January 2025 – Debating Development Research

14/01/2025

Navigating France’s Political Landscape: Implications for International Development Aid

By Hugo Pilkington / Part of the European Development Policy Outlook Series

Amid a welter of political drama, and after having successfully hosted the Summer 2024 Olympic games, France is struggling to find a stable government. The country still has no budget for 2025. This is not the norm (the last time anything roughly similar happened was in 1979) but can be said to proceed from the unusual events of Mid-2024. The current political conundrum arose on the heels of a snap election called, in a surprise move, by Emmanuel Macron, following disastrous results for his own political movement – Ensemble pour la République – during the European elections of June 9, 2024.

07/01/202507/01/2025

In Defense of Development Studies: Why “Global Development” Falls Short

By Alfredo Saad-Filho

There is a growing debate in academic circles about the merits of shifting from traditional Development Studies to a broader concept of “Global Development”. While proponents argue that this shift would better reflect the interconnected nature of our world, I believe that such a move would be detrimental to our field, our understanding of global differences and inequalities, and our ability to understand the dynamics of development.