- Introduction: Challenging Orthodoxies, Influencing Debates: The IDS Bulletin at 40 (pdf) – Stephen Devereux and Caroline Knowles
- Editorial to Volume 1, Number 1 (1968) – Martin Staniland
- That One Per Cent Aid Target (Some Reflections on the Arithmetic of International Targetry) – Hans Singer
- Copperplating One’s Navel – Michael Lipton
- Britain: A Case for Development? (Editorial) – Richard Jolly and Robin Luckham
- Special Issue on the Continuing Subordination of Women in the Development Process (Editorial) – Kate Young
- Some Preliminary Notes on the Subordination of Women – Ann Whitehead
- Should Development Studies Be Taught in Britain? – John Oxenham
- Vulnerability, Coping and Policy (Editorial Introduction) – Robert Chambers
- Why Are Rural People Vulnerable to Famine? – Jeremy Swift
- Good Government? (Introduction) – Mick Moore
- A Policy Agenda for Post-Apartheid South Africa (Introduction) – Raphael Kaplinsky
- Towards A Democratic Developmental State – Gordon White
- Institutionalising Women’s Interests and Accountability to Women in Development (Introduction) – Anne Marie Goetz
- The New Poverty Agenda: A Disputed Consensus (Editorial) – Bob Baulch
- Citizenship, Affiliation and Exclusion: Perspectives From the South – Naila Kabeer
- “Streetwalkers Show the Way”: Reframing the Debate on Trafficking From Sex Workers’ Perspective – Nandinee Bandyopadhyay with Swapna Gayen, Rama Debnath, Kajol Bose, Sikha Das, Geeta Das, M. Das, Manju Biswas, Pushpa Sarkar, Putul Singh, Rashoba Bibi, Rekha Mitra and Sudipta Biswas
Editors
