EADI at 50: Thinking Through the Winter, Looking to the Spring and the Next Chapter

By Andy Sumner

We marked EADI’s 50th anniversary with a conference last week. As EADI president I reflect on this jubilee moment drawing from my opening remarks.

Anniversaries are an opportunity for both reflection and anticipation. As EADI marks its 50th year, we find ourselves, once again, in difficult global times. In the mid-1970s, amid oil shocks, the collapse of Bretton Woods fixed exchange rates, and a crisis of the post-war development model, EADI was founded. Today, the international order appears equally unstable—fractured by a resurgence of nationalism, institutional retreat, and weakened global cooperation. The past and present resonate uncomfortably.

How should we understand this recurrence? A useful framework comes from the Russian economist Nikolai Kondratiev, who argued that capitalist economies undergo long-term cycles of boom and bust, each lasting roughly 50–60 years. Kondratiev died in 1938 in Stalin’s Great Purge for his economic theories, namely the idea that capitalism has regenerative power.

“Kondratiev waves” pass through four seasons: a spring of innovation and institutional renewal; a summer of prosperity; an autumn of fraying systems; and a winter of crisis and stagnation.

The 1970s—when EADI was born—were one such winter. The promise of post-war multilateralism had run aground. The Nixon Shock ended the gold standard and collapsed the post WWII Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates. OPEC’s oil embargo upended energy markets. The global South asserted its voice, with the call for a New International Economic Order. The Brandt Commission recognised global interdependence.

EADI did not emerge as a neutral observer. It became an institutional home for critical and plural perspectives in Development Studies research. It bridged disciplinary divides and geographical boundaries. It played a role in shaping the debates about what development meant, who defined it, and for whom.

Are we now in another Kondratiev winter?

The signs are here. The return of Trump to the White House could see cuts of $50 billion to aid budgets, maybe more, amounting to a loss of a third of total global aid, alongside renewed tariff wars and a US retreat from multilateral institutions. The anticipated “August Armageddon” of 2025 may mark a sharp withdrawal of the US from key international organisations, echoing the unilateralism of earlier decades.

In response, the German government has proposed a new and independent North–South commission, and the UK has floated the idea of a global development conference—efforts that harken back to Brandt, and are sorely need though need more clarity of vision and multilateral momentum.

Why? Because multilateralism today is not under stress—it is in retreat. Cooperation is fragmented, and nationalist regimes are increasingly shaping the global development agenda. The old norm of collective action for global public goods is giving way to transactionalism. Yet no coherent alternative has emerged yet from elsewhere. We are in a leadership vacuum.

This raises a crucial question:

What is the role of an academic association like EADI in such a winter?

The 1970s winter lasted until the end of the Cold War. But as Kondratieff’s thinking foresaw, spring eventually followed winter. 

EADI’s role now is not to wait passively for better times but to think critically and act purposefully during the difficult period. Academic associations have always had more than a scholarly function. They can create intellectual space when political space closes. They can incubate ideas that challenge exhausted paradigms and prepare the ground for new ones. They can build bridges—between researchers across regions, between Europe and the Global South, and between disciplines.

Thinking through the winter is not about prediction but preparation. It is about ensuring that when political openings do emerge, ideas and alliances of solidarity are ready to shape them. This means supporting the next generation of scholars, especially in the Global South, who bring new questions, perspectives, and methods to the field. It means investing in intellectual and institutional infrastructure that can outlast the current political moment. And it means fostering coalitions of critique and hope—not merely resisting the narrowing of debate but actively widening it.

EADI’s Jubilee is not just a celebration. It is a moment of renewal. It reminds us that structural crises—however disheartening—also open space for reimagining our shared future. The history of Development Studies is full of such moments: of paradigms shifting, of peripheral voices becoming central, of previously marginal ideas finding traction.

In this new winter, EADI must continue to be a space where critical thinking does not shrink but expands; where scholars are not disciplined into giving up but emboldened to ask urgent, difficult questions. If we do this, we will be ready for spring—with ideas, solidarity, and a vision of a development fit for a fairer and more sustainable world to come.

Happy birthday, EADI—and welcome to the next chapter.

Andy Sumner is EADI president and Professor of Development Studies at King’s College London.